Eric Nagel

From New Merchant to List of Opportunities

I have been, or can be if you click on a link and make a purchase, compensated via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value for writing this post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

I saw a new merchant come across ShareASale today: Online Amish Furniture. I probably only looked at them because I found it funny that the Amish are selling online…

And yes, I know this site has leaks all over it. As an affiliate, part of your job is to educate the merchant (or point them to an OPM or some Merchant Affiliate Program Training)

But what was interesting were the links at the bottom of their site

Online Amish Furniture categories

These just screamed at me: Exact-Match Domains!

So I copied those categories and made 2 lists out of them: singular and plural.

Then I removed all spaces, and ended each term with a .com (creative find / replaces make this easy)

Then dump that list of potential domains into GoDaddy’s Bulk Search. This will tell you which are available, and which are already taken.

Next, copy the available domains back to your text file, remove the .com, and break into multiple keywords again (so amishcomputerdesks.com becomes Amish computer desks).

Copy that list, and paste it into the Google AdWords’ Keywords Tool. Make sure you check Only show ideas closely related to my search terms and then hit Search.

Finally, download all keywords as a CSV for Excel, and you can identify keywords that may have enough volume to create a site around. Some good ones from this list:

Check out the merchant’s site, figure out commissions etc. (5% on an Amish glider is about $40) and decide on the site you want to build.

Remember: don’t just copy / paste the merchant’s data, or use their datafeed word-for-word. Create unique content. And you can build a product-driven affiliate website without even using a datafeed (see An Affiliate Website Anyone Can Build)

If you build a site using this information, let me know!