From my years of experience coaching people online, I’ve found that one of the most common stumbling blocks for people, is knowing how to find good affiliate programs.
In this post I will help you overcome this, by sharing with you a sneaky little trick that involves some spy work and using the popular social media site called “Hubpages”.
It’s no surprize that a lot of affiliates use Hugpages, as the domain has authority in Google, and it’s pages can rank quite easily. This makes Hubpages a great place to do some market research to find some good affiliate programs.
Let me explain what I mean exactly. If you head over to www.hubpages.com and click on the “topics” tab across the top, you will then be taken to the categories within the site. 
What I like to do then, is browser through the categories looking for pages that have been set up by affiliates. For this post I will show you an example I did which took me all of 5 mins to do.
Under: “Home, Family, Parenting” ==> “Home Furnishings” ==> “Garden Furniture”, you will see a Hubpage called “Vintage Garden Furniture”
It’s very clear that this Hubpage is targeting the keyword phrase “Vintage Garden Furniture”, so what I then do is check out the search volume of this keyword phrase and also the SEO competition for it. (see the images below where I have displayed this).
This phrase gets 3600 searches a month on exact match, and there is hardly any SEO competition for it whatsoever. If this is your Hubpage, then I do apologize, however these are the disadvantages of using these kind of Web 2.0 sites, because everyone can see what you are doing.
Here the key advantage of this rather sneaky technique, most people use sites like Hubpages because they know that you don’t have to do as much back linking on the pages to get top Google rankings. The reason for this is because as I mentioned above, the domain of Hugpages.com has authority in Google. Authority sites require little no backlinks, just look at Amazon.
However it is not hard to out rank this kind of sites if you do a little backlinking to your website. So for this example you can easily ride on the back of this persons great keyword research, build a page targeting that keywords and just go better SEO than them!
This particular person is monetizing this keyword phrase with Ebay, which is not a bad option for this kind of phrase, however I know that Ebay are strict to join as an affiliate marketing expert. Therefore all you need to do is rinse and repeat what I just did for all the categories and sub-categories on Hubpages until you find a product that Amazon or Clickbank have, and you can affiliate yourself with.
This is not the only way to find good affiliate programs and products, but you would be amazed how many great keywords you can uncover in minutes by using the strategy, because essentially you are working smarter and not harder, which is what I like to do!
Enjoy
Matt Carter
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Thanks this is good tips and free, good idea thank again
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Hey Lillian,
Thanks for your comment and glad you like the tip!
Cheers
Matt
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that hubpages were so transparent.
Take care,
Donna 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Hey Donna,
Yeah Hubpages has got some great info to gather!
Thanks
Matt
Never had thought about doing that…. it’s true that we are all exposed to being spied upon by other Internet Marketers, but that’s just how it goes… using hubpages just makes it easy for your competition to copycat
Matt…this is a great tip!
And yes…you are correct. You can expand this method by using these keywords and pop them into one of your keyword software programs and come up with dozens more high traffic low competition keywords.
Thanks for the great tip on how to come up with some low competition words.
Being fairly new to the internet, I didn’t know hubpages had so much authority…and I won’t forget it.
Your posts are always so good.
Thanks again,
Kathy
Hi Matt,
This is an interesting strategy which certainly worked in your example above. However just becasue someone makes a hub for that keyword does not mean it has good search volume and/or low competition. You just happened to pick a winner right off. Your first 10 picks could easliy be duds. From your experience, is there a way to sort or query inside hub pages that would show the popularity or search volume or any other metric such as that. Now THAT would be some valuble data. Thanks for the info!
Barry
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Hey Barry
This is just one technique of many I use for finding great keywords, and to be honest I have found it works well a lot of the time. But like anything you might come across some duds, but that’s just part of the process, keep looking for more.
If you have any suggestions for more ways to use Hubpages please let me know too.
Thanks for your comment
Matt
Matt,
Great little trick. This is awesome. You sure do not need any high priced keyword spying tool to do this.
Thanks for the info. Free is always good.
Thanks again for the great tips.
Suhweeet! Look out Hubpages… here I come!
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Hey Shawn,
Great to see your enthusiasm, and let me know how you go!!
Thanks
Matt
Thanks for the cool tip Matt.
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Your welcome Art, and great to hear from you my friend.
Cheers
Matt
That’s a great tip. It’s an eye opener for me.
Upon this discovery, do you think we should continue building hub pages?
Thanks Matt. Your insights remind of a book called “Lateral Thinking and Creativity”. Just as you have taught us here in this blog, there is always another way to go about solving/working on a task.
I will never look at Hubpages the same again, and that’s GOOD !
Hi Matt,
I like your spelling error in the third paragraph. Even though you didn’t do it on purpose, it kind of fits. You called it Hugpages. I have gotten a lot of link “love” from “hug”pages. haha. The pun is perfect.
I go to hubpages and type in my keyword and search for hubs on that topic. Then I click through a few looking for pr1,pr2,pr3 sites. I have never found a hub greater than pr3 but there could be some out there. Most of them are comment-able.
Just PLEASE don’t spam them as it ruins it for the rest of us!
Thanks,
Peggy
Matt,
Very good trick. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Ying
Great tip. Just found a hugpage with a model number in the title, big giveaway. Competition is tough on the keyword, but it opened up a new niche I never thought of. Thanks, Matt.
This sheds a whole new light on Hubpages. I had never noticed the Topics category before – very clever, and a great shortcut!
Thanks, Matt, for sharing your great ideas.
Great advice. Thanks. This reminded me to start using Hubpages more often it’s really easy and fun to post there. I will definitely use this trick.
Very good research tip for finding niche markets. I use the same technique with Amazon looking for the reviews of products as well. A product that gets reviewed on Amazon usually means that for every review of the product, about 1000 people have bought the product. It’s a good indicator of the strength of a market.
That is a great technique Matt. I’d say take it a step further …
Once you found a good hub, most likely you found a good marketer.
That means that he/she has more keyword focused hubs right there.
So, click the author’s name and see what other hubs they published. Most times you’ll find a lot more similar hubs and keywords this author already found “for you” 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Hey Dan
Smart thinking!!!
Cheers
Matt
That was actually helpful! Thanks!
Hey Matt thanks for the great post. I have actually been using Hubpages a lot for building links to my site,but I usually target a relevant but lower searched term for my hubs. I think they are better for backlinking than any article directory that I have submitted to. Now, I know to be even more careful before you strike me down by copying me. Thanks for the tip.
is there a good way to find out who is linking to these hubpages?
Hi Matt I am a fan of Mark Ling and after looking at your blog I can see I am going to be a fan of yours too. Great advice which I will be following up. Thanks again.
Matt,
It never ceases to amaze me as to the things I’ve learned from your site. You keep coming up with these great ideas for us and the thing is the really work.
The greatest thing is that you do it for free and I really appreciate that.
Thanks alot.
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Hey Mike
Thanks and I am glad you like my site, and if you like this stuff you will love the freebie I am about to release to you guys in the next week or so
Cheers
Matt
Thanks Matt,
Keyword research always baffles me, I never know which keywords to target so your post really helped me.
I keep hearing about the power of hub pages, I think it’s time to test the waters with them.
Sally 🙂
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Hey Sally,
Thanks for your comment. I personally wouldn’t use Hubpages for my sites but I think there is a lot of great info you can get from what other people are doing from there. The reason I don’t use them is because the lack of control you have over your site. I mean the owners of Hubpages could one day decide to remove you page for what ever reason and you can’t do anything about it.
Thanks for your feedback.
Cheers
Matt
Dear Matt,
Thank you for this post. This is a very clever and methodical approach. I like your style.
Thank you, Matt, for the good tip. It’s really something I’m going to look at!
Matt you keep coming up with this kind of info and free too, I love your videos as they are exciting as I know there will be really useful things to learn, no rubbish. I too will try the hubpages tips and hope that one day soon one of my hubs will be good enough for others to try ‘borrowing’ my keywords!
I like how you keep these tips so simple, just what I need. I had to use almost the same technique the other day on one of my sites.
However you have simplified the process for me. Thanks
Fraser
Re: Hubpages – don’t they use nofollow links?
Or is nofollow no longer an issue with Google?
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 9:42 pm
Hey Howard,
Yes Hubpages are no follow but that has nothing to do with what I am showing you in the this post. No follow only effects
the links that leave the page and their SEO value,
Thanks
Matt
Hey Matt,
A little pearler mate, good one.
Tell me, what would be the maximum exact match number that you would consider too many?
Also, do you do any coaching/mentoring?
Cheers,
Peter
Matt Carter Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Hey Peter
To analyze how competitive a keyword is you really need to be looking at more than just the competing pages, so it is hard for me to say what to go for. The trick is having a go a learning from experience as to what level of competition you can manage.
Hope that helps
Thanks
Matt
Hello MAtt
Brilliant post on finding niches that are already working.
Although I was aware of Hub Pages, its amazing how much niche research you can do with existing authirity sites.
Thanks
HAmant
Wow! Love those little tips – piggybacking rules!
The same is applied to Squidoo and EzineArticles. right?
With one difference, in case of EZA you should investigate sites behind bio section links and not the articles themselves.
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:28 am
Hey Sergey,
Yes you are correct, good points you make here also!
Thanks for the comment
Matt
Thanks Matt! This is a great tip as always! I can’t wait to try it!
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:27 am
Hi Joy,
Your most welcome and great to hear from you.
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the market research tip.
Someone questioned you along the lines of how much competition is too much to go up against.
I first look at exact match numbers, just like this post demonstrates. Obviously the smaller the number of competing pages the better. But that doesn’t always mean it’ll be easy to rank well or get traffic for that keyword. There is another factor you have to look at too.
Beyond the competition numbers you also have the “How good are the guys on page one?” question. If the top 10 results have high Page Rank with hundreds of back links then your chances of success are small even if those are the ONLY competitors. Get it?
I am successfully showing up on page one for keywords that have a lot of competing pages but the competition is weak. How well your competition is optimized is more important than how many are competing for you key word.
Mark
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:27 am
Hey Mark
Thanks for the extra SEO competition explanation there.
Cheers
Matt
I have been doing SEO for quite some time. I started a SEO blog and went for the highest competitive keyword phrases for the main page. In time as my site matures it will rank much better.
However, for my articles I use long tail keywords for most of my posts. I rank very well for those collectively. When people visit my site, they don’t think that my SEO is that effective because they only look at my main page keyword terms to see how I rank. Therefore, they don’t see that collectively, I have the potential of driving over 1,200 visitors per day from the search engines.
Since I am old school SEO, the use of hub pages, long tail keywords are new to me. I am learning quite a bit from you and your emails. My targeted traffic that I get on my website, is improving daily. It is now getting a lot of attention from SEO minded people. I just need to focus more on the main page, now.
Thanks for sharing your tips and this old boy is learning new techniques that work.
Hi Matt,
It really strikes me that in the midst of promoting affiliate products( you really got me tempted with your bonuses cause I know how great they are) you are able to provide rock solid IM advice from the trenches. Thanx and keep us inspired matt!
Regards Andreas
PS Ezine articles and Blogger have the same enigma as hubpages. What’s really important if you want to use these domains is provide well-structured keyword orientated AND interesting content. (which is easier said than don by the way)
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your insight into how to exploit Hubpages for keywords and affiliate programs.
I use Hubpages myself, as indeed I suppose many of your reader’s do, however, how many (like me) ever bothered to actually research what else Hubpages offer, and importantly how this knowledge can be put to good use.
Thanks for your tips, great as usual.
Chronic Tinnitus
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:25 am
Hey Chronic Tinnitus,
Yeah you would be amazed at how much info is sitting out there for you to use, it just takes a little digging, Hubpages is one example of this.
Thanks
Matt
Great tip!
Just to be clear, though, your search term was “vintage patio furniture”, not “vintage garden furniture”. Are those “local” searches from Australia or U.S.? (Just wonderin’.)
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:24 am
Hey Sirrahc,
The searched are for Global monthly searches.
Thanks
Matt
Hi. they say you learn something every day, i know i have.
that i,m going to try as soon as posible. thanks.
phillip.
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:23 am
Hi Phillip,
Thanks for your comment and glad you learned something from the post.
Look forward to hearing about how you get on.
Thanks
Matt
Matt:
That is great info. I have SeoQuake and tried to duplicate what you have with the search “Vintage Patio Furniture”. In your SeoQuake readings you have actual numbers in your .edu and.gov links columns. I get n/a in my columns. Can you tip me off to what I am doing wrong.
Thank You for your great advice. I am a sure follower now.
Mark
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:22 am
Hey Mark
I think you might be getting a little confused with the use of SEO quake, you don’t need to look at the .edu and .gov links for this, you really only need to look at the competition in regards to the back links that they have.
Let me know if you need any more clarification.
Thanks
Matt
Hey Matt
I definitely don’t use Hubpages enough! Great tip.
Would you do the same with Squidoo Pages?
Thanks
Mark
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:19 am
Hey Mark
Yeah you could do the same with Squidoo, its all about thinking outside of the box, this is what makes people successful in any business, so I think your idea for Squidoo has potential also.
Thanks
Matt
Hey I used hubpage before and they will reject the link that contains affiliate site or anything that looks like promotional site.
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:18 am
Hey Sedo
I’, not telling you to use Hubpages, in fact I make it quite clear in this post that I don’t use Hubpages, but I gather info from them.
Sorry for the confusion.
Thanks
Matt
Hey Matt,
Good tip. I did notice you switched the keyword from “Vintage Garden Furniture” to “Vintage Patio Furniture” . Take a look at that, it is even better.
Best,
Leiif
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 10:21 am
Thanks Leiff,
That’s funny I didn’t even notice I had done that!! Anyway feel welcome to go after these keywords as I have too many other things on right now to get around to it.
Good spotting Leiff,
Cheers buddy
Matt
Great idea, from the numbers on the two examples you give using Google tools I assume you are especially relating to the money word matrix?
You feel that is a reliable guide Matt?
Bill
Matt Carter Reply:
August 1st, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Hey Bill
I don’t use the Money Word Matrix myself, I look at a lot more factors, but in my posts it can be hard to keep it simple, so I tend to look at the competing pages as a rough guide.
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt,
Great post! I think this is a great way not only to find affiliate niche but only for MFA niches. When you ran out of idea this is a sure easy way to find high traffic niches.
Thanks
Joe
Thanks Matt. Your good explanation makes it easy to follow and implement this strategy. I’ve got to try it and see what I uncover in the niches I am interested in. I will let you know how I get along, Keep them ideas coming
Denis
Thanks Matt. Your good explanation makes it easy to follow and implement this strategy. I’ve got to try it and see what I uncover in the niches I am interested in. I will let you know how I get along. Keep them ideas coming
Denis
Your good explanation makes it easy to follow and implement this strategy. I’ve got to try it and see what I uncover in the niches I am interested in. I will let you know how I get along. Keep them ideas coming.
Thanks Matt.
Denis
Great. Your good explanation makes it easy to follow and implement this strategy. I’ve got to try it and see what I uncover in the niches I am interested in. I will let you know how I get along. Keep them ideas coming. Thanks Matt.
Denis
Wow, another trick and stratagy to increase my ever consuming knowledge of affiliate marketing. This is very helpful. thanks Matt
Thank you Matt for this interesting tip. Never thought about a technique like this to discover good keywords. I will try it although I think raking high will not be that easy as we would like it… but it is well worth trying I think.
Hi Matt,
I really like the idea of duplicating what other people have done, for example on Hubpages, and then just doing better SEO than them to outrank them. You were right! It is very sneaky and takes very liitle time to do!
very cool!
More great info from Matt. Thanks so much for your generous sharing. You set the bar way high for IM gurus!
Matt,
I like this trick. I also like to see how many backlinks are going to that hub just in case somebody is doing serious backlinking to it.
I also like to find a longer tail variation to that keyword and then create my own hub. There are thousands of ways to do every one thing isn’t there? Thanks for the post.
Hey Matt,
Great trick! Can’t wait til my workday ends so I can go home and try it! You mentioned backlinking – what automated tools can you recommend to make the backlinking process a little easier?
Amiable brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you as your information.
A neat trick Matt, thanks for sharing. I guess the same goes for squidoo. Im off to do some web 2.0 spying.
Great tip Matt, to take this a step further however, make sure you get acquainted personally with the affiliate programs you join. Not all programs are created equal. There’s not a whole lot of risk with Clickbank or ebay but with private affiliates check them out carefully.
Here’s some more on that topic:
http://www.homenotion.com/blog/6688/how-to-find-the-best-affiliate-marketing-programs/
Matt Carter Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 8:03 am
Hey Liz
Thanks for the extra tip there, great point!
Matt
Hi Matt
in the 3rd paragraph you wrote: “a lot of affiliates use HUGpages”. I thought that was cute! 🙂
cheers
Matt, Great Post, Very good advise.
Especially using the keyword teqnique. Will put it to use.
Thanks