Finding niche keywords is the critical step that separates profitable affiliate sites from abandoned projects. In this episode, Mark extends the niche selection discussion from Episodes 051 and 052 and dives into how to evaluate keywords for search volume and competitiveness — especially important for affiliate marketing.
What You'll Learn in This Episode
- How to strike a balance between search volume and keyword competitiveness
- Why niche keyword selection is the make-or-break step in affiliate marketing
- Whether to use WordPress posts or pages for affiliate site content
- How the Late Night Internet Marketing meetup community helps aspiring internet marketers
Episode Summary
Mark picks up where Episode 052 left off, guiding listeners through the process of evaluating their brainstormed list of niche ideas against real keyword data. The core question is whether the keywords in your niche have enough search volume to generate meaningful traffic while being competitive enough that you can actually rank for them.
He also addresses a listener question from Ian about whether to use posts or pages on a niche site like the Corn Sheller Site. Mark explains his approach: use pages for static content like disclaimers and privacy policies (with comments off), and use posts for content that should appear in the RSS feed and briefly on the homepage for indexing purposes. Menu-level content gets pages; everything else gets posts.
The episode opens with a recap of the Late Night Internet Marketing meetup at the Londoner Pub in Allen, Texas, where Mark and a group of listeners gathered to talk internet marketing, life, and everything in between.
Key Takeaways
- Keyword selection requires balancing search volume against competition — neither metric alone tells the full story
- Use WordPress posts for content you want indexed and in your RSS feed, and pages for static site elements
- Connecting with other internet marketers in person accelerates learning and motivation
- The niche selection process spans multiple episodes because getting it right is that important
What's Changed Since This Episode
WordPress posts versus pages remains a relevant question, though modern themes and page builders have blurred the distinction. Block themes and tools like Elementor now give pages the same flexibility as posts. For SEO purposes, the content type matters less than the content quality and internal linking structure.
RSS feeds have declined in importance for audience building. Email newsletters, social media, and podcast apps have replaced RSS as the primary distribution channels for most content creators. However, RSS remains important for podcast distribution.
Resources Mentioned
Related Episodes
If you found this episode helpful, you might also enjoy:
Listen and Subscribe
Listen to Late Night Internet Marketing on Apple Podcasts or subscribe at latenightim.com/internet-marketing-podcast/. Have a question for Mark? Call the digital recorder at 214-444-8655 or drop a comment below.
Mark.
Question why don’t you use Adsense on the corn sheller site?
Thanks
Welty
Simply — because my AdSense account got banned a while ago (2 years ago?) and I have not bothered to try and set up a new one yet (that can be tricky). It’s a great idea.
AdSense only pays about $0.10 – $0.20 for that keyword — but still might be interesting given the traffic.
Regards,
Mark
Hi Mark, really loving the podcast. With so many keyword tools out there, could you do an in depth comparison of KC, LTP, and Market Samurai?
Thanks!
Pia — will definitely consider that. Very hard to do with audio and a lot of work — but will give it some thought.
Mark,
How did you find the whois history of the snoring domain? Is there a service to do that research?
Thanks!
Great question — and sorry for not mentioning that.
DomainTools.com is what I use (free).
Thanks for the question,
Mark
In regards to the posts versus pages conversation, I do pretty much the same thing you described. For my Forever Affiliate sites I’ve removed the post date meta data from the single post template so that it looks more like a page than a “blog post,” and I have the comments turned off for most pages unless it’s an article that would naturally lend itself to more discussion.
I am currently trying to learn more about keyword niche and found your site. I just wanted to post and tell you that you have helped me a lot!!!
Glad I could help you Amanda. Thanks for the comment.
Echoing Pia Smyth from above, I’ve also been reading up on Market Samurai. Someone told me the savvy web marketers can do everything that software does manually and more efficiently. True or false? Thanks.
mark – interesting your adsense account was banned. I had one banned as well, along with a paypal account. I must have been doing something evil. 😉 So tell me, is it smart to compete for the same keywords your competition uses?