This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bruce Paulson, a 43-year-old freelance SEO specialist from North Carolina about scaling his business. It's been edited for length and clarity.Affiliate marketing is the strategyI've been the owner-operator of an SEO agency since 2015. For the first five years, all I did was work with clients, but I struggled to grow my business.
Eventually, I made my first sale and wanted to make more. So I built more affiliate websites. I also tried a bunch of different niches, from water sports, insurance, and mortgages to credit cards, boats, and the health industry. Amazon is pretty easy to get into — all you have to do is have public advertising disclosures on your website.
I could write articles myself for free, but it takes me forever and they aren't the best articles, so I opted to pay for decent articles at $100 per article — I need a minimum of 30 articles but realistically around 200 articles on the sites. I pay a cheap web designer on Upwork to post my articles for $10 to $15 per article. Additionally, I pay $2,400 per year for anWhen building affiliate websites I need some interest in the topic like water sports, finance, or digital marketing.
If I can rank No. 1 in Google for"winter socks that are warm and will keep my feet dry" and I recommend a nice pair of Smartwool socks, then I have a very good chance of making that sale — and that's my entire approach to SEO these days. It's counterintuitive to put zero effort into looking for new client-work, yet have more people reaching out to me than ever.