How to finding a target the Earlybird Method The early-bird is one of my favorites.The early-bird technique is essentially creating Harvesters for products that have not launched yet, or have just launched very recently - Gizmodo.com - CrunchGear.com - Play.com "coming soon" section http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/6-/ComingSoon.html So, I head over to Engadget.com. On this occasion, the very first post gets my attention, which is rare; usually you'll have to scroll down or even go back a page or two. Here's what I saw:
FINDING A TARGET - THE EARLY-BIRD METHODS
So how do we find products to target that have not launched yet (or launched very recently)?
Simple… We use news blogs and "coming soon" websites.
Consumer electronics (televisions, cameras, mobile phones — that kind of stuff) always seem to work well as Harvester sites, and a few great websites for finding upcoming (some of these products have only just been announced hours or even minutes ago) or newly launched consumer electronic products are:
- Engadget.com
For other areas, such as cars, environmentally friendly products and all kinds of other niches, go to WebLogsInc.com and scroll down to where it says "Our Blogs" on the right-hand sidebar.
You'll find a list of blogs which you can also use if you want to move out of consumer electronics and try different niches… And I do recommend you experiment with different niches.
Anyway, for this example, let's say we wanted to promote a consumer electronic product… My favorite site for this is Engadget, so let's use that site in this example.
It's a tablet computer that launched two days prior to their post… Not bad!
Why is this product perfect?
 | It costs more than $150 so commissions will be good |
| It is a "hot" topic at the moment (tablet computers) |
| There are a lot of comments on the post, indicating a high interest |
| It has launched very recently (within the past week — unreleased/coming soon is always better, though!) |
Popular & Rising: The Amazon Method This method basically revolves around "popular" and "rising" products listed on Amazon — this method works for other sites like Amazon too, for example Play.com, NewEgg.com, and many more sites that have "popular" sections.
Some products are always "hot" — they are 'evergreen' — such as TV's, digital cameras and mobile phones. These things sell well all year round. There is a surge during December for Christmas, and also a surge in January for the "January sales"… But they are always usually pretty consistent.
TIP: While we're on the topic of Christmas – that is a MAJOR market. If you can find out what a "hot" toy is to promote for the coming Christmas, you can make a killing. Watch Children's TV and pay attention to the adverts that show during breaks… Write down all of the products. This can also work all year round, but it doesn't compare to the crazy sales you'll get at Christmas… I happen to be good friends with a guy who ranked #1 for last years "best selling" Christmas toy "Go-Go Hamsters" — he made over $54,000 — just in December.
I usually only promote products that cost more than $150, as the commission percentage you usually get paid on consumer electronics is very low.
And that my friends is essentially how the early-bird method works — find products that are coming out in the future (this is ideal) — or find ones that have just been released in the past week that meet the above criteria.
I'm going to cover competitive analysis in the next section, so for now, let's look at the next route you could take.
| Pros: Can be lots of traffic, good commissions high-priced products |
 | Cons: More competition |
Now it's just a case of picking a couple and scoping the competition for each, which is covered in the second step. ClickBank: Information Products
Popular and rising… It's pretty simple, really.
Head to Amazon.com (or any other Amazon site, e.g. Amazon UK) and choose a category. I recommend one with high-priced items, for example consumer electronics like we've already been talking about.
Now pick a deeper category, for example televisions. You'll now get a listing of televisions (or whatever you chose) automatically sorted by bestsellers, like this:
As you can see, this is a very simple route to take, but it can be very effective.
Yep… It's ClickBank.
The worlds biggest digital retailer has got to be good for something, huh?
| Pros: Moderate traffic, good commissions, good conversion rate |
| Cons: Can be competitive |
A roulette system and a lotto system… Those are pretty niche and specific. The main thing I like to pay attention to other than "is it niche enough" is the gravity and the %/refd. I will usually only target products that have a gravity higher than 15 and a %/refd higher than 50%, and both of these products fit that criteria. Without going in to too much detail, if you double the gravity score you'll have a rough idea of how many other affiliates are promoting that product successfully — meaning they've made at least one sale in the past 8 weeks. The %/refd refers to how many of the products sales are the due to affiliates promoting the product. Side note: $270 per month may not sound like a lot, but the site wouldn't even take an afternoon to create. Find just two profitable harvesters like this per week and you'll be generating over $2000 per month. CPA Offers
ClickBank has an endless source of new and existing proven products to rank for.
Head over to the ClickBank Marketplace: http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm
Now just pick a category from the side… It doesn't really matter which. In this example, I clicked on "Betting" as I know that's a profitable market.
Now ClickBank will load "popular" products in that category, which is exactly what we want.
So I'm talking a look through here, and looking for something more "niche" than just something broad like 'Sports Betting System' and these two (ranked third and fourth) catch my eye:
Ok, so we have picked some products… Now what?
It's time to scope the competition. Rather than repeat myself twice, I've included a whole section on this part in Step #2, which is aptly titled "Scoping The Competition". But let's say we find a good product that is not very competitive… For example, "Roulette Sniper":
Roulette Sniper pays out $26.62 per sale. If you're targeting ultra-specific terms — especially product names — then you will always have a great conversion rate of around 2-3% (I've had as high as 6%!), so I can estimate that these keywords would bring in around $270 every month, possibly a little more or less. Considering how insanely easy these terms are to rank for (you'll learn more about why they're easy to rank for in Step 2) I would absolutely go after these terms… They scream "FREE CASH!" to me.
Combining SEO & CPA is something that very few people are doing, and the ones who are doing it are profiting handsomely. I should know — I was generating well over $130 per day from Acai Berry CPA offers through organic Google traffic back in the "Acai days" as I liked to call them.
| Pros: Moderate traffic, great commissions, great conversions |
| Cons: Can be competitive, can be short-lived, need CPA network |
Getting approved by some CPA networks is easier than others. Here are some I recommend you try and sign up for: UPDATE: The first one is now released, see the bottom of this guide for the first "IDEA" Harvester download. Step #2: Scoping The Competition 1. Head to Google.com Then continue to Step 3. Step #3: The Initial Test & Introducing the "PPC-Loophole" Once you're done, hit continue and you'll be taken to the Hub Editor. The PPC-Loophole
What is CPA?
CPA stands for Cost-Per-Action. This could mean, for example, a company might pay you $1.50 every time a user submits their email address on a form, or enters their ZIP code, or they might pay you $35 if someone signs up for a free trial offer. They're typically promoted via PPC and PPV traffic, but I have had great success promoting them through organic search with the Harvester method.
Finding An Offer
This method is a little more difficult and advanced due to the need for a CPA network to approve you – you can't just instantly start promoting things like the other three routes you could have gone with. But with that said… CPA can be much more profitable due to the much higher conversion rates (as high as 20%!) and in some cases, big commissions.
My favorite of those are probably XY7 and YepRevenue, but Copeac is very easy to get in to, at least from my experience (I signed up for them over 2 years ago when I was starting out and they let me in no questions asked).
Once you're approved in a CPA network, finding an offer to target is as simple as the other routes.
Let's use YepRevenue as an example.
Most networks will show "hot" converting offers on their homepage once you log in, so they are always the best place to start. One that caught my eye on the YepRevenue homepage for example was something called "Start Your Renovation", a home renovation ZIP submit that pays $7.75 per submission.
The method to follow with CPA offers is identical to the ClickBank method. Target product names (if you're promoting products, that is) and highly related keywords (which is more applicable to the offer Start Your Renovation, for example). In this case I would use the Google Keyword Tool to research keywords around the home renovation and DIY keywords/niche.
Sometimes if the CPA offer is quite "established" you may get some results for the actual product name in the Google Keyword Tool — so if you suspect this offer has been around for quite a while (usually the case if it's a shippable product, like diet supplements, acai, colon cleansing products, etc.) then check it out with the GKT.
Okay, those were the four routes you can follow. I want you to pick 4-5 products (or keywords if you're going the Clickbank/CPA route) you could possibly target before moving on to the next step, so if you haven't done so, pick some now. It doesn't matter which route you follow, it's entirely up to you.
Got 'em? Let's continue!
KIERAN'S NOTE: For those of you who stick it out for longer than 60 days… I have a special gift for you. Not one but TWO new Harvester routes that are KILLING it at the moment. These are for "non-timewasters" only.
Now that you have some ideas for products you could build Harvesters around, it's time to check out the competition around each of them.
In this part we have to go a little old-school and do the research ourselves. As these terms are so new, no software can give us information or data on them. Luckily, it only takes a couple of minutes for each product/keyword.
Note: If one of the products you picked seems to be quite "established" or particularly popular, it may show up in the Google Keyword Tool — give it a go.
First of all, if you are promoting a physical product, you need to target the "right" keyword.
For example, for a television, it is usually the make and then model which gets the most traffic volume, e.g. Samsung LE32B450. You can also add on phrases like HDTV after that, which can also produce a fair amount of traffic, though usually not as much as just the straight Make/Model format. A real world example would be turning "Panasonic VIERA X1 Series TC-L26X1 26-Inch 720p LCD HDTV" (the Amazon.com listing name) in to simply "Panasonic TC-L26X1" – I know from experience that these variations get the most traffic. The same applies to most other products – cut the "crap" out that people are not likely to search for, so you're left with the "real" keyword/product. Common sense goes far here.
If you find a product that you think could perform well but is too competitive, you can add the word "review" on to the end of the product name. For example… "Super Fat Removing Colon Cleanse X15 Review" or "Samsung SuperTV Review" (I just made those product names up, but you get the point).
Now it's time to run through each keyword in the following fashion. In this example I'm going to use the Engadget example from above, the Enso ZenPad.
It's a simple process (you're probably getting this by now but… Everything we do is simple!):
2. Type in the product keyword (remember, cut the "crap" out so you're left with the nice juicy "fillet") which in my case was Enso Zenpad.
3. Take a look at the top 10 — are they mostly "news" posts, videos, blogs, etc? If so, this is great. Any forums? If so… Even better.
4. Do a search for allintitle:keyword. Are there less than 3000 results? If so, great. (365 for Enso Zenpad… Sweet!)
5. Do an exact match search for your keyword, i.e in quotes like "enso zenpad" – in my case, there were 4000 results. Anything under 5000 is great, although under 10,000 can still be good.
If you see any sites in the top 10 with an exact match domain, like ensozenpad.com for example, that is a bad sign and you may not be able to out rank them if they have got the "early-bird" advantage before you. If the rest of the results sound promising, it is still worth running a test Hub (as discussed in Step 3).
So to summarize, we want keywords/products that have less than 3000 allintitle results and less than 10,000 (ideally less than 5000) exact match results. News posts in the top 10, especially from blogs, is a great sign. Exact match domains is a bad sign, as someone may have already beat you to the gold.
If there are any article sites or "web 2.0″ sites in the top 10 such as EzineArticles, HubPages, or Squidoo then those are also good signs (it can also be a bad sign if there are lots of these — too much competition) and provided there is not an exact match domain competitor (i.e. ensozenpad.com, ensozenpadreview.com) there is a good chance you could rank very highly for the term.
Does everything look good for one of your products?
If none of the products you picked matched the above specification, go back to Step 1 and pick a few more products — there is a HUGE amount of potential out there, so don't be afraid to dig around for a little longer.
Now this is the step where we start to see the thing everybody loves… RESULTS.
But we're not diving in to the Harvester site just yet. We don't want to waste time and money buying a domain name, setting up the site and all that stuff only to find out the sites in the Top 10 carried too much weight and we couldn't outrank them. So… How do we test a product/keyword? Simple!
HubPages
HubPages is a website that anyone can go to and create a "hub" (basically a page with whatever content you want to put on it) and publish it online instantly. Due to the popularity of the site, it has a lot of linkjuice (it has over 1.9 million backlinks!) and thus pages on the site rank quite nicely naturally, with no further link building required. We're going to take this a step further though and add another high-quality backlink using one of my "top-secret" techniques (the "PPC loophole") to the Hub and see what kind of initial results we get for our target keyword.
As a side note, this method does work better with Ezinearticles. However, Ezinearticles can take up to three days to get your article approved… And we want fast results, right? HubPages is INSTANT.
If you're more patient than me, you can adapt this "Harvester Method" in to an article marketing strategy, which works pretty badassly (yes, that is a word, I promise) if you don't mind waiting 2-3 days to get an article approved. I'm more of an instant kinda guy… So I'm going to stick with HubPages. You could use Squidoo too, but recently HubPages has been outranking Squidoo by quite a margin, possibly because it contains much less spam.
Ok, so let's throw up a Hub. There is a full video you can watch that pretty much takes you through whole the process of doing this, so I recommend you check that out below (right at the bottom of this page, you'll find the resources section & this video).
Head over to HubPages.com and create an account. Alternatively go straight to the account creation page here:
Once you're signed up, hit the big "Start a new Hub" button on the homepage, or go straight to the hub creation page here:
http://hubpages.com/hubtool/create/name/
The title for your hub should be your target keyword. For example, one I did was the Panasonic TX-L32S10 HDTV.
Next choose the topic which best represents your hub. This should be pretty straightforward… As is everything in the Harvester method.
Finally, pick a layout for your hub. This is completely up to you. I personally like the third one with two text blocks. You should also add 4-5 tags relating to your product/keyword, as I have done below:
From here, it's just a case of adding an image of your product (if possible) and adding some content.
The content *does* need to be at least 60% original, so you can't just copy and paste it all from another source.
The fastest way to do this is to grab one of the posts/articles already out there on your product, and go through it quickly, rewriting large chunks of it in your own words. These are only 250-350 word posts… Not essays. I highly suggest you take the initiative to do a few of these. It's not rocket science and it takes about 5 minutes. Copy and paste some information on your product, and rewrite the sentences so that you end up with something at least 60% unique. If you REALLY hate writing then there are three solutions I can suggest:
HumanRewriter
HumanRewriter is a service where you submit an article/post, and a human quickly rewrites it. It's *very* cheap, but you may have to wait 24-48 hours to get it back to you. Still, this is probably the cheapest service for creating content you will find out there.
DigitalPoint Marketplace
Most people know DigitalPoint Marketplace. They have a content section where you can buy pre-made content and also have writers who can write you original content for a very low price, but again you could be waiting for as long as 48 hours depending on the writers current load.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=76
Article Rewriting Software
There is a wide range of software out there which you can use to rewrite articles "almost" automatically. I do not personally have a lot of experience with these tools, but I have a few friends who swear by them. Mass Article Control seems to be the most popular option, which you can purchase here:
Another option you could explore is using a tool like Google translate to translate some content in to another language like German or French, and then translate it back — the wording will be somewhat different and you can often get away with using that, though it is a pretty poor solution.
Once you've added your content, hit the "Publish" button and your hub will be published to the world.
For an example of a hub, you can check the Panasonic HDTV hub I created here:
http://hubpages.com/hub/Panasonic-TX-L32S10
Within 4-5 hours your Hub will probably start showing up in Google within the first 1-3 pages for your keyword. If it doesn't, don't worry. It's time for the PPC-Loophole.
This is one of the biggest exploits I have came across in the past couple of years. It enables you to get a "do-follow" backlink on a high authority website which has close to 1 million backlinks. The juice this site passes on is strong enough to blast sites to the top of not just Google, but Yahoo & Bing. In fact, it seems to work best in Yahoo (with Harvester sites — not HubPages), where we have seen sites jump to first place in just 24 hours.
What's the site?
The site we'll be getting a backlink on is Pixel2Life (http://pixel2life.com) — a web design resource site which has a giant user base and a ton of authority backlinks. They do not technically sell backlinks… So how do we get a backlink on there?
Easy enough… Through their Pay Per Click ad platform.
Yep – if we create an ad using Pixel2Life's PPC platform, the ad is displayed on their site with a nice, clean, do-follow backlink complete with custom anchor text. Sweet.
How much does it cost? A test will cost under $3. Pixel2Life charge a flat 0.05c per click, so we want to focus on creating the worst ads possible that obtain the lowest click through rates (CTR) possible so our ad stays live and costs us the lowest price we can get a backlink for.
In most cases within two days you can see the impact the Pixel2Life link has had on a Hub/Article, which will probably not even cost you $3.
If your results are great, you may want to leave the link on there for longer. It'll probably cost you around $20-30 per month to keep a link live on there. Most Harvester sites will generate an absolute minimum of $200 per month if they rank 1st or 2nd for there target keyword, so ~$25 is a pretty small tradeoff for that. If you find a good enough keyword/product, you could generate well over $100 per day, as I have done numerous times in the past, making the $25/monthly seem pretty negligible.
To access Pixel2Life's self-serve PPC platform, visit this link and sign up:
http://www.pixel2life.com/advertising/
You can then click the "Buy Credits" link and buy some credits. $5's worth is enough for testing a hub, but you may want to buy $10-$15 worth so you can test a couple and run with the best. If you are on an extremely strict budget, you can probably get away buying just $2-$3's worth of credits. If you can't even afford $3 then you could use one of the backlink packs (download the first at the end of this page) which are free but take longer to take effect and require more time to implement.
To actually create an ad you visit this page:
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