How to Find Keywords for Affiliate Marketing: 7 Methods (Free and Paid)

Most affiliate marketers spend hours writing content, building pages, and setting up funnels, then wonder why nobody shows up. The problem is almost always the same thing: they picked the wrong keywords. You can have the best review in your niche, but if you are targeting phrases nobody types, or phrases so competitive that the top 10 results are all major media companies, you will not earn a commission.

In this video, Alston walks through seven specific methods for finding keywords that connect you to people who are ready to buy, some completely free, some paid, and some that most affiliate marketers have never tried. Using dog training as the example niche throughout, he shows exactly what to click, what to look for, and how to avoid the trap of creating content that competes with thousands of identical posts. Here is everything he covered.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A step-by-step walkthrough of the Google Alphabet Soup method and why it still works
How to use “People Also Ask” and Related Searches to expand any seed keyword for free
A breakdown of Answer the Public, including the one mistake most beginners make when using it
How Ahrefs turns a competitor’s single page into hundreds of low-competition keyword targets
The YouTube channel research method that surfaces evergreen content ideas inside any niche
The Glossary Method, a backdoor approach that finds high-intent, low-competition terms most tools miss entirely
A simple framework for deciding which method fits your current budget and timeline
If you want to know which of these methods fits the skills and knowledge you already have, take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com

Why Keywords Are the Starting Point, Not the Finishing Touch

Affiliate marketing is fundamentally about connecting a person who has a problem with a product that solves it. Keywords are how people describe those problems in a search bar. If you do not know exactly what words your target audience uses, you are writing for nobody. You might produce technically excellent content, but it will sit unseen because the people who need it will never find it.

The second reason keyword research matters is competition. You could target “dog training” and spend six months writing content that ranks on page 47 behind massive pet industry sites. Or you could spend a few hours finding what those same buyers search for when the obvious terms do not come to mind, terms like “barrier frustration in dogs” or “appeasement gestures,” and own page one in a week. That is the difference between a keyword strategy and no strategy at all.

Method 1: The Google Alphabet Soup Method

The simplest free method is also the most manual. Go to Google, type your seed keyword, and then add each letter of the alphabet after it one at a time. For “dog training,” you would type “dog training a,” note what auto-completes, then “dog training b,” and so on. Each letter surfaces different phrases that real people are actively typing.

This works because Google’s autocomplete pulls from actual search volume. The phrases that appear are not random; they are the ones people type most often. So when you see “dog training equipment,” “dog training exercises,” or “dog training for reactive dogs” all appearing at the letter E, those are real opportunities.

The limitation is time. When you type “dog training e” and get back “exercises,” you then have to go back, type “dog training exercises a,” and run the alphabet again to find sub-phrases. It is thorough but slow. Alston’s analogy is direct: you can walk from Milwaukee to Chicago, but most people drive. The free methods work; they just take longer. If time is not the constraint, start here. If time is the constraint, keep reading.

Method 2: Google’s “People Also Ask” Section

Once you search for any keyword on Google, scroll down and look for the “People Also Ask” box. This shows questions that Google has already determined are closely related to your search. For “dog training,” you might see “What are the seven commands for dogs?” or “How long does it take to train a dog?”

The useful behavior here is that the box expands. When you click the dropdown arrow on any question, Google loads more related questions below it. You can keep clicking and the list keeps growing. This means a single seed keyword can generate dozens of content angles in just a few minutes, and every question you see is phrased exactly the way your audience phrases it.

These questions translate directly into article titles and blog sections. “What are the seven commands for dogs?” is a post. “How long does it take to train a dog?” is a post. And every one of them will be formatted the way people actually search, which helps with voice search and featured snippet rankings as well.

Method 3: Google Related Searches

Scroll past the main results on any Google search page and you will find a “Related searches” section at the bottom. These are different from “People Also Ask” because they are keyword phrases, not questions. For “dog training,” you might see “advanced dog training exercises,” “three minute dog training games,” or “dog training games indoors.”

The smart move is to click one of those related phrases and then scroll down again. A new set of related searches appears, and you can jump down that rabbit hole as far as you want. Each click into a related search reveals another layer of what your audience is looking for. Methods 1, 2, and 3 together, used on a single seed keyword, can produce more content ideas in an afternoon than most marketers would ever use.

Method 4: Answer the Public (Free Keyword Research Tool)

Answer the Public is a free web-based tool that visualizes keyword questions around any topic. Type “dog training” and it returns a large wheel of questions organized by search modifiers like who, what, when, where, why, and how. You can also download the full results as an Excel spreadsheet, which makes it easy to sort, filter, and prioritize.

The free plan gives you two searches per 24-hour period, so use them carefully. Pick your two most important seed keywords for the day and extract everything the tool returns.

Here is the mistake most beginners make: they take a phrase from Answer the Public like “dog training for reactive dogs,” create content around it exactly as written, and compete head-to-head with thousands of other sites that had the exact same idea. The smarter move is to use Answer the Public as a starting point, not a finish line. Take “dog training for reactive dogs,” paste it into Google with a space at the end, and run the alphabet on it. You will find sub-phrases that are far less competitive because fewer people thought to go that one layer deeper.

Not sure which affiliate model fits you best?

Answer a few questions and get a specific direction in under two minutes at finder.platformproof.com.

Method 5: Ahrefs (The Best Paid Option)

Ahrefs is a paid keyword research and SEO tool. It used to offer a seven-day trial, but that offer has since been removed. The monthly cost puts it out of reach for beginners with no income yet, which is why Alston presents the free options first. But if you are at the stage where you are already earning and want to accelerate, Ahrefs is where the opportunity gets dramatically bigger.

The first way to use Ahrefs is the Keywords Explorer. Type your niche topic, and it returns search volume data, keyword difficulty scores, and thousands of related terms. You can filter by keyword difficulty to find low-competition options within any topic, something no free tool does reliably at scale.

The second and more powerful use is the Site Explorer feature. Here is how it works: go back to Google, search for your keyword, and find a page that ranks well for something in your niche. Copy that page’s URL, not the homepage, the specific ranking page. Paste it into Ahrefs Site Explorer. The tool shows every keyword that single page ranks for.

In the demo, Alston found a dog training page ranking for over 1.3 million organic keywords. He filtered by keyword difficulty to find low-competition options and surfaced something unexpected: “turtle names” appeared in the results, with 13,000 monthly searches and almost no competition. The reason is that the page was a broad pet-related resource. That data point shows exactly why scraping a competitor page in Ahrefs beats manual Google research. You find opportunities you would never have thought to search for on your own. Someone who creates a “best turtle names” post and links to turtle care products is now serving a different buyer than any of their dog training competitors.

This process scales. Find ten pages ranking in your niche, run each through Site Explorer, filter for low difficulty, and you have more keyword targets than you could publish in a year.

Method 6: YouTube Channel Research

Go to YouTube and search for your niche keyword. Click on a video result and open the creator’s channel. Look for channels that are entirely dedicated to your niche. In the dog training example, Zac George’s Dog Training Revolution has 3.56 million subscribers and a deep video library.

Click on the channel’s Videos tab and sort by “Most Popular.” This shows which content ideas performed best across that entire audience. Alston noted that Zac George’s top videos, some from six years ago, still show 14 million and 11 million views. That is strong signal that those topics had enduring demand, not just a viral spike.

The nuance here is timing. A video that went massive six years ago means the concept has proven demand, but the top search results may already be crowded. Look for videos that performed very well within the last 12 months. That combination of recency and strong performance tells you the topic is still actively searched and has not yet been flooded with content the way older topics often are.

Find five to ten YouTube channels within your niche and repeat this process on each. Between them, you will have more content ideas than you can use, all validated by real audience behavior instead of keyword tool estimates.

Method 7: The Glossary Method

This last method is the one most affiliate marketers overlook, and it consistently surfaces low-competition keywords that free tools and even Ahrefs users tend to miss. Alston credits this technique to Marcus Campbell, also known as the Affiliate Marketing Dude, who covered it in a video that Alston watched and then tested.

Here is how it works. Every niche has specialized vocabulary that insiders use but outsiders do not know exists yet. In dog training, that vocabulary includes terms like “appeasement gestures,” “barrier frustration,” “counter conditioning,” and “competitive motivation.” These are not the phrases a casual dog owner types into Google. But they are exactly the phrases a dog owner types after they have been reading about their dog’s behavior for a few weeks and want to go deeper.

Find a glossary for your niche. Type your niche plus “glossary” into Google and look for pages that list specialized terminology. Go through the list alphabetically, copy each term, and paste it into a keyword research tool or into Google’s search bar to see what auto-completes and what competition looks like.

“Appeasement gestures in dogs” is not a term that thousands of affiliate sites have already written 2,000-word posts about. But it is a term that dog owners who are actively engaged with their dog’s training will search for. That buyer is more educated, more committed, and more likely to purchase a premium training program or specialized equipment than someone who just typed “dog training tips” into Google.

The glossary method works in every niche. Personal finance has terms like “dollar-cost averaging” and “sequence of returns risk.” Photography has “bokeh,” “chromatic aberration,” and “exposure triangle.” The people searching for these terms are not beginners; they are the buyers who have already made one purchase in the niche and are looking for the next step. Creating content for them is one of the fastest ways to find an audience that converts.

Which Method to Start With Based on Where You Are Right Now

The honest answer is that the right method depends on two things: how much time you have and whether you can invest in a paid tool. Here is a simple decision framework based on what Alston laid out:

No budget, unlimited time: Start with the Alphabet Soup method on your seed keyword, then run “People Also Ask” and Related Searches on every strong phrase you find. Supplement with Answer the Public using your two daily free searches. Add the Glossary Method for a second layer of low-competition targets.
No budget, limited time: Use YouTube channel research first. It surfaces proven content ideas the fastest, because someone else already did the audience testing. Then use the Glossary Method to find angles that the popular channels have not covered yet.
Budget available: Start with Ahrefs Site Explorer on three to five pages that rank in your niche. Filter for low keyword difficulty. This single workflow will give you more validated, low-competition keywords in two hours than any combination of free methods will in a week.
Testing a new niche before committing: Use the free methods first to validate there is search volume and visible content competition before spending money on a paid tool. If you find dozens of phrases with “People Also Ask” results and active YouTube channels in the niche, the demand is real.
Scaling what is already working: Use Ahrefs to scrape every competing page in your niche for keywords, then layer in the Glossary Method to find the terms those pages are missing. At this stage you are building a moat around your content library.

Honest Drawbacks to Know Before You Start

The free methods take more time than most people expect. Running the Alphabet Soup method thoroughly on a single seed keyword with all its sub-phrases can take a full day. If you value your time at anything above zero, the paid tool pays for itself quickly.

Answer the Public limits you to two free searches per 24 hours. If you are in the research phase of a new site and want to explore several angles quickly, you will hit that cap fast. Plan your searches in advance so you are not burning a free search on a keyword you already know well.

Ahrefs no longer offers a seven-day trial. You pay for month one whether it works for you or not. This makes it a real commitment for someone who has not yet earned from affiliate marketing. Wait until you have a proven niche and a working content approach before investing in the tool.

The Glossary Method requires that you actually read about your niche. You cannot shortcut it with a tool. The upside is that your knowledge compounds over time, and the more deeply you understand your audience’s vocabulary, the more you sound like an authority rather than a content aggregator.

Find Your X

Keyword research is only useful if you know what you are actually selling and who you are selling it to. If you are still figuring out your niche, your angle, or which type of affiliate model fits the skills you already have, that is the real starting point. Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a specific direction based on where you are right now, not generic advice that assumes you have a large audience or an ad budget already.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Alphabet Soup method for keyword research?

The Alphabet Soup method means typing your seed keyword into Google followed by each letter of the alphabet, one at a time, and writing down every autocomplete suggestion that appears. Because Google’s autocomplete pulls from actual search data, every phrase that surfaces is something real people are typing. The method is free but time-consuming because popular phrases often need to be drilled down further by repeating the alphabet on the sub-phrase as well.

Is Answer the Public actually free?

Yes, but with limits. Answer the Public allows two free keyword searches every 24 hours on its free plan. You can also download the results as an Excel file at no cost, which makes it easy to sort and filter large keyword sets. If you need more than two searches per day, you would need a paid plan. For most beginners doing research on one or two niches, the free limit is enough if you plan your searches in advance.

Does Ahrefs still have a free trial?

No. Ahrefs removed its seven-day trial and now requires a paid subscription from day one. The tool is worth the cost if you are actively building affiliate content and want to find low-competition keywords at scale, but it is not the right first investment for someone who has not yet confirmed a niche or published any content. Use the free methods first until you are earning, then consider Ahrefs as your next step.

What is the Glossary Method and who came up with it?

The Glossary Method is a keyword research approach where you find a niche glossary, copy specialized vocabulary terms from it, and check each one for search volume and competition. The idea is that insiders in any niche use specific language that beginners do not yet know, and those insider terms tend to have far less competition in search results. Alston credits Marcus Campbell, known as the Affiliate Marketing Dude, for the method after watching one of his videos where he explained it in detail.

How does Ahrefs Site Explorer help with keyword research?

Ahrefs Site Explorer lets you paste the URL of a specific webpage, not a whole website, and see every keyword that page ranks for in Google. You can then filter by keyword difficulty to find low-competition terms. This is useful because a single page in your niche might rank for hundreds or thousands of phrases you would never have thought to search for on your own. In the dog training example, one page revealed “turtle names” as an unexpected low-competition keyword with 13,000 monthly searches, which pointed to an entirely different content direction.

How do I use YouTube for keyword research?

Search your niche keyword on YouTube, find channels that publish exclusively in your niche, then go to their Videos tab and sort by “Most Popular.” The titles of their highest-viewed videos are proven content topics that real audiences wanted enough to click and watch. Look specifically for videos published within the last 12 months that still generated strong view counts. That combination tells you the topic has current demand and has not yet been completely saturated in written search results.

Should I use paid or free keyword research tools when starting out?

Start with free tools. The Google Alphabet Soup method, “People Also Ask,” Related Searches, Answer the Public, YouTube channel research, and the Glossary Method together can surface months of content ideas at no cost. The tradeoff is time. Once you have confirmed your niche, published content that is getting organic traffic, and started earning commissions, a paid tool like Ahrefs is worth the investment because it dramatically compresses the time needed to find low-competition targets at scale.

What is the biggest mistake beginners make with keyword research?

Taking a keyword directly from a tool like Answer the Public and creating content around it without any further research. The problem is that these tools surface the same ideas to everyone who uses them, so popular Answer the Public phrases often already have thousands of pieces of content targeting them. The better approach is to use the tool’s results as seed ideas, then go one level deeper using Google autocomplete or a paid tool to find sub-phrases and related terms that the crowd has not yet discovered.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Revealed: How To Find Keywords For Affiliate Marketing | Make Money Online,” YouTube: https://youtu.be/iBJyVce0CYs
Answer the Public, free keyword research tool: answerthepublic.com
Ahrefs, paid keyword research and SEO tool: ahrefs.com
Marcus Campbell (Affiliate Marketing Dude), creator of the Glossary Method
Zac George’s Dog Training Revolution, YouTube channel used as niche research example