How to Make Money Online as a Nurse

You already know things other people are Googling. You know which shoes hold up a twelve-hour shift. You know which bags fit everything you need without falling apart on the walk from the parking garage. You know which watches nurses actually trust. That knowledge is worth money online, and most nurses have no idea it even exists as an option.

In this video, Alston walks through a live keyword research session inside Ahrefs, starting with “how to become a nurse” and following the trail all the way to specific low-competition product topics that get thousands of monthly searches and almost no real competition. The result is a clear path for any nurse to start a blog or YouTube channel, drop affiliate links for products they already use, and earn commissions while they sleep. Here is exactly how it works.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A step-by-step look at how to use Ahrefs to find nursing keywords with under five in keyword difficulty
The real traffic numbers Alston found on the live call, including 85,000 monthly searches in the nursing topic cluster
How to find a small competitor site and mine their keyword rankings for your own content ideas
The two specific product categories from the video — nursing shoes and work bags — and why they convert well
A breakdown of the YouTube side of this strategy, with real channel examples showing tiny subscriber counts still getting thousands of views
Three ways to actually make money once the content is live: affiliate links, display ads, and YouTube monetization
How to figure out which niche inside your own career or life is worth building content around — use finder.platformproof.com to get a personalized answer

Why Nurses Have a Built-In Advantage for Affiliate Content

Affiliate marketing works best when the writer or creator has direct, first-hand experience with what they are recommending. Nurses buy a lot of specialized products — footwear, accessories, bags, scrubs, watches, stethoscopes — and they have opinions about what actually holds up under pressure. That credibility is exactly what readers are looking for when they type a product question into Google.

The problem for most nurses is that they never think of their day-to-day knowledge as something that could generate income. A quick keyword research session in a tool like Ahrefs changes that picture fast. The nursing niche is large enough to have real search volume and small enough that most of the specific product sub-topics have almost no serious competition ranking for them.

That combination — real demand, low competition, personal expertise — is the setup that affiliate marketers spend months hunting for. Nurses have it by default just by showing up to work every day.

The Keyword Research Session: What Ahrefs Actually Showed

Alston started the session by typing “how to become a nurse” directly into Ahrefs. The keyword difficulty came back at 47 out of 100, which is moderate. That top-level keyword is competitive enough that ranking for it would take significant authority. But the interesting thing about broad keywords like that is what happens when you click into the matching terms.

The matching terms report showed 4,000 keywords in the nursing cluster, with a combined monthly search volume of 85,000. That is a lot of people asking nursing-related questions every single month. The top-level keyword is competitive, but those 4,000 related terms include a wide range of difficulty levels, and many of them are very winnable.

One that stood out immediately was “how long does it take to become a nurse.” This kind of informational question pulls in people who are in the research phase, curious about the career but not yet enrolled. Those readers are also likely to click on product recommendations if they are placed naturally in relevant content — things like study materials, scrub sets, or nursing school prep tools.

How to Find a Competitor Site and Steal Their Keyword Map

After finding the keyword, Alston did something that most beginners skip entirely. He took “how long does it take to become a nurse,” pasted it directly into Google, and started scanning the results for small and medium-sized websites that were ranking — not the big health systems or .edu domains, but small independent sites.

One site caught his eye: norrishtheory.com. He grabbed the domain name and plugged it back into Ahrefs to see how big the site was. The Ahrefs rank came back at around 3 million. In Ahrefs terms, that is not a huge authority site — it is a smaller player that has found its footing in a specific topic area. More importantly, the site had over 28,000 organic keywords it was ranking for.

That is the move. You find a small site that has already done the work of building content in your niche, and you use their keyword profile as a roadmap. Every keyword they rank for is a topic someone searched for. Many of those topics have low difficulty and real volume. Instead of guessing what to write about, you let a proven site show you what already works.

Alston called this finding a winner. A site with 28,000 organic keywords is full of content ideas. You are not copying their content — you are finding the same topics and writing better, more specific versions of them with your own expertise.

Filtering for Keywords Any New Creator Can Actually Rank For

Once Alston had norrishtheory.com’s keyword profile loaded in Ahrefs, he applied one filter: keyword difficulty of five or less. This is the threshold where a brand-new site or channel can realistically rank without needing hundreds of backlinks or years of domain authority. These are the keywords the big sites consider too small to bother with, and that creates the opening.

What came back was a list of specific, product-oriented keywords that nurses are actively searching for. Two that appeared in the video were “white leather shoes for nursing” and “work bags for nursing.” Both of these are low-difficulty, product-specific searches with real commercial intent behind them.

Alston pointed out that one of the keywords in that filtered list had 21,000 monthly searches — at a difficulty of five or less. That is an enormous volume for a keyword that essentially has no serious competition. A well-written article targeting that keyword could pull in significant traffic with very little domain authority required to rank.

The pattern is consistent across nursing-specific product searches. Nurses are a defined professional group with specific purchasing needs, and because most content creators do not have personal experience in the field, the niche is under-served. Low-difficulty keywords with thousands of monthly searches sitting there unclaimed.

Turning Nursing Keywords Into Affiliate Commission

Here is how the money side works. You write a blog post targeting “white leather shoes for nursing.” In that post, you share your actual experience with three or four brands of nursing shoes — why some hurt your feet after hour four, which ones have the grip you need on hospital floors, which ones you can wipe clean in thirty seconds. At the bottom of each recommendation, you drop an affiliate link.

When a reader clicks that link and buys the shoes, you earn a commission. The shoe brands themselves — and the retailers selling them — almost all have affiliate programs. Amazon Associates covers the basics, and most nursing-specific footwear brands have direct affiliate programs as well. Work bags, compression socks, stethoscopes, nursing watches, study guides for licensing exams — every product category Alston found in that keyword list has affiliate programs attached to it.

You do not need to create the products. You do not need to hold inventory. You do not need a storefront. You write honest, helpful content about things you already know, put affiliate links in the appropriate places, and earn a percentage of every sale that comes through your link. That is the whole model.

Not sure which online income model fits your background as a nurse?

Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

The YouTube Side: Small Channels Getting Real Views on Nurse Content

Alston did not stop at blogging. He took the same research approach over to YouTube to show that the opportunity exists on video platforms too. He searched “best nurse watches” and pulled up the top results.

The top result for that search had 841 views. The channel behind it had 29 subscribers. That is a ten-minute video on best watches for nurses in 2020 sitting at the top of YouTube search results with almost no channel authority behind it. A second video — “five best products” in the nursing space — had 4,000 views in just three minutes of runtime.

These numbers prove that the space is not dominated by huge channels with massive subscriber counts. YouTube’s search algorithm rewards relevance and specificity, not just subscriber size. A small channel making focused nursing-product videos can rank above a larger channel that is not targeting those specific search terms.

The monetization works the same way as the blog version: you put affiliate links in the video description and pinned comments. When viewers click and buy, you earn a commission. As the channel grows and hits the YouTube Partner Program threshold, you also start earning from ad revenue on the videos themselves. The content does both jobs at once.

Three Ways to Make Money Once the Content Is Live

Alston laid out three distinct income streams that this strategy opens up. They are not mutually exclusive — most creators doing this well use all three together over time.

Affiliate links are the first and most immediate source of income. You do not need any traffic threshold to start earning from them. The first day your article or video goes live, if someone clicks your link and buys, you earn a commission. The income scales directly with the quality of your content and the volume of traffic you attract.

Running ads on a blog is the second stream. Once your site reaches the traffic levels required for an ad network like Mediavine or Raptive (both pay significantly more than Google AdSense), every visitor to your site generates ad revenue regardless of whether they click any affiliate links. This is passive income that compounds as your content library grows.

YouTube monetization is the third stream. Once you hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, your channel qualifies for the YouTube Partner Program. At that point, the same videos that are already earning affiliate commissions from product links also start earning ad revenue from YouTube directly. The videos keep earning for months and years after you upload them.

The Step-by-Step Process to Get Started

Based on what Alston walked through in the video, here is the actionable sequence from zero to first piece of content:

Step 1: Open a keyword research tool. Ahrefs is what Alston uses. There is a free trial available, and some tools like Ubersuggest offer limited free searches. Type in your career field or specialty and look at the matching terms.

Step 2: Look for product-oriented keywords. Ignore the informational and career-path keywords for now. Focus on anything where a nurse would be buying something: footwear, accessories, equipment, certification prep materials, scrubs, bags.

Step 3: Find a small competitor site ranking for your topic. Paste your keyword into Google and look for small independent sites in the results — not major health publishers, not .edu sites. Grab the domain and run it through your keyword tool.

Step 4: Filter for keyword difficulty five or less. Inside that site’s keyword profile, apply the difficulty filter. What remains is your content roadmap — low-competition topics with real search volume that a new site or channel can actually rank for.

Step 5: Sign up for affiliate programs. Amazon Associates is the easiest starting point. Search “[product category] affiliate program” for more specific options in your niche. Most nursing footwear brands, bag brands, and medical supply companies have affiliate programs.

Step 6: Write or record one piece of content targeting a specific low-difficulty keyword. Start with what you know best. Your firsthand experience is your competitive advantage — use it.

Step 7: Publish, share, and build. Put the content live on your blog or YouTube channel. Share it where nurses gather online. Add one new piece of content per week. The library compounds over time.

Find Your X

The approach Alston demonstrates in this video is not limited to nurses. It works for any professional with specific knowledge that other people are searching for. The key is matching your expertise to the right keywords and the right monetization strategy for your situation.

If you are not sure which online income model fits your background, skills, and schedule, take two minutes at finder.platformproof.com. Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation based on what you already have to offer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to buy Ahrefs to do this keyword research?

Ahrefs is the tool Alston used in this video and it is a paid platform. There are free alternatives like Ubersuggest and Google’s Keyword Planner that offer limited data at no cost. The core process — finding a broad keyword, discovering matching terms, locating a small competitor site, and filtering by difficulty — can be done across multiple free tools if you are not ready to invest in Ahrefs yet.

What affiliate programs actually work for nursing content?

Amazon Associates covers a wide range of nursing products and is the simplest to get approved for as a new creator. Beyond Amazon, you can search for direct affiliate programs from nursing footwear brands, medical bag companies, and scrub manufacturers. Most of these have programs with commission rates in the range of five to fifteen percent per sale.

Can I do this with a YouTube channel instead of a blog?

Yes, and Alston specifically showed YouTube examples in this video. A channel covering nurse watches had 841 views with only 29 subscribers, and a product roundup video had 4,000 views in three minutes of runtime. YouTube works for this strategy because the platform’s search function rewards specific, well-matched content regardless of subscriber count.

How long before I start making money?

Affiliate commissions can technically start on day one — the moment someone clicks your link and buys. In practice, most new blogs take three to six months to start appearing in Google search results consistently. YouTube can move faster if you are targeting low-competition search terms, since the platform shows content in search results more quickly than Google does for new domains.

What if I do not want to show my face on YouTube?

The YouTube examples Alston showed were product review videos, which can be made without any on-camera presence. Voiceover-with-text-on-screen formats work well for product comparisons and “best of” lists. A blog is also a fully faceless option — written content with affiliate links requires no camera at all.

What does a keyword difficulty of five or less actually mean?

In Ahrefs, keyword difficulty is scored from zero to one hundred. A score of five or less means that very few authoritative sites are actively competing to rank for that keyword. A new site with little or no backlink profile can often rank on page one for these terms with a well-written, focused article. It is the opposite end of the spectrum from a keyword like “best nursing schools,” which would require significant domain authority to rank.

Do I need to disclose that I’m using affiliate links?

Yes. The FTC requires affiliate marketers to clearly disclose when they may earn a commission from links in their content. Most affiliate programs also require this as a condition of participation. A simple disclosure at the top of a blog post or in the YouTube description is all that is needed, and it does not meaningfully hurt conversion rates when done straightforwardly.

Is this still worth starting in 2025?

The keyword data Alston pulled in this video showed 85,000 combined monthly searches in the nursing topic cluster and specific product keywords with 21,000 monthly searches at a difficulty of five or less. Those numbers exist because people are still searching. The strategy works as long as people are using Google and YouTube to research purchases before they buy, which shows no sign of stopping.

Sources

Ahrefs keyword research tool — ahrefs.com
YouTube search results for “best nurse watches” referenced in the video
norrishtheory.com — cited in the video as the example competitor site with 28,000+ organic keywords
Amazon Associates affiliate program — affiliate-program.amazon.com
YouTube Partner Program eligibility criteria — support.google.com/youtube