My name is Spencer Mecham and I’m a full-time affiliate marketer. If you aren’t familiar with what that even is, a simple Google search will reveal that I promote business’s products online, and then I get paid when someone actually buys.

Unfortunately when I tell someone I’m an affiliate marketer they either don’t know what it is, or they have an extremely negative opinion of what affiliate marketing is. And they aren’t totally wrong either. It is an unfortunate fact that many affiliate marketers care about nothing more than making a few bucks, and they drag the entire industry down in order to do so.

I hope to explain how I use affiliate marketing to not only make incredible profits online, but also add genuine value to the world and feel good when I wake up in the morning.

So without further ado, let’s talk about my $35,000 YouTube video and figure out what we can learn from it.

The Story

The video was one of the first 10 videos on this particular YouTube channel. The channel was on building true financial wealth and I was making some videos on investing in stocks. I was simply showing people how to create IRAs and other brokerage accounts, and then when they would sign up to the broker I recommended I would get a commission.

That’s when Bitcoin started to hit the news. And if you were alive in 2017 and were connected at all to the outside world you probably heard of Bitcoin.

Luckily I saw the trend ahead of most and knew people would be interested in Bitcoin. So I spent a few hours learning the easiest way to buy Bitcoin. It was easy to do, and I simply used Coinbase, the most common Bitcoin wallet service.  It was easy to do and most sites online described Coinbase as the safest place for a beginner to get started.

Next I signed up for their referral program where they paid $10 for every person that you referred to Coinbase.

Finally I just made a video explaining to others how to do what I had just done. It wasn’t long, it wasn’t complicated, and it came right after I had learned so I was still in a place where I could relate to people brand new to it all.

In the video I explained that you need a Bitcoin wallet, and the wallet that I would be using in my example was Coinbase. Then I told them there was a link down below that they could use for Coinbase. Yes, that was my affiliate link.

Three months later Bitcoin went bonkers in the news. In the image down below you will see the price of Bitcoin skyrocketing around November of 2017 in response to the news coverage. Lucky for me, my video was launched well before the explosion and had already worked its way up to the top three videos.

With literally tens of thousands of people searching YouTube each day for how to buy Bitcoin, my video quickly got noticed for its simplicity and ranked first for the next five months.

By February of 2018 I’d brought in over $35,000 in simple $10 increments (paid in Bitcoin then exchanged).

Now this wasn’t just happenstance. I obviously had experience in affiliate marketing and was ready for the opportunity when it presented itself. Let’s talk about those steps.

Step 1 – Trends

By the time most people were realizing Bitcoin was going to explode it was too late to try to produce and rank content. I did well because I was ahead of the trend and was ready, with digital assets in place when the explosion happened.

I stay extremely up-to-date on industry trends. The way I do this is through Facebook groups, Google Trends, and Google News. I have hand-crafted my Google Newsfeed to give me articles that are relevant to the businesses I affiliate with.

I also get onto Google Trends, an easy to use site that tells you how trendy a current topic is compared to previous years and also related topics. For my case study I typed in things like finance and investing and continued to see Bitcoin come up as a related topic, indicating a rising trend.

Lastly I use Facebook groups that are in my niche. I stay active and watch what people are talking about. I heard about Bitcoin in 2012, before virtually anyone else because I was active in investment Facebook groups.

No, I did not buy in 2012. But I was still able to be ahead of the game enough when it came to affiliate marketing.

Step 2 – Content

YouTube’s algorithm is built around boosting quality content. I’m not necessarily talking about a massive production with high-quality cameras and thousand-dollar mics. I’m talking about delivering what the video purports to deliver on.

My video was short, straight to the point, and built for a beginner. A vast majority of people that watched it gave it a thumbs up and left a comment thanking me for making it simple. This served to boost it higher in the algorithm, thus getting more comments, and continuing the growth.

Too often do I see YouTuber’s spend the first minute talking about themselves, or their product, or just kind of yammering. People won’t stay for that, especially when they are searching with a problem.

Focus on helping people as quickly and efficiently as possible and they will appreciate it and good things will happen.

I talk about this a lot in my guide on getting started in affiliate marketing. Long-term success in affiliate marketing is always going to be about the value you provide.

Step 3 – SEO

I don’t consider myself a YouTube SEO whiz by any means. This was even more true back in 2017. Let’s just say I did everything in my power to show YouTube exactly what the video was about.  User engagement can help YouTube decide to move your video up in rankings, but only if you are extremely clear and YouTube knows exactly who to serve your video to.

This means you need to do a little research and figure out exactly how people are searching for the answer to their problems. In the case of my video the main keyword I wanted was “how to buy Bitcoin”.  I also went for smaller keywords like “how to buy Bitcoin for beginners” and “how to buy Bitcoin with Coinbase” to help it get some traction in the beginning.

Lastly I did some basic off-page SEO with blogs, guest posting, social sharing, etc. As I said – I was no expert, I simply did some research and applied.

About the Author: Spencer Mechan is a full-time affiliate marketer and Clickfunnels Top Affiliate. He teaches people how to leave their 9-5 corporate job through funnels and affiliate marketing over at his blog Buildapreneur.