VPNs: The ULTIMATE Million Dollar Affiliate Niche?

hey everyone in today's episode we are

going to be trying something completely

new with the podcast we are going to be

diving deep into a single niche

analyzing the top players looking at

what they do looking at how they do link

building etc it's going to be really

interesting because that is one of the

niches that i've often taken as example

as i you know show examples in seo in

the newsletter on twitter etc and that

is the vpn so we are going to dive deep

in we're going to be talking about how

they're monetizing and we're also going

to be drawing

lessons from what these sites are doing

in this very competitive niche that you

can use on your sites in maybe less

competitive niches and you know even if

you're not in a vpn niche i expect

you'll get a lot of value from this

episode so let us know if you like that

kind of podcast in the comments and if

you do don't forget to like and

subscribe because we might be doing more

of them if you guys are actually

enjoying it but without fluffing it

anymore let's get started with the

episode

[Music]

hey everyone welcome back to the atari

hacker podcast this week we are trying

something a little bit new uh something

we haven't done before so we're looking

forward to hear your feedback on this

whether you like it you don't like it

and what we're going to do is we are

going to be talking about a niche in

particular we have spent some time you

know googling it looking at the keywords

analyzing it looking at the top sites

etc check what they do etc and we just

want to dive deep and kind of like use

their example as you know a more generic

uh

source of ideas for what to do with your

site but before that

mark how's it going

it's going good and i'm just thinking

this must be the only way the only video

on youtube talking about vpns that's not

sponsored by a vpn company

every video i seem to watch these days

is sponsored by surf shark or nord or

one of one of these big vpn companies

yeah yeah it's like it's interesting

that uh

just so you know we didn't say that but

we are going after the vpn niche today

so we're going to talk about the

viennese uh which is an interesting one

if you don't know what vpn is a vpn is

basically a piece of software that you

install on your phone on your laptop

whatever that uh essentially wraps your

internet traffic through some servers so

that you can anonymize your web traffic

so people can't tell what you're doing

um so it's used for example to access

like a lot of people use the an american

ipo bro to access you know netflix

content or amazon prime content that

kind of stuff that is geolocalized uh

you can use it for that you can use it

also to protect yourself on public wi-fi

so that the people administrating the

wi-fi don't see all the websites you're

visiting they just see you connecting to

the vpn

ip basically uh and it does a bunch of

other stuff that's essentially what it

does what else do you use a vpn for

so i think a lot of people use it for so

privacy from their isp so they can't

like spy on them or anything like that

and in some countries where yeah

you know censorship and stuff then it's

it's a bigger deal um but i'm not 100

convinced that the public wi-fi thing is

really that big of a deal i mean

everything's sort of https secured these

days anyway so

um yeah i think that's that's more like

a marketing angle than uh

i mean benefit my personal angle is

nobody gives a about your life

it's like that's very true and it's like

it's like it doesn't matter how crazy

using your life is but it really isn't

for most people uh and so like from that

aspect i wouldn't use it but at least

that's what that's how they promote it

and they're doing very well

they got really popular after the whole

nsa edward snowden thing when was that

like 2012-13

um and that when everyone real i mean

everyone kind of knew that that that

was going on we you're being spied

on all the time but that was that really

like brought it to

the mainstream yeah um yeah i mean i

don't want to open the whole debate

we're not going to talk about politics

here um but i think uh there's a reason

why we picked that niche at this moment

now and is that a bunch of big sites

have sold right uh big really big big

transactions right yeah so there's a

press release uh very recently that a

site called comparatec

sold for didn't give the exact number

but it was between 50 and 100 million

dollars

which is a pretty big amount for uh an

affiliate site uh remember back in the

day when we were talking about the wire

cutter being you know this this massive

sale was only 30 million and then that's

not even the biggest one uh vpn mentor

which i think

uh is probably the biggest vpn affiliate

site out there um at least the biggest

one i could see on ahrefs um and that

sold recently for 150 million uh that's

a nine figure deal which is just crazy

it's like this crazy like you know it's

like it's getting to like

big business numbers like i mean we're

not in the billions yet it's not like

there is it's not the instagram sale or

something like this but uh you know it's

not it's getting closer you know

right

yeah

and what's what's so interesting about

both of these sales is that

they were bought by like conglomerates

of

company or a company which owns a number

of other actual service providers so vpn

companies

and in each case this was i think their

first

foray into sort of vertical integration

buying buying an affiliate site as well

and that's something we've seen in other

niches it's quite popular in the the

sleep space with uh the whole casper

sleepopolis uh story you can you can

read about that in the the new yorker

the the article the war to sell you a

mattress

i think we may be entering this of war

to sell you a vpn quite soon as well

with with all this consolidation but

it's just very interesting space and

clearly a lot of money uh go going

around if uh if they value these these

sites so highly yeah i mean they're

gonna use it basically as their sales

funnel right they're gonna capture

people on these pages then they're

instead of being links it's just gonna

be links to their vpn service or

whatever and then it's just direct sales

and they don't have to pay the

affiliates anymore and um and that's

pretty much the plan right

yeah it's it's it's quite interesting uh

i especially because it's a tricky one

because i've always wondered if the the

vpn niche has picked already because i

feel like for a long time it's been

growing a lot and a lot of people talked

about it and and and it's like they're

doing lots of sponsorship and so on and

but i don't think

i mean i don't see people talk as much

about it and so on especially with like

think about it people were like using

these to watch let's say streaming

services from the u.s abroad from the us

for example like that big use of vpns

actual users are like it's actually

useful for that um but the thing is uh

netflix for example posted a much like a

reduction of subscribers recently and

it's like it looks like even streaming

services are peaking right and so you'd

imagine that an adjacent industry like

vpns

is probably peaking with them

and so it's an interesting time to buy

when you you know the valuation might be

lower in like two or three years or

something i don't know i don't know what

you think about this that could also

just be related to the economy in

general you know if we're heading for a

sort of recession even a short one then

everyone cancels these um you know extra

expenses to cut cut back of it so you've

got a lot of subscription fatigue that

came about during the pandemic as well

and people are going to look for for

what they can they can cut out if

they're cut out their netflix then

obviously it makes sense to cut out the

vpn if that's what they they use it for

as well but

and the other thing as well is travel so

that may work the other way around

because

people haven't been traveling that much

um over the last couple years but you

know the world's starting to open up

again and more and more places are are

sort of opening so maybe vpns will be

be more used for that i mean like who's

going to travel to visit china at the

moment hardly anybody unless you're sort

of working there even if you're walking

there i don't think you're going you

know like

next next year the year after maybe it's

a different story and uh you know things

will things will change and then vpn

suddenly more more needed on that front

there's actually also vpns are becoming

illegal in some countries i think india

just made them illegal um really yeah

yeah yeah i mean uae i think it's

illegal as well um

so yeah but the the uae a lot of stuff's

illegal but it's like it's not really

prosecuted you know when i was

researching that niche uh for the

podcast i saw that like a lot of vpn

companies are now removing their servers

from india following the the new laws

and stuff so i haven't like gone super

super deep into indian news

but it looks like you know these kind of

governance are making illegals so it's

an interesting time to purchase i think

like i'm i'm surprised but i think what

happened is these sites they were

getting paid so much money in affiliate

commissions that it's a net saving for

these for these companies that are

buying them anyway because they were

giving the millions away uh and then

there was no end to it as long as these

sites were ranking whereas now it's like

a one-off transaction and it's probably

like overtime maybe performance-based

type stuff like you know you don't just

get a lump sum of like 150 million

usually when you do these kind of deals

um so it's like it's possible dave

there's a downturn maybe it's gonna be

less and things like that i would say um

anyway let's go and jump into like now

we talked about vpn let's talk about

like vpn sites i feel affiliate niche

how do these sites work right so how do

these sites make money

all of them the

vast majority are making money as

affiliates so they're promoting

vpn companies vpn service providers and

very little else you'll rarely find ads

on any vpn site um they rarely have any

other kind of like sponsorship deals or

anything else it's a very simple

um model actually and there's like a geo

affiliate

there's a lot of vpn companies but you

know there's there's maybe sort of like

five to ten big ones and everyone seems

to to promote those those same few

um and so that actually simplifies your

site a lot and there's a lot of

advantages there if you think of you

know any amazon site you have especially

like a broader site you're promoting

hundreds possibly thousands of products

you have all the links to manage you've

got to worry about stuff being in and

out of stock because it's physical

products you have none of that hassle

with uh with a with a vpn uh affiliate

because you're just promoting the same

one they're never out of stock and

you know if you get enough volume um

then you could probably get some pretty

good um like commission raises or bumps

uh through negotiation as well just

because you know it's very easy to

direct a hundred percent of your number

one rankings on your site to one

specific vpn and sort of change that

around yeah one thing that's interesting

as well is like yeah there's like 10

products probably 10 products you're

promoting across all your pages

but you also have lots and lots and lots

of keywords that you can promote in this

niche for the times 10 same products

it's kind of like a dream as an

affiliate it's like write lots of pages

that can write for that can rank sorry

for lots of uh keywords

and all promoting the same products so

you don't have the problem like them

being out of stock or like you know uh

like they change there's a new model for

the year things like that but if you

think of keywords i mean

what i saw from looking at uh vpn sites

and i look at that initial lot because

because it's such a pure affiliate niche

actually like you know they're like

it's it's the archetype of the affiliate

site when you look at the other vpn

it's a it's a very place a very good

place for me to learn so like you know

when i was writing newsletters and stuff

it's been a great place for me to find

examples to show stuff uh especially

because as we'll talk about later it's

very competitive so these people have to

be cutting edge as well but in terms of

keywords do you think about it how to

sell a vpn well there's people people

are using it to access content from

their country abroad right so one of the

types of keywords that is available is

best vpn for countries so best vpn for

friends the vpn for the uk best vpn for

ireland best vpn for the us vpn for

korea et cetera so there's as many

keywords as there are countries and

actually even i'm sure that i haven't

looked but i'm sure there's like

regional keywords as well like people

like you know best vpn for europe svpn

for south america best vpn these are not

countries but like all geographies you

could think about right um so that's

already like hundreds of keywords just

for that one category but also people

are using these vpns to

access content online right to access

content that should not that is joke

geolocally uh targeted so you cannot

access where you are

and so people target keywords also like

how to watch

uh and then name of content online or

name of network online so how to watch

amazon prime outside the us so how to

watch uh orange is the new black outside

the us like name of tv show name of

whatever and again like as many types of

contents as there are there are there's

a new keyword that has its own intent

and everything so you here's a few

hundred more pages for your site now

there is 10 very popular 10 ish very

popular vpn services as well and people

google the vs keywords at a very high

volume as well thousands for the top

ones like you know not vpn versus

expressvpn is thousands of visits per

month for thousands of searches per

month and eight trips which is quite a

lot for vs keyword uh so again with all

the permutations that you can think of

and you can probably go down the top 50

services and get some volume

that's a lot of traffic and lots of

pages that they can write about selling

the exact same services and if they're

popular there's also alternatives right

so people are looking for like you know

node vpn alternative soft shark

alternatives

pia alternatives et cetera like lots of

them yeah there's a there's this like

constant battle that uh the some of

these sites some some of these vpn

companies have with streaming services

like netflix and amazon prime where the

streaming services has to have to be

seen to be

sort of trying to combat the vpn um for

whatever to satisfy the thing

yeah exactly yeah i'm not sure how much

they really care

but

they at least have to make an effort to

to fight fight back against them um and

so that the copyright holders are you

know happy everyone's getting their

royalties in the correct country and

stuff um but as a result if it doesn't

if it's not working on one vpn then

people quickly look for an alternative

that does work and then you know not

only that

like they're looking for alternative

right they might be looking for like pia

alternative for example but

uh they're also looking for solution to

their problems right so it's like they

will be googling like netflix is not

working with self shock or like netflix

not working with whatever or like and

then it's like amazon prime not working

with vpn so it's like service not

working with and then uh name of vpn for

example again hundreds of kilos

permutations here with traffic that is

potentially buying uh quite easily then

one thing i didn't mention as well is

you can install these vpns on like you

know your phone your laptop your tablet

everything all of them have different

models and they have different uh

operating systems and again like you

know best vpns for mac with vpns for

windows but vpn for chromebook there's

vpn for android buzzypin like there's

like

dozens and dozens more keywords there

and then there's so much more like so

it's like

it's kind of the dream

uh affiliate niche because as i said few

products

lots of keywords to say to sell the same

products and so that that's why

people can do a vpn site with thousands

of pages eventually

all selling the same products all very

with very high buyer intent for all

these keywords

and so it's quite it's it's really quite

the perfect storm of a niche i would say

you know it's quite it's quite

interesting how there's so many

permutations like people are looking for

a very specific like best vpn

in

la rochelle france to watch netflix but

it's not working with but uh you know

they're looking for a very specific

thing

but i i don't know like i've used vpn

software for a number of years now and

they're kind of like all the same really

they're all the same there's nothing i'm

pretty sure they cost through the same

servers too actually

they're not really

one is not really that much better than

the other especially for a very specific

use case um i was reading this book

alchemy by by rory sutherland and he

said that there are there are drug

companies who they'll make like

headache or pain medicine for your lower

back but it's still just basic

paracetamol they just put it's a

labeling and marketing so it's kind of

like similar dynamic here people like

a more specialized solution even if

it's all the same underlying solution at

the end of the end of the day i think

that's what's what's happening there

yeah but but you can see if you go in

ahrefs and you check for this keyword

like just type best vpn in any queue

tool and look at all the long term

variations

uh and and you will understand like how

much demand there is for all these

different things and and the thing as

well is like it's not just that but

people might also be googling like how

to

watch netflix in france for example or

they're not saying vpn in their query

but they're looking for a vpn you know

and a lot of these like use cases

there's so many because it's applying to

so many platforms and so many things

like that so really thousands and

thousands of keywords that you can find

for this niche are all selling the same

products and that means that it's quite

interesting because that means you can

do volume for given products so it's

like the hard thing as an affiliate it's

it's like if you go off amazon forget

amazon

is to sell a high volume

of the same product because then you can

negotiate commission higher commissions

and you can essentially get more money

for the same amount of work uh and so

when you do traditional seo

it's it's quite tricky right let's say

you're selling uh i don't know selling

paintball guns of course uh

it's more difficult because um if you

are like going for like best

short range paintball gun versus best

sniper paintball gun you're gonna sell

two different products right um they

might be from the same brand so might be

able to get a deal but they might also

be from different brands whereas if you

do base vpn for mac and base vpn for

windows it's the same product usually

like it's just like it's just a

different client and it's all the same

and so you're able to achieve volume

you're able to negotiate higher

commissions and again it kind of like

adds up to that perfect storm of uh

being an affiliate for that niche

basically i don't know what you think

but yeah

i think that also makes it incredibly

competitive yeah though that's the one

thing we didn't say it

because that that's i guess the biggest

downside because all of those perfect

storm factors are in alignment a lot of

people have tried to make sites and a

lot of people have succeeded to the sort

of nine figure level at least so

you know it's it's difficult for a new

site or it looks like a very difficult

niche for a new site

to get into

you know even if you google some of the

top top level keywords the vpn sites uh

the ones we're talking about that sold

are not ranking it's all sort of pc mag

and

big international publications have

created vpn sections because

it's just so so lucrative and they're

there's you know we're talking like dr

98 being the average on page one for

some of these keywords

uh so yeah it's quite quite an

intimidating place to get started in i

think it's one of these niches that i've

used as a benchmark to evaluate how big

publications are like taking over

affiliate queries for example obviously

it's probably one of the most extreme

ones and if you go to like more niche

stuff it's going to be not extreme but

like it's the perfect case study like

you would google these keywords like

three four years ago you'd find these

vpn sites that sold like you'd find like

comparitec you'd find like uh oh you

know vpn mentor and so on and now that

they're like not on page one they did

yeah like 80 plus you know they're not

like tiny sites or something they've

done like hard calling building and so

on like again these are the kind of

sites that i look at to learn seo and so

on uh and still

they they couldn't fight that tidal wave

of like the real big publishers like the

you know the pc max and the cnets and

everything um and it's quite interesting

to see

what's been happening here because it's

it tells you like

what now what two three years of uh core

updates have done to some subs um i it's

it's really replaced like the niche

sites with like just big publications

you know i the other day i can't

remember i think the keyword was best

stake service like stick to eat you know

um forbes was ranking another one

and i was like i'm sorry i'm sorry well

i'm not exactly looking for forbes where

i'm looking for that um and it's like

yeah i think it's a

it's one it's really a good example of

this competitiveness um

where like niche sites are not

necessarily welcome anymore for the

biggest queries i mean if you check like

i think vpn mentor still gets millions

of visits per month right it's not

exactly like they're like they've been

destroyed by updates but yeah there's so

many other keywords exactly and lower

mid-level ones that it's it's still

massively massively profitable obviously

for them

yeah so it's like i'm not saying that

this is like oh you can never do it

doing gloom etc i'm just saying that for

the biggest queries of the niche

google has said pretty much like we

don't want these specialized sites

anymore we just want these big

publications and it's kind of like an

illustration of google's fav google

favoring big dr sites i would say uh in

this case

yeah um

although like in terms of content as

well like one one other thing i

wanted to talk about is how easy it is

to actually create content in the in the

space compared to other affiliate niches

because we're talking about a software

product here so getting hold of that i

mean you can pay whatever 5 10 bucks

these these things cost

and use it test it take the screenshots

run whatever you need to to run and

you've you've essentially got like a

product in hand type review

um versus you know if you're reviewing

lawn mowers or garden chairs or

something you're you're spending

thousands of dollars to buy all these

and

um you know take photos in your garden

of of their performance and and that so

it's

the barrier to entry for

creating content i think is is

relatively low

um also just looking on sites like

problogger um there are

i mean when we've run job ads in the

past for

specialist writers in like internet

marketing say you know you end up paying

quite a bit more than you would on it

for like an average tech writer or

whatever i don't know how much they

would cost these days but i would say

maybe about like six seven cents for

like a tech writer per per word

would be realistic do you think that's a

fair estimation yeah i mean it depends

on the level i would say like an average

one like

yeah not world class not not terrible

you know so you're you're not in a

situation where you have you know super

expensive writers like you might do in

some kind of like medical field or if

you need to hire vets or something like

that

um it's just it's it's fairly fairly

sort of like cookie cutter stuff too

there's a lot of yes

that also means it's really difficult to

stand out though because

these

companies who have been doing this a

long time and who are just like

they just have it down perfectly like

the affiliate side of thing with the the

um

review the review boxes at the top the

individual um reviews of each each

product on like the roundup roundup page

the screenshots like all that it's just

it's well done and i don't see too much

room to come in and like

improve on that because it's already

kind of

about as good as it can realistically

get there are many niches out there you

look at and think yeah the content's

kind of average i could come in and do

something you know quite a bit better

and gain a competitive advantage there

with vpns like how are you going to gain

a competitive advantage in content

very very difficult so then you're

looking at well can i do better link

building

and the answer is probably not because

again

sites like vpn mentor

they're just insane the way they do link

building we talk we talked about them a

little bit in the podcast before when

we're talking about uh creative link

building examples i think we'll maybe

link to that over here for those of you

on youtube

but they have

what appears to be a team of people team

of security researchers

who just go around and try and find

security

breaches or you know data dumps of

passwords

and they they try and break the news so

they're kind of like ethical hackers i

guess but they break the news to

the world that hey that such-and-such

company got hacked and they're trying to

cover up or whatever i think they tell

the companies before they publish

um like that's how you do ethical

hacking you tell them and then you get

the right to publish about it when they

have fixed it

and when they do this the results are

just some of the best links i've i've

ever seen on on such a campaign so they

they had uh

this like biostar 2 leak uh it's the

standards of practice for for that kind

of thing and they got 363 links from it

and the top ones are from the guardian

bbc harvard.edu cnet the verge mashable

zdnet fox news pc mac like just all

aaa

sites you know just the best of the best

sites on on the internet and they have

hundreds of pages like this with links

do follow links from

all these kinds of sites and so

you know for a new site to go and

compete against that

it's a

pretty tough ask i would say yeah you

need to be good like you need to be like

it's like i think the top two percent of

the industry can consider it

um the rest i wouldn't it's really

difficult like this is like pr level

it's not just like they're not like

sending an outreach email

to the ppc

you know like they have uh people on the

inside they pay pr agencies that know

people and then they create their

content and then the pr they pass the

comment to the pr agency that then uses

the in their contact but like you know

it's not just one agency they hire they

probably hire like four five six seven

agencies always different networks that

can then all promote the same content

and to get to that result like it's a

it's a big operation

um

and i'm just orchestrating that even

doing it once is

uh is extremely difficult but what's

impressive if you go on vip in montauk

it's like all the time they've done it i

think it's like they found the this new

space so much

that they found

the best way to monetize ethical hacking

like it you know what i mean it's like

the best way to do it for free basically

it's to just do that and then just get

paid with the links and it's it it was

worth it for a long time given the fact

that these guys have sold 450 million

you know

and they were i'm pretty sure they were

profitable while they were running that

even forgetting about the exit of the

site or something so yeah very very

impressive but if you want

live examples go check vpn mentor go

check that page that mark mentioned all

like just throw them in a traps and look

at top pages by links

you learn a lot like it's one of the

best places to learn like you like if

you like examples when i do content

that's that's the kind of places where i

go

the other site which got acquired which

we talked we were talking about earlier

comparatic they

uh look to have i'm not sure if they

acquired it or what the the deal was but

there was a couple of sites blocked in

china.net and great firewall of

china.org that if you look in ahrefs uh

are redirected to a subpage where it is

basically a tool that allows you to go

and check if a website's blocked in

china or not and i guess a lot of people

want to do that a lot of people find it

useful and most importantly a lot of

people link to those sites

um so they've they've somehow acquired

these these existing tools and then just

swooped up all their links as well um

through through redirects so that's

seems to have given them quite quite a

boost as well

um and that's the kind of thing you have

to do you know spend

i don't know how much money but like i

spend a lot of money to to acquire

uh tools that have links and and and you

know grow and grow in the space so it's

like a it's a lesson as well for any

other niche if you want to

um

sort of shortcut your way to higher dr

and towards the top of the niche then

look at what tools exist out there what

free tools exist out there that maybe

are not monetized and are there any that

you can acquire and just buy them for

the links basically yeah it's it's crazy

actually it's uh it's it's case studies

for link building as well uh i was

actually checking um

comparitech as well and i found

uh they did the same they actually they

also made like some very it's funny

because this size in vpn is quite

because it's about you know protecting

your privacy et cetera they took that

very strong

uh freedom angle but then it went

towards this patriotic stuff in the u.s

etc and so like um you know they made

like lists of lists of stuff like the

world's most surveilled cities in the

world um

and that kind of that content got 1 200

linking root domains for example um

it's quite interesting but not but you

know you know the bait for that and it's

quite interesting because that's

reusable in many niches

um debate for that when you do

these uh when you list cities is that

you do get the opportunity to then

promote that list to all the local

newspapers of these cities or countries

or whatever and you do get the

opportunity to get lots of links because

it's like oh like in our case like

hungary is quoted as like the most

corrupt state in eu or something right

and then it's like all the local

newspapers will run that story um and uh

and it's a really big opportunity and i

believe that's why that piece worked but

it can be done

in many niches right it's like think

about how you could

uh rank

you know cities or areas of your country

or whatever in a lease post

um

associated to your niche so it's like

again if you're doing paintball it's

like are the cities with the best

paintball fields in in the world or

something and it's like you code them

and then you send that to local

newspaper and just a source of pride you

just ego trip them uh on the on the fact

that they're like are the best city for

this thing and they will run you and

you'll get a like these new local

newspapers they are like 62 80 usually

or something and it's quite worth it

actually and it doesn't even need to be

super high level content uh there was

that one example of slosia the swedish

casino website that made a list of the

best cities to party around the world

and you know the price of a beer and the

how many night clubs per square meter

there were or whatever um it was it was

a very sort of simplistic thing that

they had built but it got picked up by

like all sorts of local newspapers from

like russia to israel all over europe

and they just they featured it because

it's like a fun thing to to talk about

and they they need content i guess to

to to make their newspapers work yeah i

think it's that angle

most people can use that and and if you

want something that if you need like new

targets following building you've kind

of like run through like you're the

global sites in your niche and so on

that is a good way to get some good

links and that's a campaign that's

doable because you're reaching out to

um more local newspapers and

publications so they're like less so

this like they have less on their

editorial than uh the bigger ones like

the bbc or like the big ones have you

know like you can't do that uh so i

i would say that's that's a cool one

that you can take away and that's that's

one of the places where i learned this

one for example you know um so again and

just to just kind of like complete the

link building section i had a quick look

because i i have all the harrow emails

for like the last however many years in

a folder in my inbox and i just searched

through it

and last year there were 20 mentions of

vpn in the question so i wouldn't really

be relying so much on on harrow to as my

as my link building strategy in the in

the vpn niche um especially considering

the numbers that these other sites are

putting out for

for all their their content as well

yeah uh i think

yeah i think it's a good place to one

thing that's interesting though is like

we've established at this point that

it's extremely competitive in the steps

like ranking on this position google

um i i don't want to i don't want to

attack anyone but i think for most

people us included it would be very

difficult to build a big site in this

niche but

i was curious to see how people do on

youtube for this niche because

um people search for stuff on youtube

and people buy stuff through affiliate

links on youtube like it's that's pretty

good actually and so i was like okay has

this been taken over yet by all the big

guys and i googled i google i searched

on youtube i did not google um for the

most the biggest keywords that you would

type on google like best vpn or base vpn

for mac or bzp for windows stuff like

that

and all i found was usually medium-sized

channels like people with like 100k subs

or something which sounds like a lot but

it's not that it's quite achievable for

most people to get to that level um and

uh and and none of these big

conglomerate sites now uh was showing up

and it feels like the market's still

wide open there and there's still money

to be made there so it's quite

interesting to see

i think we are at a point now where some

niches are hardly touchable

on the google side but on the

social slash youtube site etc is still

quite wide open and i think a lot of

affiliates should like it's

because these niches seem to pay so much

uh it it could be if you were looking to

like do affiliate marketing but not

necessarily go on google but rather go

on youtube or one of these platforms

that would be probably like one of the

issues that i would pick because because

you'll make less right it's like there's

still less people searching for these

things on these platforms uh et cetera

so if you pick a small niche on youtube

it's gonna be hard to leave from

affiliate marketing um but if you pick a

niche like you know uh like these vpns

yeah i think it's actually quite viable

because the the revenue is quite high

you can still make all these videos for

like best vpn for mac basically for

windows etc and pick up a decent amount

of views through all the long tail

and you could make some decent money so

i think it's like

it's something that was necessary maybe

not on the table a few years ago but now

is the growth of social youtube etc and

the fact that google is becoming quite

difficult in some other aspects um maybe

you start you start on youtube for this

and then eventually maybe you grow a

site or something i think with tutorials

etc you can still make it you need to

just

go around the difficulty maybe

um but yeah i was just looking at a few

of the the commission structures on on

some of the more popular companies they

have listed on their sites and uh quite

a few of them actually have recurring

sub uh commissions to to affiliate so as

long as someone stays subscribed you get

paid of 30 every month in one case

uh so you know that can really stack up

quite quickly and people often keep vpns

for quite a long long period of time

they buy one year as well it's so much

cheaper for one yeah so usually it's

like if if you if you get people to

renew that one time after one year then

you're golden i think uh if people keep

it for two years they're likely to keep

it for a while um so yeah overall it's a

it was quite interesting to check on the

social side like i would not necessarily

recommend you go i mean i haven't

checked tick tock or something at least

for this um but on youtube it seems it

seems valuable actually um

i want to talk i want kind of like to

finish this podcast and talk about

like this consolidation effect the fact

that like it seems like

this kind of niches not just this one

right there's there's more niches like

that like this this sleeping niche and

basically the

biggest

broadest medicines that make the most

money on the market seem to be

consolidating

it's not really like small site owners

anymore running the top size but rather

a big conglomerates big size to be frank

there's much more money in these issues

than there was also like four or five

years ago right it's like

we would never have heard of a site

selling for 150 million which you know

is a testament to the revenue of the

site

a couple years ago like we wouldn't it

would just for pure phase no way so

do you feel like

it's something that's gonna expand to

more niches or do you think it's gonna

stay on the top niches these kind of top

niches only

so i i think

i think it'll stay in the top niches but

i think there's probably quite a few

more

big niches that this can happen we've

already seen this with hosting with

sleep with vpn um i don't know about

like casinos and i presume cbd and these

ones are kind of similar as well

um but you know business and um

these kind of deals tend to go where the

money is um so you look at the any niche

that is highly profitable it makes a lot

of money that pays very big commissions

and and you'll probably find more of

this

going on

um especially as

i imagine we're likely to see kind of

slightly lower valuations of sites over

the next couple years as

as a recession type high interest rates

i think as well

yeah exactly um the cheap money is uh is

no more

uh so

that may become a factor whether that

becomes a problem for

the small guy i don't know specifically

i think big companies still tend to go

for like the big keywords and they still

leave the the easier smaller ones open

for for the little guy to come in so i

think that's always going to be

um like a realistic possibility even in

competitive niches

like this one thing that it could cause

problems with though is if you have a

supplier like a vpn company which owns

let's say like multiple big affiliate

sites then

maybe they can start like cutting their

commission rates to like the smaller

affiliates because they already

hover up you know most of the the the

traffic from the big ones i i mean the

two deals that um we we read about they

only seem to have um one or i think one

actual affiliate site that they've

acquired all the other sites are other

vpn companies or kind of related uh

privacy companies

um which are actually supplying this so

i'm not not really sure if that's the

testing the water or if that's a trend

that's going to continue but we

need to uh keep an eye on it

yeah it's it's an interesting one i also

think as i said there's just much more

money on the internet post pandemic i

would say um and it's one of these

things where it's like

you can probably afford to go for like

there's more smaller niches that are

viable as well now because of that um

and so like it's kind of like

everything's moving down one level right

it's like the big business is kind of

like taking these top niches then the

smaller guys can kind of like take all

the other small initiatives that maybe

were not viable a couple of years ago

but now became viable as well so there's

pros and cons to everything it's

something to consider i think like i

wanted to ask you would you start a site

in this niche how would you feel about

that

uh

i mean i i'm quite intimidated by just

how much authority like these big sites

have and the fact that even they don't

rank for like some on page one for like

the the top level keywords so

probably not just due to the extreme

competition but

that being said uh if i was you know

starting from scratch day one

it may make sense because there's

probably enough like

low competition keywords that quite

quickly you could start making sort of

like job replacement income um

from it if you go super niche with your

your keywords and don't go for anything

competitive

yeah fair enough i think it's uh i mean

if i had to start a site

i think it could make it work it would

be difficult um let's be honest it would

be quite difficult but uh we could

eventually find a way around would i

deliberately go after this no i think

there's like you know i'm just looking

at like how much i thought i'm putting

and how much i'm getting in return and

it's kind of like you could get a lot if

you make it do well like you could

really get a lot but

it's a it's a high gamble you know so

it's a big gamble whereas there's things

that are more and it's like i'd

rather maybe trade like the ceiling to

be a bit lower in exchange for something

that's more likely to succeed you know

um and again it depends on everyone's

risk tolerance and like how high they

they want to go they aspire to

themselves etc i personally prefer like

average staff that's very lucky to

succeed um and just do it several times

than just going for the absolute most

competitive niches but some people are

like that like some people in h4 are

like that too they go after the big

stuff and they make it work um i know

people in this niche

to this day that are doing uh okay more

than okay even uh right now so it's it's

definitely possible it's still possible

as a small publisher but it's difficult

um anything else you understand a vpn

niche

no just

if you guys like this kind of format

where we take one nation do more of a

deep dive um into it like let us know in

the in the youtube comments and we we

may look at some other niches if you

have any ideas or suggestions for niches

which we should look into let us know

there as well yeah uh you can tell me on

twitter as well i'm more active there so

you can go on my personal account at

gail breton pretty easy

uh we'll see who can spell it and who

can't that way because a lot of people

struggle with that uh g-a-l-b-i-e-t-o-n

um so yeah tell me that tell us also on

the youtube comments like subscribe if

you enjoyed it and we'll see you in two

weeks final episode

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