How I Make Up to $5,000 Each Month By Keyword Farming
A data-directed method for writing money content
I make up to $5,000 (or more) per month by writing articles with a process I call Keyword Farming.
Recently, I wrote about how I make money writing boring articles, simple yes or no articles, and using Trojan Horse SEO. Keyword Farming is a new approach that allows me to maximize each of these other methods.
With Keyword Farming, you:
- Reduce your risk of writing about topics that flop and make little money
- Increase the odds of writing about topics that drive high search volume, high display ad revenue, and high affiliate marketing commissions
In this article, I’m going to explain Keyword Farming, how I do it, and how you can do it, too.
What Is Keyword Farming?
Keyword Farming is a new data-driven writing process.
In Keyword Farming, you plant keyword seeds, study analytics to see which keywords have growth potential, and then create content around those keywords.
I will write a single piece of content based on a single low-competition keyword.
In that article, I will include 2–10 other low-competition keywords as subheadings and subsections. Then, over the next 6–12 months, I watch my “keyword farm” to see which keywords show growth potential.
Once I identify growth potential, I will write a complete piece of content around each one of those keywords.
When I say “growth potential,” I’m talking about the potential for these keywords to bring in hundreds or thousands of monthly page views per month. That alone will boost display ad revenue (if I have ads on my website) and affiliate marketing commissions.
Then, I rinse and repeat this process: plant keywords, identify which ones can grow, and create new content.
How Does Keyword Farming Work?
Keyword Farming is finding a high volume of keywords using Google autocomplete, Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Google Trends, looking for low-hanging fruit (keywords that are easily, quickly profitable), and then creating articles around those keyword topics to maximize revenue potential.
I plant the seeds with published articles, watch them grow, and then write new content on the keywords with the most potential.
It starts with finding a batch of keywords to “plant” in a published article.
Keyword Planner
I use Keyword Planner to find articles that have a high search volume and low competition. Keyword Planner is a gold mine of useful data, but it can sometimes be difficult to find some of the best keywords. Keyword Planner keywords can be broad and competitive rather than long-tail keywords that bring in easy money with lower competition.
Google Autocomplete
Once Keyword Planner spits out a list of keywords, I will go to Google and type in some keywords from my Keyword Planner keyword list.
I’ll place modifiers like “will, was, is, and can” in front of the “seed” keyword to see what Google auto-suggests.
Then I will check the competition for those suggestions. If the competition is low or nonexistent, I log that keyword into an excel spreadsheet. The excel spreadsheet is my content planner for the month.
Ahrefs
I also use a paid tool called ahrefs to find high volume, low competition keywords. This is an expensive tool, so I only suggest that you use it if you can afford it.
Personally, I find lots of good keyword opportunities with ahrefs.
Once I find keywords, I plant them by including them as subheadings or subsections in published content on my websites.
This is the “seed” stage of Keyword Farming. The next steps are keyword watering/waiting, and keyword harvesting.
Keyword Watering & Harvesting
Next, I study Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and data from my ad network (Such as Ezoic).
From those platforms, I find:
- Search terms people use to find my content
- Keywords that I rank for in Google
- Keywords with growth potential
Again, when I say “growth potential,” I’m talking about keywords that I don’t rank #1 for (but maybe on the first or second page of Google). These are also keywords that don’t have a lot of competition.
Finally, these are keywords that I have not yet written a complete article to answer.
The analytics will tell me all of this valuable information. I gather the data, study the data, identify the opportunities, and then write content focused on those “growth potential” keywords.
After those new keywords start to rank (it can take 6–12 months for newer sites), then I see how the keywords perform.
For me, high-performing articles get 1,000+ page views per month and make $100+ or more each month. As I have implemented Keyword Farming over the last year, the number of high-performing articles across my websites has significantly increased.
So, I’m sold on this strategic approach.
How I Make Up to $5,000 Each Month With Keyword Farming (Example)
I want to give you a concrete example so that the entire process is as clear as possible.
Let’s say that you run a site about pets. After digging into keyword research and competitor analysis, you build a list of high-volume, low-competition keywords. Your main keyword is, “Can These 10 Wild Animals Be Pets?”
Your keyword seeds will be:
- Can foxes be pets?
- Can squirrels be pets?
- Can owls be pets?
- Can raccoons be pets?
- Can wolves be pets?
- Can axolotls be pets?
- Can armadillos be pets?
- Can alpacas be pets?
- Can alligators be pets?
- Can African wild dogs be pets?
In this case, you’ll use each one of these keyword “seeds” as a subheading in your overall article about “Can These 10 Wild Animals Be Pets?”
So, you write a 1,500 to 2,500-word article that covers the main topic and includes all the keyword seeds. You publish that article on your pet-related, self-hosted website.
Then you wait.
As you wait, you watch the analytics. You notice that you rank #7 for “Can Wolves Be Pets?” and #12 for “Can Alpacas Be Pets?” You check the competition for those search terms.
Thankfully, you see that the competition is very low.
You believe that you can easily beat the existing competition with a better, more comprehensive article focused on “Can Wolves Be Pets?” and “Can Alpacas Be Pets?”
Therefore, you write a 1,500 to 2,000-word article about “Can Wolves Be Pets?” You publish this article, wait until it shows up in search, and see that you now rank #1 for this keyword term.
Looking at your analytics, you see that this search term brings in 900 page views per month and makes you $80 per month in display ad revenue. The only thing left to do is to crack open a bottle of wine and enjoy your success.
The Surprising $$ Insights of Keyword Farming
My favorite part of Keyword Farming is the surprising keywords I find.
When I look at my data, I regularly identify keywords that I would never have thought of before — and these are terms that people are actually searching for online.
I’ve discovered entire new threads of profitable, untapped content.
You can also use Keyword Farming to discover “hidden” profitable niches. It’s really all in the data.
From Keyword Farming, you’ll likely discover:
- What content does best on your website
- What content makes you the most money
- What content doesn’t perform well on your website
This information is priceless. Once you know the content that performs the best (in terms of ad revenue and affiliate commissions), you can double down on that line of content.
Think about it: if you discover that writing about “alpacas” sends you thousands of page views per month, then you can write another 100 articles about alpacas. If your article about wolves as pets makes you $80 per month, imagine if you wrote 200–500 more articles about wolves as pets.
If 10% of 500 articles (50 articles) make you $80 per month, you’re suddenly making $4,000 per month.
If that doesn’t get you excited, I don’t know what will.
How To Start Keyword Farming
Here are the four steps to Keyword Farming:
- Keyword Research — Use Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, Google Autocomplete, and tools like Ahrefs, to create a list of high-volume keywords with low competition.
- Keyword Seeding — Use those keywords as subheadings or subsections in your published content on your websites.
- Keyword Watering — Wait and watch for analytics-informed growth. Study Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and the data from your display ad network.
- Keyword Harvesting — Identify keywords with growth potential, then create new content focused on those keywords.
Final Thoughts
Just like real-world farming, you can keep the cycle going.
As you publish new content (Step #4 above), you can include additional keywords as subheadings and subsections in your new article. In this way, you continue to plant more and more profitable content seeds.
Before you know it, you’ll own a farm overflowing with monthly income streams.
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