Even the OG of Organic SEO, the Hubspot blog lost -85% of its SEO traffic:

And I know how it feels myself as well…

One of my portfolio website that used to rely on Google Search traffic

But hey, I found a way out. That’s what this article is all about. 

You can follow Google’s SEO guidelines, building businesses on “free” clicks – while paying tens of thousands on backlinks – and hoping the next update wouldn’t wipe everything out. But with AI eating organic traffic, the “free” lunch is officially over. 

The only way forward is to stop fighting Google and start fighting with them. By leveraging their €264 billion ad engine.

Aligning with Google’s incentives

It’s a tough pill to swallow, but Google doesn’t owe anything to publishers. They’re not in the game of sending traffic to websites, they’re a big tech corporation maximizing shareholder value and looking for profits. 

‘Put your money where your mouth is’ is not the path to take. ‘Put your money where their money is’ however, I very much agree with. And where else to look than their €264 billion/year advertising business: Google Ads.

Something that SEOs would always love to do in the past is shitting on ‘how much better’ SEO is than Ads. This has been said so many times, that nobody doubts it anymore, just like nobody doubted the doctors when they said cigarettes were healthy. 

Search used to be about patience, compounding, and waiting for rankings. Now it’s about volatility, lost traffic, and exits at half the multiples. AI has eaten the top of the funnel. Even Hubspot is now focusing mainly on ‘Bottom of Funnel SEO’, which is basically the same keywords you’re targeting with Google Ads.

If SEO is really no longer our golden goose, then what is our SEO reality in 2025?

SEO got a lot less lucrative – and you know it

Here’s what our current reality is:

LLMs & AI Overviews are eating your top of funnel visitors for breakfast

First, it was featured snippets, now AI overviews and LLMs (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) are answering top of funnel queries for users directly. AI overviews decrease the CTR of the top result between 30-40%. 

Still leaning on Hubspot as a primary example, the former king of top of funnel content just proves there is no such thing as being safe at the top of the SERPs:

Google is having more frequent and targeted algorithm updates

The most volatile market in the world is not crypto, Turkey, or China; it’s Google. 

In the last 3 years there were 19 confirmed algorithm updates (11x Core, 3x HCU, 2x Product Review, 5x Spam). Of these, I’ll assume that the 3 HCU and 2 Product Review updates are specifically targeted at SEO-focused affiliates.

Every update is a risk for you to have to start over. That’s a big ask. I personally lost over €40.000 in monthly profits overnight during an HCU update. I know how it feels.

So, are we the problem and we’re simply not following Google’s guidelines?

Google’s highlighted ‘Publisher Success Stories’ are being hit left and right

Domains highlighted by Google’s Publisher Stories have been hit by the HCU. These are sites that Google handpicked to be ‘examples to follow’. And on average they lost -21.62% traffic in a single update.

‘Putting your money where Google’s mouth is’, is not a profitable path to take here. So we can’t listen to Google. To who can we look for consistent SEO results? The frontier SEOs?

The Affiliate SEO Courses Are Closing 

Great, front-running Affiliate SEO courses like Affiliate Lab (from Matt Diggity, also partner in this venture, AffRamp) and Authority Hackers are closed, since they saw that the Niche Site Model dependent on SEO does not give predictable results anymore.

Because of things like this, us affiliate publishers are left in the dark on how to get sustainable results like we used to get before the first HCU.

Moreover, more volatility and decreased ROI mean:

Lower exit-multiples for SEO dependent businesses

SEO isn’t as sustainable anymore as it used to be. That’s why multiples are plummeting and often traffic diversification is needed in order to close the deal. And our businesses are worth less because of it.

Now, I’m not here to be negative about the future. If you know me, I’m anything but negative. So, let me offer you a solution.

The Long-Term Google Ads Advantages

SEOs, you shouldn’t care where your traffic comes from. Why care about traffic in general? I only care about profit, and right now, Google Ads is giving me a lot of profits. 

Google Ads is an opportunity to either diversify your traffic or get back the money you made from SEO in the past. The affiliates and operators who are open to this will (re)capture a new wave of affiliate commissions.

The advantages:

• Control: Ads aren’t subject to surprise algorithm updates.
• Speed: You can test, pivot, and scale within days, not months.
• Alignment: You’re playing in Google’s revenue sandbox, not against it.
• Exit Value: Businesses with diversified traffic and predictable profit command higher multiples.
  

SEO had its golden age. It’s not dead, but the moat is shrinking by the day. Google Ads, on the other hand, is a business Google is protecting like its life depends on it (because with $264 billion, it does).

PS: Google made $264 billion in ad revenue in 2024 (while $224b in 2022), that’s more revenue, even though ChatGPT was around for some time already.

The long-term advantage now lies with those who align themselves with Google’s business model, not against it. If you want stability, scalability, and consistent ROI, Google Ads is where the puck is going.

You already have the content, team, systems and deals

SEOs like to stay in their lane. However, if the market forces you to pivot (which it does), Google Ads is the most reasonable option to go into. Because:

1. You have the pages set up 
2. You know which pages convert best
3. You know the keyword for which to rank
4. You know what products convert best
5. You have the team in place to optimize content
6. You already have all the deals

Finally, SEO is not free. You’re spending thousands on topical authority, linkbuilding, and salaries. You’re already spending money for traffic. The same with Google Ads.

So all the ingredients are there for you to try out Google Ads. Now, go try it out, or…

Let us do it for you

There are many intricacies on how to run Google Ads campaigns, get the tracking setup, improving your commission deals, and changing your landing pages to bemore profitable. 

That’s why we launched AffRamp.com. You already have all the pages and deals, let us do the daily work of getting the campaigns profitable, for a 50/50 profit split. No upfront costs or hourly costs. Only perfect alignment. We’re only working with companies we’re certain we can grow their bottom line.

We are currently only accepting three (cherry-picked) clients, to ensure maximum profitability. That’s why I encourage you to apply if you made a lot of money now or in the past with bottom of funnel affiliate SEO. If you’ve lost rankings (like me), not a problem, everything is recoverable. 

The post Why I Pivoted to Google Ads – And Have Never Felt Better About The Future appeared first on Niels Zee.

It was 09:30, I was in a new coworking spot in Amsterdam, ready to cowork with my buddy who has a SaaS and I saw an anomaly in my commissions. I logged into Google Search Console and saw graphs for 5 of my 6 websites like this…

I just lost €40.000 in monthly commissions from SEO. Thoughts started racing.

“Do I have to let go of all of my staff?”, “Does my business still have a right to exist?”, “Should I just quit and do something else?”.

I took a breath in, and breath out. “It already happened, take it easy,” I told myself. I called my co-founder about what just happened and we went into ‘full emergency mode’, analysing all our competitors and the whole industry to come up with a plan of attack to recover.

After two sleepless nights and analyzing all my competitors in the market, I noticed: even the sites that played by all of Google’s rules and had simply the best content, still got hit. 

The game changed. 

SEO used to be ‘certain’, but now Google can pull the rug underneath me whenever they want. If I ever want to sell my company, I can’t rely on organic traffic.

Another graph that resembles one of my sites. This site got hit both in HCU #1 & HCU #2.

Luckily, this story has a good ending. A year and a half later, we just had our record month of €235.000 in commissions with our best ever profits. 

I knew what it was like to lose it all to SEO, but saw the potential to recover what I had built, and earn even more. 

This case study is a snapshot of how to recover from SEO losses and transition into Google Ads. It’s a roadmap on how to look at a giant like Google in the face and figure out a way to make Google work for you, not against you. 

How did we end up doing better after the HCU?

HCU felt like the nail in the coffin for many. For a moment, I had considered if it was also my end moment. But it was the next series of steps that allowed me to get out of that frame of mind and into an action plan to recover. 

Step 1: Realization

SEO alone is too fragile, Google’s incentives are with ads. Let’s not fall for that ‘We want to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ mission statement of theirs. Meanwhile, they made $224 billion in ad revenue in 2022,($264 billion in 2024), letting everybody choose to ‘prefer’ their information by paying them via Google Ads.

The returns for SEO for my niche just changed. I needed to pivot. We identified Google Ads as the most logical solution since it’s closest to SEO.

Step 2: Strategy

I restructured my portfolio to integrate Google Ads, repurposing my highest-performing SEO pages into campaigns. I didn’t need to create new content, I just needed to bid on the same money keywords I was already ranking for.

Going from SEO to Google Ads, you already have 90% of the ingredients. 

• Content with clear intent matching of the keywords
• Data about the best offers
• Knowledge about what pages perform best
• Keywords to mine from Google Search Console
• A team to support page optimization 
• Contacts with affiliate managers of your best offers

Thanks to the affiliate tracking software WeCanTrack we were able to see exactly how much revenue each page made, what the average earnings per visitor (EPV) were and what products bring in the most commission (based on the earnings per click (EPC). 

EPV is key here. To figure it out, divide the amount of visitors by the total revenue of the page to get the EPV. The EPV is your average earnings per visitor. We used that number to start our first search campaigns with exact keywords in Google Ads.

These first campaigns gave us promising data. But it wasn’t quite yet where we wanted it to be. Here’s what worked for us, and what plan of action I’d suggest if you want similar results. 

Step 3: Systems & Metrics

In order for us to systematically grow we needed to three things:

1. Know what’s working 2. Push it harder. 3. Get paid better for it.

Know what’s working. Use affiliate revenue tracking software. Like WeCanTrack, Voluum or Affilimate. However, make sure the data is as accurate as possible. 

Affiliate tracking software like WeCanTrack connects most of your affiliate programs, but often not all. That means if you have one product on the page, which is not tracked, you should estimate how much of a % you’re missing. Google Ads might show that your return on investment is 90% (so -10% loss), but since you mention that product first thing on your page, it might generate 50% of the sales of the page, doubling the conversion value you see in Google Ads, making your ROI 180% (+80% profit). If you only look at the Google Ads data, you might’ve paused the campaign.

Now, with the essential data you have the ability to focus on three key metrics:

1. Revenue per page

One of the biggest unlocks for me was realizing that more traffic isn’t always the answer. What matters is what that traffic does.

• You might have a page getting 10,000 visits/month… and making almost nothing.
• Then another page with 800 visits/month… and it’s quietly earning €500/month.

So stop guessing. Start tracking. These tools give huge ROI. Just figure out which pages, topics and content outlines are making you money, and which ones aren’t. 

Push it harder: Go to your content backlog and based on the data of your current revenue per pages, focus on the winning topics and delete potential losers that you predict will make less of a return. Topics that do well in SEO don’t always do well in Google Ads. Separate that data.

2. Earnings per Visitor (EPV)

Divide the amount of visitors by the total revenue of the page to get the EPV. The EPV is dependent on the niche, offer, and the conversion rate of the page. 

Push it harder: With this data you can see what content outlines, offers, and niches work best. Implement what works on other pages.

3. Earnings per Click (EPC)

EPC is the metric to compare what offers on your page are the best for you. For this you need to know how much every offer brings in and how much it is clicked. Divide the commissions by the clicks and you get the EPC.

Push it harder: To increase the revenue of your page, you want the product with the highest EPC at the top of your page and promoted the most. 

• Put your top products right at the top (use a “quick list” or summary table)
• Move low-performing products down, or remove them entirely
• Test different orderings and see what happens

Get paid better for it

When a product is working, ask for a better deal. You’re generating sales. You’re helping their business. That gives you leverage. Even a 2–3% higher commission rate all go fully to your profit margins and are essential to keep your business running.

But you won’t get it if you don’t ask. Mention what you can do for the brand (newsletter promotion, rank higher on page, create Youtube videos, etc.), what your current sales is for the brand and for the whole product category and what your future growth plans are. Put that all in Claude and ask it to write an email to ask for a higher commission.

The best thing to mail them is real data. Data about how many visitors, sales or product revenue the page generates and what that means for them are pretty tough to ignore. This may open the door to commisison rates that are gamechangers for your bottom line.

Step 4: Execution

It took us just two months to be in a better position before than after the €40k loss in organic profits. Two months to add €40k to our bottom line. And that was just the beginning.

In order to setup our Google Ads, we didn’t just work a lot in Google Ads, coming from SEO, we needed to turn our SEO pages into 100% conversion focused pages. 

Yes, you might get revenue from Google Ads on your SEO focused page, but if you want to 2x your revenue, turn it into a CRO optimized page. My friend in the VPN space uses these pages to gain SEO traffic and these to get Google Ads conversions. 

SEO is about user intent, content depth, EEAT signals, and time on page.
Google Ads is about clicks and conversions.

Here’s my view I haven’t heard anybody else talk about before: I believe there’s a fundamental difference between a visitor from Google Ads vs. SEO. 

Someone from Google Ads knowingly didn’t take the 0.5 seconds of effort to scroll down to the organic results. They clicked on an ad while knowing it’s an ad. These people just want to make a decision NOW. So as long as you make it as clear as daylight and as easy as possible (contrastful buttons, easy to read, trust signals, clear icons) for the person to make a decision, then they will convert right this minute.

Meanwhile, organic visitors actually do the effort to scroll down, read your content and, do the research.

So adjust your pages for Google Ads visitors. We help people in this process from our meaningful experience as well.

On the road to getting to our €235k month in Google Ads, we made many mistakes over the past years. There are many more intricacies, but these are the ones to easily avoid:

Don’t let people without affiliate marketing (or lead generation) knowledge handle your account blindly. When outsourcing Google Ads, you need someone with either affiliate marketing or lead generation experience. Unless you’re going to onboard and hand hold them heavily. Else you can’t give them free reign over your account. People unknown to affiliate marketing have the tendency to just switch everything over from the campaign setup that worked ‘for their ecommerce client’, while you’re not in ecommerce… you’re an affiliate with more thin margins, the game is different. Someone that has PPC affiliate marketing experience is best, lead generation experience is second best.

Don’t think losers will turn into winners by itself. It’s very easy to spend a lot of money on Google (just wait till you read the next part), so you need to be careful. A page having high EPVs or revenue from SEO is not a guarantee that the same will be for Google Ads.

Campaigns that have had significantly enough clicks to have at least a few conversions, but are still making a loss, don’t need more data, the page needs to be improved, the keywords need to be changed or it needs to be paused. If you already applied your ‘perfect campaign setup’ and the initial data is bad, just pause it and move on. 

Don’t use ‘maximize clicks’ without total budgets and max CPC budgets. One freelancer in our team wanted to ‘get the data going’ with Maximize clicks so around Christmas (the one time I don’t check the data for a few days), we’ve made calculated losses of around €15k versus what we’d normally earn with this move. When you give Google the opportunity to spend a lot of money, they will grab that opportunity. Be frugal. Be careful.

Don’t trust Google account managers. These people’s sole job is to get you to spend more. They have hefty bonuses related to your spend. So all they’re going to do is sell you new services. “You should really try Display Advertising”, “Many of your colleagues are successful with Video ads”, “Demand Gen will allow you to reach new highs”. I’ve never experienced or heard from someone in the space that these account managers were actually useful.

Step 5: Results

The fast feedback loop is something I’ve never experienced before. It’s just so refreshing to be able to get such fast results in a month, instead of the slow ramp-up period of SEO. 

After 3 months, we got that €40k back. And not just revenue, but profits.

This is the revenue of my affiliate portfolio. With peaks in Jan/Feb, because that’s when I get commissions from Black Friday/Christmas, which is peak season for us.

We’ve had ‘the luck’ that some of our sites got hit by HCU #1 and we already tried out Google Ads on our SEO pages. However, between HCU #1 and HCU #2, we used exactly the same pages for both SEO and Google Ads. HCU #2 allowed us to go full in on Google Ads.

There’s still some ups and downs, mainly due to the aforementioned mistakes we made. The team handling your ads is so important, every time we made hiring mistakes, our revenue dropped, because the campaign setup for affiliates is so unique.

Introducing AffRamp

For the past years I’ve been preaching this to many of my international friends and pushing them to start in Google Ads as well. What I always hear is that they don’t know:

1. How to hire the right people and hold them accountable
2. They don’t want to touch a new channel and learn everything
3. They don’t have the time to do 1 & 2

That’s why I started AffRamp. To solve this without giving any risk to the publishers. I know this model works and that’s why I only want to get paid for results. 

If you’ve made €25K at some point in your affiliate journey, you already have what’s needed: the content, the rankings, the team. With Google Ads, we can replicate and scale that revenue again, because we’re bidding on the same money keywords your content already targets. The ceiling you once hit isn’t the end, it’s the foundation for an even higher ceiling. And if you read this far, you now know exactly how far it can go.

We replaced more than our SEO traffic with SEO. That’s why we only work with people who earn or have earned €25.000 a month, because we know we can match that with Google Ads as well.

If you’re ready to reach the next level of your business and reclaim the revenue you thought was gone or just want to have a relevant business in two years time, I fully believe this is the path forward.

Not only will you profit from Google Ads when working together, the higher commissions, new systems and revenue diversification, will make you feel a lot better about the future as well.

The post How I Went From Losing $40K Overnight to a $235K Month in 16 Months appeared first on Niels Zee.

Even with high-quality content, publishers face the same brutal reality: traffic loss, citations without clicks, and conversions cut off at the knees. LLMs happily quote your work, but they don’t send you a single visitor back. You don’t control your business anymore — Google does.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Google’s business was never about giving you free traffic. It’s about ads. That’s where their billions come from, and that’s where the future of growth lies.

And yet, too many SEOs keep playing the old game. They buy the course, follow the steps, and when the updates hit, they fold. Their biggest success stays in the past. Stuck in their comfort zones. Unable to handle fragility.

But this game has changed. And if you want to not just survive but thrive, you have to adapt to new rules and new incentives.

That’s why I went all in on Google Ads.

With Ads, you get absolute control:

• 100% customer acquisition at the bottom of the funnel
• Instant feedback and optimization
• No waiting for months of “maybe” results
• No algorithm updates pulling the rug out from under you
  

You can either keep clinging to the illusion of “free” traffic, or you can align yourself with the only part of Google that’s built to last. I chose the second path — and it’s changed everything.

Because here’s the bigger picture: Google has no choice but to go all-in on AI. That means the top and middle of the funnel are shrinking fast — eaten alive by AI Overviews and LLMs. What’s left is the bottom of the funnel. And that’s exactly where Google Ads sits.

The closer you are to the money, the safer you are.

Why Google Ads is my Goldmine

Algorithm updates are a blackbox where the next change is really anyone’s wild guess. Therefore, certainty is the ultimate competitive advantage. Google Ads gives me that

I like the model, because I can unapologetically focus on the bottom of the funnel. All I do is create content for keywords that bring money into my pocket. No topical authority, no linkbuilding, no EEAT, no social signals. None of that stuff to trick an algorithm.

Because I don’t spend money on a lot of tests I only spend money on things that I’ll know tomorrow if it made me money or not. This gives me full control of my spend and the ability to scale faster.

What you can make with SEO, you can make with Google Ads. I went to a lot of SEO and PPC conferences. And in the PPC conferences, the revenue numbers talked about are always higher. You’re simply aligned with the platforms. Google, Meta and TikTok are businesses, not charities.  

And because I’m aligned with the platform, there are no sudden revenue or traffic losses. Why would Google cut all my traffic and spend? They’ll just shoot themselves in the foot. I haven’t had any major traffic losses anymore.

Why SEOs are Sleeping On Google Ads

For two years I’ve been preaching to friends that Google Ads is making me a fortune, and they should get into it too. But I keep hearing the same excuses:

1. I’m too busy (recovering all my SEO traffic)
2. I don’t know how to do Google Ads
3. It costs a lot of money
4. I don’t want to risk spending too much
5. SEO and PPC compete

Comfort zones feel safe, but they’re dangerous in fast-changing industries. Clinging to SEO because it’s familiar is like refusing to leave a sinking ship because you already know the layout of the cabins.

Let’s dive into each argument (or excuse to stay in a comfort zone) one by one.

#1 You’re too busy.

Great, that’s exactly why I founded AffRamp, so we can do it for you. 

I do recommend taking the time for it, since it can grow bigger than SEO. However, if you just want the easiest version. Get affiliate tracking software and start with a list of URLs in a DSA campaign. Then you know if you have a chance or not already.

#2 You don’t know how to do Google Ads

There are intricacies. Or past mistakes to be made. You can read that in my case study. However, starting is easy: you can already do that by adding a campaign for your most successful URLs and add exact match keywords or a DSA. In combination with affiliate tracking software. For the real profits thereafter, you can use us.

#3 It’s too complex

There are some intricacies around campaign strategy (consolidated vs single ad group campaigns), exact vs. broad keyword match types, PMAX, DSA and Search Native, yes. There needs to be a solid strategy in place to run it. It does get easier over time, because Google is letting AI do the heavy lifting like with PMAX.

However, if you are an SEO expert and know about semantic SEO, linkbuilding, information gain, EEAT, topical authority, indexation, etc. Google Ads is way easier. 

#4 It costs a lot of money

I never got this argument, cause every piece of content, link, website development project costs money. SEO is only ‘free’ if you make your own site, do your own linkbuilding and write all the content and don’t value your single time at all.

With Ads, you do spend money upfront. And I do recommend to start with at least a budget of $5.000. However, if you already have a lot of legacy, optimized pages and good commission deals (that’s why we only work with big publishers and not beginner ones) I’ve seen enough cases where it’s profitable from month one. 

Next to that, when you know how you earn per visitor on average, you can set that as your starting manual CPC bid and you’ll easily prevent significant losses.

Thanks to quick feedback, budgets, spend alerts, the money you spend is very controllable. And if you’re not profitable after month one, it’s often because pages aren’t optimized enough and you’ll be profitable after.

Both SEO & Google Ads cost money. In the end, they can run together and make sure you capture a bigger piece of the market. However, some people think it’s and either/or question.

#5 SEO and Google Ads compete

Yes, that’s correct if (and only if) you already rank #1 or #2 for that keyword. I myself have had cases where my SEO page was ranking #1 and after also putting a Google ad, our organic position went down to #3. This was because the CTR of the #1 page dropped because people clicked our ad instead of our organic search results.

That’s why I advise everybody to not bid on keywords you’re ranking #1 and #2 for. If that’s not the case, adding ads for that keyword will be a net positive. 

All big media companies are leveraging both SEO & Google Ads to capture a bigger piece of the pie and so should you.

Extra Advantages of Paid Traffic for Affiliates

Higher commissions

More traffic = earning more commissions for your partners = more leverage. You can use this to demand higher commissions.

Sometimes, when you’re almost profitable for a certain page/topic, it even forces you to reach out to one of your partners and say:

“Hey Sarah,

I really appreciate our collaboration and I know my visitors get massive value from your products. However, since  I’m doing a PPC model, at this point, I’m only breaking even.

Would you be able to give me a commission bump from 10 to 15%? This would make my efforts worthwhile. Otherwise, I would have to stop my efforts and I wouldn’t be able to contribute to your revenue numbers anymore (something I’d like to continue to do if you’d be willing to jump up in commissions slightly!)

Best,

Niels”

Google Ads is different, you need to tell your partners directly so they understand what’s needed in order for this to be a win-win for the long haul.

Diversification

This doesn’t just make you sleep better. It also improves the multiple and sellability of your business. Barely anyone wants to buy a business anymore reliant on one channel alone. 

Many companies are interested in my business, because we cracked Google Ads and they want to have that knowledge and crack it as well for their SEO portfolio.

Stop Sleeping, Start Earning 

The publishers who adapt now will own the next years. The ones who don’t will keep fighting algorithm updates until their margins vanish.

If you want to see if Google Ads is viable for your business, apply to our cohort. We only take on 3 clients at a time and vet every client and see what the upside is, competition is and how viable it would be to run Google Ads so we only work with cases we certainly know will be a success. 

It doesn’t matter if you used to make a lot of money via SEO or still do, past success is an indicator of future success in this case. Google Ads is an opportunity many people aren’t utilizing and know the intricacies of the platform. Apply now and I’ll get back to you about the viability of your website.

The post SEO Publishers Are Sleeping on Google Ads – Here’s Why That’s a Goldmine appeared first on Niels Zee.

Watch the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT74EBjBc5Q

The post Affiliate Nerd Out Podcast with Dustin Howes appeared first on Niels Zee.

In September 2023, I lost 95% of my traffic overnight. One morning, my dashboards were a sea of red. It felt like the end.

I’m not exaggerating when I say, “I get it” when so many people are claiming “Affiliate SEO is dead.” The negative sentiment is real and comes from lived experience (an experience I’ve absolutely lived, felt, and hated).

But here’s the thing, affiliate marketing is not dead. At least not if you’re willing to change. What’s dead is relying only on SEO.

I joined Gundeep Grover on The Business Playbook to share my story of how I rebuilt after that loss, why SEO fragility is forcing affiliates to adapt, and how getting into the Google Ads game gave me my most profitable months and an actual future as an affiliate marketer. 

Life as an affiliate is only dead or over when you give up hope or refuse to change. 

If you’re willing to fight for what you’ve built and want to future-proof your sites, this episode will show you what’s still possible.

Watch the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqH-OAcaCqM

The post The Truth About Affiliate SEO in 2025: What Works vs What’s Dead appeared first on Niels Zee.

I went deep on my Google Ads pivot story with Niche Pursuits Podcast

In this episode, we covered:

• The exact moment I realized SEO alone was too fragile.
• How I went from loss to record profits by optimizing content for conversion.
• The metrics that actually matter: Revenue per Page, EPC, EPV.
• How I manage 3,000+ landing pages at scale.
• Why negotiating higher commissions is easier once you bring the right data to the table.

If you want to see how affiliates can leverage paid traffic for scalable, predictable profit, this episode is full of actionable insights.

Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euxo1h-X7Pc

The post How I Pivoted to Google Ads for Big Profits! appeared first on Niels Zee.

This episode breaks down the smartest moves you can make right now to stay ahead and cash in as an affiliate marketer. 

In this conversation with Greg, I share my journey from losing €40K overnight to scaling a 7-figure portfolio, writing The Payout Mafia, and launching Afframp to help affiliates win with Google Ads.

We covered:

• How the Helpful Content Update reshaped my business
• Why pivoting is the #1 skill affiliates need in 2025
• Using Google Ads to break past the SEO ceiling
• How to get above-market commission rates
• The best niches and verticals I see right now
• How to build a relevant, future-proof business
• How to avoid burnout while scaling big
  

If you’re an affiliate (new or experienced) who wants to thrive in 2025, this episode is packed with lessons you can use right away.

Listen here → https://empireflippers.com/how-top-affiliates-are-still-cashing-in/

The post The Opportunity Podcast: Affiliate Marketing Isn’t Dead: How Top Affiliates Are Still Cashing In With Niels Zee appeared first on Niels Zee.

The post Affiliate SEO Isn’t Dead: Here’s What Still Works in 2025 : Niels Zee Podcast appeared first on Niels Zee.

Let me share what’s changing

Affiliate marketing isn’t dying, it’s evolving.

The “build a site, rank, and bank” days are over.
Google updates, AI search, and new buyer habits have changed the game.
But people still buy, just differently.
They buy from people and brands they trust.

Brand beats backlinks.

A website alone won’t protect your business anymore.
Your brand will.
When people see you on YouTube, LinkedIn, email, and even Reddit, you stop being “just another affiliate.”
You become the voice they trust. And when that happens, clicks and commissions follow you.

You can’t scale alone.

I’ve been there. Writing every review, editing every headline, chasing every keyword.
You burn out fast.
Growth happens when you delegate and build systems instead of doing everything yourself.
That’s how you move from freelancer to business owner.

The smartest affiliates are becoming creators.

It’s no longer SEO vs. TikTok vs. YouTube.
It’s all of them, working together.
Turn your best-performing posts into short videos.
Add a clear call to action.
Build an audience that remembers you.
That’s how you earn more and close better deals.

When you bring value, ask for more.

If a brand benefits from your traffic, don’t be shy.
Ask for higher commissions or hybrid deals (a mix of sponsorship + affiliate backend).
Show your numbers. Use competitor data as leverage.
This isn’t begging, it’s good business.

Own something.

Every successful affiliate reaches the same point. Traffic isn’t the end goal.
Ownership is.
Create your own product, SaaS, or info offer.
That’s where the real profit and control come from.

The mindset shift

2025 isn’t about gaming algorithms.
It’s about being too strong to game.
Build a real brand. Build a loyal audience. Build systems that scale.

Watch the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNViFizp8KQ

If you’re building a lasting affiliate brand, not just another site, this one’s for you.

The post Affiliate Marketing 2025: What’s Actually Working (and Why Most Still Fail) appeared first on Niels Zee.

In my talk, I shared how I run a sustainable SEO and affiliate business. I was honest about the hits too. Some of my sites were hurt by Google’s Helpful Content Update. Traffic dropped hard. Still, our profits grew. That’s the point of this post.

Why I Don’t Chase Only Traffic

More traffic sounds great. But it’s not always the best move.
Sometimes it’s smarter to improve conversion, average order value, or offer.
I look at the full funnel and fix the weakest step first.

My Growth Approach

I use a growth hacking mindset. Nothing fancy. Just discipline.

• I stay T-shaped: deep in SEO, fluent in other channels.
• I work the full funnel: awareness to referral.
• I measure everything and test often.
• I keep what works and kill what doesn’t.

Every channel gets less effective over time. People learn to ignore tactics.
So I adapt fast, run many tests, and let data decide.

Systems Beat Hustle

You can build a car, or build a factory that builds cars.
I choose the factory.

When a page hits a revenue threshold, my team runs a playbook:

• Improve CTAs and page layout.
• Check stock, ratings, and offers.
• Reorder products by earnings per click.
• Negotiate better commission with partners.
• Scale winners with ads and more coverage.

For content, we run a clean pipeline: keyword → brief → write → edit → QA → publish.
My job is to feed inputs and tune systems. The team handles execution.

Culture Is the Glue

We hire and work by a few simple values:

• Extreme ownership
• Create lasting profit
• Stay curious and keep learning
• Care for people and family

Values only matter if you live them. We do.

Metrics That Matter

Three numbers guide most of my decisions:

• Revenue per page: which pages truly earn.
• Earnings per visitor: which topics deliver the most value per session.
• Earnings per click: which products deserve top placement.

Heat maps help too. Most visitors only see the top of a page.
So I place the highest-value products higher. Simple change, big results.

Watch the video here.

The post World of Search 2024 Manila: How I Build a Business That Lasts appeared first on Niels Zee.