Affiliate Marketing Secrets

I’ve got a startup niche classifieds site and I’m strapped for funds. Keywords really aren’t very competitive, but the google adwords keyword ideas page does rank some of them as “medium”.
I’ve examined my leading competitor and can see that he must be bringing in at LEAST 500k/year with the leading expense probably being seo/social media management.
I know nada about seo and would like to find a good partner to split profits if he can get me to high on page one and keep me there for enough keywords.
I don’t have any friends with IT skills so networking among friends isn’t going to work.
Any tips on where/how to find someone that would be partnerworthy?
thnx

5k to set this up and understandably are looking for already established businesses with guaranteed traffic levels – so not me right now. Is there a much lower cost version of this system to help me track traffic and thus distribute retailer rewards in the appropriate fashion.

Many thanks