I remember when I was first starting out, finding a profitable affiliate niche seemed impossible. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I don’t like to fail so nothing sounded good to me. This was holding me back for quite a while, as I didn’t really feel I was an expert in, or passionate about anything that sounded profitable.
That’s when I realized failing is a part of learning. After some research, and going through all the steps below, I learnt that I did have passions and skills that could be profitable, and what I didn’t know was all learnable. I read the following quote somewhere and have it on my wall as it’s quite inspiring!
You have failed only when you quit trying…
Until then, you’re still in the act of progression.
So Never quit trying and you’ll never be a failure!
Anyway, just a little inspiration for the day, now back to it.
Everything Starts With Finding a Profitable Niche
This is the most important part of an Affiliate Marketing business, and can mean the difference between a site that makes money, and one that doesn’t. The things you need to think about when choosing a niche are Passion, Experience, Demand and Longevity.
What are you passionate about? Do you have a particular interest? What job do you do? What is your number 1 skill? Any of these questions can start the process.
But making sure there is a market out there for any of these is key. There is no point choosing a niche that does not have a market as people are generally not interested in what is being offered.
A little time and effort should be exercised to ensure the intended niche is marketable.
Know that there are thousands upon thousands of niches out there. Not all of these niches will make for profitable online success.
But there are several things you can do to improve your chances of finding a profitable affiliate marketing niche that’ll work for you.
So, how do you determine the profitability of a Niche?
Qualities of a Good Niche
Apart from your passions and interests, a Profitable Affiliate Niche should be…
- Evergreen – A niche with long term potential where the subject and content will always be relevant and not a passing fad.
- Ability to (multi) Monetize – Affiliate Marketing is a monetization method in itself, but earnings from multiple sources will help your site stay secure and sustain your income.
- Minimal Competition – Your competition should’t be TOO FIERCE as it will take too long to rank, but some competition that’s not entirely overcrowded can indicate a healthy profitable niche.
- Good Search Volume – A profitable niche will have enough search volume, as this will ensure you can get traffic and have a wide enough audience to serve.
- Should Solve a Problem – People are constantly looking for solutions to their problems online. Where there’s a problem, theres a need for a solution.
Research is key here. Many people don’t spend enough time researching and learning what people want or desire. Putting a good amount of effort into research can put you ahead of the pack, so don’t skip this important part.
To identify and find the niche market you want to be in, it will help to go through the following steps.
Assess Your Skills and Passions
Think about the things you are passionate about, whether you think they are profitable or not. Start writing them down, as you could probably have a few.
Anything is good here, the more you can think of, the better. Try to list at least 5 or 10.
What are your skills? Anything you consider yourself to be an expert in, or even somewhat knowledgable, can count. Ideally, it would be something you can see yourself being passionate about for at least 5 years.
Look to Your Hobbies and Interests
One good thing about using a hobby for your niche, is your familiarity with the subject. You get to earn money doing the things you love and you can be assured that most hobbies are where people spend money.
As you already know much about it, you’ll spend less time researching and won’t struggle when it comes to producing content. With your interest in the topic, you will have overall knowledge so it makes it a suitable candidate. Keep adding whatever you can to your list.
What’s perfect about starting with a list of loves is…
Most likely, you have already invested time and money on these things, so you will have a head start on understanding the customers and what they want.
So, with list in hand…
Check the Long Term Potential in Google Trends
Evergreen topics will sustain your income, and while passing fads may stick around for a little while, it might not be long term enough to waste your time on. If you are unsure whether your choices will be evergreen, it’s quick and easy to go through them in Google Trends.
Google Trends will help analyze the popularity of any topic. Here you can compare the search volumes of different queries, and also use historical data to see if your topics have longevity. You’re looking for stable growth here, not neccesarily super popular, but as long as the topic is consistently searched for.
Anything short term or seasonal will obviously reduce your chances at year round income. Although, seasonal could work well, depending on your own situation and what you want. (Could possibly have a little less competition too).
Identify Any Problems You Can Solve
Think about your potential audiences problems and pain points. What solutions can you offer?
A great place to find answers is community forums and ‘how to’ websites in your desired or potential niche. The website “Quora” has opportunities aplenty for this.
Try and find at least 3 or 4 common problems people face in the niche. Not all problems are profitable though, you need to understand the difference between what people will gladly pay for as opposed to simple information seekers.
Do a search and look at what competitors are doing, can you do it better? Social Media is another place that is perfect for this kind of research.
Researching Topics and Keywords
This stage is where you look at Competition and Traffic Potential. A full Niche analysis is needed to understand a topics appeal.
To start with, plug in your ideas and keywords to Google’s keyword planner, a free tool designed for advertisers to research keywords.
Google’s keyword tool will show you a lot of important data that will help to determine if your niche has enough demand and not too much competition. Keywords with over 1000 searches per month have potential.
It’s extremely hard to rank on Google for high competitive keywords. Go for niches that have medium to high traffic volume but fairly low competition. You may have to dig a little deeper to find this, but it’s worth it. To avoid competing with large authority sites within your niche, find keywords that they don’t rank for, or try narrowing down your niche a bit.
This search volume also gives you an idea of traffic potential, or audience interest. Is there an audience out there, and what is their intent.
Sometimes a large audience may not mean a niche is profitable. Look at the top competitors sites, and assess this competition and take note of their affiliate marketing strategies, and who they are marketing to.
Check the Monetization Potential
It’s always a good idea to pick an affiliate niche with a variety of monetization choices so you can create several revenue streams. It reduces your risk and ensures that you will sustain and thrive.
Are there enough products and/or services available to market for monetization?
There are a lot of niches out there that don’t have earnings potential so again, check on your competitors. If other people are marketing it, that’s a good sign.
Look at the top ten websites that appear in the results. Check if they are monetized with sponsored content, Google ads, Amazon products, and any other monetization strategies.
Find out a bit more by using Google search and typing “(your topic) affiliate” and check out the affiliate programs out there. Check for quality and commission rates. Also the many affiliate networks will be a great place to check this too, like Clickbank or Shareasale. Search Google for ‘Top 10 Affiliate Networks’ to find many more.
Where to Find Profitable Affiliate Niche Ideas
If you are struggling to come up with ideas to start with, the following list of places may be helpful in giving you some inspiration.
- Google Suggest – Simple Google search, provides plenty of suggestions while users are typing their search query.
- Amazon Bestsellers – A little time consuming, but a gazillion ideas here; try Amazon books as well.
- Clickbank – An Affiliate Network for digital products but also a great resource for ideas.
- Shareasale – Also an Affiliate Network with thousands of merchants offering different products and services.
- Forums – Recommended are Reddit and Quora, a plethora of niche ideas here.
- Wikipedia Hobbies Page – Huge list that can be hard on the eyes, but it’s pretty much got every hobby imagineable.
- Magazines.com – If there’s a Magazine about it, it’s a potential niche!
- Dummies.com – As with Magazines above, these guy’s print books. If there’s a Dummies Guide, there’s a need for it, they know their stuff.
- Youtube – Try not to go down a rabbit hole, but spending a bit of time here by checking out the most popular videos, you’ll start to get plenty of ideas.
In Conclusion
I do hope you now have a better idea of how to find a profitable niche for your affiliate marketing venture.
Sometimes, finding a good profitable niche can take time, or, you could get lucky
and stumble upon something really good, really fast.
However, when you find it, you live and breathe it, your focus is 100% there.
This way, it’s so much easier to build the necessary amount of content you need to stand out in your niche.
And remember, if your niche is quite narrow, that doesn’t stop you from growing, you can branch out later and add related products or promos as you grow.
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