How Do I Choose a Niche in Affiliate Marketing?

How Do I Choose a Niche in Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing can be a prosperous endeavor as long as you are able to find the right niche. Although this may sound easy enough, this isn't always the case. It is why so many people struggle in the world of affiliate marketing and fail to make a decent profit.

Fortunately, there are tried and tested methods that you can use to figure out the best possible niche for you. If this is something that interests you, here is what you need to know:

Affiliate Programs: High Paying vs. Niche

If you do want to join the world of affiliate marketing, one of your first choices may be to find a high paying affiliate program. After all, this means that you simply have to navigate a path that has been laid out by someone else. Not to mention, the very top affiliate programs can offer significant commissions.

Well, the main issue with such programs is that they tend to focus on competitive fields and marketplaces. Thus, these spaces are already saturated by people in the same position as you. This can drastically reduce your possibility of making multiple sales and eventually making your commission more worthwhile.

With niche affiliate programs, however, there isn't as much competition. Now, it is true that the demand may not be quite as high, either. Nevertheless, you are in a position where you can build in this field. With the proper research and effort, you could end up making a tidy profit with your particular niche.

Finding the Right Niche for You

Here are the steps that you can follow to find the right niche in affiliate marketing:

Do Your Research

Your first order of business is to find a category that has potential, but isn't quite as oversaturated. The easiest way to do this is to use an audience-insight website – Quantcast is a good choice. Here, you should be able to call up a list of the most popular websites on the internet.

Skip over the first few pages as there is no way for you to compete with these huge companies that are already incredibly well marketed. Your gold mine lies past the first 200 popular pages. Once you scroll past through these, you will be able to recognize popular but untapped categories. This could be fashion, wellness, travel, etc.

Pick out a few to begin with. This will be your starting point.

There is another option available to you when doing your research. Another way to find out a broader category would be to figure out a problem that needs solving. To make this easier to manage, consider a particular target audience – what solution can you provide them with?

This line of thinking can potentially lead you to a niche. However, you should be aware that this could also cause quite a few false starts and take a longer time to come to fruition.

Narrow Down Your Niche

Of course, a category is still too vast for you to contend with. If you try to cover an entire category, you will probably find that you are stretching yourself thin. Thus, you need to narrow down your niche a little further.

For this purpose, look for discussion or question and answer sites. Quora and Reddit tend to be good places. This is where people go to ask queries about their most burning questions. By typing your preferred category into the search engines of this site, you will be able to determine which aspect of the category people are most interested in.

Check Monetization Potential

Of course, there is little use in finding a niche if you can’t make any money off of it. So, your next step involves determining the monetization potential of your chosen niche. To do this, you will need to visit an affiliate retailer and check out the affiliate marketplace.

Go ahead and search for your preferred niche here. Make sure to adjust the search settings so that the most profitable products will show up in the list. Then, it is a matter of going through the search results. Do any of these products have merits? Would it be possible for you to sell them?

If you have found what you are looking for, great! In case you haven’t, it is back to the drawing board for you.

Re-Check Niche on AdWords

With affiliate marketing much of your goal will be centered on driving traffic and sales. As such, it is important to know what the competition is like. To do this, you need to find out how much clicks cost, who is doing the bidding, and how you can get in on the competition.

For this purpose, check out Google Adwords Keyword Planner. Here, search for new keywords based on the niche keywords that you have already found. Then, click on Get Ideas. This will give you a list of monthly searches, competition, as well as suggested bids.

The monthly searches will give you some idea of just how popular the niche is and how much traffic you can expect as a result. The competition, on the other hand, will let you know just how difficult it will be to rank for them.

Now, these results don’t tell the full story. You also have to appreciate how much people are willing to bid on these keywords. Look for the keywords that marketers are willing to pay a lot for. These are the ones that show promise.

Narrow Your Niche Even Further

Once you have gotten a hold of these high-bid keywords, it is time to head back to your affiliate retailer. Use the new keywords to narrow down your niche even further. Remember, the smaller your focus, the more successful you are likely to be.

Not to mention, trying to narrow down your niche can lead to interesting new opportunities and ideas. In turn, you can spin these to ensure that you find a target audience that you can really engage.

These are all the steps that you should follow if you wish to find a niche in affiliate marketing. Once you have done this, you will know exactly where you need to start your journey.

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