Choosing a niche in affiliate marketing is not an easy task. It can take hours or even days to find the niche that’s right for you. But when you do, you will be able to focus on building your online business around this niche and make money more efficiently and effectively.
What’s a niche in affiliate marketing?
A niche is a narrow segment of a broad market, a specialised topic or a field of interest. In affiliate marketing, it implies you promote affiliate products that are relevant and tailored to the needs of this targeted group of customers.
Niche markets are usually smaller than the broad markets, meaning there is less competition, and it’s easier for niche businesses to differentiate themselves from the crowd.
An example of a niche (canoeing in rivers) is:
Outdoor → Outdoor sports → Canoeing → Canoeing in rivers
There are many factors to consider when choosing a niche in affiliate marketing. Still, the most important ones are your interests, skills, solutions to problems, and the availability and demand of products in that particular niche.
These are the few important factors that you need to consider when searching for your niche.
Start with your hobby or something you are passionate about
If you’re passionate about something, it’s best to focus on it and develop your expertise. You can then leverage this knowledge when you create your own business.
Knowing the market beforehand makes finding and attracting an audience/customer base easier. You can appeal to their preferences in a way that differentiates your business from others.
For example, you are generally interested in outdoor sports, particularly canoeing on the river. You may share your experience and knowledge with people in these groups. As you are familiar with the subject, it’s much easier to identify the accessories needed for this hobby, for example, outdoor gear. You can then incorporate it into your marketing strategy.
Though you must stay passionate about your work, it isn’t always lucrative. To be successful, research viable business ideas and find the one that could be fulfilling and profitable.
Are there topics for me to write content for years to come?
People often think that building a website only involves adding a couple of pages, and it’s done. No way! Sites need to be updated regularly with new posts and information to keep your audience’s interest high. Your site is similar to cars that need weekly refuelling for gas and regular maintenance for performance.
The type of content you decide to create is a very important decision. Try to choose a topic with variety so that you never run out of things to say on this subject. It also helps if there are enough people interested in the topic that your content will enjoy a wide audience. Your niche website will be your platform to interact with your audience.
Are people looking for solutions in my niche?
The thought of going for a niche that interests you makes sense, but it’s not always a good idea. Making sure the market is lucrative and has potential will help you grow more effectively.
You should also consider if people are actively looking for this niche on Google to solve a problem. I could start a website about my love for dinosaurs, but it wouldn’t be very profitable because it’s not solving any major problems.
If I start a website about growing healthier hair, that will attract people actively looking for advice and products on this topic. Your topic should ideally have traction in the market and solve a problem or improve someone’s well-being.
Are people willing to spend money in my niche?
Always remember, at the end of the day, you want to make money with your site. If you target niche people searching for products and services they’re willing to pay for, then this is an excellent way to achieve that goal.
Going back to the growing healthier hair niche, people are willing and ready to spend money to buy products to help them. They are actively searching on Google for product reviews and solutions, which is the buyers’ intent.
When choosing your niche, consider whether your target audience is willing to spend money on solutions. Are there products you can confidently recommend and produce quality reviews for? If not, this niche is unlikely to make you any money, even if it meets the other requirements I mentioned.
There’s no need to rush picking a niche. It doesn’t speed up cash generation and won’t happen overnight. However, you will still take time to find a place that can set you up for success in the long term.
Analyse the problems you can solve
Every niche has an opportunity to create a problem statement and solve it.
Think of users looking for a solution, such as growing healthier hair. If you can find the right solution to this issue, there’s potential to earn a lot of online cash.
Analyse the market demand
The market demand for the niche you enter should be high due to its increasing popularity. Demand will either be constant or on an upward trend, so there is no need to worry about an uncertain future.
The best examples I’ve seen are health, making money online and finance. These are evergreen niches that people will always need info on and great products in. No matter how long it takes for these industries to go ‘out of style, people will still want advice and information so that the demand won’t go away anytime soon.
You can go online and use a Google Trends tool to analyse the market demand and trends.
Analyse competition
No matter what niche you’re going into, competition is always a factor and that is something to keep in mind as you are starting up. The less competition there is, the more opportunities there will be for you to generate more sales.
When you’re going for niches that are in high demand (as mentioned above), the competition will also be high. How do you find low competition niches in high demand niches?
The key to success is to go deep and target a very narrow niche. For example, instead of going for improve your health/fitness niche, go for a narrow niche such as ‘‘improving stamina for men above 50’’. In this way, you target a niche that’s in high demand, yet low in competition.
Analyse the income potential
This is simple logic: we want to earn a profit from our blog and niche websites. Finding the right subject for your online blog or niche site would be best. Your niche should be one that can provide good returns in the long run.
You can use your competitors’ sites such as Amazon, eBay and others to find out what kind of products customers are looking for and how much commission they produce on average. This will then help you in ranking the income potential of any niche.
Analyse current and past trends
Always start by researching the trends before jumping into any niche.
The process is very simple.
Go to https://trends.google.com/trends/ and just type your niche. For example, I searched for the word “gardening”.
Focus on the stability of your niche. It should not be seasonal.
Identify affiliate products for promotion
As a business owner, you must wonder if there are enough products to sell from the affiliate sites, and the answer should be a definite ‘yes’.
You can search Amazon’s Bestseller’s page to brainstorm some good product ideas. Just enter your niche and break into sub-niches to see what popular products are in your niche that you could promote.
Check out online advertisements
Companies invest a lot in advertisements to dominate the market in their niche. Online advertisements can be seen as an indication of a big market.
It is common for websites to have a banner on their homepage that advertises the latest topics or products. If you see an advertisement consistently popping up whilst researching – this might indicate that it could be worth checking out.
Affinity and association
Strong affinity/association with your target audience is a must for success in your business and prospects.
You can find really popular niches using the Facebook Audience Insights tool.
If the answer is “yes” to most of your questions, you can likely start working on that niche.