Decide On An Affiliate Niche
Understanding Affiliate Marketing Niche Selection
Summary - When looking into the different types of affiliate marketing, understanding the right affiliate niche can be make or break your efforts. This is especially true when it comes to making your first few selections that will teach you everything you need to know about the internet marketing world and making money online. Keep reading to find out how to go about choosing a niche that's right for you...
Determining A Good Niche
Before choosing an affiliate monetization model or creating an affiliate website, the first thing to do is to look for in a niche that you are passionate and excited about.
You need to be able to tell people why you like the product, web page, or service. People need to be able to trust your enthusiasm and previous knowledge will also help you answer any questions that they may have as well.
However, you also need to look for affiliate niches that are paying well. Not everything will payout, and many times things that you are passionate about are either over-saturated or don't have enough consumers to make them worthwhile.
Make a list of things you like or are passionate about for possible affiliate marketing niches
(Hint: "Clients" = ClickBank Affiliates)
Trendy niches will have a shorter shelf life (think of how fast the fidget spinner came & went). It is relatively easy to sell merchandise or programs based on trending selections (as long as you can drive traffic to the pages), and sales pages can be loaded with affiliate links - and more. Going for something that is popular, but not over-saturated gives you a chance to quickly corner a market and come out on top. Just keep in mind that there are many more affiliate niches outside of Internet marketing.
Niches To Stay Away From At First
When you are first starting out looking to monetize your website, there a number of niches that you should stay away from. These are generally things like web hosting, insurance, mortgage loans, credit, and more. These niches may produce high profits, but they require a large investment of time, money, and attention. They are also saturated with marketers who know what they are doing and who are able to do it more efficiently than you are able to when you're starting out.
Instead, you should look for niches that are up & coming - or that have a reasonably steady steam of revenue, but that aren't as impressive to other marketers. This allow you to build up your expertise in an area that is much more forgiving. You don't have to worry about one small mistake costing you thousand of dollars, and you are better able to switch niches if you find that one just isn't working for you.
When first starting out, choose affiliate marketing niches that are not too competitive. Otherwise, you'll get pummeled.
After a few years in the marketing world, or even a few months, you will find that you are much more comfortable with the work needed to produce a good campaign. At this point, you can target the aforementioned niches and begin to make even more money, building upon your previous experiences.
The Staying Power Of Good Niches
A good niche should be able to transform your life. While following trends does mean that some income will die off after a while, the trends will still have at least a few years of relevance. Picking a niche at the right time should give you years of income from very little work. You should be able to go in and update your content on a semi-regular basis to take advantage of shifting trends.
Understanding Evergreen Content
There is content that you never need to update and that will always keep making you money. This is known as evergreen content, because just like the trees, it never looses its life force. This content contains no reference to any frame of time, can be viewed in 5 years and be just as relevant as it was today, and relies on popular affiliate aggregators that are unlikely to go out of business any time soon.
When looking into a niche that is evergreen, you should look for products or services that serve a small portion of the population, but that have been popular for years. Many people find success with basic items such as housewares, books, souvenirs, and more.
Choose affiliate niches that are evergreen to have sustained income generation.
Sites such as Rakuten, Ebay, ShareaSale, Clickbank, Linkconnector, and more all good companies to look at (read more here). Choosing one of their products or services that will be needed for several years will allow you to make evergreen content that continues earning.
Once properly optimized and posted, this content should bring in visitors at a steady rate, ensuring that you are always going to have a passive income source. Many people choose to invest in a number of different evergreen projects, freeing up their time for more time consuming niches without worrying about bills or other problems. Many marketers have managed to make a living for themselves over 10 years or more just on this type of content.
What You Need To Succeed In Your Niche
While the world of affiliate marketing may seem like it is all based around clicking links, each and every program is going to have a slightly different system through which you earn.
Understanding which of these methods determines your pay will help you earn faster.
Traditionally, the Pay Per Click (PPC) method has been popular. Technically, some merchant would be paying for each ad clicked on your website.
Ask yourself what monetization methods are available for the niche you are interested in marketing.
You would be, for example, the Google Adsense publisher in this set-up, and you would share the click commissions with Google. In this method, you are paid every time someone clicks on a link and stays on the website they are directed to for a few seconds. Payouts from this type of marketing are low, But, if you can get to tens of thousand of clicks, you can have decent passive income.
Digital downloads are another one of the method of monetization. In this method, you are paid for each download that someone makes, either after completing a survey or clicking on your link. These will usually pay out 10 to 20 times as much per download as link clicks would. These can be things like e-books, programs, music, and even instruction manuals.
Another model is physical products. This can be seen on websites like Amazon, eBay, and other major retailers. Each person who clicks on your affiliate link and buys something, is contributing to you as well as the retailer. You get a small commission of each item bought, and many times the link you post will work for both the product you post and any others that they buy while they are on the same session. This is generally the most lucrative options per action, but it can be much harder to generate sales and it can be harder to keep your content relevant.
Wrapping It Up...
All of these models are good choices, but their payouts and marketing styles vary. Make sure you understand which one you are getting into, and ensure that you are following the best practices for both your niche and your monetization model.
After selecting a niche or two, the next thing to do is to find out what affiliate products are available for the niche.
