Choosing a profitable niche for your blog or affiliate marketing business can be tricky. Not to mention all the conflicting opinions out there, it can be hard to know where to start.
But no worries, I’ve been an affiliate marketer since 2007, so you’re in good hands here. This blog post will guide you through the various aspects of choosing a niche and show you how to choose the right one for you.
And I’ll give you a handy list of the most profitable niches to help you get started. But don’t worry, if you want to find more I’ll show you how to do that too.
What are the most profitable niches?
This is a list of the most profitable niches:
Weight loss
Fitness
Beauty
Gardening
Fashion
Business
Health
Cooking
Bitcoin
Photography
Baby products
Personal finance/investing
Dating advice
Vegan
CBD
Web hosting
Sports
Some of these niches may not be for you, but some are likely to have a strong fit simply because they are so profitable and in-demand right now. Having this list might give you the inspiration or validation that you need to start your own affiliate marketing business in one of these niches.
But what if you don’t want to start a niche site based around any of these? I’ll show you how to find more.
How to Find a Profitable Niche For Affiliate Marketing
A well-known approach is called the HISS framework. HISS stands for; hobbies, interests, search, social.
Hobbies: what do you like to do?
Interests: What are your passions or areas of study?
Search: is there enough search volume?
Social: is there a significant degree of activity on social media?
Here are tips on how to choose a blog or affiliate marketing business’s niche:
– Make sure you’re somewhat knowledgeable about the topic. This will make it easier for you since you’ll be able to write and talk about it more confidently.
If you aren’t confident in what you’re talking about, it will show and affect your credibility.
– Choose a topic that you’re passionate about. Passion is essential because this type of business requires investing time in writing articles or creating videos to promote products from various companies.
If you don’t love the subject matter, there’s little chance that you’ll enjoy doing these tasks properly for an extended length of time.
– Consider your audience and what they’re already thinking about. If you create content related to things your audience is interested in, it will have a better chance of being shared across social media.
Sometimes there’s overlap between two different topics, which can be good because you can expand your audience by catering to other interests.
– Check out the competition in that niche and what they’re doing right or wrong. You’ll want to do something better for sure! It’s essential not only to be unique but also to provide high-value content so people will keep coming back.
If someone else is already providing what you want to offer, that’s perfectly ok. But it’s a good idea to be different from them and offer better value.
– Use keyword research tools or brainstorm keywords related to your niche and see if people are searching for them. Think about how often someone might search those words versus other words.
The more times someone searches with the right words, the more likely they will be your target market.
Picking the right niche for you is one of the most important decisions you’ll make when launching your blog or affiliate marketing business – so take some time up-front to think about what will work best with your goals, strengths, and interests.
The problem with these metrics is that they don’t take everything into account; for example, some niches have a high conversion rate but low visitor count because they have a small target audience.
Validate Your Niche
Once you’ve got some niche ideas, it’s time to validate them.
Validating your niche is the only way to ensure that it’s profitable.
There are many different ways to measure profitability, but one of the most common is website traffic. The more visitors a site receives (through search engine optimization or other means), the higher chance it has at converting those visitors into paying customers.
Another way to validate your niche is to see if competitors are advertising.
It’s easy to check. Head over to Google and search for relevant keywords. If you see ads on the front page, you know it’s profitable. It’s unlikely your competitors would be spending money on advertisements without seeing a decent return on their investment.
You can also get a feel for things with Google Adwords. You can search for keywords related to your niche and see how many people are searching on the topic each month, as well as what your competitors are willing to pay per click (PPC).
But it’s also essential to check the type of products sold.
Because you’re about to launch an affiliate marketing business, I strongly recommend you consider promoting digital products.
The commission earnings on digital products can be much higher than physical products.
The commission on a digital product can be anywhere from 20% to 75%. You’ll also have the potential for repeat visits and future sales when people want more of your recommendation.
So how do we check your niche is a good match for digital products?
Go to Amazon and search for relevant books or magazines sold. If there’s a demand for information products, digital product equivalents are likely to exist.
Next, you need to sure that books and magazines are really being purchased. As anybody can list a product for sale, it doesn’t mean it’s selling. So verify that there is a healthy number of reviews for books and magazines in your niche.
Also, look for a ‘verified purchase’ label on those comments.
If people are buying information products like books and magazines, they’ll likely purchase digital products too.
To confirm this, go to the Clickbank marketplace.
Even if you don’t promote Clickbank products, just validating that digital products exist (and are being sold) in your niche is a smart move.
When searching the Clickbank marketplace, take note of the gravity score on each of the products.
Gravity is a key metric that lets us know if a product has sold recently. You don’t need to see a considerable gravity score; even a score of 0.1 is enough.
You see, gravity gets weighted against all sales on the marketplace, and some niches perform better than others. Generally, products in highly competitive niches like weight loss receive a higher gravity score.
But don’t let that put you off. If there’s any activity on Clickbank, it’s enough validation that there’s a demand for digital products.
Aim to solve problems
An affiliate marketer’s goal is to drive conversions through content, whether blog posts, an email list, or a product listing page on an e-commerce site.
This allows affiliates to solve problems for their readers and offer valuable information without overtly selling anything.
An important distinction between bloggers and affiliate marketers is that while both have websites as their platforms, bloggers frequently write content for themselves, and affiliate marketers sell a product or service.
As an example of how you might solve problems through your blog posts, you might target someone who is having trouble sleeping.
Your blog post might help them to solve that problem. Then you could recommend a product that helps them further, so you earn a commission.
To sell effectively, you need to build trust. That means building a relationship with your audience.
Building relationships with your blog readers happen by providing them with information that solves their problems.
If you already have a blog, you might ask yourself these questions:
What are my readers passionate about? What topics do they want help on? What issues do they want to know more about? What can my blog offer that no one else’s can?
What if my niche is saturated?
Don’t be afraid of competition. The last thing you want is a niche that has no competitors.
Generally, the more competition you have, the more lucrative the niche. The trick is to find your blue ocean.
Find a blue ocean means carving out a sub-niche where there are few competitors; for example, if you’re entering the weight loss niche, you might want to limit who you’re hoping to attract.
So, instead of trying to make your business appeal to everyone who wants to lose weight, you might try to appeal to men above a certain age.
You’ve now taken a very competitive niche and eliminated most of your competitors but are still targeting a sizeable audience and have room to grow.
When deciding on your niche, make sure that there is enough demand for what you’re offering; this is where keyword research comes into its own.
Find A Niche Market With Keyword research
Keyword research is one of the most crutial steps for affiliate marketing.
If you want to increase your chances of ranking well in search engines, you must use relevant and popular keywords with your target audience.
A general rule of thumb is to find keywords with enough search volume but not so many searches to be too competitive.
To find these keywords, you can either use the Google Keyword Planner Tool or a paid tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
The ideal sweet spot for search volume varies from niche to niche, but generally, it should be more than 1000 searches a month but less than 70,000.
However, that figure is not set in stone, and if you ask a different marketer, they will likely give you an other figure.
Do you need to be an expert?
No, you do not need to be an expert in your niche.
It’s not always about becoming an expert in a particular niche as it is finding people looking for what you offer but don’t know how to find it themselves.
The great thing about affiliate marketing is that it’s unnecessary to be an expert in your niche because you’re just going to sell other people’s products.
You are simply the spokesperson for their product, and this can make a huge difference when it comes time to promoting them (you won’t always have something good to say).
Make sure websites are sold
If websites are being sold in your niche, then you know that people are making money.
By checking websites like Empire Flippers, FE International, and Flippa, you can get a sense of what is selling and what price (this will help you decide how much to invest in your website).
Seeing niche websites sold frequently is the ultimate sign of a niche that can work for you as an affiliate marketer, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll be able to make any sales in this industry. You also need to confirm traffic sources are available.
Make sure Traffic Sources are Available
Another consideration is the potential traffic sources available to you.
If the niche has a lot of online traffic, such as blogs or forums, this would be favorable for your affiliate marketing campaign.
The secret to successful affiliate marketing is putting the right offer in front of the right people at the right time.
That doesn’t mean spamming communities with affiliate links, but you need to know a sizeable audience out there.
There must be a diverse range of traffic sources across multiple platforms.
Do a quick search on Facebook for relevant groups. Check Twitter for hashtags being used, and verify that forums exist.
Also, make sure that plenty of Youtube channels exist and are producing content regularly. This will tell you if there’s an audience available.
On the other hand, if there is little traffic available in an industry that interests you, then maybe you should go back to the drawing board.
What are some other things you should consider before choosing a niche?
Many factors decide what is suitable for you, and it all depends on how much time and effort you want to put into the project.
What are the Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing?
The pros of affiliate marketing include a lower startup cost, no inventory to manage, and potential for passive income.
The cons can be that you’ll need an established following before starting this type of business model. You also may not have as much control over customers’ purchases with affiliate marketing.
What’s the Difference Between an Affiliate and a Partner?
An affiliate is someone who has joined your program to promote it for you but doesn’t get any commission or a specific percentage of revenue they help generate unless their sales reach certain thresholds. A partner gets a set percentage on every sale that reaches a predefined threshold, regardless of whether it’s their product or yours.
Who Should Consider Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing can be an excellent way to start your entrepreneurial journey because you don’t need any capital upfront, and there are no long-term commitments that come with other business models.
It also has the potential for passive income, making it attractive for those who want to earn money and be hands-off about the process, but only after putting in months of work.
Being Realistic About Affiliate Marketing
We both know there is a lot of hype out there, and it’s usually followed with an invitation to buy some $4k coaching package. So let’s be realistic.
The best way to determine niche profitability then is through your unique goals and interests. What do you want in the end? To earn money quickly with little effort or build an online business that will last for years without much investment?
If you’re looking to make money quickly without much effort, you’re not going to find a lot of success with affiliate marketing. You’ll need to put in more time and effort, but the payoffs are often also much higher.
If you’re looking for a buiness that will last over many years without much time investment, affiliate marketing might be your best option; it’s not as difficult as other types of online business models like dropshipping.
The bottom line; you need to decide what’s most essential for you to before taking action.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a superb way to make passive income, and even with the right niche, it does require more work than other types of online business models. You need to be clear on your goals before you start investing time and money into the project.
And results don’t happen overnight. But if you’re dedicated and willing to put in the time and the effort, you will eventually be rewarded with passive income.