Every day more and more people consider starting an online business and it’s not a surprise for me. Starting an affiliate marketing business is more accessible and easier than ever. These are great news for all of us. You maybe even asking yourself how to create an online business? And then, how to pick a niche for affiliate marketing? These are very popular questions I come across regularly.
I am glad you were able to find my article because it will be my pleasure to help and guide you in the first stages of your business.
The three criteria’s I will discuss below will help you choose a niche to start your business. With the right niche, you will be feeling it not like you are doing a job but like you’re enjoying your favorite hobby. That’s how I feel with mine and its great!
That is what I feel an online business should be, something fun, and it will be if you choose something that you feel passionate about or are interested to learn.
It’s simple, the more you like it, the less it will feel like a job.
Let’s start simple,
What is a Niche for Affiliate Marketing?
When applied to affiliate marketing, a niche can be a group of people that share the same interest, hobbies or need specific needs to be fulfilled. The people that belong to this group will be your readers, followers and potential customers.
After you decide on a niche, you need to know your audience, what they like and what needs they may have so you can fulfill those needs.
This is the formula for success today, building a website focused on a niche, understanding their needs, building confidence that you can provide the needed solutions.
How to Pick a Niche for Affiliate Marketing
In order to choose a niche for affiliate marketing or blogging, there are 3 general steps you want to follow: Choose a subject you are passionate about, target a specific audience from your industry and research your competition.
Let’s discuss this in details.
Step 1. Choose a subject you are passionate about.
I have always been drawn to technology and self-improvement and the things I talk about in my blogs are related to that.
Having an online business is a challenge, but it can be made more difficult if you are in a niche that you are no passionate about.
Do not feel bad if you have started a project and you realize you are in the wrong niche. When I started, I created two websites based on the wrong niche for me, what happened? I ended up giving up on the project.
This happens to many of us but, is not the end of the world. If you are part of a good website hosting service, like SiteRubix, it will allow you to create several websites without additional cost, you just need to buy a new domain and it is less than $13 a year.
Just remember, if you start a niche that you feel passionate about, you will have more opportunity for success. You will be moved, not by money, but by your passion.
If you are not sure what are the things that motivate you, let’s explore ways to identify what motivates you.
7 Questions you can Ask Yourself to Identify your Interests and Passions.
1. What activities or subjects you find yourself thinking about frequently?
2. What things do you feel interested in learning more about?
3. What activities are you so excited to do, even if you are not getting paid?
4. What things do you find yourself doing where the time flies by?
5. What activities draw out your creative side?
6. With what type of conversations does your face light up with interest?
7. What do people you admire most do? And what do they have in common?
Step 2. Target an audience or a Specific Field in your Niche’s industry.
Now that you know which industry you are passionate about, it’s time to brainstorm about a specific aspect of that industry that will target a subset audience within that industry.
For example, if you spend time investigating or reading about finances and how to make or save money, is because you are interested about learning about it, you like the subject or maybe you are already an expert. If you choose finance as your niche, I would say that is too broad.
Which subset of ideas can you talk about within finances?
- The Retirement plan for Baby Boomers
- Ways to make money for a stay at home mom
- Debt Consolidation
- Low Salary employees looking to generate passive income
Using a keyword Research like Jaaxy you can find keywords that have low competition, like the ones below.
A niche-focused on a specific audience produces higher sales conversion. It is also easier to connect with your readers and create a following.
If you were going to retire in a year and you were looking for efficient ways to earn extra income, you would search online and you could find results like the following:
- Digital Book – How to start an online business
- Digital Book – How to become an entrepreneur online for retirees [complete guide]
I imagine you would choose the second option, right? And it’s obvious because it’s specific to your situation.
Remember, it will be easier to achieve engagement and learn about the demographics of one group than several ones at the same time. Also, you don’t need millions of followers to be successful online, you only need a dedicated group of people that enjoy what you do and trusts the things you have to say.
Step 3. Research your competition.
Even though I believe passion and determination can win against any competition, it’s still good to be aware of how crowded a niche is.
What tools can help you know more about your niche? Reading books or magazines related to your audience, using Google and tools like Jaaxy to research keywords is key to success.
In the previous picture, I showed you the “how to prepare for retirement in your 40s” keyword had enough online monthly searches in Google and had low competition.
If we analyze a bit more this keyword and the competition, we will realize the following:
Jaaxy’s report can show us who are currently dominating on the first page of search results for Google, Bing, and Yahoo. This information is very useful for the following.
- It allows us to know if your competition is a big company like Amazon.com in online stores, entrepreneur.com in business, pcmagazine.com in tech or delish.com in food, etc.
- Who is ranked number one dominating this keyword?
- It shows you important information about the article’s SEO. In this case, the article in the number one spot has 3,188 written words.
What can I do with this information?
Once you have a set of keywords, then you can analyze your competition and see if you can write a better article in terms of quality or maybe in the word count.
How to Know if my Niche is Profitable?
If you wish to achieve your dream of having a real online business, it will take time and hard work but always will be profitable and sustainable in the long run if you persist with it.
A way to know if your niche is more profitable than others is by researching the products tied to the keywords you plan to talk about.
For example, in the retirement plan for baby boomers’ niche, you can recommend software or training for your followers.
Another thing that could be of interest to retirees is:
- Hotels and Vacations
- Self-improvement books
- Training for earning passive income with an online business.
- Training for Blogging or Affiliate Marketing Business
Remember, with the proper training and determination, any niche can be profitable. It will depend on how hard you work and how focused you are with your desire to reach your goal. Discipline trumps intelligence and that passion always wins the race.
What Training Can You Use To Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer Online?
Becoming an affiliate marketer is no easy job and you have to work hard to reach your goal but, what helps best in your journey? to count with proper support and training.
Wealthy affiliate’s training is the program I 100% recommend. This is where I trained myself when I started my online business.
Because I learned so much, I am still part of this awesome community.
What do I like the most about Wealthy Affiliate’s training? You can start the training and the platform totally free. In addition, it includes everything you need to build your website.
You can read my comprehensive review of Wealthy Affiliate in the link below.
Final Thought
Set your expectations high and don’t be afraid to make mistakes or to learn something new. Start your business with a niche that you are passionate about.
Wealthy Affiliate can help you accelerate your progress. I recommend you take advantage of the 10 free training lessons they offer.
If you have any questions or are unsure about your niche, let me know in the comments below. This is what do for a living, helping people achieve their dreams about creating an online business with affiliate marketing.
I wish the best of success to you!
Hi Ria
I really like the way you have analys your post, well done, i can only wish you best of luck for the future.