Affiliate niche marketing can be a great way to start making money online.
Today we will discuss the merging of affiliate marketing with choosing a good niche. What I mean by a “good niche” is not only a niche that you can work with, but also a niche with a good selection of affiliate products.
Welcome to Fearless Affiliate.
My name is Irma and I help new bloggers to learn the ropes. There is a lot to take in that first year of blogging, from choosing a niche to changing your mindset from worker bee mentality to that of successful entrepreneur.
I like to focus on practical information and positive thinking, so if that sounds good to you please sign up for my weekly newsletter of tips and free stuff for bloggers. Get my latest guide Are You Ready To Be An Affiliate? and check out how affiliate marketing can work for you.
What is affiliate niche marketing anyway?
To get started earning money with affiliate marketing, first you need to choose a niche or “your little corner of the internet”. A niche, in internet marketing, is a small segment of a larger market. This little corner is where you stake your claim. The more you niche-down the less competition you have. You also have less traffic, but your traffic will be targeted, so that is good.
Related Post: 7 Tips For Finding Your Blogs Niche
Start with a broad category topic like saving money and research the different types of niches that are related to that topic. An example in the saving money niche could be minimalism, which is having minimal ‘stuff’ in your home, thereby saving money just by not buying things. Or it could be saving money to pay off student loans. Or it could be seniors writing posts on how to save money or how to earn extra cash.
Figure out which niche your hobbies and passions are in and then find products that you can promote to other people who are also interested in that topic.
Related Post: Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
Before you settle on the next steps of setting up your website, check out my tips below to be sure that you are moving in the right direction for success.
*This post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. My full disclosure is at the bottom of the page.*
Four Tips for success with affiliate niche marketing
1. Research, research, research
Just like with any business, you have to research to determine if the niche you’ve chosen is going to be profitable. The first step that you need to take is figuring out what companies in the market are currently offering products and services that align with your niche. Then you will want to sign up as an affiliate so that you can promote those products in your blog posts or newsletter.
A simple way to find out if there are good products that you can promote on your website is to Google your niche topic. Look in the search results for paid ads, which are labelled as “ads” and take up the top spots in search results. See what they are promoting to see if it is good fit for you and your values. Another way is to type your niche and “+ affiliate products” to see what is available.
Don’t close out that browser window just yet. Now take a look at the non ad results. These websites are your competition, so check out their websites to see what they are promoting. Create a folder in your browsers taskbar for all the websites on page one and two in your niche and save them in the folder for research. Scan these sites and see if you can figure out what they are missing that you can provide.
Bonus Tip: Read the comments on competitor websites to see if anyone is asking questions that the blog post or website did not answer…and then take that idea and use it as a blog post or create an ebook for your own website.
Watch for gaps in the market
If you see there is a gap in the market that requires a product or service, you may want to consider how you can fill that gap. You can write an ebook ( a downloadable PDF) that holds someones hand while you teach them a new skill. Or you can create physical products to promote that meet the needs of your audience.
You can also search for Google Trends, to see what is new and exciting today.
2. Give your customers value…and then more value.
A big part of affiliate marketing is product reviews. However, you cannot just add affiliate links to your blog posts and call it a day. Well, you can, but it probably won’t work. That is where product reviews come in.
For new bloggers, it is best to start off using affiliate networks like ShareAsale to get your products from. They have a wide range of products for most niches and are less risky than you contacting vendors yourself. Affiliate networks generally accept new bloggers right away.
Join some Facebook groups
Join groups with bloggers in the same niche, to keep up with new information on bad or fake products. Or to see if your fellow bloggers are creating products that you can promote as an affiliate.
Related Post: Earn Money Writing Reviews!
As well, follow the FTC guidelines for how to post and promote your affiliate products. This is a printable PDF version, but be aware that it is a very deep article.
Whenever you can, try out the products that you are recommending. It is easier to write a compelling product review if you have actual user experience.
The more you believe in what you are marketing, the more your readers will believe in it as well.
And to get as many eyes on your blog post reviews as possible, you will need social media and blogger forums and groups to promote your website. Pinterest is great because you can use intriguing text and obvious call-to-actions on your pins to encourage people to click on through to your website.
Related Post: How To Use Pinterest For Business
Always be offering your visitors value, such as a blog post with a free checklist or a “what to look for when buying a …(product or service)” cheat sheet that they can download. Writing a lot of blog posts gives your website a level of authority that is key to getting potential customers to trust you.
3. Have Multiple Traffic Sources
The more platforms that you work with, the wider audience you can reach. If you promote your affiliate products on a blog, your social media accounts, and through niche forums, you will reach much more people than if you were just to promote on one of these channels. Make sure that you have Google Analytics tracking your blog posts and campaigns to get the valuable data.
For the digital entrepreneur, paid ads from Facebook and Pinterest can bring highly targeted traffic to your website. As well, you can contact some affiliate vendors and ask for a special discount code to give your visitors when they purchase through your link. Add this information to your pin or feed post (“special pricing with my link!”) to encourage more clicks back to your website.
Related Post: Copywriting For Social Media Posts
4. Don’t forget your visitors on mobile
With the awesome ease of use of today’s mobile phones, people are using them to browse and purchase more and more often. Make sure that your website theme is compatible for all shoppers: desktop, tablet or mobile. Don’t leave money on the table by alienating a segment of your audience.
Be sure to check for yourself what your website looks like on mobile or tablet to be sure that your visitors are getting all options available. For many, the sidebar options on your desktop may not be visible to your mobile audience. In that case you do not want something important like your email opt-in box in only the sidebar. You will miss out on subscribers!
Conclusion
Once you choose a niche, then your next steps are choosing a name for your website and then getting hosting. Starting an online business is really the least expensive way to have a business…it literally costs less than $100 a year!
If you are thinking of starting your online biz, please sign up for my weekly newsletter of tips for new bloggers. You will get my new guide Are You Ready To Be An Affiliate? and that will help you figure out your next steps.
Until next time, happy blogging. And follow me on Pinterest.
-Irma 🙂
I am really glad I came across your article. This is a very informative blog for all newbies and wanna-be bloggers. Being a newbie blogger myself, I found this topic very helpful. Giving customers real value is a very important component of being successful at affiliate marketing. I also found your take on creating a mobile-friendly website very insightful. Thanks a lot for sharing this!
You are welcome Daniel and thank you for visiting us today,
I wish I knew all of this information when I first started. I would have done a lot of things differently. Live and learn right? I wish you much success with your online ventures!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Hi Irma, great article and amazing tips for affiliate marketing. I’m so glad I come across your post because I was just about to create a new niche website and these tips are very useful for me. Most important is to give customer value, I think most people these days are focused on trying to sell something rather than helping a customer. If we will give value to people it is more likely we are going to build trust and they will buy. The other very important tip you have listed here does not forget mobile users, because these days more and more people are browsing using mobile phones and we have to make sure our website is mobile friendly. Thank you for sharing these amazing tip I can use when working on my website.
Hello Marius and thank you for visiting us today,
I agree! I have been to so many websites that are just clogged with ads that slow down the loading time; then the content is thin at best. Not the most pleasant search experience.
I wish you the best of luck!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
These are some great tips for anyone interested in affiliate marketing. It’s important to remind everyone that it takes hard work to really develop a niche website and to keep their eyes on the prize. These are some great tips and your site in general offers some great resources for fellow bloggers and I for one appreciate it.
Thanks,
Dawn
You are welcome Dawn and thank you for visiting us today!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Thank you so much for your article! I really learned a lot. I am a firm believer that any niche can be profitable if you can drive enough traffic to your content. Some niches are just easier to make money with than others!
I also believe in multiple traffic sources- my dad taught me to “not put all my eggs in one basket”. If you rely on just one traffic source you may not be able to drive traffic. What have you found to be the best way to drive traffic to your content?
Hello Amber and thank you for visiting us today,
I love Pinterest for traffic. It is free and fairly simple to set up. If you are interested, read How To Use Pinterest For Business to learn how to get your account set up for traffic. I also use Pinterest to find good keywords, as well as checking the trends.
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂