Finding your affiliate marketing niche

The selection of the right niche to affiliate market is not one choice fits all. Each person has different strengths and depending on their own skill set need to take those elements into consideration. As has been noted at QuickSprout:

“Finding a niche is one of the most daunting steps in an affiliate marketer’s journey. But it’s a step that can’t be overlooked or rushed through. Finding the right niche is the key to tapping into a strong buyer’s market that’s not saturated with competition.”

While some skilled affiliate marketers say you do not need to stick to content that you know - suggesting you can learn any of the affiliate marketing niches - and while that is true, the learning curve on some of these potential niches can be long. Given most of these niches are generally highly competitive, it may be worth choosing an initial topic that the person has experience and knowledge.


Choosing the Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing

Obviously, the ideal situation is to find an area with low competition. There are tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMRush and SpyFu that will show the volume and level of competition to give some insights. While the competition will be higher the broader and lower in the buying funnel the terms looking getting a large amount of traffic - be it organically or through paid and other traffic sources - this should not necessarily be overlooked as a potential opportunity. There are, however, many sub-categories of these evergreen niches that can be a solid starting point for people new to affiliate marketing.

These smaller areas allow affiliates to build a brand in these more specific topics and gradually move to the broader ones. As Rae Dolan, a well-known affiliate marketer, states:

“Almost every broad niche has multiple sub-sects within it that may hold an opportunity for you. That said, I'd ensure the domain and brand you go with have the ability to expand into wider content and monetization opportunities as your brand grows”.

Her steps to choosing a niche include points each affiliate should use in making their decision.

  • Use PPC bids as an indicator of competition and interest in the topic. If no one is advertising in the space or the volume and bids are low, this may be an indication of limited appeal.

  • Doing searches for the keywords in your niche allows you to see if all results are major brands homepages which will suggest high competition. If they include small blogs or deep pages on the first page you may have an opportunity and have done some of your initial keyword research.

  • Once you have your list of ranking sites, check their inbound links to see how difficult it will be to meet the numbers.


Affiliate Niche Audiences

When choosing your audience, some other factors can be used to make the process easier. If you are part of the audience you are looking to target, it will be easier to choose terms and have insights into the questions similar people will have. The topic can also be one you are curious about so the research interests you, and the learning curve will not be as steep.

Once you have the area, start asking questions to answer problems or issues you see in the space. People search for answers, so knowing what they are asking can help with smart content that captures interest and rankings. Beyond looking at the suggested searches when you start typing in the Google search box, there are forums and platforms where questions in the niche can also be found.

Learning and understanding the terminology can also be a major factor in selecting a profitable niche. If the language and terminology are obscure, then definitions and explanations can be solid content that gets search for often. Using the right words is important, not only in content creation and possible paid traffic options but including it in ad copy and landing pages to attract the people in the niche.


Competition Within Your Affiliate Niche

When choosing your audience, some other factors can be used to make the process easier. If you are part of the audience you are looking to target, it will be easier to choose terms and have insights into the questions similar people will have. The topic can also be one you are curious about so the research interests you, and the learning curve will not be as steep.

Once you have a list of potential topics and popular niche markets, you then should look at the affiliate offers within the space. If you were searching to cover web development or creating a presence online, then looking for affiliate advertisers within that space is your next step. Domain registration, hosting and SSL certificates (and yes all the products that Namecheap affiliate marketing offers) would be areas to look at and consider the payments and conversion potential. You need to test your traffic to see if the highest commission vendor really converts better than others with lower commissions. Higher conversion may be due to lower price, brand popularity, or better reviews.

This consideration and testing of margins and success is crucial and should be researched and tested with as much effort as is given to keyword and niche selection.

While high-end products generally pay higher commissions, they also have lower volume and usually lower income potential. These types of factors need to be examined before making a final decision. You also may look at the availability of an appropriate domain name for the niche. If finding a clear, relevant domain is challenging, it may be a competitive affiliate space to try an build a presence.

You should also look for a vendor with solid support for their affiliates. An advertiser who keeps track of the success of its affiliates and engages with them can help in choosing where to market your website. A vendor who creates regularly updated creatives and provides solid resources and support will make your efforts easier.

There are a number of websites that monitor the hot topics for affiliate marketers. Posts made by Viper Chill generally feature solid affiliate marketing content.

For a good example of solid support and educational resources, check out the Namecheap affiliate program. Read through the FAQs, discover the resource center and get a feel for what you should get from a good vendor.


Become a Namecheap Affiliate

If you have visitors who buy domains, need hosting or require an SSL certificate, then the Namecheap program will be a great source of added revenue.

Sign Up Today!

Need help? We're always here for you.

× Close