How to Find Profitable Affiliate Niches

In this post, we're going to take a close look
at how to pinpoint the most profitable niches.

Affiliate marketing starts and ends with finding the right
niche to market in.

It's pretty simple, really. You find a hotbed of buying
activity and you plant yourself firmly there to market as
many hot products as possible to a very active market of
potential customers.

It's worked for hundreds of marketers who have become
very, very rich, but let's face it--when you're getting
started, nothing is ever quite that easy.

I want to delve deeper into the idea of niche research,
along with the mistakes that so many of us tend to make
over and over again.

When you can eliminate those mistakes, life gets much
easier and the profits are more consistent.

The Niche Research No-Nos

First up, let's take a closer look at what so many
starting affiliate marketers do wrong. At the very top of
the list, and something I've been preaching against for
years is diversification.

Of the super affiliates I've met, the vast majority
(pretty much all of them, including myself), make them
profits almost entirely from one or two niches.

Yup, that's right, it's exactly as it sounds. They spend
hours a day working on just dog training, or just marriage
advice or just weight loss.

They find a profitable audience and they hit them up over
and over again with different products, sites, and selling
points.

Second, as you might have guessed, they stuck to the big
niches--the evergreen ones that have always been solid
moneymakers.

Sure, they experiment a little bit, but only enough to
check out other niches, not so much that they dilute their
income from their one or two big niches.

Which niches are considered the "big niches"? Weight loss,
making money, muscle gain, self-help, dating, and health.

People are always looking for new products in these
niches, so you cannot cannibalize your sales, nor can you
run out of warm leads.

Of those niches, weight loss and fitness are the biggest
across the board, with making money coming in at a close
second.

Finding Your Niches and Products

Of course, just saying "try out the stuff that works"
isn't very helpful, so I want to go into a bit more detail
on what you can promote and how to make your selection.

Lucky for you, I have a couple of methods I like to use
that has always been highly successful for me.

In terms of finding product ideas, I usually stick to
ClickBank and Amazon. On occasion, I will also use Google
to review possible affiliate networks in greater depth.

Amazon.com Research

Let's start with Amazon.com. I start here because I want
to first find a niche that has a large buyer base.

You can always find a product on ClickBank with high
gravity, but even before that, I want to identify the
breadth of a potential audience first. You'll see why very
shortly.

To start with, visit Amazon.com and start reviewing
products and topics in niches that you are interested in.

This is very important because you'll be spending a lot
of your time investing in that niche, especially if it
becomes one of your two big niches.

Be sure it's something you're willing to write about and
market extensively for months to come. If you could care
less about weight loss or are afraid of dogs, those might
not be the best paths to success.

With that in mind, start searching on Amazon for books and
other niche products. Your goal here is to find products
with at least 20 reviews. Why just 20 reviews?

Considering the fact that Amazon estimates only 1 in 1,000
people actually review something they buy from their site,
a product with 20 reviews is likely to have been purchased
by at least 20,000 people.

That's a huge market, especially if it's just one product
in an information niche.

If you can find multiple products in the same niche that
all have 20+ reviews, you've hit the jackpot.

It doesn't matter if the niche has 100 products or just 2;
if there are people buying products, it's a good niche.

Moving to ClickBank

With that in mind, it's time to find a product that you
can actually market.

In general, I don't recommend promoting products on
Amazon. The commission rate is very low, and most Amazon
products are on massive reductions, so the profit potential is
limited.

If you find a highly valuable product in a niche like
"solar energy kits" or "home stereo equipment," you might
rethink that, because you can make $15+ per sale.

Generally speaking, though, you should never choose a
niche where your minimum commission per sale is less than
$15. That should be your magic number.

So, with that magic number in mind, we take a stroll over
to ClickBank--the number-one affiliate network on the
Internet, where info products are sold by marketers like
you and me for commissions of up to 75%, sometimes even
more.

A single $20 book on ClickBank will net you a profit of
$10-$15--much better for the time you invest into it.

As for finding a niche product, go to the Marketplace
(https://accounts.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm) and
search for the product niche that you've already
identified on Amazon.com.

For most popular info niches (the major niches we
discussed at the beginning of the newsletter), you'll find
dozens of products.

I recommend sticking to these major niches because of they
have more options and have proven conversion rates.
Seasonal and specialty niches require more work and are
hard to focus on in the long term.

Look for a $ per sale of at least 15. Ideally, you'll get
even more than this--upwards of $30+ per sale.

Additionally, look at the gravity of a product. This
represents how many affiliates have successfully sold that
product in the last few weeks. The higher the number, the
better it converts and the more room there is in the
market for you to join in. Usually, a gravity of 30 or more
is ideal, but sometimes a bit less than this is workable.

Later, you'll need to review the competitor sites to be
sure you can find a place for your own websites, but for
now, just identifying the niche is enough.

Heading to Google

Of course, ClickBank is not the only affiliate
marketplace, and if you find a product on Amazon that
doesn't show up on ClickBank, you still have other
options. Go to Google and search for "best affiliate
networks." Many times, other networks will pop up
with plenty of options.

Getting It Right

There is no right answer for which niche you choose to
work in. However, if you're even remotely serious about
being successful and becoming the next big super
affiliate, you need to pinpoint a rich, evergreen niche
that can be solicited time and again for profits without
boring you to tears.

Do that, and you'll be well on your way to a successful
marketing plan.