Getting Started in Affiliate Marketing
Your very first step getting started in affiliate marketing is finding a profitable niche. This how you will compete against the big guys and the more competitive sites.
Finding a profitable niche is about finding, and then promoting, what people are interested in, more importantly what they spend their money on.
For example, besides the necessities of life like food and shelter, people spend their disposable income on the following:
Money - People spend money on finding out how to make money, save money and simply how to have more of it.
Beauty - People spend billions on looking better and looking younger.
Recreation - People spend money on sports, recreation, fun and relaxation.
Health - People will spend money to learn how to overcome illness, live longer, avoid pain or simply feel better.
Love - People spend money on dating, candy, diamonds, flowers and cards.
For more detail on finding good niches, here's a free nichefinder guide that may help.
Start with What Interests You
Based on the above, what things interest you?
Your chosen niche doesn't have to be some great passion, as you may have heard. It's OK to simply go with something that you like or have a general interest in. The idea is to go with something that holds your interest and can be profitable at the same time.
Start by looking around and finding out what people are doing and buying. Think about what interests people the most.
Your niche topic should be tightly focused
Don't go too broad with your topic. The more niche focused you are, the better.
For example, the topic of 'weight loss', is far too broad. You are much better off getting more specific, by specific I mean focused on a niche in the market that has a specific targeted audience.
These would be niche topics that reach a more targeted audience:
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Over 40 weight loss
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'Post partum weight loss
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Teen Weight Loss
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Postpartum weight loss
These target in on exactly what someone may be looking for. This helps your site stand out above all the other more generic weight loss sites that cover everything and don't cater to specific areas of interest.
Here's a good example of a bad example:
Something I did a few years ago to help me capitalize on popular niches was to look at eBay.
I'm not a big fan of eBay but I know there's money to be made there. So using the affiliate marketing business model I came across an application called "Build a Niche Site". In fact I wrote a case study if you want to take a look.
The site promote guitars that are listed on eBay, however the mistake I made was that 'guitars' is much to broad of a topic. In fact guitars is not really a niche at all. The site would do much better if I were to focus it on a specific type of guitar, something like Gibson or Fender guitars or to a brand of acoustic or electric guitar.
Amazingly enough the site earns great sales each month but that's more of a tribute to the BANS product, not because I picked a great niche.
What to do when you've found your niche
Once you decide on a profitable niche, sit down and draw up an old fashioned outline. You know like the ones you made in high school.
Break your niche down into categories and decide what you want to discuss for each category. This is going to help you organize and categorize your website which is what we'll be discussing next.