7 Steps to Choosing Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niches
When it comes to affiliate marketing niches, there are many to choose from. However, not all of them are equally profitable. In fact, some make it downright difficult to make money.
So what makes a niche profitable? Is it all about high-ticket commissions? Or is it about finding a niche where you can build a sustainable business?
Most articles talk about “the best affiliate marketing niches” because they want you to sign up for specific programs using their links or because they think they know what you need more than you.
I’ll provide some samples of the “best” affiliate marketing niches as well, but I’m going to start with a step-by-step process you can use to pick one that fits your skills, knowledge, and goals.
If that sounds good, scroll down and enjoy the read!
This article contains affiliate links. If you follow them and then make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no additional expense to you. Thanks for reading!
What is a Niche in Affiliate Marketing?
A niche is a market segment that a product or service can target. There are many different types of niches. If there are products or services for sale related to a topic, it can be considered a niche.
Niches range from extremely broad (like “blogging”) to very narrow (like “vegan recipe blogging”). Each has its own set of challenges and opportunities.
When choosing a niche, keep in mind that you may have to do some research before you nail it down.
You might also want to consider if you wish to focus on products or services. Products tend to be easier to sell, but they usually have lower pricing. Services typically cost more, but they can be harder to sell.
Why is picking a niche important?
Choosing a niche is important because it helps you concentrate your efforts and avoid wasting time on topics that won’t bring in any money.
It also gives you something to focus on, so you’re less likely to quit when things get tough.
You’ll never know for sure if a particular niche is profitable until you try it. But with enough research, you should be able to figure out whether it’s worth your time.
Here are some questions you might ask yourself before diving into a new niche:
- Is it a subject you already know well?
- Do you have the resources to learn it?
- Does it align with your values?
- Can you find good affiliate programs related to it?
If you answered yes to all those questions, then you’ve likely got a winner.
How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to earn money online. It’s also one of the most flexible. You can create a successful affiliate marketing business using various methods.
As long as you’re a dedicated worker, pick an excellent product to promote, and provide value to your audience, you can earn money with affiliate marketing. You don’t need a ton of traffic to get started, and there are many ways to get started for free.
Best affiliate marketing niches to grow your business
The best affiliate marketing niche is easy to get started in and has a lot of room to grow.
There are lots of things to consider when choosing a niche. For example, you should ensure there are good affiliate programs that will allow you to make a significant amount of money. That way, you’ll have the motivation to work hard at building your business.
When choosing a niche, make sure you also consider the type of content your target audience likes and what kind of products they’re buying. This will help you select the right affiliate program for you.
How to find profitable niches for affiliate marketing
It’s not always enough to find a niche with lots of traffic. You need to be able to make money from that traffic, or else you’ll have nothing to show for it. This is a common mistake among beginners who don’t understand how to differentiate between popular and profitable niches.
7 Steps to Choosing the Best Affiliate Marketing Niche For You
Now let’s dig into my step-by-step process for finding awesome niches that work for affiliate marketing.
Step 1 – Finding a Niche Idea
The best way to develop an initial idea for a niche is by examining yourself. I always recommend starting by writing down three lists on a single piece of paper or in a single Google Doc if you prefer electronic writing like me.
List one should feature your skills, specifically your monetizable skills – things someone might pay you to do.
List two should include your interests, hobbies, passions, and anything else you enjoy doing.
List three should include your goals, including life goals, financial goals, and anything else you’d like to achieve.
After you finish this exercise, you should have a few ideas for potential niches based on your skillset, interests, and goals. Take a break to reflect on your findings, and then come back and cross-reference the lists to see if there are any that overlap. If you find a niche that fits all three lists, it’s worth moving to step two.
Step 2 – Topic and Industry Research
Once you’ve thought of 2-3 potential niches, research each one thoroughly. Find out more about them, their current state, and opportunities that may exist within them. Look for people and businesses making money in that niche, especially with affiliate marketing.
While there are many ways to start an online business using affiliate marketing, I will refer specifically to blogging in this tutorial. First, make a list of at least five blogs in the niche you’re considering. If you can’t find five businesses making good money, it’s probably not a profitable niche.
Step 3 – Keyword Research
If you’re going to create a blog about a particular topic, you’ll want to choose relevant keywords. These are the terms people would use when searching online to learn more about the subject.
You can use tools such as WriterZen for keyword research. Among other features, WriterZen can tell you how many searches are made for any given topic each month with a couple of clicks.
But it’s not enough to find search volume – you must determine how much of that search traffic is relevant to buying products you can promote. WriterZen displays CPC (Cost Per Click) and search volume, and that’s a good place to start, but you should also look at specific products being promoted and the price points of those products.
Once you understand how much buyer traffic exists related to your chosen topics, you’ll have a better idea of whether you’re considering lucrative affiliate niches.
Step 4 – Social Research
While not as important as keyword research, social research is another key in finding a profitable niche for affiliate marketing. Are there free and premium (paid) online communities relevant to your chosen topics? If not, you should wonder why. If there are, I recommend joining a few to see what’s being discussed in them.
In addition to being a great way to gather information, being active in niche communities is one of the best ways to keep your finger on the pulse of a given subject.
Step 5 – Product and Market Research
This is where many bloggers misfire. They think they’ve found a great niche market, so they start firing off blog posts without first considering which affiliate products they’ll promote.
For example, “pet owners” is a vast market. But if you try to make a blog targeting all pet owners, you’ll be overrun by massive companies doing the same. On the other hand, if you made a blog targeting German Shepherd owners, it would be easier to target and talk to your audience.
This is also where you can start to make sure that affiliate programs exist in the niche you’re considering. Make a list of potential programs – it will be important for step six.
Step 6 – Affiliate Program Research
Once you’ve found some ideal products to promote, it’s time to check out their affiliate program offerings. This includes things like commission rate, payout methods, minimums, and how happy their affiliates are in general.
Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into before signing up. For example, some programs pay only once per sale (called CPA or “cost per action”), whereas others pay every time someone buys something from your link.
Also, don’t forget to consider how long it takes to get paid. Some programs pay instantly, while others take 30 days to 60 days.
Finally, many affiliate programs prohibit specific marketing methods. The most common is to prevent affiliates from bidding on relevant search terms with Google ads or other search ads. This is because most brands don’t want anyone other than themselves bidding on their branded keywords.
Step 7 – Affiliate Program Outreach
Now that you’ve done everything above, it’s time to contact some companies and ask about the details. You may need to do this via email or through their website. Some programs have specific requirements, such as an existing audience relevant to their business.
If you’re a beginner, this can be frustrating. But don’t get discouraged – there are tons of programs on platforms like Clickbank and ShareASale that have incredibly low barriers to entry.
If your ideal programs aren’t available immediately, you can start by promoting other products and then pivot into the more lucrative ones after establishing yourself in the niche.
What is a Niche Website?
A niche website is a website built around a particular topic or industry. It could be anything from a blog about dog training to a site dedicated to creating handmade crafts.
The idea behind building a niche website is that it’s much easier to get traffic initially. If you choose a general topic like “technology,” you’ll be competing with the biggest websites on the internet. But if you choose something more specific like “remote control drone helicopters” (which is a sub-niche of technology), you’ll be able to establish yourself as an authority much faster.
Where to Buy a Niche Website
I recommend only three places for buying pre-made niche websites; Flippa, Fiverr, and Human Proof Designs.
Flippa is probably the best place for finding high-quality niche sites. They have hundreds of sites listed at any given moment. However, you can expect to spend a lot of money on any website already making money, or that is well set up to make money.
Fiverr is usually a more cost-effective option. Many vendors on Fiverr will be happy to build you a niche website. You can also hire freelancers to write content for your site and promote it in other ways. If you want to get up and running with limited hassle and costs, Fiverr is a solid option.
Human Proof Designs is probably the most expensive of the three, but with HPD, you know for sure you’re getting a quality site created by professionals. HPD specializes in building sites in the most profitable affiliate marketing niches. They even sell various types of sites, from beginner blogs to established sites that are already earning revenue.
How to Start a Niche Blog
If you’d rather do the work of building the blog yourself, I completely understand because I’m the same way. In fact, I have an entire article on how to start a blog that you should probably check out. While the basics of starting a blog are simple enough, there are many details you need to consider as well.
Best evergreen niches for beginners in 2022
An evergreen niche is one that you can sell products in any day of the year. A great example of an evergreen niche is beauty because people buy beauty products regularly year-round. The opposite would be something like Christmas decorations, which are only sold once a year.
Evergreen niches are the most lucrative affiliate niches, so I recommend focusing on them unless you find an amazing opportunity elsewhere.
There are hundreds of different affiliate programs, so this is by no means an exhaustive list. However, if you want to be profitable, you’re going to have to pay attention to what works best for you and your business.
For example, I’ve been an affiliate marketer for almost three years, and I promote many products. As such, I’ve had to adapt my approach to suit each one. But in general, here are the best affiliate marketing niches to focus on right now.
Health, Wellness, and Fitness
In the health and wellness niche you can promote a variety of health-related products and services, such as weight loss programs, homeopathic remedies, vitamins, fitness programs, and more.
The beauty of affiliate marketing is that it works across multiple platforms. Whether you want to use Facebook, YouTube, or another social network, you can offer health products and services to anyone who permits you to market to them.
The fitness niche is one of the most popular affiliate marketing niches out there. There are so many different ways to make money as an affiliate marketer, but the fitness industry is ideal for those with previous experience working in it.
There are almost 100 million gym members in the US alone, and the industry has seen explosive growth over the last decade. With the advent of apps such as MyFitnessPal and Fitbit, the fitness industry has seen a massive shift in how people work out.
There are plenty of affiliate programs to choose from, and they all offer different payment models. If you’re familiar with exercise and fitness-related products, the fitness industry is one of the best options.
Lifestyle and Romance
Health, wealth, and relationships are the “big three” affiliate marketing niches. While we covered health above, relationships (and, to a lesser extent, wealth) are reflected in lifestyle and romance niches.
Lifestyle sites focus on providing content that helps people live their best lives. They can be as broad as “lifestyle blogs” or specific as lifestyle blogs for a particular interest or geographic area. While romance has a broad spectrum as well, it’s all focused on helping people find suitable partners.
The most significant advantage of these niches is that almost everybody with an internet connection can potentially be your audience. But it’s still important to niche down a bit at first so that you know where to focus your efforts.
Business and Finance
The business and finance niche is one of the most popular affiliate marketing niches out there, and it’s easy to see why. There are plenty of high-end products to sell in this space, and the demand will only increase in the coming years.
This is also one of the most accessible niches to get started in because you don’t need any special skills or training to start promoting business and finance products. You can just refer people to products you already use and start earning commissions.
About 95% of the products I promote are related to business and digital marketing in some way. While this does limit my audience size to a certain extent, it also makes it easy to cross-promote different offers.
How to Find Trending Affiliate Marketing Niches in 2022
If you’re having trouble picking a niche, here is the exact strategy I use for myself and clients when searching for trending and most popular niches.
Finding Niches With Flippa
Flippa is my favorite place to find trending niches, especially if I’m thinking about the niche for a website of some kind. Before I go signing up for a new program or creating affiliate links, this is a great way to see what type of sites are currently popular and making money.
To get started, go to Flippa.com. I recommend signing up for a free account right away because if you don’t, you won’t get access to most of the information about the sites that interest you.
Next, use Flippa’s search tool. If you have a broad niche in mind, you can put it in the search field, but I usually leave it blank so it will return all possible results.
After the search results populate, use the filters in the left sidebar to determine the type of website you’re looking for. For example, if you’re thinking about starting an affiliate blog, you should deselect every type of site other than “content.”
Note: You can leave options other than content checked if they interest you, but if you’re looking for a good niche for an affiliate marketing website, content sites (blogs) are the best comparison to look at.
Make sure you scroll down to the bottom and check the “recently sold” box. This way, you will see results both for recently sold sites and those currently for sale. Recently sold sites often represent the most profitable niches.
With the filters set, you can scroll through the listings. Some will be private, but many will be public. As long as you have a free account, you’ll be able to read details published by the website owner about why they’re selling it, how much it earns, and more.
You can also learn a lot about the type of affiliate marketing strategy experienced bloggers use by reading through these listings.
Finding Niches With Exploding Topics and Google Trends
Another way to find niche ideas and check their popularity is with ExplodingTopics.com and Google Trends. You can browse Exploding Topics and sign up for their newsletter, and you can use Google Trends to validate any niches you’re considering.
Now You Know Why Affiliate Marketing Niches Are Important
The truth is, there’s no single niche that works for everyone. Every website, every business, and every audience is unique. And all affiliate marketers have different styles and interests.
But by thinking about what your ideal customer wants and offering them great products, you can make some really powerful connections.
If you found this article helpful, you can help me in return by giving it a share on your favorite social media platform (or three). Thanks for reading!
