But how do you find niches and once you’ve found them how to you make sure that the niche is going to be profitable and if it is, which keywords should you be targeting? I’ll try and answer each of these questions in turn.

Firstly, finding niches shouldn’t be difficult – just pay attention in your everyday life at what is going on around you. For example, you’re at the park and what do you see around you – lots of people with their families, playing games such as soccer, cricket etc. There are some niches right there. Going on holiday? What are you taking with you, do other people need those things like suitcases, irons etc? Another niche. What are all your friends talking about? Your Mom? Your Dad? Listen and pay attention and you should have no shortage of niche ideas.

Second is researching profitability. Generally, there is a “sweet spot” where the product costs enoguh to make some decent commission, but not expensive enough to make it a tough sell. Generally this is around the £60 mark or around $100. Once you’ve decided it’s around the right price point, use the Google Adwords Tool (remember to use “exact match”) to get a better idea of the number of searches happening in a month – if this number is too low it’s probably not worth your while, while if its vey high it’s a very competative “niche” or you need to refine your niche (as a rule of thumb I make sure that there are at least 3,600 searches, but this may differ for you).

The Google Adwords Tool will also give you an idea of what keywords you should be targeting for your niche, both in your domain name and in your conten (make sure “use synonyms” is checked). Make sure you have a look at the section that says “Additional keywords to be considered” as this will give you ideas of what other searches are being performed.
That wraps this lesson up, let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Related posts:

1. Finding your niche
2. Updates
3. Tools for automation

I duly signed up with Google Adwords, which was a doddle, gave them my credit card details (they take $5 or £5 from you just for signing up, depending on where in the world you are) and setup my first campaign. The first thing I did was set a daily or monthly limit (or budget), as this prevents Google from charging you a fortune in clicked advertisements. I chose a small amount, $5 per day. Keyword choice was my next endeavor – I decided to target specific keywords, so I included square brackets ( [ ]) around my keywords, meaning that the advert only displays when all of the keywords are typed into Google. One last task, I made that my campaign was paused as I did not have my actual target landing page in place yet.

With Adwords and my campaign set, next I purchased a domain name from my favorite provide, name.com. A quick setup of my virtual host (I’m using a VPS from Linode) and a Wordpress installation later I was good to go – except I needed a landing page template. After some Googling (and this being a bargain experiment) I settled on a free landing page I found, compliments of a user on the BlackHatWorld forums (download here). It’s relatively easy to setup and is very simple to use.

In terms of the landing page itself, I made sure that the following pages were present, as Google has some minimum requirements in place in terms of landing page quality.

- Sitemap, I used the Sitemap Generator Plugin for Wordpress to add this;
- Privacy Policy, used the Privacy Policy Plugin to generate this;
- Terms and Conditions, search the web for one of these specific to your country, I used this resource as a base;
- Contact Us, make sure you include a full physical postal address and telephone number; and
- About Us, use your imagination for this, be sure to include a description of the purpose of the website and the business operating it, most likely you.

I also included a “testimonial”, a reason to buy and a background on the item that the prospective buyer was looking for. I chose to include 4 auctions pertaining to the product I was promoting and left it at that. I then proceeded to test and retest the page to make sure it was all working, as you don’t want to send clicks you are paying for to a non-functional landing page.

I then proceeded to start the campaign and then ran a “tail -f access.log” from the command-line in order to observe the traffic activity. It certainly seemed that I chose the right niche, as my $5 was quickly used up in clicks. I left things running and the following day my $5 limit was reached again, within the first few hours of the monring. I ended up with a average cost per click of 0.35c which translated in approximately 28 visitors. The results? I’m not sure at this stage, as my EPN stats have not been updated, but I will certainly post an update when they are available.

Update: results here!

Suggestions? Ideas? Feedback? Please leave a comment!

Related posts:

1. Breaking even with EPN and PPC
2. Fear uncertainty and doubt or what I think about eBay and QCP
3. Google slaps or why you should diversify

Being an affiliate is about finding niches and using them to your advantage. Many people starting in the affiliate marketing world jump right in and start promoting whatever they come across. While this technique might prove beneficial, it’s best to find a niche and start with some focus. The first question that many ask is how they go about finding that elusive niche. I’ve outlined some starting points for finding your niche, together with some tools to get you started.

1. Start with something you are interested in or are passionate about

Starting affiliate marketing in something you are very interested in or passionate greatly increases your chance of success as you’re more likely to find it easier to devote time to it and persevere. Perseverance is key as it takes time to build a site, generate traffic and links to the site and increase income.

2. Use the world around you to generate idea

Take note of the things that you use everyday, read about on the Internet, take a look around your house or think about the things you enjoy doing. All of this should enable you to come up with several ideas for niches.

3. See whether the niche is feasible

Check to see whether there is a market for the product – asking yourself some questions should assist in seeing whether the idea is worth pursuing:

• is there enough demand for the product?
• are there people searching for it?
• can I make money from it?

In determining the answers to the above two points, there are several tools which can assist – as most people use search engines to find what they’re looking for, finding out the variations of words and how many times people search for the product in a given time period is important. The DigitalPoint Free Keyword suggestion tool, Wordtracker’s keyword suggestion tool and of course Google’s own keyword tool are all excellent places to start. Ebay and Amazon also offer great idea generating tools, in the form of Ebay Pulse and Amazon Bestseller, giving you the oppurtunity to see what’s popular. Using a combination of these tools should give you a good indication as to whether it’s feasible to create a affiliate marketing site with your intended niche

4. Start with the small stuff

Your going to get in over your head and have little success with popular areas. For example, starting a affiliate site for credit cards won’t get you far if you’re new to affiliate marketing. Rather go for something specific – generally, lower competition makes it easier to get into the niche and start selling.

If your niche idea meets the criteria, it can be a great oppurtunity to start small and move onto bigger and better things once you’ve learnt a little!

Suggestions? Ideas? Feedback? Please leave a comment!

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1. Find niches like a pro
2. Updates
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