Have you started niche affiliate marketing and are disappointed with the results?
Have you chosen a niche which is limiting your growth?
Find out in this how to validate your niche article.
Pick anything you want to it will make money cry the ‘guru’s’.
Don’t worry keep writing, it will come.
Almost reminds me of the Kevin costner film ‘Field of Dreams’ –[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] “build it and they will come!![/perfectpullquote]
Well unfortunately this may only be partially true.
The truth- well yes you may make sales and you may be able to see visitors coming through your site.
But if your sales are low cost items and not enough, charges may take away most of your earnings leaving you looking at the end of the month at a total a lot less than you thought for all your hard work.
You have spent hours creating a blog which is very helpful and solves a lot of problems within your niche, but your returns are not happening.
Did you validate your niche before you started your journey?
At the start
When most people start out on their journey on the internet, they are told to choose a niche, doesn’t matter what it is just choose something you are good at.
There is a good reason for this, you will be learning a business model. And you don’t want to be learning what you will showing
people as well, you will have enough to do.
So your first niche maybe just for learning how to set up your site, create content, get it ranked, attract visitors via social media and all the other little jobs you do in the background.
Your next site may be the one which really starts you out on your road to becoming wealthy.
But you must do more research this time to make sure the niche is valid.
How do you pick your niche.
I agree with the ‘guru’s’ that your niche must be something you are interested in.
Either learning or have previous skills in.
You need to show people how to solve problems, so you need to have a little authority in your writing to give your reader the confidence that you are capable of showing them what to do.
Once you have been through the business model which works and you have proven that to yourself, then you will feel more confident about that.
Now is the time to look at what you are creating for a site and really criticize it.
Do you like the interface?
If you were to come across your site would you find it interesting?
Does the user interface work?
Can people navigate to where you want them to easily?
Can they find information easily?
Do the problem solving pages lead to the solution pages?
Are all your pages interlinked?
On your first site you have a vague idea of what you want to achieve, most of us almost make it.
So next time will be different.
It is difficult leaving that first one alone, but you must move on to better things – it is a learning curve.
You can keep it alive by creating content every now and then. Promoting it as a background task.
You know the information there is very useful but you must move on, or you will stall in your plan to become financially free.
So your next one, will it be better or will you follow the same selection process as before. Choose something you know and are good at or are willing to learn?
Or this time will you take a little more time and check it out first?
How to validate your niche
yes pick something you like.
But do some more research to find out what the market is like before you jump in and spend all that time again.
You need your niche to be sustainable – preferably not a fad. Or you will be doing this again in the near future.
Some people like this and will change as the wind blows, but for me a long term business will continue to make a revenue stream for years to come.
You need to ask a few questions
- What are you really interested in?
- Is there money invested in the niche?
- What is there to promote in the niche?
If any one of these fails the proven tests then look for another.
You can make a hobby site from the failed ones but this will take time and energy away from your business sites. The choice is yours.
So types of niches you can choose are
- hobbies – drawing, jewellery making, woodworking.
- Passions – causes, education, animals
- problems – weight loss, problem solving,
- trends – latest diet, homeschooling
Whatever you pick you know, if you have already done a site, you will need to write for a long time about this- almost with no returns.
You will need to be determined enough to carry on regardless. Knowing nobody may read your carefully crafted words, then in the future you may find that everyone is quoting you as the next Jon morrow.
Is there money to be made in your niche?
If others are spending money advertising then there is money to be made in your niche.
So when you type in a search for your niche in Google – do you see ads at the top? Or at the bottom of the first page? If so people are willing to spend money on advertising.
Are there any magazines out about the subject, including your niche. So if you were going to be choosing looking after akita dogs, then there are a few magazines worldwide about dogs which covers your breed.
What about books, have a browse on Amazon to see whether there are books on there and are they getting reviews.
If you see reviews, there is a rule of thumb about one review for 10-20 sales. If there are 10 reviews then that item may have sold between 100 and 200 units.
What about associations? Are there groups you can join concerning your niche or higher level area of niche.
What is there to promote in your niche.
There are two main types of product to promote physical products and information products.
Ideally your niche will have both
There maybe how to products – both digital e books and physical books you can promote to solve problems.
There maybe DVDs showing methods which are easier to learn if you see someone carry out the task or explain the steps when on the screen.
Where do you find them?
Go to Amazon and see if there is a section relating to your niche. Check out the top 100 and see how many reviews there are. Multiply the number of reviews by 10 and this represents the approximate number of buyers.
Look in affiliate marketing centres like Clickbank, comission junction and shareasale.
Type into google niche +”affiliate program”.
You may need to think laterally, if your site is an information site, then what will people do with the information. What offers can you place on the page which will allow people to give back to you after they have been given information.
The real secrets to choosing your niche
The real secrets to niche site success are donot be too broad, yet donot be too narrow.
If you go too broad your content will be trying to appeal to too many people and it will lack the passion and focus people are looking for now.
If it is too narrow you may end up talking to too few people to make enough money form the site to make it worth while.
It is a balancing act and it may help to see a few niches which can be successful.
If you choose a general category which you want to create a site in and then choose a topic in that category. You then target an audience with a problem about that topic.
So if we have the cooking category ( far too broad) and you choose the baking topic ( still too broad) then you select a problem area gluten free baking ( ideal)
you are not too restricted and there is a lot to help people with.
Information on what it is, recipes, weekly newsletters to let people know they are not alone.
You have a motivated audience with specific needs, it is now up to you to persuade them you are the person to help them.
Another one
health and fitness category ( far too broad) and you choose the dieting topic ( still too competitive). So you then look into the dieting for mums after pregnancy ( specific group of people who need help)
In choosing your niche at this level you are not going to be fighting against the more established sites and you can set yourself up as an authority site.
You may not know enough at the moment, and you may feel that you cannot teach or show others the way, but by thinking that you will work harder to gather the information to pass onto your niche.
You will help solve their problems and more.
So to sum up
Choose a niche you are interested in and will work hard at solving problems.
Choose a hobby, passion, problems area or a trend.
Find out whether others are spending money in your chosen niche.
Are there magazines, adverts or organisations covering your niche.
And whether there are sufficient products, both physical and informational products for you to promote.
You don’t want to be promoting the same two or three products to your list many times. They will soon get bored and you will need a new list every few months.
Be careful on how broad or narrow you go, too narrow and you may end up choosing another one before you know it.
Too broad and you may never see the light of day against the established sites.
Choose a broad category, then a topic from this category, after this choose an area from this topic and you should be able to make an authority money making site from this.
The main thing is that you want to resonate with your audience – if you really believe in it they will feel that so make sure you are passionate about your niche to be really successful.
Good luck with your selection, if you need to run an idea passed me, put it in the comments box and we can discuss it.
Once you have chosen your niche, you will need to start learning the ropes of affiliate marketing. Yes you can ‘go it alone’, but at every turn you wil lbe faced with problems on your own. Why not join over 1 million other like minded people, who are willing to help you succeed. Plus masses of training, weekly live classes, hosting, emails and a lot more.
If you are interested then why not join me for a free trial in the Wealthy affiliate platform.
So once you learnt how to validate your niche you can quickly build up your business to help others and start making you a profit.
If you have any comments about this article or something doesn’t feel right about it, leave me a message and I will l get back to you.
Thanks for reading
Phil