How To Choose The Best Niche For Affiliate Marketing

Updated: October 2, 2023 by Bill Burniece

Affiliate Marketing Niche Ideas 101

One of the most important decisions you make out of the gate is which niche or market to go into first.

For your first niche I suggest a topic that you’re either knowledgeable in or passionate about. Hopefully both.

But knowledge or interest in something doesn’t necessarily make it a lucrative market to go into online.

For example, if you’re passionate about a topic that is too narrow and doesn’t have a large enough audience than it’s probably not a good one to enter.

On the other hand choosing a niche that’s too broad, such as the making money niche, will expose you to so much competition that you’ll have a real hard time gaining ground there either.

When you’re just getting started you may want to choose one of the three best evergreen markets to enter online.

They are as follows:

• Money
• Health
• Relationships

Now I know those are very broad topics.

That’s OK, please stay with me, because we’re not done yet.

You can never go wrong if you pick a market related to one of these three topics. If you think about it they’re really the most important topics on everybody’s mind every single day.

And they also seem to cause people the most problems as well (which is why they’re so damn good for us!).

People spend a lot of money and time trying to improve and iron out anything related to these three topics.

That will always be the case so if you need some ideas just think about what problems people are always looking to solve. People are happy to part with some money to make life easier in these three key areas.

There is a ton of competition in these three niches but there’s also a ton of money being made as well.

Competition in your niche is good since it proves that money is already being made in that niche.

And you’re not going to be competing with all of them. Only a segment.

Should you be a big fish in a little pond? Or a little fish in a big pond?

It’s your choice. Here are the two different schools of thought on niche selection.

Big Pond, Little Fish: Many marketers prefer to get into a huge online marketplace and carve out their little piece of the pie. Examples of these markets include the making more money niche or mental health solutions market

Little Pond, Big Fish: Others marketers like the idea of choosing a small segment of a large market and becoming the top dog in that segment. Examples of these markets (as smaller segments of the above examples) would be smart money management for seniors niche or the social anxiety in children market
See the difference?

Neither strategy is wrong. You just have to pick which one make the most sense to you. I happen to prefer the little pond, big fish strategy since I always enter a new market with the intent of being in it for the long haul so I know that if I start small I can always add other elements of that niche as I expand my reach and influence.

My Methodology For Niche Selection

I believe that once you choose a market you should look for untapped opportunities within the niche you’re exploring. Drill down into sub-niches of your target market to find aspects of it that are unexplored or barely touched. Think specialization and focus on becoming the expert on a particular issue or topic. Your goal should be to become the go-to marketer in a particular segment within that niche.

That’s what I did with the site you’re on now. While researching the affiliate marketing niche I noticed that nobody had really focused exclusively on the high-end of the market so that’s where I made my start. I learned as much as I could about this particular segment of the market until I could comfortably write and enlighten people about it. Before I knew it I was ranking high in the search engines on my keywords and had people coming to me for advice on high end affiliate programs and selling to the affluent.

Drill down into your chosen topic like this example:

mental health > anxiety disorders > social anxiety > panic attacks > panic attacks in children

If your chosen niche is extremely competitive you may need to drill down so far that the market segment may be too small for you to make decent money.

That’s OK since you can start branching upward again once you start making your mark in your niche. Eventually through expansion you’ll have the market share you need.

Tips For Finding Lucrative Niches

As I stated earlier, start with your own passions, interests, hobbies, or any area you have expertise or interest in. It’s smart to make a short list of these to see which one has the most potential

1. Look for competitors. Competition is good since it means others are already making money in that niche

The three most evergreen niche categories in affiliate marketing include money, health, and relationships. These are things that are on everyone’s mind thus people will spend money on improving each of them. These hot categories will always provide good money-making opportunities for you

2. Listen to other people. Have you ever spoken to someone at work or in a social atmosphere and been blown away by their passion for a particular topic? Genuine passion is unmistakable and it is often a great indicator of a potential niche market for you to explore

3. Go and find the nearest magazine rack or stand. If you really think about it, magazines exist to cater to specific niche markets. If that niche market isn’t lucrative enough to pull in profitable advertising dollars, it will fail. So your research has been done for you! If there is a magazine for sale on a topic, there is money being made in it

4. Search Google. Are people paying for ads for keywords on your topic or niche? If so, there is money being made in that space

5. Check Google Keyword Planner to see how many searches per month are happening for keywords in your niche. This is a valuable free tool that will help you understand market size and actual search terms

6. Go visit the bookstores before they’re all gone. Barnes and Noble is still around (I think). Take a look at the number of books on a specific topic. Also take note of the labels on the shelves and the categorization of broad topics. There is a ton of data looking right back at you. Plus, you can find plenty of magazines here too

7. If you’re targeting the affluent market look for unique, exclusive, and hard-to-find products and services. Like the 1000+ affiliate programs you’ll find here on my site

8. If you’re targeting the low end of the market look for solutions to problems instead of vanity products. The key is to look for things that people have to buy rather than want to buy. (i.e. anti-anxiety, weight loss, diabetes control, phobias, fears, etc). Look for a topic that gets people emotionally charged with either a pain, a passion, or a frustration

9. Pay attention to TV commercials. Television is a trend-driven medium. Notice not only what they’re selling to you but the angle their taking to get your attention and act on your impulses. There is a lot to be learned here because companies spend a ton of money on television ads to get it right

10. Drill down into your market for sub-niches. Go an inch wide and a mile deep. Are there opportunities to expand your market once you pick a topic? Are there multiple products and services for sale in this niche?

11. Go to ebay.com and amazon.com to see what’s hot over there. Amazon has simple tools that allow you to browse by subject, popularity, sales, and even analyze trends with their “Movers and Shakers” feature. It’s been awhile since I was on eBay but I believe they have similar features to help you scoop up valuable niche data

12. Focus on one niche to start with and become a go-to person in that niche or topic. Don’t be a “jack of all trades – master of none”. If your first niche doesn’t work out quickly find a new one. If you’re going to fail then try fail fast and keep moving

13. Go to clickbank.com which is the holy grail of digital information products. I say that because they really are the largest and most profitable digital retailer in the world. Their marketplace is loaded with tens of thousands of products that you can sort by market, popularity, price, longevity, etc. If you’re not making money on clickbank right now you need to get started… now

14. Follow the money. Do a little digging around on Google for what people are spending money on right now. Go where the money is flowing and set up shop

15. Think about the future. For example, I know for a fact that driverless cars are the next HUGE market. So I jumped on and purchased several domains in that space for future sites. I did the same thing with the drone market. You should too

16. Is the market or niche sustainable? Following trends is good for some quick cash but will that money flow last in the long run? Think about what happened to Beanie Babies. People that invested thousands of dollars in them were left with boxes full of useless, worthless, and ugly-ass dolls

17. Think about specialized information i.e How to tie flies for fly fishing. Or how to add 20 yards to your golf drive. It’s little niches like these that people are extremely passionate about and will always be willing to spend money on

18. Take a stroll over to magazines.com. This website is a wonderful resource for finding a ton of niche markets. The magazines are even broken down into categories and ranked by popularity. This is a goldmine

19. Listen to what people are bitching about. People like to yap about all the problems they have in life. It’s annoying yes, but it can also clue you in to what problems people are looking to solve to help simplify their lives. If one person has a problem, it’s likely that many other people share that problem. Think of it this way, wherever there is a problem, there is an opportunity. Solve it for them and make money. Then hang around to see what they will bitch about next

20. Do some deep-thinking. Use your intuition, brainpower, and powers of observation to solve problems. Some of the best ideas ever thought of were results from initial mistakes or applications of other ideas applied way outside the box

So start digging into the possibilities and choose your first niche.