Affiliate Marketing Ideas

Affiliate Marketing Ideas

Affiliate marketing is an outstanding way to get started making money online, because you don’t have to invest much (or any) money, you don’t have to have your own products, and you don’t have to deal with customer service or shipping.

All you really need to be successful in affiliate marketing is a strong desire to succeed and the knowledge to make it happen.  I can’t give you the motivation you need, but I can certainly get you started with the knowledge you need.

So let’s get started…

Choosing Profitable Niches

The first thing you need to do is choose a niche to promote.  This isn’t as easy as it sounds.  You can’t just choose a niche -   you must choose a profitable niche.  Not every niche is going to be as profitable as you might hope.

I have chosen niches in the past that I truly expected to be profitable, yet despite my best efforts I was unable to find a single affiliate product that would convert well enough to make the effort worth the time involved.

Fortunately, I have learned how to lessen my chances of choosing dud niches.  Just a few simple steps can help you eliminate some of the risk of choosing these unprofitable niches.

Brainstorming

Your first step is to make a list of niches you’re interested in promoting.  Just make a long list of niches you think might be profitable, or that you’re just interested in promoting.

Don’t worry about anything other than making a list of 10-20 niches right now.  If you need help, you can always look around you for inspiration.

Here are some places to seek inspiration:

• Look around your house.  Things like kitchen appliances, outdoor barbecue equipment, office supplies, audio visual equipment, and musical instruments are all niches you might spot around your house.
• Browse a bookstore – either online or offline.  Try Amazon.com or a bookstore in your local neighborhood.  Browse the books or magazines.
• Take a look around news websites for hot topics.  Check sites like Google Buzz for new trends.

Checking Potential Profitability

Once you have a list of 10-20 niche ideas, it’s time to start narrowing them down by checking out their potential profitability.

There are three main ways to do this:

1.  Check to see if there are any magazines being published in the niche.  This is sometimes, but not always an indicator that a niche might be profitable.

2.  Check to see how many people are advertising on Google AdWords for the niche.  People aren’t likely to advertise en masse in a niche that isn’t profitable, especially if the CPC is very high.

Everything you do in affiliate marketing will require keywords.  Whether you choose to use PPC marketing, article marketing, blogging, or some other form of marketing, you will need to choose the right keywords if you expect to get a decent amount of traffic.

I use the Google Keyword Tool for quick and free research:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This keyword tool is extremely easy to use.  You simply enter your seed keyword phrase and you will receive a large number of related keywords.  You can sort them by the average number of monthly searches.

You want to look for keyword phrases that have:

• At least 1,000 monthly searches
• Fewer than 50,000 competing sites

To check competition, you want to enter each keyword phrase in quotes into Google.  This will tell you how many people are targeting that exact phrase.  Consider these affiliate marketing ideas and if you want….continue reading…