6. Market Research: Finding A Profitable Niche

‘Weight loss’ is a broad market: This could include all forms of weight loss for anybody of all ages.

‘Weight loss pills for women over 40’ is a niche market: This is narrowed down to target women who are over 40 looking for pills to lose weight.

1. Are there any products for sale in this niche?

What I like to do is search for products within this niche that have some kind of sales proof that people are actually buying them.

If there are physical products I will jump on sites like amazon.com or ebay.com to see if there are product reviews. If there are a good amount then this shows me that there is a sign that people are spending money.

If there are info products like eBooks, digital downloads, video courses, memberships ect – that’s a good sign..

Most of the time, if there are info products for sale in that niche – there’s a good chance that people are spending money and if there are multiple info products for sale then that’s a really good indicator that there is money to be made.

Nobody goes to the trouble of writing an eBook or creating a paid course on a non-profitable niche right?

2. Are there any advertisers?

If no body is buying advertisements then there is a good chance it’s not very profitable.

A good indicator that people are paying for ads is by going to google or bing and looking in the search results to see if there are any paid ads.

Are there any sponsored ads on social media like Facebook and instagram?

If you see people promoting products related to your niche then there’s a good chance there’s money to be made.

You can also look for infomercials on TV – they pay top dollar for the air time they have on TV, so that’s another good sign.

People pay for these advertisements because they are either selling something or promotes something related to that niche and if they’re willing to pay money for that – then there’s a good chance they have done their research before spending their money.

3. Are there any affiliate programs?

If you can find affiliate programs within your niche then that’s a very good sign that there’s money to be made.

And…the more affiliate programs the better.

Simply search in Google, ‘your niche + affiliate program’ and you should see some pop up.

You can also search popular affiliate networks to see if they have offers related to your niche, but a simple Google search should show you if there are affiliate programs available.

Try and keep note of these affiliate programs as well – you might want to sign up to them especially if you want to promote their products as an affiliate $$..

4. The amount of searches and competition.

A niche is no good to us if no body is searching for it right?

To find if people are searching for keywords related to our niche we can use free or paid tool to check how many people are searching in the search engines and most of the tools will tell you how competitive those keywords are as well.

There’s a really hand extension you can download for Chrome or Firefox called keywordseverywhere.com

This handy tool tells you how many searches per month people are searching for the keywords you type into Google.

Websites like kwfinder.io are also very handy because it will list all related keywords and even give you a score to say how competitive the keyword is to rank in google(will talk about this more throughout the course).

IMPORTANT….

The data that keyword tools provide is an estimate and should only be taken as a rough guide as to what kind of search volume that keyword is receiving..

You will need to use your brain a little bit as well but with the help of keyword tools we can get a rough idea of how many people are searching or how in-demand the niche is..

If there’s a lot of competition, meaning there are lots of affiliate websites in the niche, then there is a very good chance that there’s money to be made.

Never be afraid of competition because it can be a good thing, you just need to think outside the box 😉

I’ll be covering a lot about keyword and product research plus I will show you sneaky tricks to break into competitive niches throughout the course, so if none of this is making any sense don’t worry.

5. Is the niche about solving a problem?

When I create affiliate sites I always create them around some kind of problem or pain that people have or suffer from.

The bigger the problem or the more pain and suffering – the better!

The reason is, problem-based niches are easier to convert people into to sales and that’s because people do not hesitate spending money on the solution of their problems.

They will do just about anything to stop suffering, cure something or achieve something that they’re having trouble with.

Think about the following for a moment.

• I just scored the ultimate job in Japan, but I can not speak Japanese, how will I communicate to people when I am off work?
• No matter what I tried I can not get my ex boyfriend back. I really love him with all my heart and would do anything to get him back.
• Everyone teases me about my acne, it looks disgusting. I would do anything to get rid of it.
• WTF, I accidentally deleted all my most important files??? I would pay a fortune to bring them back.
• I can’t seem to lose that extra 10 pounds of belly fat no matter what I do..There has to be a diet plan that works!

Can you see a pattern?

Maybe you’ve heard someone ask or say something very similar?

These are the type of problems everyday people experience and they go on the internet to find the solution to their problems.

Your job as an affiliate marketer is to give these people the answer by promoting products that solve the problem ( for a commission of course 😉 )

6. Are there forums or online communities about this specific niche?

If there are forums or online communities established around that niche, chances are there are people asking questions about products and services.

The good thing about forums is, you can find questions, problems and see what people are talking about to get a better understanding of your audience.

Do a search in Google for ‘your niche + forum’ and you should see some forum boards show up.

You can also go to Google+ and search for communities as well.

The more forums and communities in your niche the better.

Bookmark or save the urls to these forums because when it comes time to promote your website, these will come in handy for finding potential buyers of the products you’re promoting.

7. Looking At Data From Auction Sites

Another way to find out if a niche is profitable is by searching through sites like Flippa.com

Flippa is a marketplace full of websites for sale.

The reason why this is a good place to see if the niche you’re interested in is profitable is because you can look at other websites in the niche that are for sale and look at their stats, earnings and how they made money with their website.

You can also get a lot of good ideas from sites that are for sale and model from their success.

You can also look at the pages they have to find keywords to write about. If you can get similar traffic, with similar pages to rank for the same keywords then you can also make money the same way the site owner did.

Head on over to flippa.com and look through the websites for sale listings. Hover over the Websites tab and then go to Just Sold.

^ These are sites that have been sold via their marketplace.

I like to play around with the filters and filter sites that have monthly profit over $1000 per mont and then hit search.

I often do this to find niches, keywords and looking for content ideas for niches I already have websites for.

Then, I go through the listings and look at all the data that’s available. Most people provide proof of earnings and google analytics data.

You can take this a step further and throw the site into services like ahrefs.com or semrush.com to dig deeper and find all the keywords and pages that are ranking..

But don’t worry too much about that just yet – you want to keep this simple and take baby steps. Look at sites that are in the niche you’re interested in and think of ways you can create something better or just as good as.

And, if you don’t have an idea for your niche yet – you can find niche ideas looking at these sites that are for sale.

Choose Something Fun And Profitable..

One thing I take into consideration is – will I enjoy writing about the niche or will I be interested in learning about it?

If you’re just starting out and have never created an affiliate website before I highly recommend creating your site around a topic that you will be interested in.

The reason why is because you will easily get bored and distracted if you’re not interested in the niche and won’t be able to be as productive as you should be.

You also want to build something you’ll be proud of..If you follow this course, you will create sites that actually help people and when you start receiving comments on your blog or social media accounts from people thanking you for helping them find solutions to their problems it can be as rewarding as making a sale 🙂

Once you master that website you can always dive into other niches, but I highly recommend creating something that you have some kind of interest or passion in.

The whole time I’m doing my research I’m writing stuff down with pen and paper or creating documents and spreadsheets on my computer.

This all comes in handy to keep track of what you’re learning about the niche and for later reference.

Product Research – Finding Those Products That Solve a Problem.

Once you’ve found a niche it’s time to look for products that you can recommend and promote as an affiliate.

For this course I’m going to be creating a niche site, that way you can watch how I build my websites from start to finish.

As mentioned in video #5 of the crash course, I will be finding and promoting products from amazon, clickbank and maxbounty.

There are plenty of other affiliate programs but for this course these are the ones I will be covering – they’re all very similar and most have the same joining process so watching me promote products in these programs will give you a good idea and understanding of how other affiliate programs work.

When I start searching for products, services or offers to promote I always do some research.

The best products I’ve found are ones that solve a problem or ease a persons pain.

Let’s take a look at the 3 affiliate networks and some of the products you can promote..

Finding Products To Promote In The Clickbank Marketplace.

Clickbank is a marketplace for digital products, it has thousands of products in all kinds of niches. The good thing about Clickbank is, they pay very good commissions up to 75% (sometimes more).

Head on over to clickbank.com and check out some of the products they have on offer.

You can filter your search by choosing a category in the sidebar.

The other good thing about Clickbank is, they give you some stats of how many affiliates are making sales promoting the products in the marketplace.

Clickbank calls this Gravity.

I’m not going to go into this too much but, the higher the gravity the more affiliates are making sales. No gravity means no body is making sales – this could be because the product is new or the sales page or product is just not good enough to convert.

Again, I always find products that solve some kinds of problem or pain that people are suffering from.

For this example I’m going to do some product research, choose a product for the demo affiliate site and show you exactly how I go about finding products to promote.

Watch The Video Here…(coming soon)

Now I have a product I want to promote, it’s now time to find some keywords that people will be searching in the search engines.

We will be writing articles around these keywords but we wan’t to make sure we’re finding the right keywords.

I always include product reviews and keywords that have buyers intent.

The reason being is, these people are hot and ready to buy.

Keywords with buyers intent include:

• Product name
• Product author name
• product name review
• where to buy product name
• product name testimonial
• product name scam
• product name results
• does product name work?
• Product name discount
• Product name coupon

These are often competitive but we should definitely write them down so we can write articles around them.

If we can get these ranking in the top 3 of Google or Bing, and if we write our content right, we can get a lot of pre-qualified traffic – meaning they’re already ready to buy –  they’re just looking for answers.

When we write our content, we answer all the questions a person may have about the product and tell them if it’s good or bad (preferably good).

That way, if they click our affiliate link and land on the vendors sales page – they are more likely to buy because they have all the answers they need to help them make a decision.

Watch The Video Here…(Coming Soon)

So, I have my list of keywords related to this product. I will keep this for when it’s time to write our articles.