I enjoyed "7 steps to choose a Niche...". Excellent article! Thanks much for sharing Linda. Ultimately, it boils down to being passionate about whatever one chooses to market. Because if there isn't an interest, your readers/subscribers will easily notice that and will get turned off. Afterall, why would want to dedicate time and energy into something you aren't passionate about?
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Goes into how to find a bunch of niches quick and easy, then filter through different key word tools to find the ones that may be profitable, yet not too competitive.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
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Finding your first niche is a really important skill to grasp - in fact finding a niche full stop is a vital part of your online success
The basics are that there are millions of websites out there and so if you try and compete against keywords or themes where the interent is already crowded, then your site wont be listed high enough in the search engines for anyone to know its there
Its a vital part of getting traffic and generating sales to pick the right kind of niches, and therefore get lots of free traffic every day from the search engines. these visitors are highly targeted and that means they are really interested in your website content. These people are thousands of times more likely to buy than say some guaranteed traffic service or even an advertising campaign. You will find that you don't need a huge number of quality visitors to actually start making quite alot of money, say $500 or so - this is my experience anyway
So how do you go about it
A simple approach I use is first start with a main keyword - notice I say a keyword and not a keyword phrase. Its best to start "at the top" of the keyword structure so to speak, and work down
So say if you are going to be an affiliate for a product to do with "fishing" - then I would go to google and type in "fishing" You will see probably loads and loads of sites in the box at the top where it says 1-10 out of xxx,xxx. You want to get this "out of" number down - if you look at something like "mobile phone" or "business opportunity", "work from home" etc you will see its way way too high
Now I would look down the ads and the main listings - but especially the ads down the right hand side, and see if you can find another word which you can add to your main keyword - in this case "fishing" - so say we found "fishing tackle" that would make a 2 word keyphrase.
Then you can go back to the search box and see how many sites you get when you type in your 2-word phrase. It might still be too many so you might need to try other keyword phrases - but fairly quickly you should be able to find something that you can "go with"
One final point is that if you type in a keyphrase and you see that there are very few ads down the right hand side - then this is a warning point. Discard this keyphrase immediately and go back to finding more. You should have at least 8 ads otherwise forget the niche. The advertisers are important because these people are paying a huge amount of money to get their ad on the first page. There is a kind of auction, and only the people who have either paid the most per click or get the most clicks on their ads that will get them on the first page - so they can't afford to be paying say $2 a click unless the ad really is working, so this gives you a clue
This site is unbelievable for a wealth of knowledge and tips on how to be successful and happy! I own a website, and a company. However, I am learning so much to help me in just reading your posts.
I have found that finding your niche, is as simple as what do you have the most experience in? What do you like to do in your spare time? Usually those things, are the vehicles that will make you money, because you enjoy or know them the most.
This thread is very informative, thank you. Picking your first niche is a good start, but the second should be even better. Each site, you should make better, and better!
1. Make A List Of Your Passions
Write down all the things you are passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about the topic you write about, it will show! Passion is one of the biggest keys to keeping people interested in your blog (yourself included). This is the most important step in choosing a niche. If you don’t follow any of the other steps in this post, make sure you write about something you are passionate about.
I still feel that when choosing a niche, the more passionate you are, the more enticing and readable it will be. As long as you can put your personality into your writing, people will see the originality in that, and realize that they are getting something that they have not read before, YOU!
In addition, writing about what you know, also makes a good read. Being passionate might be more fun, however, if you have the experience, people will see that and gravitate to your experience as well.
Now if you can combine, experience in a certain field with passion, Boom! You, have the perfect ingredients.
This is just an off the wall comment regarding niches, take it as you may...
I believe we are all on this forum because we are affiliate marketers, for the most part. So, what does that mean? Well...we sell other people's products.
I've learned that in order to be successful doing that, you should master a couple of strategies.
1. Learn to adapt to certain niches that will be profitable for you. For example...if you love dogs, and you ae passionate about dogs, maybe a dog training membership or eBook is the way to go. But you scour the affiliate marketplace and discover...hey, there's just not much to be made selling these products. Well, find something else, and adapt. Become a master of that niche.
2. Once you've found a good money-making niche, launch a campaign targeting that niche...
a.)build landing/opt-in page...
b.)create an email series for your autoresponder...
c.)get traffic to your landing/opt-in page(which should capture the lead and direct them to the sales page) using all forms of traffic building...
d.)make sales
3. Once you know how to set up a campaign, say for a Forex product, then you just rinse and repeat.
So, if you follow these steps again and again, you will have several affiliate campaigns out there, getting traffic and sales everyday, on autopilot. Sort of a set it and forget it theory.
Now, if you can do that with, say, 10-20 niches that you are passionate about, awesome. But, we are all here to make profits, and focusing on one niche may work, but I've always found it's best to diversify. Divide and conquer!
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