How to Profit from Affiliate Marketing in Any Niche
A common myth I hear a lot from bloggers and online business owners is that they think they can’t make money with affiliate marketing unless they are in the B2B niche.
This is untrue. I dispelled this misconception in my 5 Myths About Affiliate Marketing post, but I wanted to lay it out for you so that you can apply my process no matter what niche you are in.
It is all about changing your mindset and how you approach the process as an affiliate partner. It doesn’t matter what niche you are in; as long as you implement my 3-step strategy below, you can earn money as an affiliate partner.
There are a lot of different ways to earn money as an affiliate partner. The process I am going to walk you through is one of the easiest ways to get started.
If you are completely new to earning money as an affiliate partner, check out my Affiliate Marketing Beginners Guide.
How to Profit From Affiliate Marketing in Any Niche
Step 1 - Target a niche specific keyword
Even if you have made money with affiliate marketing in the past, I don’t want you to skip this step because of the SEO benefits it will have on your content.
I recommend that you begin by doing a little bit of research so that you can target a specific keyword that you will be using. Take some time to do this step because a keyword or phrase that you may think is a popular term to target might not actually be what you need to focus on.
You need to get as specific as you can. For example, if your website is about organizing, you want to choose specific keywords and phrases like ‘Closet Organization Ideas’ or ‘Ideas for Organizing Your Bedroom Closet.’
Do not pick a general term like ‘How to Organize.’ The more specific the better.
To help you pick keywords you can use the Google Keyword Planner; or an easy way to get started is by utilizing Pinterest. You can use the Pinterest search bar to help you come up with ideas.
For example, if I typed the word ‘organization’ into the Pinterest search bar it pulls up these terms:
Ideas for:
DIY
Bedroom
Hacks
School
Closet
College
Life
Tips
Kitchen
Bathroom
Each of these blocks below the search bar are the most popular terms and topics that people are searching for on Pinterest. You can start by typing in a specific term in your niche or the topics you write about on your blog to begin making a list of ideas.
This will give you a good starting point for a popular search term that is specific to your niche that you can target.
Make sure the keyword or phrase you pick for your industry is a topic that you feel comfortable writing about because you will be creating content around that subject.
I always recommend that you research a phrase to target so that you can drive more traffic to this affiliate post.
Action step: Pick a keyword or phrase that you want to target for your affiliate blog post.
Step 2 - Choosing the affiliate product
The next thing you need to do is decide the affiliate product or service you want to offer or promote to your readers. To do this, you need to hone in on what your audience is interested in.
This is extremely important. It doesn’t matter what niche you are in you, if you aren’t promoting the right products you will not be successful with affiliate marketing.
You don’t want to just pick any product or service to promote, because you are endorsing it and recommending your audience purchase it.
I always like to follow these 3 rules before picking an offer:
It must be something that I have personally used and benefited from.
It must be helpful to my audience.
I must be able to show them why I like it rather than telling them.
Here are a few examples to get you thinking:
Food Niche:
Ingredients
Props
Cookware, dishes & utensils
Recipe Books & magazine
Camera & lenses
Lighting Kit
Fitness Niche:
Fitness & health magazines
Equipment you use
Fitness accessories & clothing
Supplements
Shoes
The affiliate product or service that you pick needs to be relevant to the keyword that you chose from step 1.
For example, if you chose the phrase ‘Small Closet Organization Ideas’, then a relevant affiliate product could be a specific small space organizer like a shelving unit or multi-purpose hangers.
The key is only picking one product or service to focus on.
If you are still confused on what to offer to your audience, I recommend that you begin by partnering with someone in your industry. Instead of signing up with an affiliate network, do some research on other influencers in your niche and see what products they have to offer.
Think of online courses you have taken, planners you have used, even books you have read, that have helped you and that you know your audience would benefit from. Again, you want to make sure that you have personally used it before you promote it on your website.
Starting with this list of influencers will help you to provide products that your audience will enjoy since they are in the same niche as you.
Action step: Pick a relevant affiliate offer by partnering with someone in your industry.
Step 3 - Valuable content
The last step is to write a lengthy actionable post for your audience. This will allow you to show your readers how you use the affiliate product rather than just telling them to buy it.
It will also help you to position yourself as the expert, or the authority, on the topic. If you can provide a valuable review, tutorial, or how-to post, showing your audience exactly how and why you use the affiliate product, you will build up their trust and not come off as being salesy or spammy.
The important part is focusing on the value of the post first, not the affiliate link or the offer you are promoting.
I hear a lot of people complain that affiliate marketing doesn’t work for them, but it isn’t working because they only focus on the money they will make.
They forget about helping their audience or fulfilling their needs first. This should always be your number one priority. You can’t expect to make money from a post that isn’t providing some kind of value upfront.
Read more about the complete layout of how to write a blog post to increase your conversion rates here.
Once you have completed this process you need to spend time promoting the post. This can include:
Creating several pinnable images to drive traffic to this new content piece.
Interlinking from your popular blog posts that are already receiving traffic.
Make sure you download a copy of my Affiliate Starter Guide