Not All Affiliate Niches are the Same

Niche marketing is a big part of affiliate marketing business these days. Unless you are able to find a hot super niche that you can sell too, you are going to have to be content with going against 800 pound guerrillas in more general niches, and that is not something I recommend. It’s true that the barriers of entry are much lower in the affiliate marketing world, but they are still there, and the early movers still have a significant edge over the rest of us. So, choosing the right super niche can go along way of achieving your affiliate dreams.

But not all niches are created equal. You have to do your due diligence before entering any market. There is such a thing as “what the heck did I just get myself into” in the affiliate business. I remember when I started a credit card site a while back. I was positive that I was going to make lots of money with my site. But what I did not take into account was the pain of dealing with credit card companies. These guys want you to display a certain copy, and the offers change so many times a year that running a big credit card portal can be a hassle. In the end, I decided the hassle was not worth the money.

Believe me when I say there are hundreds of similar niches out there. Not all of them are going to pose the sme challenge, but it is important to understand the challenges that you will face in a market you are trying to enter. When I was in business school, folks talked about some nonsense called SWAT and Porter’s 5 forces analysis. Well, it turned out that stuff wasn’t nonsense after all. Understanding a niche requires similar analyses. You should always try to break down the challenges and opportunities in each niche you are going for and try to figure out if it’s all worth it. Sometimes, the costs associated with entering a market outweigh the opportunities available by a long margin. If that is the case, you should probably pass on that market. But unless you do your research, you wouldn’t know that, now would you?

Have you had an encounter with a niche from hell? What was the primary challenge associated with running a business in that niche?

Prop 8 Succeeds, Get Challenged, Here comes the Opportunity

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had a day going without hearing about the whole proposition 8. Keith Olbermann probably had the best piece on the whole Prop 8 fiasco, and the whole gay marriage issue is not the issue that I intend to address today. However, if you are an affiliate marketer, that bulb has probably been going off with all this buzz about gay marriage.

Dating sites have been around for years, and dating content sites are still one of the best Adsense paying sites out there. But the whole gay dating market is going to get even hotter after all this. Just a few days ago it came out that eHarmony will allow gays to date on its site: means $$$ for us.

Affiliate marketing is all about taking advantage of opportunities before others do. Now I know the issue of gay marriage is important to many folks, and I am all for it, but you can’t deny the opportunity here to make some big bucks. The gay dating market has been around for a while, but eHarmony is one of the biggest players in this market, and them jumping on the ship can only solidify this niche. And don’t for a second think that those Adsense ads will stop paying less than before. Money is everywhere…