How To Know If You Chose The Wrong Affiliate Marketing Niche

There are two main ways that people discover affiliate marketing. Some people enter the industry because they were looking for a business idea, and they decided that creating an affiliate website was a good option. Others enter the industry because they were running a blog or a small website just for fun, and they decided to monetize that website at a later date.

Both routes into the affiliate marketing industry pose potential problems. Affiliate marketers who decide to become affiliates without knowing what niche they want to operate in frequently end up choosing niches based purely on their earning potential, no matter how dull, competitive or difficult that market is. Meanwhile, webmasters who try to monetize a hobby often find that the niche they are operating in is one that is almost impossible to monetize. The secret to successful affiliate marketing is to find a niche that you enjoy working in, and that you can make money in. That balance is not always easy to achieve.

One common theme among affiliate marketers is that they put a lot of time and effort into researching products to promote, and they find something that they genuinely believe in, however their efforts still fail, because a good product is not the only thing you need for success. Let's look at the example of video games. World of Warcraft is a hugely popular online game, but there are already millions of account holders, and most of them subscribe to the service directly. You may be able to get some traffic to a World of Warcraft related site quite easily, but turning that traffic into a steady income would be incredibly difficult because it is hard to find people who are interested in the product and who are not already paying customers.

You may be in the wrong niche if any of the following issues apply to you:

You dread working on your site

You cannot think of topics for blog posts

You struggle to describe the features and benefits of the products you are promoting

The commission on the products you promote is so low that you would have to sell a huge number of products just to pay the hosting bill

You are promoting a high value product, such as holidays or financial services, but don't feel confident in your ability to become an authority in that niche.

Ideally, you should choose a highly focused niche that you know a lot about, and that has relatively low competition. The broad category of "sports supplements" is highly competitive, but "sports supplements for martial arts" is a smaller niche that you can build a blog around, and establish yourself as an authority in. If the niche you're working in right now isn't generating enough income, be honest with yourself. Is the niche too broad or too competitive? A move sideways, or into a more tightly targeted vertical, could revive your earning potential.