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The Best Niches For Affiliate Marketing In 2018

Knowing how to choose a niche for affiliate marketing might be your most important skill as a marketer. Of course, things like having high-quality email delivery, producing quality content and optimizing conversions are also crucial. But the one thing that influences everything else that you do – is your choice of a niche.

Now, in theory, you could write a book or two with all the information on how to choose a niche. In practice, though, there are only a few general things you have to know in order to get started.

Counter-intuitive but true - it's more likely that you will succeed in a niche that has lots of competition. Odds are you won't discover a secret niche that nobody has thought of before... And besides, there won't be many products to promote in an empty niche #affiliate-marketingClick To Tweet

Basically, any niche that has a big market of customers and quality affiliate products can be profitable. The biggest mistake you can do is go for a super-small niche, hoping that the competition will be smaller and you can achieve a “monopoly”.

There is a reason why no one is working in that niche – it’s non-profitable. It’s also possible that it’s an undiscovered goldmine, but the odds of that are astronomically small. If a niche has no competitors, it almost always means it has no buyers either.

And think about this. As an affiliate marketer, you’re promoting other people’s products. If the niche isn’t big enough, there won’t be that many products to promote. Having the ability to promote a variety of products is a big factor in your profits as an affiliate marketer.

The best strategy is to go for big, proven, profitable markets. The competition shouldn’t scare you. If it’s a big market, there is enough profit for everyone. Especially if you consider that most of your competitors will lack the marketing knowledge to tap into that niche properly.

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Okay, back to the main topic now. Let’s look at some actual niches you may try tapping into this year.

Niches that never go out of style

In the online business world, things change quickly. However, there are several comprehensive niches that always stay popular. This is because people never lose interest in those topics. These niches were hot in 2017, they’ll get even hotter in 2018. So if you haven’t gotten into these yet, consider starting now.

These classic niches offer a solution to problems that people will always have in their everyday lives. They represent challenges that people faced a decade ago, and challenges that people will face a decade from now as well.

However, you must be specific about how you approach a niche. Even if you’re dealing with a proven classic niche, being overly general in your targeting will result in a failure.

You need to focus on one or two sub-niches. For example, “best diets for women” is much more specific than “weight loss”.

That is not to say you can’t eventually expand into the broader “weight loss” category, though. You can start with a small sub-niche and expand to other sub-niches over time. For example, start with “simple diets for women”, expand into “simple diet plans”. And then, you can merge all of these into building up an online presence that focuses on “weight loss” in general.

Online marketing

This is usually a good choice for most marketers. As an affiliate marketer, you don’t actually have to pretend to be a grandmaster at a subject. In fact, most of the time good affiliate marketers are just sharing their own experiences as they learn and grow as marketers.

In the simplest sense, you can just start a blog, or even a vlog cataloging your journey. Share what’s working and producing results for you as a marketer, but also share and discuss the things that didn’t work.

Let’s say that you discover a brand new split-testing tool and you love it. Simply send an email to your list about how well this tool works for you, and include an affiliate link to the split-testing software. It’s a pretty sweet deal, in fact it’s the definition of a win-win arrangement.

Note that you don’t need to make millions from marketing before you’re “allowed” to share your experiences and journey.

The best thing about this niche and its related sub-niches is that you can always do it on the side. You might primarily do affiliate marketing in, say, health products. But you would also keep a side presence where you share experiences with other marketers.

Working from home (online jobs and freelancing)

More and more people are learning that it’s possible to make a living from your computer at home. But not all of them are interested in building an online business or becoming marketers.

Some of them are simply looking for a way to do a conventional job from the comfort of their own homes. In essence, they are looking for online jobs that are similar to offline jobs, things like an online office assistant, online writer or online engineer. Others are looking to make it as a freelancer and prefer the flexibility this gives them.

In both cases, there are plenty of things you can promote as an affiliate marketer and it’s definitely a niche that’s worth looking into.

Health and wellness

This is probably the most profitable niche in the world. Primarily because it includes so many different sub-niches. In fact, many of the classics on this list can be seen as sub-niches of “health and wellness”.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to choosing this as your primary niche. The main advantage is that there will be an endless amount of things you can discuss with your email list. Anything from working out to natural cures, new medicine, cool workout plans, nutrition, or even spirituality and yoga.

However, this is also a disadvantage. “When you target everyone, you target no-one in particular.” This generality is also a “curse” because oftentimes, you’ll end up discussing things that the particular reader or viewer is not interested in.

Unless you have a huge budget and can hire a huge team of writers and experts, I would suggest choosing more particular sub-niches or even sub-sub-niches to get started. Once those sub-niches succeed on their own, you can eventually merge them into a brand that centers around the more general “health & wellness” topic.

Weight loss

Out of the many sub-niches in health and wellness, this is probably the largest one. In other words, it’s the most general one and includes a ton of sub-sub-niches.

If you’re especially ambitious or experienced, you may decide to go for this niche outright. Consider, however, that different people have different reasons to lose weight, and they come at it from a different angle.

If you want to build an online presence around “weight loss”, you run the risk of being too general for most of your readers. This is where things like email-segmentation and email automation become very useful.

You will probably want to have different paths for different readers on your list. Some will convert better when offered “diet plans”. Others will be more interested in “workouts for losing weight fast”.

Depression

In this modern day and age, depression is becoming widespread and is already one of the most common disorders among people. The modern lifestyle puts people under a lot of pressure with many obligations and complicated human relationships. It’s a fact that people are more prone to depression today than ever.

Millions of people take prescription meds and many of them are tired of it and would like to try natural alternatives. As an affiliate marketer, you can help them by discovering the best alternative solutions out there. There is a wide variety of different eBooks, courses, herbs, and supplements that can cure or ease depression.

Getting pregnant

Due to many societal changes, infertility is becoming more commonplace. Many people are waiting longer to have children, which often means a higher change of infertility.

As a marketer, this means there are a lot of people who are very vested in finding a solution to an important problem. They’re dealing with an issue of “life and death” importance and they need help and advice. They’re also willing to pay for this advice.

Diets

You can view this as a sub-niche of the more general “weight loss” niche. But it’s more than that. Diets are the one thing people crave to spend money on when they want to lose weight. It’s the one specific thing they think about first.

Any skilled weight loss expert will tell you that longterm weight loss is about long-term changes in habits and lifestyle. However, when people are especially driven to “lose weight now”, they just want to be given a diet.

They don’t want a 5-year plan and a change in philosophy. They have their wallets out and ready to give you cash in exchange for a diet they can start right away.

If you need a sub-niche to get started with, this might be your best choice. It’s probably the fastest way to start seeing profit as an affiliate. And it isn’t just good business, it’s also good psychology. You want to meet people where they’re at.

If people insist on “a diet plan now”, don’t lecture them about how this isn’t the right thing to look for. Give them what they want and slowly ease them into a broader approach to weight loss. This is both good business and a good pedagogical approach.

Nutrition

This seems similar to the dieting niche, but with a notable difference. The motivation is different. While “dieting” is about losing weight, “nutrition” is about achieving other goals. This includes improving wellbeing, boosting mental clarity, increasing energy levels or getting healthier skin.

In the ideal world of most “health experts”, all people would treat these subjects as one thing called “health & wellness”. In this “ideal world”, people who are losing weight would also be interested in improving nutrition for their overall wellbeing.

But that’s not how humans work. Most people treat these as separate goals. And as a marketer, it’s wise to treat them as separate niches. The best-selling products definitely make this distinction.

Muscle building

This is related to other niches on the list, but very different in terms of the audience and their motivation. If you compare it to niches like “dieting”, “weight loss”, “health”, and “nutrition”, there will be a large overlap in the information and advice you share.

The main thing to note here is the motivation of the people seeking out this information. It will primarily be younger men who are interested in improving their external appearance. Mostly in terms of being attractive to potential partners.

Now, you don’t have to say “Here’s how to get more dates by building muscle” in your emails, but do keep it in mind when creating an image of the people you’re talking to. These will not be the same people who are looking for workout advice for the sake of “improving health”.

The products you promote will also be completely different. And that’s actually quite the advantage. You can have a separate list for the muscle builders and promote separate products. At the same time, you can have another list for those looking to improve their health. You would share and promote different affiliate products to that list.

Weight gain

This niche is actually similar to muscle building, it’s just that the target audience doesn’t know it yet. These are the people who find it hard to gain weight and think they look frail and unappealing. They would rather look healthy and strong. In most cases, these people actually need to gain muscle, not “weight”.

As a marketer targeting this crowd, you will primarily end up diverting these people to a muscle-building solution. So it’s wise to look at this niche as nothing more than a “different entry” for the muscle-building niche.

Diabetes

Over 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year. For that reason, more and more people are trying to find solutions to prevent or cure diabetes in a natural way. As an affiliate, you have many things you can promote. This includes a variety of diets and guides alongside with supplements and other natural cures.

Dating advice

Dating is not easy. Most people need guidance when it comes to their dating lives. However, if you want this niche to work for you, I’d say you genuinely have to be an expert or find an expert in dating advice. When done right, this can be one of the most profitable niches out there.

If you’re not an expert, but you’re very interested in the topic, you can also approach it from the standpoint of someone who’s on the same journey. You’re working on improving your own dating life and sharing the different products that you discover along the way.

Improving your sex life

This is a growing niche both in terms of interest and number of affiliate products. Couples nowadays are increasingly becoming more willing to experiment and expand their repertoire. And they’re willing to pay for tips and advice from good sex experts.

Saving a relationship

This one is huge. Just think about the millions of relationships that are going through a rough patch at the moment. Almost all of these couples wish they had someone who could share good advice and help them move forward. And many of them are willing to pay for this advice.

Getting your ex back

You would be surprised to see how many digital products are promising to get an ex back. That alone tells you how profitable this niche can be. Now, you might think it’s not a good idea to promote this strategy. If so, this niche might not be for you.

However, the people devouring these products are intent on doing so. They just want to purchase some information to give them tips and a strategy on their decision.

As an affiliate marketer, you’re often just a person that gives recommendations and opinions. For example, you can point out the different products that exist on this topic. You don’t have to agree with everything in each product.

Expensive hobbies

This one isn’t so much a “niche”. It’s more like a category of niches that are often overlooked by many affiliate marketers. It would be wise to consider these kinds of niches as they attract an audience that is willing to spend more money than others.

One of the things that people who are rich don’t mind spending money on are their expensive hobbies. Golf, skiing, sailing, hunting, fishing, and traveling are usually the most common expensive hobbies and cool things to learn as well. If you want to target people with bigger budgets, you might want to look into one of these niches.

Promising new niches for 2018

Gaming

Obviously gaming itself has been around for decades, nothing new here. However it’s only recently that it has been exploding as a way for affiliates to make money. On the one hand you have the expansion of gaming itself. There are now games for every demographic and device imaginable. On the other hand you have the birth of “e-sports”, this is professional gaming where these gamers treat this as an actual career.

And in terms of what you can promote as an affiliate there are a ton of affiliate programs. In fact, you can promote anything from strategy guides to hardware. You can just as easily make a commission on selling access to a game streaming service for hardcore gamers or by promoting more inexpensive fun mini-games.

Virtual reality

Virtual reality has been on the market for a few years. Every big company you know is investing in this niche by creating virtual reality gadgets. As an affiliate, you can really profit from this niche because of its huge potential. Also, if you’re not really familiar with the topic of virtual reality, you can find a ton of information on the internet and make it work for you.

Nootropics

Nootropics have become popular overnight. This niche is all about brain-power-boosting supplements. Naturally, many people are interested in them. These supplements offer high-concentration levels which allow students to learn faster and professionals to perform better. There is no proof as to whether the pills actually have some effect on the brain or it’s just a placebo effect. Either way, the potential of this niche is huge.

3D printing

This is an up and coming niche that is only going to get better for affiliate marketers. The commissions are quite large and the interest among the general population is growing quite rapidly. Consider that 3D printing used to be limited to university laboratories and rich people just a couple of years ago. And yet, it will eventually reach a point where there’s a 3D printer in every household. Kind of like the computer revolution. If you manage to jump in and capitalize on this explosion in growth, expect to make some impressive profits.

Social media marketing

While social media has been around for a couple of years now, it’s only in the past few years that it has become something that marketers can specialize in. There has been an explosion in products, courses, as well as information on how to do social media marketing. There are even people who have an actual career as a “social media marketer”

Having this in mind, there are a lot of things you can promote as an affiliate marketer. There are just so many topics you can cover with your audience. It can be about teaching them how to advertise on some of the world’s biggest social media networks. But it can also be about how Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest work, and how your subscribers can get the best results out of these platforms.

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