Before committing to any niche it is important to research your potential niches thoroughly. You will want to get an idea of how many people are searching for your products, how much competition you are likely to have, and what products you can potentially sell from which merchants and at what commission rate. Completing your research will give you a feel for the market but will not give you the exact profitability due to the large amount of factors that can effect your sales.

At this point in our process you can buy tools to aid you, however I would fully recommend that you get used to using the free resources available to you.

Tools

Google Keyword Tool


• Research the approximate search volume of specific keywords related to your potential niche.
• Research alternative keywords that are being used to find the products you plan to sell.
• Research advertiser competition down to keyword level within the niche you plan to promote.

Google & Yahoo Search Engines

• Research competition by viewing sponsored advertisements on both search engines (or as many as you wish)
• Research competition by understanding how many results show for your particular keywords.
• Get a feeling for other websites advertising or selling similar products and begin to get a feeling for how you would like your website to look and behave.

Affiliate Networks

Most affiliate networks provide great insights into the market you are looking to enter. They provide conversion statistics, average earning per affiliate click and of course help you decide which merchants you will promote. Before finalizing your decision to enter any niche you will have to confirm that there is not only the demand for what you want to sell but that there are merchants to offer you a great products to promote. I would strongly advise you to stick to tangible products and avoid ebooks and any make ‘money online’ sort of products; I have never met an affiliate that has made a living promoting these (although apparently there are many:)

When i first started as an affiliate i was overwhelmed by the technical aspects of it. Building websites was something i had never done and therefore my choice of niche was limited. I began marketing in a very competitive niche and it was not long before i realized my mistake, however what i needed more than to make a fortune with my first enterprise was a steep learning curve to teach me (by way of making mistakes) everything i wanted to avoid in the future. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO MAKE MISTAKES, it is the only way to learn.

Before any work can begin on building your first website you need to know what product or type of products you will promote. Because this course is specific to tangible products (products you can see), you have already narrowed your search, but we need to go further.

To be successful at affiliate marketing it is important that you focus your attentions on something you enjoy, have a reasonable knowledge of and that there is a demand for.

What do you enjoy?

It is very important to promote products that you have a passion for, or specific to a group or activity that you have a passion for. You will promote products with a far greater sense of authority if you understand the people you are promoting to, and what better way to understand them than be one of them yourself. Many people do not make money from their affiliate business because they lose interest in the topic and therefore do not provide their readers or customers with interesting points of view or relevant products. If you choose a niche you are passionate about you will be far more likely to turn your passion into a career.

Are other people selling in this market?

In affiliate marketing you will never find a niche that has not been tapped into by at least a small number of merchant and affiliates. In fact, it is normally a good sign if the niche you are considering has been tapped into because this indicates that there is a market for the product. Another good indication is to search generic keywords related to your product on Yahoo and Google to see whether there are any advertisers selling the product or group of products you are looking to promote. However, it is very important (and this has been the downfall of many affiliates) that your core product range and “unique” selling point is not oversubscribed. It is a fine balancing act between customers and competition.

An example of this may be www.martinsboots.co.uk: the original idea may have been a shoe shop, then narrowed down to a boot shop, then narrowed down (again) to the very particular niche of Dr Martens Boots.

Notepad Brainstorm.

I) Sit down with your notepad and think about topics you enjoy and are good at.

II) Think about what products you would like to buy (or wish you could), or alternatively , you would like a store dedicated to “XYZ”.

III) Are people already selling these product? Are they successful? (remember to refer to Yahoo & Google paid advertisements)

IV) If you have thought of a generic niche, try to narrow it down and refine it (as in the www.martinsboots.co.uk example above)

V) Try to think of four or five niches using the methods mentioned above.

Related reading:

Finding Your Affiliate Niche

How Do I Find My First Affiliate Niche

7 Steps To Choose A Niche For Your Blog

Ill admit that i have been a lazy affiliate, so it probably took me longer than most (denial) to realize that i was going to have to work hard for my money if i was really going to be a successful internet marketer. Many people deciding on affiliate marketing as a career do not fully appreciate the effort and time successful marketers devote to their online projects. Times have changed and affiliate marketing has evolved, a single web page of below average content is no longer enough to make money online, Google especially has campaigned for this change by implementing many hurdles to regulate website quality and many penalties for those not adhering to their definition (of quality). With every change comes opportunity! If you have the drive, skills, determination and above all the correct mental attitude to learn what makes a great website you are already one step ahead of the crowd.

So what is Google looking for? They are looking for you to provide value to your reader!

Google themselves offer some insight into what they are looking for by defining four major categories that they consider when deciding an appropriate quality score for your website, these are: Relevant & Original Content, Transparency & Navigability.

Relevant and Original Content

Google wants webmasters to provide unique well written content that provides users with information that they may not be able to find on any other website. If your web page is made up of mostly ads you need to add more content.

Tansparency

Our business information

Every website or landing page must include information about the website owners summarised in an ‘About Us’page. Ths page should also contain contact information (the more the better). You should also summarise your service in an open manner.

Your site’s interaction with a visitor’s computer

This information can be added to your website by adding a basic ‘privacy policy’ explaining what information is collected from visitors to your website and how this information will be used. To write this page you may want to consider analytics tracking & cookies, also information on any downloads from your website.

Visitors’ personal information

Both Google and visitors to your website like to know how any personal information you collect will be used. This information can be included in your ‘privacy policy’ and should also include how third party advertisers (your merchants) will use customer data.

Navigation

Make sure your navigation is visitor friendly and does not include any obtrusive pop-ups or pop-unders. Also Google likes your page to load quickly, for information on how to improve this visit here. Turn to Google’s Webmaster Guidelinesfor more recommendations, which will improve your site’s performance in Google’s search results as well.

Your Landing Page Should Include The Following Pages

About Us

You should describe the purpose of your website and your service, you should also give information about the people or business operating the website.

Privacy Policy

As described above your privacy policy should include information on how you handle customer data, affiliates will need to give information on how there merchants handle this data.

Terms & Conditions

As explained in detail above, click here for further resources.

Contact Us

Even if you are an affiliate your customers want to know who you are and ow they can contact you if they need to. You should try and provide more than one way of contact and i possible provide a full postal address.

Sitemap

Your sitemap should be accessible from all pages on your website.

Consider Including The Following Pages

1. News — add newstories fromyour niche or subject.

2. Blog -  editorial comments here and opinions.

3. How To or What Is Guide — pages with detailed unique content describing the product/service you are promoting and how they work.

4. FAQ’s — think of every question related to the product or service and list them here with informative answers.

5. Glossary -  create an A-Z of industry specific jargon here and define it.

6. Deals/Offer pages — list any offers available from your merchants.

7. Individual product/pages - Offer other products and services related to your main product or service.

8. Submit your review — offer your users the opportunity to submit their own product/reviews.

If you create your landing page with your potential customers in mind and are not just acting as bridge between the customer and merchant you should soon have an authority site for your niche. Content is King!

As soon as WordPress is installed it is time to start altering the blog set up from the administration panel. Many of the changes that will help your sites rankings can be made before you have even thought about your first post. Fantastico Deluxe may install the CMS software in under 1 minute but it is the customizations that will make your blog better than others in your niche. I have listed below a number of customizations that I will make to all my blogs (without exception);

Pemalinks

Permalink customization is a hot topic on the web mainly due to peoples conflicting views on how they should be customized. I have read many endless posts on this subject alone and have chosen the permalink structure that suits me, and i believe it to be the most effective.

The default permalink structure is ugly and should immediately be changed. The link structure gives no indication as to the posts content and therefore provides no SEO based on keywords within the URL. Changing this structure on a blog that is a going concern can cause you to lose traffic, but is still recommended for longevity.

The default wordpress permalink structure - domain.com/?p=15

Now it is at this point that conflicting view come in to play. Many bloggers opt to have (click on these for example arguments)  domain.com/category/postname/, i personally opt instead for domain.com/postname/. Disregarding the category enables you to change or edit post categories with a lot more ease as it will not affect your article links.

To change your permalink structure:  Log in to administration/settings/permalinks, click on custom and enter /%postname%/ (as shown below).

Your posts will now have the prettier Permalink Structure.

Google XML Sitemaps Plugin

Sitemaps inform search engines when your blog has been updated and attempts to ensure that all your pages get indexed on a regular basis. It is a fact that a regularly updated site will outperform an identical static site that is not. This plugin ensures that the search engines are notified of such updates, it will also help search engines find pages that have not already been crawled.

If you require help with installing the plugin please click here.

Once the plugin has been installed and activated it is time to create your sitemap; click settings/xml-sitemap, then at the top of the page under ‘status’ click create sitemap. This will then create your sitemap and update your sitemap with every updated or new post.

I would strongly advise having a link to your sitemap from your WordPress Site, i personally add this as a link on my sidebar using the link or blogroll widget within the administration panel, however a link from your footer would work just as well.

All In One SEO

This plugin is a must for anybody wanting to blog seriously and has a few features that quite simply you cant afford to live without. This plugin will optimize your titles, automatically generate META tags, avoid the duplicate content issue associated with blogs, and a lot more besides. Once uploaded you will have to activate and enable this plugin from the appropriate field under settings.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

This plugin is great for boosting older posts traffic rank. It shows a list of related posts under each post and therefore provides a sometimes needed boost to those older articles.

Only Wire

Although this is a plugin it relates to the onlywire.com service. Only Wire enables you to log all your social bookmarking sites usernames and passwords and with this plugin submit your new posts to all these bookmarking sites with only a single click. The set up of the plugin is relatively easy, however the hours required to apply for each social bookmarking site is not. The plugin is well worth the effort and has recently spawned other plugins that enable you to submit the posts through a number of Only Wire accounts and therefore acquire a much bigger reach with a single click.

I have sumarised my initial WordPress setup above and from this point you are ready to blog. I am confident that many people using different setup techniques may question decisions i have made, however i have found these to work well for me. I am always happy to learn of new techniques and plugins so please feel free to comment, i may or may not have tried them and if they are really good please dont be shy!!

I will try and cover other aspects of SEO in the near future but until then the above initial setup even at its most basic level is more than enough to get you started.

I have read much on creating the perfect campaign, however their is always that feeling that i have missed something, or perhaps the niche is just too difficult to master and i should be thankful for my relatively small profits. I also often blame other factors, such as the landing page’s ability to convert.…..on this point i may still be proved right!

There are a number of areas of PPC that i believe are essential to turn a losing campaign into a profitable one (even small profits)..

1. Conversion Tracking

I dont believe that any of my campaigns would be making a single penny without this in place. Prior to working with a merchant (or even definitely deciding to) i have my Adwords & Yahoo tracking codes placed on there thank you pages. I have recently had this code taken of a merchants site (security reasons) and have basically now just pulled the plug on that campaign. These codes will enable you to track conversions down to keyword level, for example the keyword “hat” may convert every 40 clicks whereas the keyword “hats” may convert every 5 clicks enabling you to adjust your keyword bids accordingly.

2. Decide on Broad or Exact Match

When i first started running my PPC campaigns i ran everything as broad match (as this is the default setting on both Google and Yahoo). My campaigns were losing money. If you are new to PPC strategy i suggest that your campaign is only set up and run on ‘exact’ match in Google (like this: [keyword]) or standard match type in Yahoo (campaign setting > tactic settings). You can change these once you know you have a success on your hands. The reason i suggest this is that broad match requires good use of negative keywords and PPC as a whole; if you are the only person selling the product then ignore this advice.

3. Decide on Your Keywords

When deciding on your keywords i would suggest starting with a small number and then steadily day on day increasing these. I would strongly disagree with anyone that says you should upload 30K keywords (or as many as you can find) on launch as this will soon become unmanageable, try and familiarize yourself with Google Keyword Editor (free download) and when a keyword is not converting profitably (as shown by your conversion tracking) drop the bid by anywhere between 10 & 20% and re-test (vice versa for those high converting keywords).

4. Finally

Never get big headed and think you know everything because you don’t and even if you did Google and Yahoo will just change something and you wont know everything anymore. Try to learn from others and pass on what you know to deserving people wishing to learn. Also, never give up, treat it as a learning experience and move on!

I am sure there are 101 things that i have missed in this post, and that not everyone will agree with my ramblings. I am also sure there are 1001 people better qualified to give this advice so do what you want with it and i will hope to add PPC strategy to our Podcast Interview Series if we can find a good interviewee.
Good Luck!