You would have realized there are several ways of earning money on the Internet. There are many Internet marketing online courses that teach you how to do it. It ranges from making profit from eBay, Google AdSense, Pay Per Click online advertising, email marketing, to running blogs, drop shipping, social media etc.
One that has been for a while and is getting more and more interests is affiliate marketing. Although there are many courses around, there are only a few decent quality Internet marketing online course programs today that offer a real value.
There are several aspects of Internet marketing you need to learn to become an expert in affiliate marketing. Getting yourself familiar with four basic pillars of Internet marketing is a must. Most Internet marketing online courses will focus on these basic steps in one way or another. If you implement these steps in your affiliate marketing endeavour, you are guaranteed to succeed.
The four basic pillars of affiliate marketing are:
- Research a NICHE market – The most important!
- Find the product/service
- Get quality traffic
- Conversion: translates traffic into sales
This article is going to focus on the first and most important step: Find a niche market. This step is so important there are tens of thousands of Internet marketing online courses and products dedicated solely on this.
Two most common questions asked and discussed in Internet marketing online course are “What is a niche market?” and “How do I find a niche market?”
A niche market is a smaller, specialized & profitable market, which is a subset of a larger mainstream market, on which the need of a specific product/service is particularly strong.
Let’s take a look at this example:
Sports
Cycling
Cycling Apparel
Cycling Short
Pearl Izumi Cycling Short
Pearl Izumi Attack Cycling Short
‘Sports’ is not a niche market because the category at this level is too broad. If you are to target this you will get lots of traffic, but it is not quality traffic and will not convert as well. It is also very difficult to get your product listed on the first few pages of Google (or other search engines) as they are millions of web pages targeting the keyword ‘Sports’, hence the high amount of competitors.
If we dig down to a narrower category like ‘Cycling’, the amount of web sites competing for that keyword is much less, even though the quantity is still in millions. Having narrowed the search down to ‘Cycling Apparel’, then to ‘Cycling Short’, and if we know of a particular brand, to ‘Pearl Izumi’, we end up with a much more targeted niche. When you are targeting at this level, you draw in quality traffic. From our example, the niche is ‘Pearl Izumi Attack Cycling Short’.
Once you’ve found a niche, you need to find out the number of competitors and its market demand. One way is to use free tools from Google. While we are on the subject, when you are searching for a course you will notice that most Internet marketing online courses charge you extra for usage of some tools and resources necessary to start your Internet business. Make sure you find an Internet marketing online course that includes these as part of the cost.
Now, back to the niche finding. To find out how many direct competitors in the chosen niche:
- Open Google.com
- Type in keywords (eg “Pearl Izumi Attack Cycling Short”) in quotes. This searches for direct competitors
To find whether or not there is a reasonable demand:
- Go to Google External Keyword Tool.
- Type in keywords (eg “Pearl Izumi Attack Cycling Short”) in the search box
If you get a decent traffic yet low competition numbers, then you’ve struck gold. On the other hand, this might be a sign that a particular niche is not profitable, therefore no one is promoting or making money from it.
As you can see, it is quite a simple process once you’ve known EXACTLY HOW to do it. In order to become a successful affiliate marketer, you need to master these four basic pillars of Internet marketing. There are many ways to gain this knowledge, one way is to learn from a credible Internet marketing online course program, which not only tell you WHAT and WHY but also teach you step-by-step on EXACTLY HOW to do it, like the example above.