At the start of your affiliate marketing career. choosing a profitable niche is the most important decision you have to make.
Before you invest your time and effort creating a website and writing content, you need to know if there is demand for products and information in your niche.
Find a profitable niche, and you can tap into an existing audience and drive sales from the get-go.
So what are the best affiliate marketing niches?
Based on our decades of experience in affiliate marketing, we’ve compiled a list of profitable niches that drive revenue every year.
Before we get to the list, let’s go over some of the fundamentals: what is an affiliate niche, and how can you identify profitable niche opportunities?
What is an Affiliate Niche?
An affiliate niche is a specific interest, problem, or goal that people share.
Affiliate marketers make money by promoting products and services to people interested in the niche.
For example, “weight loss” is a huge market with millions of people interested in the topic.
As an affiliate, you would struggle to compete with hundreds of authority websites that already rank in the top spots in Google search results.
However, if you choose a more specific niche within “dieting,” like “over 60s weight loss for men”, you reduce the number of websites you are competing against and increase your chances of gaining traction in search results and attracting more people to your site.
Types of Niches in Affiliate Marketing?
There are hundreds of different niches, with thousands of smaller sub-niches.
However, all of these different topics, interest, hobbies, and problems can be broken down into two main categories – Evergreen and Trend Niches:
Evergreen Niches
Evergreen niches are the topics that people are always interested in because they tap into the universal wants and needs of every human being on the planet.
For example, “health and fitness” is a topic that people will always want to know more about, and will be willing to spend money on.
If a niche covers a universal problem or goal, people will always seek out information and products related to the topic.
While interest in trending niches can see a rise and fall in popularity, evergreen niches will always be popular with audiences.
Rather than focusing on a broad topic, you want to niche down even further and focus on a specific sub-niche topic with a defined audience.
If you target an evergreen niche like “dating,” you could niche down even further and choose a topic like “divorcee dating” or “single parent dating.”
The more targeted you can get with your niche, the easier it is to make an impact in search results, and the more valuable your content will be to your audience.
Trend Niches
While evergreen niches see consistent demand, trend niches can see peaks of interest.
These types of niches can still be profitable, but you need to move quickly to capitalize on the periods of peak interest.
To make money with a trend niche, your audience also needs to be willing to spend money on products and services.
For example, basketball is a sport that millions of people watch and play around the world, but opportunities for affiliate promotion are limited.
Golf is a niche with a smaller worldwide audience, but it’s a sport that requires people to purchase products and equipment to take part, making it a more lucrative niche for affiliate marketers.
If you target a trend niche, you need to look for an activity where people are willing to spend money.
How to Find Lucrative & Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niches?
The easiest way to find a profitable affiliate marketing niche is to look where people are spending their money online.
If lots of people are buying products and services in a niche, it’s a great indication that you can make money with affiliate promotion.
Let’s take a look at the two biggest marketplaces for physical and digital products and go through the step-by-step process of identifying a lucrative niche.
Amazon
Amazon is the biggest brand name in the world, accounting for nearly 40% of all US e-commerce sales.
It’s a great place to find profitable affiliate niches.
However, the step-by-step guide to finding lucrative affiliate marketing niches on Amazon will be covered in a separate article at some point later.
ClickBank
Amazon is a great place to find a profitable niche with plenty of physical products, but the most lucrative affiliate offers are for digital products and services.
While a physical product on another network could offer commissions of 5-15%, on Clickbank, physical products offer commissions of 30-60%, a digital product can provide a commission of 50-90% of the sale price.
The best place to look for a niche with lots of digital products is ClickBank.
It’s a beginner-friendly affiliate network that has a massive range of online courses, e-books, and other digital products.
ClickBank has a straightforward sign-up process, and allow you sort offers according to “Gravity” – a metric that shows how well the product is selling.
However, the step-by-step guide to finding lucrative affiliate marketing niches on Clickbank will be covered in a separate article along with Amazon at some point later.
How to Determine If a Niche Is Profitable?
Once you’ve identified a niche and some potential products to promote, you need to determine if the niche has an existing audience. There are two factors to consider:
Is the Niche Evergreen?
Some products might rise to the top of the best sellers list on Amazon, but the popularity of the product could be seasonal.
For example, Halloween costumes and decorations see significant search volume and can rise to the top of the best sellers list on Amazon, but this demand only lasts for a few weeks of the year.
As a beginner affiliate marketer, you want to focus on a niche that will remain popular for a long time.
Choosing an evergreen niche can help you to generate commission and earn money for months and even years to come.
Does the niche topic tap into a problem, need, or desire that people all over the world experience?
If the topic covers romance, health, woodwork or wealth, there will always be a consistent demand for information and products related to the niche.
You can use Google Trends to judge the interest in a niche over time: For instance, if you want to find the demand for woodwork in the past 5years, simply type your subject or topic into the Search:
Over the previous five years, “Woodwork” has received consistent interest online.
It’s a need that millions of people want fulfilled, and there is a steady demand for information.
You want to choose an evergreen niche that people will still be interested in for years to come.
Search Volume and SEO Difficulty
If a topic is receiving a high search volume, it shows you there is a significant demand for information related to the niche.
You can utilize free tools like Ubersuggest.com to see how many people are searching for a topic.
There are two metrics you want to pay close attention to: Search Volume (VOL) and Search Difficulty (SD). Some of these keywords are far too general or competitive, so you need to scroll through the list and identify the keyword phrases that offer a search volume of at least 500, and a Search Difficulty of less than 45.
Also, you want to find product-related keywords with low Search Difficulty.
If you can find at least ten product-related keyword ideas that match the above criteria, it shows there is a strong interest in the niche, and that there’s an opportunity to establish yourself in the search rankings and drive targeted traffic to your website.
Your Interest In The Niche Is Important
The last thing to consider before you commit to a niche is whether you’re personally interested in the topic.
You will be investing lots of your time creating content around the niche topic, so it’s always a good idea to have some interest and curiosity about the subject.
Not only will this help you to stay motivated, but it will also provide you with insight into your target audience.
The more you know about the people you’re talking to, the easier it is to understand their pain points and recommend the products and services they will find appealing.
