David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

I have talked about how to find a niche and ensure it is profitable.

Now it is time to find mine.

The aim of the demonstration site is to be a profitable site. I want you to use it as a test site - to explore it and see the tactics I have used. I want the general public to use it as a shopping site. I want them to choose me over anyone else.
 
My interests are listed below:

• Computers
• Logistics (transportation including freight and passenger)
• Gadgets
• Food and drink
• Music

I have created a couple of transport related websites before. Driver Shortage - HGV Driving Jobs, LGV Driver Training, Agencies explains to people how to go about getting your HGV licence. It offers links to further information. Bus Lane - PCV Test Help, Training Advice, PSV and Coach Driving Jobs offers an e-book called How To Become a Bus Driver In The UK. It differs to Driver Shortage - HGV Driving Jobs, LGV Driver Training, Agencies in the sense that it explains everything step-by-step. It does not rely on the visitor searching around the web for bits of information.

Having created these sites, there is very little scope for my demonstration site. Plus, whilst forms of transport are good niches, there are very few advertisers in that field.

Computers is vast and whilst I have written a lot about website design and development, there are very few advertisers in that field.

Music is a good field now because of iPod's. Visit Fresh 40's website and look at what they are doing. They count the chart down on air on regional radio across the UK. On the website, they have affiliate links to Apple's iTunes Store. This means that every time someone buys a track using the Fresh 40 link, Fresh 40 get paid commission. This is the principle behind what I am trying to do.

Looking at the music niche, I am keep on pop, dance and trance music. I could create a site about this. However, Apple's iTunes Store is the only one I know of to offer a good affiliate scheme. Putting all your eggs in one basket is dangerous and you should never rely on just one advertiser.

So what is left? Food and drink, and gadgets. I prefer food out of the food and drink, and I like most things. In this field, the best advertisers are confectionery retailers.

Gadgets are great and there are loads of gadgets available. Some of them are great, others are just pointless!

These are still large niches and what is needed is a quick study of affiliate programs available for each niche, before I can shrink the list down further.

For this, I am going to use Tradedoubler. I am counting the number of advertisers that would be suitable for the following niche's I am interested in (derived from those listed above):

• Chocolate Retailers - 1
• Music Retailers - 14
• Satellite Navigation - 21

From this list, it is clearly evident that there is more scope with a satellite navigation website. Naturally this is only a quick survey of Tradedoubler's offerings but it is more than likely representative of most affiliate networks.

Hence, the site I will be building is going to relate to satellite navigation.

The phrase "sat nav" in Google gets 2,150,000 results. The phrase "satellite navigation" gets 34,000,000. This means there is certainly scope in 2 million results to get somewhere. 34 million is the extreme opposite and the chances of being found in there is slim!