Keeping an Ear to the Ground: Holistic Niche Selection

I love talking to people about their niche, since the answers are never that varied. It’s usually some variation of Payday-Teeth-Loss. With the recent devastation in the continuity section of our industry, I think it’s a great time to stop looking in the “Offers” section of your affiliate network or reading the “We need your traffic here!” emails.

When it comes to niche selection I start with something gaining momentum and research the affiliate program later. How do you know if something is gaining momentum? It’s not Google Trends, it’s not some keyword research tool: it’s going out and listening to people. That’s shocking, I know. You’re probably thinking, “Josh, it’s easy for you to sit here and say “Go listen to people”, give us some examples jack ass!”

Two years ago I was in a night time Spanish Summer class. It wasn’t the place I was looking for the next hot niche idea, but during a break I heard one student mention a service called “SpoofCard” that allows you to fake your Caller ID. Everyone, including myself, was super excited about this. I went home and checked to see if they had an affiliate program, and sure enough, they did. I had a site up by the end of the week, and was making conversions by the next class. But what if you found a really hot niche idea, but their isn’t some serendipitous affiliate program?

Undoubtedly you’re going to run into really obscure niches where the merchants selling this stuff may not have an affiliate program. About a year ago I noticed these really minimalistic bikes cruising around campus. I am all about anything minimalist, but more importantly, it looked like these bikes were getting extremely popular. I checked and found a DIRECT MATCH .org domain name about these bikes. I was front paging above the fold for the main term in a little under a month. How did I monetize the site though? eBay and Amazon. I realize depending on your state you may not love the Amazon idea. However, for really obscure niches you can leverage the huge magnet of obscurity that eBay and Amazon can be. If that doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to reach out to the top, or what appears to be the highest converting merchant in the niche.

I’m not suggesting you move into micro niches for all your income, but I am suggesting that opportunities are all around you, and if you’re not listening, someone else is.