Looking for a niche or a product to sell?

Well, some merchants share clues about the type of niche markets that work best for affiliates.

Here, for example is a partial email that I just received from CSN Stores:

CSN Stores is merchant on the ShareaSale Network and comprises over 250 specialized online stores that offer a wide variety of home goods including tools, office furniture, bedding, lighting, outdoor furniture, luggage, baby furniture & more.

… I (Eileen the Affiliate Manager) recently compiled a list of CSN’s most popular brands in 2010. I’d like to share just our top 5 with you. Since these brands were such best sellers last year they might have high conversion rates again this year so feel free to feature them if you wish! ‘Top 5′ is defined by net number of orders for the entire year of 2010.

CSN’s Top 5 Brands of 2010:

1. Wildon Home
2. KidKraft
3. Winsome (pantryware and lifestyle furniture)
4. Home Styles (furniture)
5. Midwest Pets

CSN’s Top 5 Brands of 2010 through Affiliate Sales Only:

1. Kidkraft
2. Wildon Home
3. DaVinci
4. JoJo Designs
5. Melissa and Doug

That should tell you that not only is furniture a good market, but specifically that relating to kids and pets.

Check your merchants’ emails frequently for good clues such as these.

And if they don’t share their data with you – ask!!

“How do I tell if the keywords I’m picking are low competition but high in popularity?”

shalisha42 asked this question in the NPT Forum…

I’ve written 100s of articles and have submitted my articles through Ezine Articles, GoArticles, Hubpages, and American Chronicle. I tried Squidoo and I NEVER get traffic. The topics are very popular – weight loss, dating and making money online. I promote 3 affiliate products so I make sure I put links in my article – sparingly.

I’m having trouble understanding how to determine if a keyword is worth using in my articles. I use my Wordtracker (I have the full version since last year and still don’t know how to use it despite having read the manual) and Google Keyword Tool. When I see there are at least 11,000 or higher searches monthly, and the bar is completely colored in, I interpret it as being a popular keyword phrase.

But how do I figure out if there is competition? What is the competition barometer? How do I tell if the keywords I’m picking are low competition but high in popularity? I have an EXCELLENT NICHE but because I don’t understand the keyword concept, I think that is what is not enabling me to make sales.

Keyword Phrase Competition

There are many factors as to why articles may not got noticed or ranked, but targeting a keyword or keyword phrases with too much competition could certainly be a problem.

What you should evaluate first is the KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index of a particular keyword to determine whether it’s worth targeting in your articles.

What is KEI?

KEI is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site.

In very simple terms, keyword effectiveness is determined by comparing the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is searched (popularity) and the number of times it appears on competing web pages (competition).

The KEI isn’t a strict ratio however, as sheer volume is also considered. So, where the ratio between popularity and competition may be the same for 10 searches/3 sites and 100 searches/30 sites.. the latter would have a higher KEI than the first because it is more popular.

Simply understand that you are looking for HIGH numbers. Here’s an example.

I used Wordtracker’s Comprehensive & competition searches from the “Full Search” link (in the old interface) to study the KEI for ‘dating’ keywords in Google. (See “Wordtracker Terms Defined” at the bottom of the post if you are unfamiliar with the terms “Count, 24hours & Competing shown in the graphic). At the top of the list, the following keywords were shown:

At the bottom of the list, these were the keywords returned.

Note the differences. At the top are very unique searches whereas at the bottom are the most generic terms. The keyword ‘dating’ itself has a KEI of 0.00 – so on it’s own, it’s not worth targeting.

So, if you are focusing on very generic terms in your articles, it’s doubtful surfers will pick them up through the Google listings.

Find a Niche within a Niche

However, as shown in the screenshots above, if you want to catch a popular and increasing trend, you’d do well to work celebrity names into the titles and body of your dating articles. Other worthwhile niches to combine with dating (not shown in the graphics above) are astrological signs such as “Aries man” and geographic regions, i.e. “Indonesian Girls”.

Finding a niche within a niche applies not only to article marketing but to your entire online business as well. For example, if I were starting my online dating review service today, it’s highly unlikely that I would take the broad-based approach that I did with 101Date.com. I would focus on just one of the categories listed in the long sidebar (on the interior pages), such as Mail Order Brides or Disabled Singles.

Ergo, you should hone in on and combine another popular niche (or even 2) with a very generic subject such as dating. An example of a very finely honed niche would be Prince Harry’s dating escapades about which you could write a series of articles. You might branch out from there to write about other royal singles dating adventures and then work that into a promo for Wealthy Men or Millionaire Mates.

Besides, who Prince Harry is dating now is essential knowledge — isn’t it?

The topic of finding a niche within a niche is discussed in the Super Affiliate Handbook as a way to attract more targeted traffic to your site and specific pages.

Wordtracker Terms Defined

Count – This shows the number of times a particular keyword has appeared in our database. E.g. Our database currently holds 296 million words. A count of 147 tells us that this particular word has appeared 147 times out of 296 million.

24hrs – This is the number of predicted traffic you would expect to receive in 24hrs if you were the top bid of the google search engine alone.

Competing- Each keyword has been submitted to the google search engine and the number of competing web pages given in response. The lower the competition (particularly under 300) the easier you will find it to reach the top of google using this keyword.

Do you post your articles on article directories?

Save time. Use Article Announcer to blast your articles to all the right and relevant article directories. The package consists of 4 Audio CDs a transcript of the CDs, the Article Announcer software, a user guide and video tutorial.

Just want to let you know that Chris Carpenter is raffling off one Google Cash Detective membership per night, starting tonight until the official launch on Tuesday at 12pm EST.

If you missed my GCD review last Tuesday, get it here.

The software is amazing… especially for finding HOT niche products and niches.

Chris also just released his “Abundance Report” consisting of 18 super-fast read pages with great insights into…

1. The size of the affiliate marketing industry.
2. Why you should NOT WAIT to start an online business.
3. Concerns about Detectives “Saturating” the market?

If you want to look into the future of the affiliate marketing
industry, Chris’ Abundance Report is a great start… and don’t forget to enter your name and email address to be eligible for the raffle!

Looking for cheap thrills, were you?

Well, you should be VERY glad this post isn’t what you thought it might be!

Actually, this picture was taken specifically for use on a blog post at Roamsters.com, our new travel blog, to promote winter clothing essentials.

Note how I’ve personalized the promotion, relating what I wear in the picture to items of clothing that I suggest and link to.

Note too the Technorati tags that I use to increase traffic back to the site.

Lastly, notice how not every bullet point includes a link or promotional material. Instead I try to get the reader to smile… which keeps them reading.

Think of ways you can show your visitors how they will benefit from products you sell and you’ll sell more!

So, how can you personalize your affiliate promotions?