How To Find Good Products For A Very Specific Niche Site
Sometimes it’s hard to find a good affiliate program even when you’ve found a good niche. Or what you think is a good niche, at least.
I found a new niche this week when I wasn’t looking for it. I came across this little hobbyist subculture and decided I wanted to jump right in.
As I’ve burned the whole online business thing into my mind, my immediate thought was: “Can I do a niche site/authority project/create a product/provide a service/etc./etc.?”
Not that I do everything with the money aim in mind… but these things help you learn better and provide a richer experience.
Anyway, back on topic.
This little niche is tiny. It’s global and there’s at most a handful of websites about it. So the idea that there’s a massive industry waiting for a copywriter and niche site builder like me to slip into is an out-of-the-box idea.
Or is it?
Let’s find out.
First Things First – Is There A Market?
If you have a niche that’s so tiny that there are no products to market, then you should wonder if the market is big enough to support a niche site.
The reason I say this is that most niches have at least a handful of companies willing to take people’s pennies.
However… you might run into a niche where there’s a lot of interest but few products. Depending on the niche, it might be that you’re targeting a niche where the companies supplying products are old, tech illiterate or otherwise so small that they don’t have affiliate programs.
Another big place you might find a lack of affiliate programs are where you have an anti-consumerist niche. I’d be wary of starting a niche site in these markets unless you have a specific angle.
For instance, a while back someone asked me about starting a niche site for minimalists/people who are into frugality. I’ll come back to that because it’s a good exploratory topic, actually.
But I’d argue that unless you know what you’re doing, it’s better to target niches where people are spending money and enjoy spending money. These niches are low-hanging fruit compared to the effort of trying to convince someone to spend money and buy a product.
In that case, I recommend the following.
Amazon Is The Low-Hanging Fruit
If you can’t find products to sell on Amazon, then you have a real niche. The niche I talked about in the introduction had products for sale on Amazon. These are people that are typical non-consumers and there aren’t any “official” affiliate programs… but I found products to sell.
Remember with Amazon, they do a lot of the heavy lifting for you in that even if the item you link to is out of stock, they’ll provide alternatives. You also get paid if the person shops for your item, doesn’t find what they’re after and then goes and buys random items instead.
But generally… Amazon has millions of products.
If you can’t think of any products, then this is a separate issue. Let’s talk about that.
Don’t Just Think In Terms Of Products: Think In Terms Of Need
Remember I mentioned the frugal people?
You might think that that’s a terrible niche, because people don’t want to spend money.
If people behaved rationally, you’d be right. But they don’t, and nobody is driven by a need to spend less money as a goal in and of itself.
So you think about the need.
“What does a person interested in frugality want?”
This divides into two evenly matched groups:
- People who need frugality because they’re in debt or otherwise have no money (like your typical digital nomad or a single mom with three kids and rent due)
- People who want frugality as a means to an end (likely, they earn enough money but hate their long hours or want to retire early)
By thinking about the audiences, you open up all sorts of options.
“How an iPhone saved me 10 hours of pain.”
“Here’s how a simple kitchen appliance will let you make delicious meals for $2 a day.”
“Want to retire early? Check out these exclusive investment offers that totally give me a 10% recurring commission on a lifetime-basis!”
So on and so forth.
If All Else Fails…
If all else fails, then you should look into other routes to monetising your traffic.
This might mean advertising directly.
It might mean repackaging your content into a book to sell on Amazon.
Or it might mean creating the sort of product that your audience but doesn’t have. Bonus points if you then offer an affiliate program of your own so that other niche site owners can help you bring in the gold coins.