There are sadly many online entrepreneurs who are right on the cusp of success, but who walk away without realizing that a few easy tweaks could mean the difference between being broke and watching the sales come rolling in.
For many, it’s a simple case of failing to monetize their sites! You’d think that would be an obvious slip up to avoid, but they get so focused on ranking in search engines and building their list that only when it’s pointed out to them do they realize they’ve forgotten to include links to products where they’ll earn a commission.
And the sad thing is, most people put their own product creation on the back burner for the day they have accumulated a healthy list, so that profit-pulling potential is lost on them as well.
Some just don’t know how the money is supposed to come to them, so it’s important to understand how you can monetize a niche before you get too deep into the process that you pick something that may not have much in the way of earning ability.
Tangible Niche Profit Potential
One of the easiest ways to earn money is to be the go between who connects consumers ready to spend money with products that will ship to them from an online retailer.
The best example of this is to think of what all is sold on Amazon. An Amazon affiliate, called an associate, can earn money from a consumer’s purchase on their site. So if you’re in a niche like toys, for example, you’d be writing product reviews for your blog about toys being sold on Amazon and use your affiliate link to link to it.
There are other sites, such as Target, Walmart and others that you can find to promote tangible products as an affiliate, too. There are a few ways you can promote. Using text hyperlinks is one way, but you can also hyperlink images of the products back to the site.
You don’t have to just link to an individual product, either. Most sites have ways you can link to the entire store, or in the case of Amazon, you might link to a search results page within the site or even to a bestseller’s list of the items.
Amazon even has a carousel option where it rotates the products being showcased and gives you another way to capture the attention of the consumer who landed on your blog.
Whenever you’re in a niche, think of all of the tangible ways you can make money from them. For example, even in the mostly digital niche of online marketing, you can promote tangibles such as laptops, PCs, desks, video recording equipment, success books and more.
Tapping Into Digital Niche Income
Digital income from a niche is often higher than that of tangible products. This is primarily because digital courses are often priced higher and offer an increased rate of commission.
So if you go to a site like ClickBank, for example, you can look up your niche and find online courses or memberships that your readers might like. For example, if you’re in the diet niche, you’ll find all kinds of digital courses that target a certain audience – women, those who want 6-pack abs, people over 40 and more.
There are also courses you can find on sites like Warrior Plus, JVZoo, Udemy, Teachable and more. And of course you can create your own info products to make money without being an affiliate.
When you create or promote a digital product, it should be something that answers the questions or guides your audience in whatever help they need. You’ll probably being getting questions from subscribers over time that you can use to help you create a digital course.
You can also look in forums to see what people are asking, check the comments section on YouTube videos or in Facebook groups and see what blind spots people have that need attention.
There are digital products in different income levels. Some will be super cheap, such as a $7 eBook that is designed to answer the most basic questions and help the vendor build a list.
Others will be medium priced, such as a $47 course that serves as the first step to help people achieve their goals. With these lower ticket items, it’s usually a hands off vendor who isn’t likely to provide help with the implementation of the ideas.
As you move up the tiers, you’ll find higher ticket items, such as a course that sells for $197 where it may provide some “done for you” content or a service that’s provided to the buyer so they can skip the learning stage and have their needs met on autopilot.
And lastly, there will be high ticket items such as $5,000 one-on-one coaching that works as a hybrid with a course that acts as the foundation for the customer, with the addition of hand holding by the vendor in a number of direct communications.
If you’re an affiliate promoting digital products, make sure you vet the vendor before you send your people to them. If you send them to someone for the sheer sake of profits, then they will lose trust in you and refuse to spend their money in the future on your recommendations.
Finding Niches with Dual Profit Potential
Whenever possible, try to hone in on a niche that has dual profit potential. That means it’s ripe for plenty of tangible and digital profits. So for instance, with toys, it’s mostly tangible – most parents aren’t going to pay for guidance on which toy to buy.
And with marketing, it’s mostly digital. Most marketers have a laptop and desk and aren’t going to be buying a ton of tangibles. But there are many niches that serve an audience both kinds of products, giving you ample earning opportunities.
Survival is a good example of a niche with dual profit potential. People like to learn strategies such as creating a homesteading garden, self-defense techniques, food and water storage and more.
Those make great info products you can promote or create for that audience. But in order to implement your advice, they’ll need tangible items, such as gardening equipment, defense items like stun guns, rain barrels and MREs (meals ready to eat), etc.
Anti-aging is another dual profit niche. The anti-aging niche covers a wide range of topics – like skin care, mental acuity, mobility, heart health and more. So those make good digital course topics.
But the consumers also want tangible items, such as wrinkle cream or exercise equipment that can help them improve their longevity and stave off disease or mobility issues.
The diet niche is another great dual profit pulling topic. Consumers devour books and courses about how to lose weight, shed fat and tone up or build muscles. They want to look good and feel fit.
Those are wonderful digital topics for you to write about, make a video course on or promote by someone else. But you can also promote tangible items that will help them. Those include things like food or weight scales, meal deliveries, dumbbells and more.
Keep in mind that that even if you’ve narrowed your niche to a specific topic that’s only tangible or only digital, you still have the opportunity to periodically promote the other items because it’ll be relevant to the other topic.
So for example, let’s say you build a product review site for survival water filtration systems and you review things like rain barrels and other items a prepper would need for this aspect of homesteading.
You can still, because it’s relevant, introduce a digital product on how to do it because your list won’t feel as if it’s a disconnect. Now if your site was only about digital topics on preventing wrinkles and you suddenly introduce a review for a mobility scooter, that might not be as relevant as a product such as age spots, which is also a skin-rejuvenating topic or product.
Just ask yourself how relevant it would be to your audience and don’t stray too off track from what they came for. You don’t want your site overly muddled where they can’t tell what the content is supposed to be about.
Is Selling Space or Subscribers a Smart Move?
Some newbie marketers mistakenly think the bulk of their sales will come from selling ad space on their blog. They start out using systems they set up where ads are displayed by companies on a regular rotation, and move up to taking orders from people who want to put a specific ad in a space on their blog.
Using an ad system is a way to earn a little bit, but until your blog gets widely popular, it won’t be enough to support you financially. It also depends on the niche that you’re in, so if ad revenue is the business model you’re considering, think about that, too.
There are many areas where you can sell or rent space on your blog. Right below the header image is a premiere spot. If your blog is popular in a niche, they’ll want this prime spot so that their banner ad gets noticed.
Another area is the sidebar of your blog. The higher spots will be worth more to the person renting space than the lower parts of the sidebar. But this is a space where you normally could have your own opt in and promotions.
Some people will want to rent space out by purchasing an entire blog post – either written by you to promote them or written by them, submitted for approval and placed on your blog by you for a fee.
You can also rent out solo ads to your subscribers. This is a risky business, because you aren’t fully vetting the person purchasing an ad going out to your list. You’re also not making as much money on it as you would if it were a direct affiliate promotion.
Take a lot of care with your subscribers and try not to sell emails going out to them, or sell the entire list to someone in the event that you move on from the niche. These consumers made a conscious decision to hand over their name and email address to you because they liked what you said and trusted you.
They weren’t signing up for someone else’s list, and when you hand over their contact details, that’s a sign of poor ethics in this industry. They’ll often be able to tell who sold their name because of the way they signed up to your list, too – so it can sour your reputation quickly.
Zeroing in on Recurring Payments
Many marketers fail to realize that the profits you earn don’t have to be one time commissions. If you’re strategic with it, you can promoting on-going affiliate programs that send you a check or payment month after month for as long as the customer stays in the program.
They range from small ticket to big ticket items. Some renew monthly, while some are annual renewals. Some will be software programs or tools they’ll need, like hosting – while others might be a membership for training and information.
You can even find some in other niches like those that have subscription boxes. The pet niche has some recurring payment options, where people buy monthly subscription boxes for their dog or cat.
There are diet meal plans that get sent out (some are digital programs while others are the actual meals) on a weekly or monthly basis. These can earn you an on going commission.
The survival niche and beauty niches also have these recurring income options. Type your niche topic into a search engine and add the words recurring income and affiliate program and see what you’re able to find.
You might not find any, but you might be able to find some high ticket items that make you a good amount of money as an affiliate with a single purchase. Having a mix of profits coming in helps ensure you won’t be left in a lurch if one of them falls through.
The process of monetizing a niche isn’t complicated. Where most people fail is in simply forgetting to put the elements in place (such as affiliate links) that will earn them money. You have to actively think about each blog post, every email, and each post and how it can help you earn money.
As time goes on, make sure you’re analyzing the results of your efforts. You might find that your readers respond overwhelmingly positive to a certain vendor over another one, and you’ll want to check and see if they have a line of products that you can promote.
If you don’t check the results of your monetization efforts, you won’t be spending your time wisely. You may be giving space to something that doesn’t convert well for you at all. With simple, quick tweaks, you could alter that to a flow of commissions coming your way easily.
