Research affiliate merchants

STEP 4: Research affiliate merchants

Before you make a firm decision on a topic for your site, you’ll need to do research to see if there are suitable affiliate products which match your topic.

You want affiliate merchants that have excellent products, excellent reputations and sites that look as though they’re good at selling. You can skim or search the AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory for ideas.

Also do searches in Google for…

product +”affiliate program”

Consider aiming for lifetime commissions.

If you’re lucky, you’ll manage to select a website topic that has affiliate programs which pay lifetime commissions or residual commissions – the sort reviewed at LifetimeCommissions.com.

You’ll earn repeat commissions when “your” customers make more purchases.

However, I think it’s more important that you choose a niche that isn’t too competitive, and a topic you WANT to write about. You won’t be very happy if you decide to chase the money and then after two weeks – or two years – decide you’re bored to tears with the niche you’ve chosen.

So when you choose a niche, close your eyes and imagine yourself owning a website in that niche and writing about that topic. Are you enjoying yourself? Are you enjoying telling your friends and family what you’re doing. If so, you’ve probably chosen a good niche.

POWERFUL TIP: If you create a website that is genuinely USEFUL, that helps people get what they want, you’ll not only feel good about what you’re doing and will be keen to work on it, you’ll also have a much greater chance of success.

There’s expert, detailed advice on choosing a profitable niche in the free Affiliate Masters Guide, so if you haven’t downloaded it yet, I strongly recommend you so now.

RIGHT-Click and download the Affiliate Masters Guide to your desktop.

NEXT STEP: Build a useful, interesting website on your theme