3 Profitable Niche Ideas for Affiliates – December 2019

For this month, we’ve got 3 new niche ideas that would make for highly profitable affiliate sites, that are kind of “hidden in plain sight”.

(Remember: If you’re serious about turning one of these niches into an income-earning affiliate site, our Digital Worth Academy program is now available as a more affordable “course only” but still includes the 3 software automation tools that helped our affiliate sites generate $213,928 in 12 months).

Niche Idea #1: Shoes

I keep seeing headlines lately about the sneaker market. Apparently even the resale market for sneakers is worth about a billion dollars a year now.

And while I think a great affiliate site could be built around sneakers, I think they’re just one among many ways niche site owners could turn a profit creating content on shoes.

Shoes tick a lot of boxes for affiliate marketers:

• Prices can get very high.
• They’re quite buyable online (Moreso than clothing where “fits” can vary much more widely).
• Except for work or fitness shoes, they’re the kind of product that the same customer can buy a lot of over time.

But maybe best of all? The number of brand and product name keyword opportunities are basically endless.

What Would You Promote?

So many online stores have quality affiliate programs in this niche.

To start, you have Mr. Porter and Net-a-Porter for high-end Mens and Women’s shoes. These stores carry hundreds of brands that could each have potential for organic traffic.

Zappos (a massive online shoe retailer in the US) has an affiliate program (US affiliates only).

And Shareasale is littered with programs in the Shoe market with decent EPCs

On Amazon? Our Comission Wizard software is showing hundreds of curious items over $100 and with good sales indicators…

How Would You Get Traffic?

Oh the many ways…

These keyword opportunities took me minutes to dig up. I barely tried…

First is a brand of sneakers called Common Projects:

Basically every keyword from this super high-end mens shoe brand:

On the Women’s side, this brand’s shoes are mostly over $1,000:

As are these ones…

And on the list could go…

How Would You Do It?

In my mind, your best bet is to pick a sub-market under shoes and go deeply into it.

It could be men’s or women’s shoes. It could be dress shoes or casual shoes. It could be work shoes or fitness shoes. The important thing is for the group of people you serve to have a unifying purpose, passion or need for the shoes you’re discussing.

Earlier in the year, we mentioned this really successful affiliate site called PurseBlog.com, and I can see many possible variations of that site, just focused on shoes.

Niche Idea #2: Business/Marketing Services

You might look at this market and think, “Nope”. Too big, too mean. Not worth it.

But I think this market has ample potential for even new affiliates to develop significant income streams, even with small websites. Here’s why.

The number of technology products available to help businesses grow is both enormous and rapidly increasing.

This week I came across a software product called QuestionsPro.io, whose sole function is to help businesses do better marketing on Quora. Think about how niche that is. And even that’s not as “niche” as it gets.

Businesses today are faced with constant decisions about technology. If a business is able to decide, “We need to do email marketing”, another 5 decisions can spring from it:

• Which email marketing tool should we use?
• How will we maximize deliverability?
• How will we measure ROI from it?

And the answer to each of these questions could be a different piece of tech they will have to invest in.

My vision here is for a small, tightly focused comparison and review site that helps businesses make tech decisions.

If you ask yourself who is best positioned to help a business choose between two different social media management softwares… It’s not someone with an MBA. It’s not a Ph.D in Marketing. It’s not a startup investor or a mid-level manager.

• It’s someone who knows the two softwares really well.
• And someone who knows what the business’s goals are.

Both of those are things are perfectly achievable for any good content site creator.

What Would You Promote?

Shareasale is full of high EPC affiliate offers in this space, from online teaching platforms like Thinkific, to visitor tracking tools like VisitorQueue, to transcription services like GoTranscript.

How Would You Get Traffic?

Because commissions can be so good here, I imagine going first after really low volume, low competition keywords like this one. (Note: The advertiser CPC tells you something about how much that traffic is worth…)

But there is also a mountain of opportunity in helping businesses decide between two options they’re considering, like in this remarkable low organic competition, high-value keyword set for accounting software.

This kind of keyword is so good because the searcher is at the very end of their buying journey. They’re down to the final two options. They’re the easiest to convert.

And to write this kind of content, you don’t need to be an expert on accounting software as a whole, just the specific variations between these two tools, and which suits which kind of business better.

To find more keyword sets like this, just find one popular tool in a sub-niche of this market: Transcription services, visitor tracking, email marketing, retargeting, anything… open your keyword tool and enter:

product name vs

And there could be opportunities.

Niche Idea #3: High-End Food

I recently started listening to (and loving) chef Dave Chang’s podcast. Recently there was an episode with a famous pastry chef who now has a small business selling $130 Panettone cakes.

Then on a routine poke around Shareasale, I saw an affiliate program for Caviar, and it hit me that high-end food is a legitimate, underrated, and probably pretty great market for an affiliate site.

There are people who really want really expensive food items, and can’t just drop down to the local store to buy them. What’s more, these people have questions that need answers.

• Which Caviar is more to my taste?
• Should I get the 2kg wheel of aged Gouda or go with Manchego instead?
• How should I store a leg of Prosciutto?

I think an affiliate site in this market could focus on a particular kind of product, like charcuterie, or focus on the high end of the market itself, since often the same people that buy expensive wine buy expensive cheese to pair it with.

What Would You Promote?

Here are some ideas to get you started.

This gourmet food store in Philadelphia sells $400 cheese boxes, $750 Prosciutto legs, and has an affiliate program through Shareasale with a nice EPC.

As does this program OlmaFood.com which specializes in Caviar.

There’s a new Wine chilling device generating over $100 a sale (because this market isn’t just about edible products)

And this is just the beginning.

How Would You Get Traffic?

Well, the organic search market for Caviar doesn’t exactly look intimidating…

And the popular OmahaSteaks website sells hundreds of expensive meat products that have search volume, some of which can be seen as keywords here…

But I must emphasize here: These are just the big obvious ones. There are lots of smaller affiliate offers and programs for more niche interests scattered across the web.

… And this is before we even get to the drinks side of the equation, with wine and spirits.

There You Have It

3 new niche ideas for the new year.

As always, I hope they line up with an interest or passion you already have. Or if not, I hope they spark a related idea that turns into a new income stream for you in 2020.

If you’re ready to make that a reality, come grab the blueprint and software suite that did it for us, and so many others.