Affiliate marketing is a great way to increase your revenue opportunities. If you own a service business, you can find a couple of complementary affiliate products in your niche to promote to your audience, but I recommend focusing first on making yourself an authority in you niche. Become a recognized authority, then you’ll have the clout to recommend products.
That said, Rae Hoffman shares some good ideas on her blog about finding niche affiliate products. Here are a few ideas (borrowed from Rae):
- Cater to the needs of your audience. Don’t just include products that are in your niche if they don’t solve a problem that your specific audience has.
- Search for high demand items at Amazon.
- Only recommend the best products that other people already love.
- Scour the affiliate networks, but don’t buy every sales pitch. Only choose the top products that your audience will love.
- Search Google for independent affiliate programs.
- Join affiliate programs that promote quality products where the website is easy to navigate and that pay high commissions.
The key to selling affiliate products is to choose products that complement your own. Don’t choose products that compete with yours. The last thing you want to do is hurt your own sales by offering a similar product that does the same thing, but you could offer a product that complements what you have to offer.
Last thing, if you’re going to join an affiliate program, promote it heavily or don’t promote it at all. But don’t be annoying.