Last updated on February 6th, 2024
Welcome to my latest post on Credible Affiliate Marketing. I started this website at the end of December 2022 and immediately back-shelved it. I recently decided to start working on this second website and post, Affiliate Marketing’s Competitive Niches: Can You Make Money Online?
My automobile detailing website, Detail Your Rides, has seen some successes. I designed it to help people with common questions about automobile detailing services. I wanted to showcase the efforts involved in deep cleaning and restoring one’s vehicle.
You might ask why I put my second site on the back shelf. At the time, many of my mentors and peers in affiliate marketing suggested focusing my time and efforts on creating quality, helpful, and informative content. Soon enough, others will follow me on one website, and then what I learn will carry over to other websites.
Through my subscription, training, mentors, and peers, I have learned a great deal explaining the reasons for focusing on one site at a time. Having seen their successes by following a similar direction, I can understand how much work and effort is involved in creating websites, but more importantly, websites that rank with the search engines.
What is it like to Compete in affiliate marketing?
Affiliate Marketing Disclaimer: I am an affiliate marketer with links to online retailers on my website. When people read what I have written about a particular product, click on those links, and buy something from those links, I earn a small commission from the retailer at no extra cost to the buyer.
Competing as a content writer in affiliate marketing in the automobile detailing niche is highly competitive and challenging. This is especially true when vying against big names like the Chemical Guys, Turtle Wax, AutoGeek, Car & Driver, MotorTrend, etc. They create much of their vehicle detailing content through blogs, YouTube videos, Shorts, and Reels.
These well-established names provide thousands of pages and videos packed with helpful content on the internet. They have marketing teams that know much about the content affiliate marketing business. However, you can strategically and competitively carve out a successful niche by focusing on your strengths.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
The simplest explanation for affiliate marketing is promoting and connecting people to other people’s (businesses’) products and services. Hence, the marketer earns commissions from the manufacturers or service providers.
This does not affect the consumer’s price for particular items or services. However, through affiliate programs or networks, there might be coupons that the affiliate marketer can pass on to the consumer through their campaigns.
Affiliate marketing can be an excellent way to make money online, but it takes a lot of effort, time, and the right attitude. It would be best to understand that you would probably not start affiliate marketing to earn an immediate income or replace a current one.
It will take six months to a year or more before you make any money. Besides these facts, someone new to affiliate marketing should not come into it thinking only about the profits gained. Affiliate marketers should instead consider the value they provide with their content marketing efforts for both the consumer and the affiliate partner. You must come to this decision with the correct perspective and focus on learning how to help people find solutions for their situations.
Learning Through Wealthy Affiliate
The Wealthy Affiliate program was not where I first landed when I started investigating how to make money online. Although, it has been a wonderful community to discover.
I initially joined as a complimentary starter. No credit card was required, and I could remain a starter for as long as necessary. This allowed me to understand if it was something I was interested in pursuing further. It is worth noting that as a member on a free starter membership, there was not much likelihood that I would make any money.
A starter membership through Wealthy Affiliate provided free training lessons on building my website. It allowed me to build a website on a sub-domain through Wealthy Affiliate and WordPress, chat in the community, ask questions, and get a feel for the concepts, training, and language used in affiliate marketing. I used the starter membership before signing up as a Premium member for Wealthy Affiliate.
I started my premium membership on November 8, 2022. My website, Detail Your Rides, was built through the starter membership, and then I upgraded my subscription to the premium plan.
Once I became a premium member and after paying for my first month, I received credits for my first domain registration through Wealthy Affiliate. Moving my website to my domain was simple.
I upgraded my membership again to the annual Premium Plus membership. Wealthy Affiliate had a Black Friday deal, which they do annually, and I got in at a price conducive to my budget. My WAnniversary [Sic] will be on November 24, 2024.
My approach has been to write creative, error-free, helpful, informative, and original content on my sites because it is what I enjoy doing. Eventually, good things will happen for me, and business will take off. To succeed, you must become an authority in your chosen niche.
How to Compete in Affiliate Marketing
Starting in affiliate marketing can be challenging, especially for someone with little or no experience. I found this out early and am still learning it today.
However, if you find a valuable, inexpensive community where you can seek people out who have been doing this for some time and those people are willing to help, you can be successful. This was what I found at Wealthy Affiliate.
The Wealthy Affiliate community is over two million members strong. Most people in the community are willing and able to help with any questions about affiliate marketing, pay-per-click, automation, writing, add placement, SEO, WordPress, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and WordPress Plugins.
While learning how to compete in affiliate marketing, it is essential to understand that there is no such thing as a get-rich program available anywhere. If someone tells you that there is, run the other way. We will discuss this topic in detail in later posts.
As I mentioned in my About Me post, I have worked in the automobile and technology industries and have successfully done so in each for nearly 20 years. Starting an affiliate marketing online business has sometimes been difficult for me. I grew up learning and understanding that anything in life worth doing is often tricky…but not impossible. After all, I heard it said that “impossible” stands for “I’m Possible.” You are, too!
Find a Specific Laser-Focused Niche
I approached my first niche website (automobile detailing) incorrectly. When I started in the Wealthy Affiliate program, I was told to write creative and helpful content that answers questions and makes people want to visit my website.
Entice them to read what I am discussing. They also said if you find something exciting and know enough about it, you should be able to market this idea and never run out of content that helps people.
The correct approach would have been to narrow down my focus to a more specific niche within the automobile detailing niche. The problem was I needed to find the low-hanging keywords within a narrower sub-niche. Another item to remember is that I must become an expert in one sub-niche area.
Initially, I tried directly competing with those more prominent organizations I discussed earlier. Those were multi-million dollar organizations that were well-established in their markets. They have tens of thousands of people viewing their material daily, monthly, and annually.
It is nearly impossible for someone starting in affiliate marketing to compete on that level of viewership. Not to mention, someone in affiliate marketing and content creation has to have their content indexed with the big three search engines. Indexing your posts is easy, but getting content to rank on no worse than the first page of Google is much more difficult.
Many one-line statements I have heard throughout my numerous careers resonated with me, but none more important than the following: You can write the best content on the internet, but if no one can find your website, you will never make any money. I do not know who I heard this from, and I am not sure I am quoting it precisely as I heard it, but it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.
The Steps Involved in Becoming an Affiliate Marketer
There are many successful entrepreneurs making lots of money online through affiliate marketing. Those who become prosperous understand their audience, the products or services, and how effectively they promote them in their chosen niche.
If you are interested in starting a career in affiliate marketing, I highly recommend you perform your due diligence and investigate more about the industry. There are many resources available online. I have spoken about the program through Wealthy Affiliate and settled in with this community of marketers.
Wealthy Affiliate provides me with everything I need to become successful. Here is a glimpse into what you will get with a membership in the program.
Below is a list of the steps for starting affiliate marketing.
| 1. Ask yourself the question, What is it that I am passionate about? Determine what products or services you know a lot about or want to learn about, and that is how you can determine your niche. |
| 2. Create a blog-style website and write many helpful pages that answer commonly searched keyword queries about your chosen niche from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. |
| 3. After creating lots of content on your website and ranking on Google, people start following your posts. After gathering this following and having 20 – 30 posts, join affiliate programs to find the products and services you will promote for your chosen niche. |
| 4. During the content creation, you should consider blog posts, articles, social media posts, videos, or podcasts. Again, the goal is to create content that answers the search intent and interests your audience. |
| 5. The content you create will drive people to your website. This is done through Search Engine Optimization, known as SEO. Other ways of getting people to your website include social media marketing and paid advertising or Pay-Per-Click (PPC). |
| 6. Lastly, tracking the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns is vital so you can make the necessary adjustments. |
To Recap, Your Path Starts Now…
Are you ready to get started on your affiliate marketing adventure? Remember these steps: find your passion, build a content-packed website, attract an audience, join affiliate programs, create engaging content, and leverage SEO and other strategies to drive traffic to your online content. Oh yes, and continually fine-tune your approach based on performance data. It is a journey of growth, but it is well worth it.
Join the Conversation.
What are your perspectives on competitive niches in affiliate marketing? Have you found your unique angle in a crowded space? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Let’s learn from each other and keep the conversation going.
If you enjoyed this post and want more insights, don’t forget to hit that like button and share this with your network. Until next time, keep hustling and crafting that affiliate marketing success story!