How to Find the Right Affiliate Products to Promote

“How do I find the right kind of affiliate products to promote on my blog?” is one of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to monetizing a blog. And affiliate marketing is indeed a fascinating topic. Many bloggers are struggling with advertising as a means to make money from their blogs and want to branch out and experiment with affiliate promotions on their blog.

However, wanting to get into affiliate marketing and actually doing so are two very different things. There are a number of difficulties to overcome first.

One of these difficulties is finding the right products to promote.

Choosing the right products to promote is crucial for a number of reasons - the two main ones being:

a) Relevant Products Are Key

If your blog draws an audience centered around a particular topic or demographic it is very unlikely that you will be able to sell products that are in no way relevant to the topic of your blog.

b) The Quality of Products Can Have a Huge Impact on the Success of Your Blog or Brand

Promote low quality products and you could seriously hurt the reputation of your blog/brand. Readers remember who they heard about specific products from and their trust in you and your blog will increase or decrease depending on what you recommend to them.

Therefore, choosing the right affiliate product is crucial. Not only has it great impact on conversions and profitability, the success of your blog/brand and the trust of your readers depend on it as well.

Now, how do you find the right affiliate product to promote?

Here are a few tips and thoughts on finding affiliate products and programs to promote:

Google It – It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this one out - but it does work. If you happen to blog about beauty salons and/or products google “Beauty Products Affiliate Program”. Insert your main keywords into the search engine of your choice and you may just find products that are relevant to your niche.
Watch Your Competition - What kinds of products are other people blogging in your niche promoting? Quite often a quick glance down the sidebar of another successful blog in your niche to find out what products and services they are promoting will reveal affiliate products you could (and probably should) promote as well (and it could also point you to some relevant advertisers to promote).
Take a Close Look at AdSense Ads – You can find products that a relevant to your niche by checking out the AdSense ads appearing besides Google search results, on websites, other blogs and even on your own blog. Do not (ever!!) click the ads on your own blog, but checking out what the ads promote can reveal all kinds of potential affiliate partners. The same thing is true for other types of advertising. For instance, the other day a friend of mine was surfing on Facebook and saw an ad relevant to his blog – and by clicking it he found a new product with an affiliate program that he had not heard of before.
Approach Potential Affiliate Partners - This one might not work if you have a new blog with little traffic, but as your blog grows you might find yourself in a position to approach the distributors of a product or the providers of a service to find out if they would be willing to start some kind of affiliate program for you. Some of the most successful bloggers do this regularly - and they make a lot of money this way. The best part of it is that you get a head start on your competition for the promotion as you are most likely to be the only person promoting it.
Search Affiliate Networks - There are quite a few affiliate networks around that list a lot of affiliate programs. The good ones have search functions to allow you to type in keywords and find promotions relevant to your niche. Check out Clickbank, Commission Junction, MarketLeverage, PepperJam Network, and many more.
Search Online Stores for Products – Almost all popular online stores, for instance Amazon, have affiliate programs attached to them. In general the comissions are not huge (Amazon, for example, offers commissions from as low as 4% up to 15% depending upon the type of product and how much you sell) – the profit margins in the retail trade are rather small - but stores like this have a wide variety of products and are probably the best place to start while you build traffic and search for other programs.