Product Research
It doesn't matter if you think you have a profitable niche and you are getting tons of visitors to your site. If you are not selling products or services that people actually want, you aren't going to make any money. Don't waste your time trying to market a dud, do your product research first.
The first step to product research is to decide what kinds of products you are going to sell. Are they going to be physical products or digital? These are two different areas to tackle and while it's best to diversify into both down the line, it's better to start with digital.
Digital Products
This is anything that can be delivered directly over the Internet. The most popular digital product is the ebook, but can also include programs, videos, audio and much more.
The main advantage to digital products are the high commission rates. The merchant does not have a lot of costs to cover and does not have to keep an inventory.
Physical Products
These products actually have to be delivered to your customers home. This can include televisions, video game systems, cell phones, or about anything else.
You want find as big of commission rates with physical products because the merchant has a limited inventory, and has higher costs built in to their products. They actually have to pay people to put the product together and ship it to the consumer.
When searching for digital products a great place to get started is Clickbank. It's easy to signup and there are over 10,000 products that you can choose from. Clickbank makes it easy for you to find products that are selling. There is this thing called "gravity." Gravity refers to the number of affiliates who have earned a commission by promoting a particular vendor's products. The higher the gravity score, the more affiliates that have earned money promoting their products. The problem with high gravity is increased competition, but you at least know people are having success pushing that product.