By Dush Ramachandran

Most affiliates and vendors when they enter the Internet marketing gravitate to one of the popular niches like “Make Money Online” otherwise known as BizOpps or the “Fat Loss” niche. While it is true that a number of affiliate marketers have been successful and made money in those niches, the competition in these niches is fierce and the cost of advertising is high. The chances of being ranked on highly popular search terms like “make money online”, “weight loss” or “diets” is very slim for novice affiliates.

There are however three other niches in the digital info product world, where the ad costs are lower, and the opportunities for affiliates to generate profits are much greater.

Let's take a quick look at what they are:

1. Self Help: This category encompasses a wide range of topics from dealing with anxiety attacks to helping parents of autistic children cope with issues at school. The range of topic areas is so wide that competition in each area is fragmented and not very serious. This contributes to keeping the cost of advertising low in these categories. Add to this, the fact that the guides are actually helping people who have problems and issues that are genuinely debilitating. Which parent wouldn’t pay $49 for a genuinely helpful guide that would ease the way for their child in school and help the child be better adjusted?

2. How-to: With labor becoming so expensive in most of the industrialized first world economies, the allure of saving a lot of money by doing something yourself rather than hiring an expensive professional is almost irresistible to most people. Once again, because the range of how-to topics is so wide, from how to develop a better golf swing to how to control your home theater, the cost of search or display advertising in each of the areas is not particularly high, leaving plenty of room for profits for affiliates. All of us want to be able to be less helpless in the face of all the areas of technology that assails us on a daily basis – and this means sales.

3. Relationships: It seems that in this hyper-connected world of instant tweets and Facebook updates, where you know what your friends are doing at any moment, we are still longing for deeper more meaningful relationships. Information products dealing with relationships are selling better than ever and making huge profits. Who among us can say that they are immune to the appeal of a product that will teach you to text message your spouse or significant other, so persuasively that the object of your interest will melt in your arms?

The trick of course is to pick a good product – one that truly solves a problem and is backed by the developer of the product who genuinely wants to help solve a problem or ease a burden. Ask for an evaluation copy of the product or spend the money and buy the product. This is often the best way to determine if the product will meet the claims made by the developer or author.

Once you’ve satisfied yourself that if you had the need, YOU would buy the product, start promoting the product. You will be pleasantly surprised how profitable your affiliate business is, as compared to going after the same fat loss and BizOpps products that everyone is promoting.

About the Author: Dush Ramachandran has built, grown and sold two of his own companies and most recently served at Vice President of Sales and Business Development at ClickBank where he was instrumental in growing the company’s revenues nearly 500% in five years. Dush is a vocal participant in the Internet marketing industry, the host of the ‘Entrepreneur Effect’ radio show, and serves on the board of several industry organizations including Affiliate Summit and A4U Expo in Europe. He is also the author of an upcoming book on entrepreneurial success. He can be found at : www.dushramachandran.com