Stop the presses: Be sure to evaluate these conditions before you invest time and money in an affiliate marketing niche.

Factor Number One: Is the affiliate marketing niche saturated already? A simple way to find out how much competition there is works like this: search for the keyword phrase (don’t put quotes around it) on google and write down the number of results that come up. If your google results number is anywhere under 20,000, you should consider that niche a winner; anything with over 80,000 results has too mich competition for a newbie to consider. Look for obscure niches that have not been exploited yet; that’s where a newcomer can still get in the game. Experiment with multiple keyword searches to determine what those rare, valuable niches are.

Factor Number Two: Do any of the offers related to your winning keyword phrase convert well? This may take a bit of discussion with your affiliate marketing managaer as you figure out what offers are related to your chosen keywords, convert well, are affordable, and for which you are approved. This may feel time-consuming, but you don’t want to dump your time and money into offers that won’t convert.

Factor Number Three: As you estimate costs, factor in how much you paid for your website development, domain name, hosting, and copywriting. The finances have to work out in your favor, but don’t expect instant rewards; this is a business that requires patience and long term planning.

If after taking these factors into consideration, you feel you can’t compete with search engine ranking, you may wish to look into other ways to drive traffic to your affiliate marketing offers. Some good examples of marketing strategies that have worked for other affiliate site marketers are forum participation, email campaigns, and using a polling site.