If you want your affiliate marketing ventures to bear fruit, there are a few things you have to know. It is not advisable to jump into the space without knowing what you have to do. If you start off unprepared, without reading tutorials that have been read by veterans in the industry, you will learn that you are shooting darts in the dark. So instead of shooting in the dark, it is advisable that you learn the ropes so that you find success around every corner.

If you read any tutorial, every one of them will tell you about the importance of identifying a niche for yourself before you start creating an identity for yourself and before you start associating with merchants and taking on offers from affiliate marketing networks.

Why is it so important to have a niche? Well, affiliate marketing is not a job that you can master in a few days. Your efforts will only bear results after a few weeks. But when that happens, you will be well rewarded. The process requires you to first create and identity for yourself, you need to create a brand for yourself and you need to get people to trust you. People are not going to trust you if you are talking about a variety of products or categories on the tools you use.

You need to identify a niche for yourself, you need to pick a domain you are familiar with, something you are comfortable with and something that you may have a decent knowledge of. When people begin to learn that they can count on you for questions they need answers to, you will achieve success quickly.

Having a niche is also important because it makes your affiliate marketing efforts easier. If you have your legs and hands in three or four different categories you will have to work twice as hard to keep yourself updated on what is happening in al those categories. When you have a single niche you can focus all your time and energy in increasing your knowledge in one particular domain and this will allow you to focus all your time in conducting all the activities you need to in order to achieve success only with relation to that particular domain. Having a niche is also important because you can demand higher commissions.

When you have a niche as the days go by your following will increase, your credibility will increase and so will your knowledge about the segment. You will be in a position to demand more commission because you are an expert in the field and merchants will be willing to offer you higher commission since you have a good following that may be interested in the product you are selling. This will also allow you to achieve backend sales.

Identifying a niche is one of the most important things you need to do before you get into the world on online marketing. Make your choice based on two things, your familiarity with the domain and how much money can you expect to earn through your efforts.