If you are an absolute beginner at affiliate marketing one of the biggest and earliest and most important questions you will ask yourself is “what am I going to promote?”

Since you are a beginner, I would strongly advise against promoting anything in the make money online niche. If you are making any money yet – you can’t very well tell others how to make money. Also, the make money online niche is one of the hardest to break into and do well and the competition is very fierce.

So what else is there? Many people advise start with what you love, but this is not always the smartest advice if there is no money in the niche. For example, I have a friend who started a gluten-free recipes blog. She is struggling. There is really nothing to sell in this niche except recipe books. Some people do great with recipe books but it might be easier if the only options of things that people buy in the niche cost more than $14.

Maybe examine your current living situation – do you live in an area that people visit? Maybe Hawaii, or Las Vegas, or New York City? You could consider a travel website or blog.

Are you single and really into the dating scene? You could consider becoming an affiliate for the dating websites. Dating websites pull in a lot of money.

Do you know a lot about a certain medical topic? Is there stuff to buy that will help people get better from this medical topic? Are there books and medical equipment and maybe even e-books on how to cure this thing naturally? Then that’s something to consider.

What have you bought recently? Is your kitchen full of a certain kind of appliance? Do you love a certain color and your whole house is decked out in it? Maybe these are the kinds of things you can write on.

Although I wouldn’t go as far as to say that your first affiliate marketing subjects should be something that you love, I certainly would say it should be something that you know a bit about. That will just make things easier.

Especially if you are going to be doing all of the early writing yourself, instead of having someone do it for you, if you don’t have to do incredible amounts of research just to get your first page written things are going to be much easier.

Plus, if you have some pictures or can take some pictures of the items you want to promote, that will help fill your blog or website out too.

Let me give you some ideas of things to promote:

Digital books on Clickbank, toys, coupon books to certain tourist areas, home decor, strollers, cribs, tools, exercise machines, teeth whitening pens, printer ink, anything on Amazon – if it’s on there that means that people are buying it online – , home saunas, protein powder and protein bars, Cindy Crawford’s beauty lotion, computers, computer batteries, and jewelry.

Have any ideas yet? Think on them for a bit – is there an angle that you can take to make your information in your store unique? How can you stand out promoting this particular product?

Once you can figure that out then you can take it to the next level.