When I first ventured into affiliate marketing, the word niche had already become an industry buzzword, similar to how low-carb diet is spouted as gospel among weight watchers.

In explaining the power of a niche market, a fellow affiliate with a booming network of referral websites said to me:

“Cornering a great niche is like putting up a lemonade stand across a crowded beach during a heat wave. And competing lemonade stands are camped ten miles inland.”

While the scenario painted a grim picture in my head-what if I ran out of lemonade?-it drove home the point. A niche would set me apart from the thousands of other affiliate marketers, and dominating the said niche could ensure a captured-if smaller-set of online customers for my partner products.

Choose a familiar and promising niche…

In my search for a niche in the vast interweb, I’d considered numerous novelty items, such orthopedic beach sandals and a female Viagra pill variant. But these products didn’t seem right for me. Heck, I barely even knew people who owned these items despite their alleged popularity.

So for a lack of a better solution, I turned to a time-honored ritual: I made a list of things I liked to do and hence, were familiar with.

Things I like to do:

1. Scribbling and doodling on ruled notebooks
2. Watching hypnotic booty-shaking videos
3. Playing massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs)

After writing down the list, it dawned on me that an affiliate business for MMORPGs was a good niche to consider, if only that it held more potential than the first two.

Another thing that encouraged me was how MMOs have been launching left and right, with titles such as World of Warcraft racking up millions in paid subscribers. So there was definitely a growing demand for MMORPG services and products.

…then zero in on a demographic.

When you’ve got the niche problem solved, it’s time to move on to the demographics dilemma. Who among the thousands of online gamers should I go after? What’s their age, interests, and in-game habits?

Pinning down your market demographics-or who you want to visit and click on your sites-is vital for any niche marketing strategy. From product portfolio building to web design execution, these decisions require a precise demographic target, which only you can choose through insightful research.

To help with this, I resorted to using online demographic trackers such as adlab coupled with my own online surveys and industry research. Using these information helped a lot to increase the quality of traffic going to my referral websites.

Of course, real money trading (RMT) sites such as EpicToon.com should help newbies along the way. EpicToon in particular has a great affiliate program for quick and easy online business starters.

For more information on the program, visit http://www.epictoon.com/affiliates or sign up by following the step-by-step starter guide here .

Niche and demographic. Easy to remember right? Use these concepts well, and trust me, you can easily find yourself sitting on some well-visited pieces of online property.