Chosing a CB product

I disagree with half of this statement. To be passionate enough about a niche so that you can write convincing articles with real, meaty content...you must be passionate about the niche. That implies knowledge.

The fact that you also said "get to know the people that are passionate about the niche" is the saving grace, as that is essential as well - and doing so will allow you to learn and then get passionate about that niche.

Content is king, and content requires knowledge.

-DTM.

Have at it if that's where your heart lies but nobody is running around searching desperately for information on how to conserve energy in an environmentally friendly way.

While "green products" might be a great niche to get into if that's a passion of yours or something that you know a lot about it's probably not going to make you much money if you're just starting out. I'm just sayin'... not trying to be a downer here.

Start writing, then - yours will be the first (and that does, actually, sound like a potentially good niche, to me).

I hear you. I don't, myself, promote anything that might ever "keep people away from the doctor", and might be concerned about "moles", specifically, because changes in colour/size/texture of longstanding moles can be an indication of malignancy ... :confused:

It's a huge niche. Really a "market", not so much a "niche". There'll be huge numbers of people here with experience of promoting "Clickbank skin e-books", but many are reulctant to join such conversations and disclose their niches ...

Well, it's also part of the game to try to minimise it. It's my firm belief that most "quick testing" people do in this area (and especially the idea of direct-linking from article directories in an attempt to "test" :rolleyes doesn't actually tell them what they need to know to judge whether or not it's worth building a list and taking seriously. I do think judging by the sales page and the product itself is really fundamental, and in the long run repays the enormous amount of time and effort that goes into it. Product selection really is a huge factor in determining whether or not you end up making a living from it.

I know you're asking about niche selection, really, and I have very little help to offer on that subject other than (of course) my observations in the post linked to above about firmly avoiding any niches in which some of the targeted customers are themselves Clickbank affiliates; those, I'm convinced, are - by comparison with others - a potential disaster area and a minefield.

You can work out for yourself that there's no logic there, Tim.

The number of "competing sites" (and any other parameter derived from measuring that) has in itself absolutely no relevance to how competitive a keyword is for the purpose of deciding whether or not to compete.

Simple question: what would you rather compete with - a keyword which has 10,000,000 sites listed but the front page includes directory articles, nothing above PR-1 and nothing special at all, or a keyword which has 10,000 sites listed of which the first 10 sites (first page SERP's) are all age-old high-PR authority sites with 100,000 backlinks each from other age-old high-PR authority sites?

It's a real no-brainer, isn't it?

Realisitically, you are competing with the top 5 sites in the SERP's in either case.

Who cares whether those 5 are followed by 9,995 others or 9,999,995 others? :confused:

"Competition", like so many other parameters involved in internet marketing, has almost nothing to do with quantity at all: it's all about quality (in this case SEO quality of the first-page SERP's sites).

SERPs are not any indication that the niche is over saturated at all. On the contrary, the level of competition is generally more of a very good indication of how lucrative it is. Take a look at the amount of money that is being spent on the keyword PPC ads.

Btw, that's the type of competition I like best!