Mixing Profits with Pleasure: Baking Affiliate Programs

One of the best things in life is waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread. Yum!!! Isn’t it great to wake up with that? You start your morning feeling all positive inside and out.

But before we indulge further in my daydreaming of freshly baked breads and good mornings, today’s niche of the week requires channeling your inner Martha Stewart! I will be covering baking affiliate programs with you today, which requires sparks of creativity just like Martha's.

If eating is a hobby, baking, on the other hand, is an art! Let’s begin “baking” our ideas about this niche, shall we? 

Defining the niche

The first step to a successful baking niche website! 

Baking, for me, is anything that has to do with cooking food inside the oven when it involves a lot of not-so-good-for-you but hard-not-to-eat ingredients such as sugar, flour, chocolate, vanilla and cream.

For a more scholarly take on the definition of baking, Wikipedia says “Baking is a method of cooking food that uses prolonged dry heat, normally in an oven, but also in hot ashes, or on hot stones.”

But for affiliate marketers, defining your niche isn’t just about knowing what “baking” is in general. You need to tap into the market through research. Particularly, you need to know:

1. What is your target market?

This is where you need to perform thorough research on what you want to tackle in your niche. For a baking niche site, you can still target more specific sub-niches like flourless baking, sugar-free baking, baking for kids and so on.

Once you’ve figured out your specific topic(s), it’ll be easier for you to determine your target market. The more specific you are with your niche, the easier it is to identify your market. A good example of a niche-targeted site is Pastries Like a Pro. It is a how-to website with a list of great pastry recipes.

2. What are the current market trends? 

This is very important when you are doing your market research. You need to know the current trends in your market to sell. You can refer to these websites to learn the current trends in your niche: Google Trends, Amazon (just browse through these categories: Best Sellers, Movers & Shakers, and Most Wished For), BuzzSumo, Instagram and Twitter.

For the baking niche, I found this interesting article discussing the market trends for the baking industry in the United States. BakingBusiness.Com reports:

• The baking industry is heavily affected by changes demographics. Between the years 2010 and 2025, the U.S. will see, proportionately, a slight decrease in its white population and an increase in its Hispanic, black and Asian markets.
• Savory muffins will be a hit because of the emerging demand for foods to go.
• Consumers are keen to choosing nutritious baked goods.
• Some cake trends for 2017 includes fondants, pastels and emojis.
• Personalization has grown in demand.

You can check out Diabetic Good Baking as an example website built on a trending market demand. This is also a good niche website and compared to a general one, this kind of website is easy to market.

Popularity

How trendy is the baking niche? 

According to AmericanBakers.org, the baking industry accounts for about USD $300 billion in total economic output. More than a million Americans were employed, directly or indirectly, within the industry in 2010.

But never mind the statistics. Just head on over to these sites for instant data:

Google Trends

Worldwide search popularity in the last 5 years for the term “baking”:

Websta

Partial screenshot of the most popular Instagram hashtags for the term “baking”:

Hashtagify

Partial screenshot of the most popular Twitter hashtags for the term “baking”:

BuzzSumo

Trending topics across social media sites related to baking:

Research your keywords

How to look for potential keywords in 2 easy steps!

For beginners, keyword research can seem overwhelming. But with the help of certain keyword tools, it gets a lot easier. You simply need to remember to do two things:

1. Seed for keywords
2. Check the competition

When we say "seed for keywords," we mean look for potential keywords that you can use for your niche. There are a lot of ways to seed for keywords. I can show you two of these techniques:

1. Look for seed keywords on similar or related sites

If you do not know which keywords to target, the easiest way to seed for keywords is to scout similar websites and look for common keywords. You can do this manually or you can use AffiloTools’ Keywords Research tool.

As an Affilorama member, you get free access to AffiloTools. Simply log in to your Affilorama account then follow this link to start: https://tools.affilorama.com

To seed keywords using AffiloTools, go to the keyword tool under the Research > Keywords section. You should see the page below:

On this page, you can see the field that reads “Type URL to scan page for keywords.” This is located just before the Scan URL button, as shown above.

Simply enter the URL of the website that you want to seed for keywords. For example, I want to seed keywords on the Baking Mad website, so I just enter the complete URL in the form and click the Scan URL button. This gets instant results, as shown below:

Another way to seed your keywords is to use Ubersuggest's keyword tool. This is another free tool that you can run directly on your browser.

Go to https://ubersuggest.io/ and type “baking” into the search bar to get more keyword suggestions:

By default, the results are arranged alphabetically. Another sleek feature of this tool is that you can easily download the results to your computer.

There are also a lot of options available. Just explore to familiarize yourself with all the free features and fully utilize the keyword tool.

2. Re-run the keywords to get the competition 

Once you are done seeding your keywords, the second step will be re-running these keywords in the Keywords Research tool to get the competition data.

Keyword competition data is important, as it lets you know which keywords are too competitive for your niche. SEO-wise, when a keyword has a lot of competition, it is hard to rank for on the search engine results pages. What we are looking for are keywords that we know we can rank for easily over time.

To get the competition data for each of your seed keywords, go back to AffiloTools' Keywords Research tool. Enter the keywords in the biggest box, as shown below, and then click the Search button:

You should see a results page similar to the one below:

You can easily check the competition data by looking at the competition column in AffiloTools. Each keyword has its corresponding percentage, but if this confuses you, you can easily sort the keywords by looking at the color indicated under the competition column. Red indicates a highly competitive keyword, orange a moderately competitive term, and green a less competitive one.

What keywords should you pick?

Unsure how to sort your keywords based on all this data? I recommend reading Gina's advice on proper keyword research.

Bake and earn

Affiliate programs to promote

1. Keiko's Cake

Professional pastry chef and instructor Keiko shares her knowledge of how to create delicious baked confections through her website. She offers site members exclusive video lessons and unique recipes, too.

How much can I make?
Payment is as high as 50% for every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here as a ClickBank affiliate.

2. The Macaron Master

While Keiko shows you how to make a variety of scrumptious bakery goodies, The Macaron Master shows you how to make delicate macarons. Their step-by-step guide shows you how to master macaron-making and turn it into a home business.

How much can I make?
You can earn as high as 35% for every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here as a ClickBank affiliate.

3. Cake Decorating Business Secrets

Another home business that stems from a baking skill: cake decorating.

How much can I make?
You can earn as high as 75% for every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here as a ClickBank affiliate.

4. Minimalist Baker

The Minimalist Baker stands out among these baking affiliate programs. The site doesn't teach you how to set up a home business, for one thing. Another is that the recipes require 10 ingredients or fewer. The recipes are mostly vegan and gluten-free, too, so this would be a great product to market to people who are on those special diets.

How much can I make?
You can earn 30% for every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up through ShareASale to promote this product.

5. Amazon

It's not a baking site, but it's a one-stop shop for just about anything: books, acne creams, cosmetics, clothing and of course, tons of baking and kitchen supplies. The commission here is nothing to write home about, but it can add up when a user purchases several items through your affiliate link. The good thing about Amazon.com is users can end up buying not just baking supplies, but other items too, increasing your commission for that sale with each item.

How much can I make?
You can refer to this page here for the complete information on fees and commissions.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

Marketing your baking website

Let people know you're into baking

1. Connect to your readers through blogging

Writing good content should not be hard when your number one priority is your readers. As I have previously discussed, you need to spend time investigating your market and its current demands.

2. Post good photos

You’re entering a food business, so it’s a requirement that you publish eye candy. If you check out successful food blog sites, you will notice they all have good photos on all their posts.

3. Share your content on social media

And by content, I am not only referring to your articles but to your photos (or videos) as well. The baking niche is best promoted on social media sites, particularly on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Investing time, money and effort into producing good photos is therefore a must, since you will share most of these on social media.

4. Build your subscribers

Don't waste all that traffic! Start building your list by running an autoresponder system. If you’ve successfully managed to get a lot of traffic to your baking website, it is but practical to start building your list of subscribers as early as possible. Sending them regular newsletters will likely increase your sales over time.

5. Write an ebook

Publish an ebook and make it part of your marketing campaign. You can sell the ebook on Amazon Kindle to get more traffic. Even better, the traffic you get from your Amazon sales is likely to convert into more sales because these people are already willing to buy.

Baking affiliate programs: stiff peaks, soft peaks?

I conclude...

50% Commission	35% Commission	75% Commission	30% Commission	NA Commission
Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up

The commission percentages may look tempting, but once you consider the average price of the products in this niche, you see the hard truth: you can expect less-than-spectacular payouts unless you make a ton of sales. That could very well happen, but not within the first 6 months to a year. This is a niche that, like your bread or pastry dough, takes time to rise.

Add the competition and you've got one tough mix.

I wouldn't recommend this niche to those just starting out, but hey, don't let that stop you if the baking niche is truly your passion. The good thing here is, in the long run, you can create your own products in this niche. In addition, you can add ecommerce later if you want to merge into selling or dropshipping baking products.

If you have a baking website, well, what are you waiting for? Monetize it! Plenty of home bakers like you are earning on the side doing something they love. So, why shouldn't you?

I hope you found this week's Niche of the Week as delightful as I did! Be sure to share it using the Share buttons below.

Do you love to bake? Are you keen on starting your own site about baking? What's your favorite dessert? Don't be shy—leave a comment!

AffiloBlueprint shows you how to bake affiliate marketing websites from scratch! Check it out today!