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Reasons Health Supplement Niche Is Very Popular Among Affiliate Marketers
You might have noticed that the niche for health supplements is a very popular one. It is also quite competitive in that many people who are thinking of coming into affiliate marketing for the first time often look in its direction. Things look likely to remain that way, even more so, in the years ahead, going by industry forecasts.
Some will argue that the health supplement market is the most spammed. Why is that the case? Continue reading to find out, plus tips you can use to be successful in the midst of intense competition.
Health Supplements Overview
A health or dietary supplement such as Genf20 Plus and HGH X2 is a product made to supplement your diet to promote good health outcomes. In other words, it is a product intended to make up for nutrients that may be lacking or insufficient in a diet, with a view to promoting good health.
Health HGH supplements may come from natural (plant or animal) sources or could be synthetic. They are usually taken orally as pills, tablets, sprays, capsules or liquid solutions.
There are several types of health supplements available to consumers, and for affiliate marketers to promote, today. The most popular ones include:
- Vitamins – These are organic, often essential, compounds that you may not be able to produce naturally in adequate quantity or at all. Experts say about 13 vitamins should ideally be present in human diet, including vitamins A, C, D, E, K and several B vitamins. People take vitamin supplements, which may be natural or synthetic, to fight or prevent symptoms associated with a deficiency.
- Minerals – There are certain minerals that are essential for good health, but which people may not be able to get easily. They include potassium, chlorine, calcium, zinc and iron. Some health supplements provide these minerals, which are sometimes combined with vitamins.
- Proteins and amino acids – Some classes of people benefit more from using this type of health supplements. Among such are athletes, bodybuilders, people recovering from injury or illness, and those who wish to prevent muscle loss while trying to weight.
- Natural products – Health supplements belonging to this category appears to be getting more and more popular. They are of plant origin in most cases, but they may also be animal, fungi or algae extracts. Examples of ingredients in these products include ginseng, ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort and curcumin.
Why Health Supplement Niche is Commonly Spammed
The health supplement niche is one of the most popular, and spammed, ones out there. It is sometimes classed as a sub-niche of health and fitness, which you are likely to see at the top of most-popular niche lists for internet or affiliate marketers.
This popularity, sadly, means that many people in the niche often resort to use of spam tactics to get ahead of the crowd. Why is this the case? You may wonder.
It is actually pretty easy to figure out why the health supplement niche ranks among the most spammed: it is a highly money-spinning one. Or what else could be drawing the attention of many affiliate marketers, including the aspiring ones, to it other than profits?
It has been observed that more people are turning to the use of health supplements. This, in turn, makes the industry to keep expanding as manufacturers aim to get their own slice of the profits.
The global health supplement industry was estimated to be worth roughly $122 billion in 2015, with America accounting for a significant proportion of that amount. The U.S. market had an approximate value of $37 billion in that year.
According to an estimate, more than two-thirds of people in the U.S. use dietary supplements in an average year. It is believed that more than 50,000 of these products are on sale in the country alone.
Natural products seem to be contributing significantly to increasing use and industry value. Sales of herbal supplements amounted to $7.5 billion in 2016. The market is growing at roughly eight percent each year.
The impressive potential for profit-making is a huge draw for affiliate marketers. This appeal looks to remain, and to probably increase, in the years to come.
The global supplement market might have a $278-billion value by 2024, according to a 2016 Nutraceuticals World report.
Why Are More People Using Health Supplements?
It is obvious that increasing use of dietary supplements contributes, indirectly, to the niche being one of the most-spammed. This probably makes you wonder why more people are using these products. We discuss a few of the major reasons below.
Greater Health Consciousness
It appears years of efforts at making people adopt healthier lifestyles are starting to yield fruits. More people are becoming more health-conscious.
There is greater awareness that some of the health issues that trouble people can be prevented through healthy lifestyle choices, including a balanced diet and regular exercise. Many turn to health supplements to make up for insufficiencies in their diets.
Celebrity doctors, such as Dr. Oz, and online sources for health information, especially natural health tips, and latest supplements have contributed to greater awareness. At the same time, manufacturers often spend significant amount on marketing to put their products before the consumers.
Self-Diagnosis and Treatment
The rising costs of health care seem to contribute to increasing use of health supplements. Many people are often reluctant about visiting a doctor for diagnosis and treatment of some health complaints for financial reasons.
They resort to the internet instead to try and figure out what’s wrong and how they can deal with it, possibly on their own. Evidence suggests that most Americans first search online for helpful tips on some health complaints, even if they’d eventually visit a doctor.
Health supplements help more as a means of preventing or keeping health problems from worsening. By taking steps to prevent these possible issues, users aim to reduce spending on treatments. Increases in co-pays required by insurers make the use of these products more appealing.
Population aging
In America, the so-called “Baby Boomers” contribute considerably to the use of health supplements such as provacyl. These individuals are 55 years or older, which means they belong to age groups of people who have the most health issues in the populations.
Older individuals typically have bone, joint or eye health problems, among others. They, therefore, often turn to supplements to prevent or slow the progress of these problems.
Americans aged 65 years or older accounted for 36 percent of health supplement sales, as of 2012, according to McKinsey and Company.
In addition to the above reasons, more manufacturers now offer a broader range of products for consumers. Focus is less on producing a single product for a specific health benefit. Instead, companies these days typically offer multiple products for overall health and wellness. While a consumer is buying a supplement for sexual health, for example, another for bone or eye health may also appeal to them.
SEO Spam in Health Supplement Niche
With many affiliate marketers drawn by the lucrative nature of the health supplement niche, the competition is intense. It is arguable that websites in the first few pages of search results get the most profits.
The chances a site has for appearing at the top of search results depend on SEO. That stands for search engine optimization.
In other words, the likelihood of your website to be readily accessible to users via online search depends on how well it is optimized for search engines. This is something every seasoned affiliate marketer knows.
Different strategies or tactics are used to achieve the aim of appearing at top of search results. These can be good (White hat) or bad (Black hat).
Many affiliate marketers make use of Black hat strategies, sometimes with regrettable consequences. These techniques go by a number of other names, include spamdexing, web spam and search spam.
SEO spam tactics used in the health supplement niche, and other niches, fall into two broad categories: content spam and link spam.
Content spam
This describes techniques that are aimed at manipulating search engine indexes through certain alterations or modifications to the content of a website or web page. The methods include:
Hidden text – Some webmasters attempt to fool search bots by adding text that are not visible to users on their websites. The added text is often irrelevant or doesn’t relate to visible content.
Keyword stuffing – In the past, it was a common practice among affiliate marketers to stuff or fill content with repeated keywords to make them appear more topic-relevant to web crawlers. Some people still do keyword stuffing, even though they now stand at risk of being seriously penalized by most search engines.
Article spinning – Affiliate marketing has a lot to do with ability to create quality, helpful content. This is what draws readers and potential buyers. One SEO spam tactic involves rewriting existing articles with the aid of “spinner” software and passing them off as one’s own.
Web scraping – This is a worse form of using content prepared by others. Web scraper sites scrape and combine content from pages displayed in search results using special programs. The tools produce new, unique content using scraped information.
Other forms of content spam include machine translation and meta-tag stuffing.
Link Spam
This type of SEO spam tactics in health supplement niche involves linking to pages that are out of context with content on a page.
The common types include:
Hidden links – These are somewhat similar to hidden text. Some affiliate marketers include hyperlinks, which visitors won’t see but are visible to search engines. They aim to appear higher in search results for text added to these links.
Link farms – The simple way to describe this is as networks of sites linking to one another just to appear higher in search results. But, with its Penguin algorithm, Google often takes punitive actions against such websites.
Comment spam – This SEO spam tactic is very popular. You have most likely seen people posting hyperlinks with text that were, to some extent, apparently intended to game search algorithms at one time or another in the comment section of blogs. These are spam comments.
A related tactic is wiki spam, in which spammers target wiki pages due to easy editing access.
Other forms of link spam include use of expired domain names, private blog network and cookie stuffing.
The use of SEO spam tactics is increasingly being penalized by modern search engines. For example, websites using such could be removed from search results, if detected. You will, therefore, do well to assess the benefits in relation to cost before proceeding.
Email Spam – having a great Email list of potential buyers should always be part of the long term plan of every online business but spamming emails randomly will only hurt your brand. Most importantly Email spamming is illegal and could end up costing you dearly.
Key to Success
There may be intense competition in the health supplement niche. But this doesn’t mean there is still no opportunity for newbies to make money.
We discuss below some things that can make it easier for you to drive traffic to your websites without resorting to SEO spam tactics.
Focus on a good niche
An important thing for success is focusing on a profitable niche with low competition. You don’t have to capture the entire health supplement market. Try to think of problems people need solution to, but which are not covered by many other affiliate marketers.
Google (related searches, Suggest, Trends etc), social media, eBay and Amazon are some tools that can help you generate ideas.
Write longer posts
In addition to posting regularly, it has been observed that in-depth, informative articles improve the visibility of your website in search results. Most sites at the top of search results do this. You should consider doing same as it can enhance your status as a trustworthy and authoritative source.
Also, include relevant images to make your content look more appealing to read.
Use long-tail keywords
In a competitive niche like that for health supplements, you should include phrases that are more specific to products you intend promoting. This helps to ensure you only, or mostly, drive traffic relevant to what you’re offering.
Long-tail keywords should ideally have four or more words. Google Keyword Planner is a tool that can help you generate them.
Consider guest posting
If getting traffic from search engines still proves tough, you can apply to popular blogs for opportunity to post content on their platform. This could prove immensely beneficial if you get your strategy and choice of blogs right.
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