Niche of the Week: Diet Plan Affiliate Programs

Who’s on a diet here? Raise your hands! To those of you who did raise your hands, good for you. I wish I could say the same of myself, but when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, I’m the type of person who is not consistent with the habit! :)

However, we will not be talking about food here or even how we are when it comes to choosing between burger and fries or a bowl of salad for lunch! Nope! Just like most of you, I do not want to be judged on my decision.

What I will be discussing with you instead is how diet plans can make you full, well, err, in terms of income. Yes, it’s time for the niche of the week once more and this week we will focus on diet plan affiliate programs!

Diet is one interesting niche. I have spent some time researching and reading materials about it and surprisingly, it hooked me into reading further. There are a lot of sub-niches and products to consider. That alone, for affiliate marketers, is a good deciding factor for a niche.

In case you are wondering how to build a diet niche website, I have noted two website samples for this niche. I have stumbled upon the Plan to Eat blog site and Eat Yourself Skinny.

Both websites, even though they have different topics and approaches to dieting, have a lot in common. For example, both are promoting long-term diet plans. Both sites also promote healthy eating habit and not just to lose weight.

Another common denominator: both feature great food selections that are very enticing, especially for people who would like to lose weight but do not like to eat bland, tasteless foods. What a win-win situation for your market dieters, eh?

With what we've seen in the two websites above, the diet niche seems worth marketing. To begin with, there sure is a lot of information that you can add to your content, plus a wide array of products. However, is there a market for this niche? Let’s see!

Define "Diet"

Knowing the Niche

When we hear the word "diet," we often associate it with things like low-calorie food, restrictions, and controlled eating.

But believe it or not, this perception of “diet” has long been dead. Those who still believe that dieting means eating low-calorie food or with a lot of restrictions are stuck in the “old-fashioned” way of dieting.

Nowadays, those on a diet are keen on becoming healthy rather than skinny. The goal of the new generation of dieters is to maintain a long-term diet plan suited to their lifestyle. This means that losing weight is no longer the main goal but rather, they are looking for a healthy diet plan that will help them become stronger and live longer.

And what do experts say about the diet niche and its market? According to a post from Business Insider, there has been a shift in consumer attitudes towards dieting. Before, people were looking for diet products, which included low- or zero-calorie products. Nowadays, the demand has shifted to healthier products such as organic food.

This change in market behavior is noteworthy. Thus, we always suggest that you take the time to do your market research to know the current trends in the industry you are promoting and the market you are targeting.

Is There a Demand for Diets?

Niche Popularity Survey

The short answer is YES. There are currently around 46 million results on Google for the keyword “diet plan.” In Google Trends, the same keyword shows a constantly high level of search popularity, with significant peaks around New Year's.

On the ClickBank Marketplace, there are around 423 product results for the term “diet plan.” You can find still more products related to this term if you conduct specific searches like "paleo diet" or "detox diet," which are considered sub-niches of the diet plan niche.

And if that is not enough, on Amazon, you get thousands of product results for the term “diet plan.”

Diet Keywords

The Keyword Research Plan

The diet plan niche is huge. For beginners, it can be overwhelming, especially if you are going to do the keyword research yourself.

To lessen or avoid such confusion, I suggest you figure out from the very beginning what topic or topics you want to cover in this niche. Ask yourself, do I start with a general topic for the diet niche? Or will I start with a focused sub-niche?

A common follow-up question regarding this: which is better? The answer: both. There is little difference when it comes to promotion and sales for a general topic site and a sub-niche site. Both types of sites generate income. The only difference is the amount of work that goes in. Since a general niche site encompasses a variety of sub-topics for the niche, it requires a lot of work as compared to a sub-niche site. But overall, both sites can be successful and can generate income.

So back to our keyword research. Once you’ve figured out the type of site you want to start with, it is easier to find your keywords.

For example, in the diet niche, I would like to focus more on eating clean, unprocessed food. No idea where to search for the keywords for this topic? A good go-to tool for finding seed keywords in any niche is Google Search.

Let’s go to Google and search for “how to eat clean unprocessed food.” Here are my results:

I have circled the keywords (mostly long-tail keywords) in the top search results page and jotted them down.

What I also love about Google is its suggestions. When you type in a certain inquiry, it will also display similar, relevant questions that other searchers have entered. You may see this section at the very bottom of the search results page. Below is a set of similar keywords and phrases that I got from my search:

Another cool and easy way to seed your target keywords is using Google Trends. This is one good free tool for getting your seed keywords, especially since you are getting data directly from Google.

I typed in clean eating in the Google Trends search box and here’s what I got:

My rising related topics are:

My top related topics are:

My rising related queries are:

My top related queries are:

The results will appear in the keywords box, as shown:

Once you have the results, you can proceed to get more seed keywords for the list you have in the keywords box. Simply click the search button just below the box. You should be able to see more keywords under the Keywords Match and Related Keywords sections, as shown:

What I like about AffiloTools' keyword research tool is that it instantly shows you the competition data for each keyword. Once you have all your seed keywords, you can run the keywords through AffiloTools to get the competition data. You can follow the step-by-step instructions on how to properly use AffiloTools for keyword research here.

Diet Plan Affiliate Programs

A Variety of Diet Plans to Suit Every Need

1. The Carb Nite Solution

One of the few ClickBank products in the diet niche that has a high gravity score. This product is less about weight loss and more about losing the fat and gaining more muscles. Aside from Carb Nite, the vendor also owns several diet plan products that can be found on ClickBank.

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

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

2. Diet Bet

Diet Bet is no ordinary diet program! This is a community website that provides fun games and rewards to members for achieving their ideal weight. Yes! Members drop the weight and earn in return. If you are looking for an interesting product, this is the one for you.

How much can I make?
You can earn 5%–10% for every game hosted.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

3. The Mayo Clinic Diet

The Mayo Clinic Diet is a one-stop haven for people who are looking to lose weight and make healthy changes to their lifestyle. The website is also popular for providing verified information from medical experts and professionals. Aside from this, members can enjoy a lot of tools for weight loss, such as personalized meal and fitness plans and the Mayo Clinic Diet iPhone app.

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

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

4. South Beach Diet

The South Beach Diet is a popular diet plan for losing weight. They offer recipes and meal plans that conform to the South Beach Diet philosophy.

How much can I make?
You can earn 55% to 85% on every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

5. Diet-to-Go

Diet-to-Go offers meal plans and recipes, which you can select from to create a diet plan that suits your lifestyle and needs.

How much can I make?
You can earn 40% on every sale.

How do I apply?
You can sign up here.

Reaching Out to the Diet Market

Marketing and Promotions

Link building and inbound marketing are the next big challenges after getting the site up. Always have a link-building strategy, or at least a rough guide on how you’ll build backlinks, before you begin the site. Having a strategy gives you an idea of how to go about your link-building efforts and what method you’ll be working on when. This helps you jump to link building right after getting the site up. There will be no time wasted in between.

Below are a few of my suggestions on how to market your diet niche site. You can use these methods or you can add them to your existing marketing campaign.

Content Marketing

The saying: “content is king” never gets old in affiliate marketing. If you want to step up your game and get a lot of traffic that converts, you need to create a powerful content-based website. The goal of publishing quality content is to answer (beyond satisfaction) all the questions and information needs of your readers. If you are able to achieve this goal, you can get quality traffic that has the potential to convert into long-term buyers.

The key to a good content website is to build trust among your readers. When that relationship is built, it is easier to sell them anything.

Do you find it difficult to build your own content? You can read the 23 Content Creation Tools Every Affiliate Marketer Needs for content-building ideas.

Social Media Marketing

The best way to promote diet plans is through testimonials and reviews. If you are able to get a sample of the diet plan, you can then review it and create either a review or testimonial video. You can then share this on your site and on your site's social media pages like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Sharing information on social media sites does not only mean sharing content from your site. You can post content from related sites too.

Make sure that you are posting to your social media accounts at least a few times a week. Regularly update your site's social media accounts, too. This helps increase your visibility on social media.

Did you know you can get more traffic from YouTube? Read Get More Traffic From YouTube: 5 Steps for Adding Links to Your Videos for detailed instructions.   

Amazon Kindle Traffic

Traffic from a Kindle eBook is targeted, since readers will only download eBooks that they are interested in. You can create an eBook on a specific diet with a sample diet plan and include a few links to related posts on your site within the eBook. Readers can then click those links for further information.

One of the pros of this method is that you can choose to charge a small fee for each download, thus giving you a little income on the side. Alternatively, you can choose to keep it free so people will be more inclined to download it.

You can refer to Ultimate Ebook Creator Review - Formatting for Kindle Made Easy for info on how you can use the software to easily format your Kindle ebook.

Are Diet Plan Affiliate Programs Worth Promoting?

Can You Be the Biggest Loser or the Highest Earner?

50% Commission	5%–10% Commission	75% Commission	55%–85% Commission	40% Commission
Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up	Sign up

There's stiff competition in the weight loss niche, and that spills over to diet plans, since they are part of the whole weight loss program.

On the other hand, you don't need to have any in-depth knowledge or skill or even a deep interest in the niche. Weight loss and the quest for a healthful lifestyle are things we all can relate to. This is possibly one of the reasons why there is so much competition in this niche.

The commissions are nothing to complain about and should make the effort worthwhile. 

At the end of the day, it's all about commitment. If you're up for the hard work, then you'll be sure to reap the rewards—and maybe lose a few pounds in the process as well. :) 

With that, I conclude this Niche of the Week. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, please share it using the Share buttons below. Make sure to leave a comment too!

PS: For a complete and step-by-step guide on how to build your income-earning niche website, enroll in our AffiloBlueprint course now!