Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Anyway, here is my question: If you were starting up a for-profit website from scratch, and if you have the ability to write about nearly any subject, what category would be the most profitable? Cancer? NASCAR? Brittney Spears?
How would you best evaluate different categories for profit potential?
There are two niche areas in which I have a decent amount of knowledge & years of experience. I have written content for my sites devoted to those areas.
About once per month, I pick a unique string of text from a random page on my site(s) and search for it. Sometimes the number of sites on which it appears is overwhelming. The content I'm passionate about today is stolen by others tomorrow and becomes their filler content.
Add to that all the sites that link to each other primarily because current search engine methodology likes sites with links to and fro.
Then there are all the people who are paying anyone with a keyboard and without further qualification to generate hundreds of short content articles because search engines like content, not because they want to create content that is useful & informative.
Search engine results are become less and less useful in many instances. Sooner or later a day of reckoning will come.
I'm spending about 50% of my time writing, working, building, etc. as if search engines did not exist. In some cases even using noindex tags on pages in hopes of slowing the content thieves.
I'm finding it somewhat liberating so to speak. I can write about some of those topics others avoid for fear of too much competition (Brittney Spears, cancer, etc.) and be profitable in doing so.
farmboy
P = Traffic x CTR x the price of an average ad.
You'd come up with a "P" value for the leading keywords in each niche and then compare them to decide which niche has the most income potential.
Does this make sense? Is there a better way? Is this kind of "comparison factor" already available somewhere?
Now I had to go use Google define: to find out what it meant.;)
Good example there - now you can ask yourself who's the demographic interested in the broad general area that that definition fits into. Do people search online for information? How much of an industry is it? Do people spend money in that general area? Would a content site be likely to attract ads from people selling related stuff?
But if you were doing it all over again, and if you had experience in, say, 10 categories rather than 2, how would you choose which one of the 10 to write about? (assuming that profit was a prime factor)
That bit about "do what you enjoy" is hogwash. I didn't mention that I also OWN my own magazine, and it's focused on a topic I used to feel passionate about. We've put out more than 50 issues now. But all that work and no income is no fun at all. Being poor is no fun at all.
I am surprised as a magazine (current or ex) owner you should already pretty much know the answer to your question:
Here's the question again: What would be the best way to evaluate a topic's potential for profit?
Most magazines worth anything earn through advertising, and therefore require either a solid publisher with advertising vision and an editorial team to deliver content people want and enjoy to read.
My magazine still exists simply because I've been gutting it out. I write for many other magazines too, and some of them are loosing money but still trying to gut it out.
I'm tired of gutting it out. If I'm going to launch a for-profit website (based on AdSense) I want to target a niche that has a decent chance of succeeding. In fact, why not target the niche that has the BEST chance of succeeding?
That's what this post is about: How can you objectively and scientifically evaluate a niche's potential to be profitable?
That's what this post is about: How can you objectively and scientifically evaluate a niche's potential to be profitable?
Very similar to the way you decide to start a magazine on a certain topic, and then the same way that you decide on that magazine's distribution, frequency and editorial calendar for the months, years to come.
That bit about "do what you enjoy" is hogwash
No, this is the basic to work the AdSense way.
Write only about themes You like, You identify with.
When You can not accept this, it's better to continue with the guidance of a chief forcing You to write about certain themes.
How can you objectively and scientifically evaluate a niche's potential to be profitable?
I think I see where the problem is, someone should of stated this before:
You cannot scientifically evaluate a niche's potential profitablity, there is no magic forumla. You can measure keyword traffic, check out click prices, look at the competition, and use all the tools avaliable. However, all these provides only HINTS of how this niche behaves. In the end you can going to have to take all the evidence you've gathered, sit down, and decide whether to roll the dice on the niche or not.
Sorry.
Write only about themes You like, You identify with.
It helps but it's not the only way. Many of the things I like are off the wall, like the death folk band, Current 93. No way I'm going to make loads of money writing content about death folk music.
So I pay writers to write amazing and drop dead informative content about all these niche areas I don't care about.
I am surprised as a magazine (current or ex) owner you should already pretty much know the answer to your question...
Well, your surprise doesn't help the OP. You're a smart guy. Aside from your surprise, do you have any actual tips to share for the OP and the rest of us?
In addition to that, I'd recommend to stay away from certain "looks like profitable, but aren't" niches - internet marketing, credit cards, loans. I know a guy who started a consumer loan site expecting a $1-2 CPC average ('cause that's what the average is supposed to be) but actually gets 7 cent or less per click.
In addition to that, there are known "low producers" - games, entertainment (music, television, movies) are amoung the ones people always complain about.
How would you best evaluate different categories for profit potential?
How would you best evaluate different categories for profit potential?
That's exactly what he's asking. I don't know why people keep misinterpreting his post.
Folks, he's asking how to fish. He's not asking for a fish. He's asking what methodology do you use to evaluate a niche to go into. It's a valid question.
Any offline business evaluates a niche by location, traffic, proximity of other similar business... all kinds of criteria.
It's no different when you're going into business online.
If you don't think his approach is the right one, then share what you think is the right approach. In fact, that's pretty much all he's asking: What approach is the right one for choosing a niche?
He's not asking for people to name a niche. He's asking:
How would you best evaluate different categories for profit potential?
If this were a home buyer forum, his question would be similar to "how can I evaluate the best kind of home to buy, one that would appreciate over time?"
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:22 am (utc) on Nov. 13, 2005]
If there's already content in print magazines thats YOURS and for which you own the full rights/copyright, you could do a bit of rewriting to adapt to writing for the web and put up a couple of test mini-sites. Then, sign up with CJ and peruse the merchants for research purposes, both within those niches and throughout.
I'm not suggesting becoming an affiliate marketer, but it's just another avenue of doing research, since merchants are using the medium as another avenue of advertising and increasing revenue for themselves. You'll recognize a lot of them as being the same companies you'll see advertising with Adwords at Google.
Adsense can make a good barometer for picking and choosing good and bad niches and product lines for affiliate marketing, and the reverse can also be true. Besides all else, putting together the first little site or two is a learning lab environment.
Anyway, here is my question: If you were starting up a for-profit website from scratch, and if you have the ability to write about nearly any subject, what category would be the most profitable? Cancer? NASCAR? Brittney Spears?
My advice, write with all your heart about what you know, believe in etc. what AdSense returns is incidental. Follow your passion, follow the money trail and be disappointed.
IMHO
Different people, different ideas...
"I have two fish, one in the left hand and one in the right hand. How do I evaluate them to satisfy me that the left one is a keeper or the right one is a keeper? How do I make an informed opinion on the one to throw back"?
There have been some excellent posts here that answers that. There are no absolutes in this area as there are no absolutes in life. One much reach a conclusion using the information here and the tools at hand.
Good luck
Get drunk (seriously), and brainstorm every possible keyword/topic you could possibly write about. For my site I wrote 2000 keywords/topics. Don't ignore any possible keyword.
Sound advice back in 1996 - 97. Did that and established a "footprint".
Money in the bank today. I was seriously taken in by the excellent advice back then:
Get drunk (seriously), and brainstorm every possible keyword/topic you could possibly write about..
I also did that exactly and look where I am now almost 10 years later.
Telephone numbers of AdSense income. Stupid me to follow this olden day advice.
AND
No, I've never written another page of significance since the advent of AdSense.
[dumb stupid typo]
A lot of people in the game already have such sites, and can experiment like this in a 'real world' environment to see what pays.
With the high cpc and ctr rates in mind, its a matter of checking out the competition, and evaluating whether you can write related content and get linked to for it. For example, if you find that widget X is a high ctr and cpc, a site which reviews widget X would naturally pay quite well - but only if you can get the traffic.
If you don't have a site to find the high paying ads, just take a look around at other sites which are in control of their ads - they would have picked what they have learnt pays well, which saves you the time and investment.
Take a look on shopping sites to see what they are trying to push on visitors - chances are they are items with a high ROI. Then create content which relates to that. eg a photography site / camera review site if you see digital cameras selling well etc.
But whether you can get linked to for it also needs to come into play. If you are well known and repsected for a particular topic, and already have contacts willing to link and recommend your site etc, it would be wise to create a site about this. In your case for example, you might a site about magazine publishing or whatever, and advertise your site in paper print and to any publishing contacts etc.
(1) make a list of likely topics
(2) use word pop estimator such as the Overture tool (or Adwords sandbox) to narrow things down
(3) take the narrow list and search the phrases and sub-phrases in Google
(4) take note of number of results and quantity/quality of adwords appearing in G search results
(5) keep narrowing things down until a satisfying popularity/results/ads ratio is achieved for some phrases/topics
(6) then get drunk (oh , why not)
[dmoz.org...]
Not only would I *not* put Chitika on or anything similar - but rather stay with Adsense because they've got the most ad inventory (among other reasons), but I'd hesitate to even put that on until after a little bit.
First off make a site that's totally user-centric, that's high quality enough (by exhaustive comparison) so that it's got a decent chance to be accepted into ODP. Sure, Adsense can go on before submitting, but keep the focus on quality content - sometimes monetization can be a distraction.
Aside from keyword research, competitive analysis has to be done on a keyword set. Some keywords can have the most lucrative potential, but if there are tens of millions to compete against, and/or most toward the top are either government or educational sites - or heavy-duty SEO'd to the hilt - be realistic with what's attainable at a given level of experience and expertise.
Also, just because something isn't a HOT niche to make BIG-TIME money doesn't mean that decent money can't be made off it.
I tried it and now I know what a "Puggle" is.
Overture, while helpful, is likely to mislead you.
Yeah, I think most people here will agree that it's a rough idea. The Bid tool doesn't tell you anything about what Google AdWords bidders are bidding for content targeted campaigns.
But the O tool will give you an idea of what direction to move.
Somewhat related to what Marcia said, a favorite method for discovering niches is to take a walk through leading directories, especially the ones that have been seo'd for specific phrases, then test those out.
I don't think there is more accurate way to find out if the niche is profitable or not than puting up a site and seeing how much AdSense will pay you.
The "see what sticks" method. This is what I do. I have sites on every topic I enjoy reading and writing about. It is the coolest job I could ever hope to have.
Sometimes the weirdest things make easy money. Most of the ones I've found like that could never have been predicted in advance from any of the methodologies listed so far except trial and error.
I already have a successful and profitable site within one niche. Unfortunately the niche is very competitive - and there are hundreds of other sites wanting a piece of the pie - many of which copy features that we introduced. After a few years of this, it gets boring, and it must be denting profitability.
So I wanted to find a less competitive niche, but still with good profit potential. The idea was I'd have less competition, fewer people copying every new idea and feature, and hence make more money per hour of work!
After brainstorming some ideas, I researched the markets and found a niche which had only 10% of the sites in it that my original niche had. Yet it was a huge area (multi-billion dollar industry).
In my research I found a site which I felt I could beat easily in terms of quality of content, SEO, etc - who was doing extremely well within this niche. That piqued my interest further.
Next step was the keyword research - generating lists of hundreds of terms with good demand and lowish supply. Again, a better ratio than I'm used to in my current industry.
Then I looked at a sample of these terms, and the sites that came up in the search engines - and tried the AdSense preview tool on those sites. There seemed to be plenty of ads.
Off to the Overture bids tool. Yes - some good bids too.
Finally, I happened to have a small site in a related area. This site is doing well, and earning well (for a small site).
Taking all that together, I reckon this niche is worthy of a big effort - and I've just launched the new site, which I think will become one of the major sites in that industry within a couple of years. If it does, I expect it to be very profitable. If you can be the biggest site in your chosen niche, it will make your site much more valuable than being number two.
If you go through a similar process for any niches you're considering, I reckon you should come up with a winner.
Please explain how the AdSense preview tool helped you to evaluating niches. Thanks.
Just as one step in the process really. I went through various terms, visited the sites that came up, and checked the AdSense preview tool to make sure there were plenty of ads for that content.
Sometimes you do that, and there are very few ads. That's a bad sign.
If there are lots of ads, then there's more demand, which may equal a higher price. (Or it may not).
Just one clue out of many - but put it together with the Overture bids tool for the same terms, and all the other steps, and you'll know your potential niche quite well.
Once you have a few clients under your belt that have mature sites you can figure out how to write for google.
Then you are into an area that will make 10x more than Adsense.
Sticky me and leave your phone number if you want to talk further about this subject.
When you are constantly stewing over solving a problem it would be helpful to write down your dreams...why? That's how the inventor of the sewing machine finally came up with the solution of the eye in the needle placement and the rest is history!
Ann
Once you figure out the 'system' then write about it and I'm sure you'll make a ton of money... don't forget to do it as an e-book.
Personally, I use Jane's method. Write it and put it up. I haven't lost money yet. The more topics you write about the less you'll suffer from the drastic dips of adsense.
