Anyone have a site on their "dream" topic?

[zulufox]

I am starting work in a topic I absolutely love. I was wondering if anyone on the boards has a successful site on their favoriate topic or does everyone just work in whatever topic makes $$$ (not that there is anything wrong with that, my current site is that).

[Musicarl]

I really enjoy the topic of my main site. When you're taking care of the business side, it doesn't make much difference, but when adding content and promoting the site, life is good.

All the best with your passion. I think you'll enjoy working on it.

[ken_b]

I think you'll find that there are quite a few posters here that are working on sites where the motivation was something other than making money.

Could have been a favorite hobby, the desire to share important information, politics, or any number of other things.

[Krapulator]

No I don't run a porn site yet :D

[visca]

I have built a number of sites based on topics that I enjoyed, and have had very mixed results. They were built with very little business strategy or research put in place because the topic of the sites were so interesting to me, and they were simply 'fun' to do. So whatever success came from them was more due to however well the public responded to them.

The financial success of these sites were certainly mixed, everything from a jokes and humor site that did phenominially well, to a coffee and cafe reviews site that did quite poorly. Both humor and coffee I truly loved. One would possibly think coffee would have more of a revenue potential than jokes, but not nessesarily so. Most cafes had little or no marketing dollars to spend, while the joke site enjoyed the hey-days of the online banner ad boom.

In the end though, I believe any topic you choose can be financially successful if you do your planning and research ahead of time. Depending on how it is approached, you can focus on the particular niche of that market that has the best financial potential.

For example, if you have a hobby on music. Making a music reviews web site may be ideal, but it is labor intensive and difficult to extract revenue from due to the downturn of the ad marketing for that content segment. However, if you did your research and discovered that mp3 music is selling like hotcakes, you could apply your love of music, to developing some sort of affiliation with an online music store and resell mp3 music through your own online storefront or something to that effect.

I think you will find a lot of people building sites based on their dream topic, and there will also be plenty of astonishingly success, and sad failures to boot.

[Onemorebite]

If you have a passion for your subject, it's easy to create content. I have lots of "dream" topics, but my main site is based on my main passion.

Kathryn

[larryhatch]

My site (non-commercial) is about my favorite topic.
It practically wrote itself! No problems with content.
My biggest headaches are hot-linked images, scraped content and 302-jackings. - Larry

[ControlEngineer]

I am a consultant (you can guess which field of engineering). I first started a web site because it sounded interesting and I thought it would be fun to try. Since I enjoy teaching in my field (training courses is one of my services in my "day job") I decided to build the site with some basic technical information about my field of work.

I then added a page of self promotion of my engineering services. I can't say that it really helped me make money, but it did help justifying my expense (relatively small) to my spouse and to the IRS.

Later I added Adsense and started selling an e-book and a spreadsheet relating to my technical field. The site is making money; not enough to live on but enough to make a difference.

I am sure that I could be making money if I set out to make money rather than having fun, helping new engineers solve problems, and giving out my opinion on a few technical issues. But I am still glad I stuck to my favorite topic.

[gmac17]

My highest earning sites are also the ones that are most interesting to me - largely because I'm motivated to work on something I care about.

I have built sites (like many here) based on high dollar keywords, and although they have quality content, I really don't care much about them to spend time on every week.

If you can find a topic that both interest you and has some commercial value, go for it.

[Essex_boy]

I have a horse racing systems site - It relates to methods that Ihave used and found paid off.

Its been cobbled together in my spare time, nowhere near finished yet the adsense revenue is amazing.

[HRoth]

My site is devoted to a passion of mine--witchcraft. It took me several years to get to where it makes enough to support me, but I am so glad I stuck with it. My customers are always complimenting me on the content, which is there because I love magick. My products are unique, because I develop and make a lot of them myself, which means I have a cozy little niche plus I get to express my creativity. I couldn't ask for a better job.

[zulufox]

Thanks for that HRoth, just the kind of response I was hoping for.

Its easy to fall into making scummy "quick buck" sites, especailly when your dream site isn't as easy to monetize as slapping on adsense.