Which topic is your bread and butter?

[ontheweb]

Which topic/genre web sites bring in the $$ for you?

I'm not just talking about CPC and high-paying keywords here. Some topics bring can bring in huge traffic but a poor eCPM, whereas some niche topics will bring in little traffic but a nice eCPM.

My 2 best performing sites are a finance related one and a motor racing one. The motor racing site gets lots of visitors and clicks whereas the finance site isn't even finished and hasn't been promoted yet. However, the finance site performs as well as the motor racing one with less than 5% of the traffic.

On a separate note, am I right in thinking the people who have large traffic here mainly run tech/computer/net related web sites?

[ishika]

i have even got one site related to finance.and woeking on another site but cant think of niche which to work upon.i m confuse betwwen 2 options will beauty tips site will work well or career counseling.plz advice e on this or should i consider some other niche sites.

[mmariusel]

Security related softare pages, and photography websites.

[dadasays]

There is no real advice to give on topics that generate income. All topics are affected by supply and demand, and all these factors fluctuate every day.

If there are a lot of people publishing on a topic, there is a high supply of publishers. If there are a lot of people advertising on a topic, there is a high supply of advertisers. The income of a given topic is bigger when there is a low supply of publishers and a high supply of advertisers.

Only time will show you if your topic is worthwhile. Nothing will work overnight.

[moaid123]

my site is broxy site generate about 0.5$ aday

[NewToAllThis]

Entertainment gossip. Women love gossip and they flock to my site.

[dcristo]

Originally Posted by ontheweb

Which topic/genre web sites bring in the $$ for you?

I'm not just talking about CPC and high-paying keywords here. Some topics bring can bring in huge traffic but a poor eCPM, whereas some niche topics will bring in little traffic but a nice eCPM.

My 2 best performing sites are a finance related one and a motor racing one. The motor racing site gets lots of visitors and clicks whereas the finance site isn't even finished and hasn't been promoted yet. However, the finance site performs as well as the motor racing one with less than 5% of the traffic.

On a separate note, am I right in thinking the people who have large traffic here mainly run tech/computer/net related web sites?

I would tell you, but then I would have to kill you

[Sara]

Rare, antique maps and views of London - pulls in all the people doing family histories, geneologists etc. Big, big, big untapped market if you have the materials and information they want, particularly from the US where this is more than big. Good ads which pay well, excellent CTR, loyal customers who just want more and I get to purchase wonderful rare maps which are a complete tax writeoff and an investment for my doddery years. Love it.

[hextraordinary]

Technology, technology, technology and more technology. Most of my revenue comes from technology, though it may change soon.

[LazySEO]

Actually, I think the techie sites don't do as well for Adsense because those people won't click on the ads as much as a less computer-savvy person will.

My best sites right now are a gardening site and a travel site that skews toward the older crowd. I get decent click amounts on those topics, but they also have a much higher CTR than some of my other sites.

[SIK]

What is the purpose of opening this kind of threads.. did you expect an answer like "yes, my topic is <insert niche topic name here> and there is NO competition, I'm having 5 000 000 uniques daily and am a premium publisher. Feel free to copy/paste my site on your domain." ?

IMHO, time reading stuff like this should be instead spent this way:

1 goto nichebot.com
2 search high count and low ratio keywords for 1 hour
3 if success=false go to 1

my 2 cEnTz

[jackburton2006]

Originally Posted by ontheweb

Which topic/genre web sites bring in the $$ for you?

I'm not just talking about CPC and high-paying keywords here. Some topics bring can bring in huge traffic but a poor eCPM, whereas some niche topics will bring in little traffic but a nice eCPM.

My 2 best performing sites are a finance related one and a motor racing one. The motor racing site gets lots of visitors and clicks whereas the finance site isn't even finished and hasn't been promoted yet. However, the finance site performs as well as the motor racing one with less than 5% of the traffic.

On a separate note, am I right in thinking the people who have large traffic here mainly run tech/computer/net related web sites?

Started a hobby site when I was in college. It's still going pretty strong, very high in the SERPs, and has got backlinks out the wazoo. It doesn't make a lot of money, but I like it nonetheless.

[tweety]

tech is the one u will get high traffic,but may be low bucks.bt in parallel u can run a high paying buck site.so that frm tech u get traffic,and frm other site u get bucks...

[ontheweb]

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far! I'm actually quite amazed at how open most are. It's good to see people not living in fear of copycats.

When you think about it, what's there to worry about anyway? If someone wants to copy your idea they probably don't have the drive to stick with it long enough to see the results anyway. Or they might not have a strong enough interest in the topic to be able to create content, keep interest etc etc..

Originally Posted by dadasays

If there are a lot of people publishing on a topic, there is a high supply of publishers. If there are a lot of people advertising on a topic, there is a high supply of advertisers. The income of a given topic is bigger when there is a low supply of publishers and a high supply of advertisers.

That's a fantastic point looking at it from a supply vs demand perspective! I guess the hardest part is finding a topic with a high advertiser-to-publisher ratio that hasn't been exploited yet (ie. not much competition from other publishers).

[ontheweb]

moaid123 - I don't even know what 'broxy' is.. LOL!

Sara, LazySEO - Your experiences are very interesting! Targeting an older crowd is definitely a piece of advice that gets overlooked a lot when talking about optimizing Adsense earnings. As you both point out, older people tend to be more cashed up (willing to spend) and less PPC-numb (ie. they don't just skim the PPC ads as much as the more tech-savvy).

hextraordinary - Do you find your earnings per click for your tech sites to be really low? Do you get your stuff on Digg and other popular sites a lot? Because I feel that for the low EPC of tech topics you need to hook some major traffic which it sounds like you're doing..

[ontheweb]

Originally Posted by SIK

What is the purpose of opening this kind of threads.. did you expect an answer like "yes, my topic is <insert niche topic name here> and there is NO competition, I'm having 5 000 000 uniques daily and am a premium publisher. Feel free to copy/paste my site on your domain." ?

No, that's not the point of starting this thread. The main thing I was interested in seeing was whether the big dollar earners here are making their money from computer/tech/nerdy/geek topics or whether they're making it from other areas.

The computer/techy topics are extremely competitive, but at the same time easier to generate traffic to. If you get on Digg or Slashdot or even just post something interesting in a forum, you can get a lot of traffic and some very nice linkbacks very fast. Take a narrow, non-tech subject however and you'll struggle to pull as large traffic (but you may still get nice results as people are showing here).

I didn't mean this thread to be about niches but more about general topic areas (computers, gadgets, finance, sports, antiques etc). I don't think people should fear competition from others if they simply say "my best performer is my medical web site" for example.. It's not like there's only one medical site on the web..

Anyway, with all that said your advice at the end about nichebot and doing the research is great! Very good if you're targeting a niche topic.

[tbarr60]

My question was also:

Originally Posted by SIK

What is the purpose of opening this kind of threads..

And it was answered in the same post:

Originally Posted by SIK

1 goto nichebot.com

thanks SIK.

Here's my tip for finding a good niche, look for where money is wasted in corporations (bonus tip: consultants hang around these wasted piles of money so keep an eye on consultants).

[jimkarter]

One of my health related site is giving me most.

[fcmisc]

Computer monitors do well for me.

[ontheweb]

Originally Posted by tbarr60

Here's my tip for finding a good niche, look for where money is wasted in corporations (bonus tip: consultants hang around these wasted piles of money so keep an eye on consultants).

Wow.. so cryptic! That's really got my brain ticking now!

On a separate note, another thing I wanted to try to draw out of this thread was whether there's a relationship between product-related sites and Adsense performance.

For example, I imagine the CTR and EPC on a site reviewing and comparing electrical products would be better than say, a 'joke of the day' site which didn't really have any focus.