There is many high paying niches out there but then again the competition for them is high which shrinks the payouts. Mobile Phones, Loans, Insurance, Credit, Payday Loans, Debt
There is a strong element of relativity here. For example, Credit repair would generally be considered to be a high paying niche but in the context of overall search volumes the numbers of searches would be relatively low. The competition would be extremely high but the epc would be very good. On the other hand, something like "free mp3" would have a very high search volume but very low epc but also very strong competition. Neither of these would necessarily be good niches to start with (I'm not saying don't do it but you might want to have a good think about your goals before proceeding. As a direct answer to your original question: Financial niches tend to pay well such as mortgage, credit, insurance but they definitely fall into the category of being very competitive and quite difficult to break into.
One other thing that's worth bearing in mind when looking at niches is that a lot of the really high priced clicks will only be on the search network. They won't be available on the content network and as a result they won't be available to Adsense publishers.
The following lists of high paying niches is a product of 3-month research and monitoring. The data changes every month but the difference is very slight. The error margin for the CPC range is plus/minus $1.57. I want to clarify that this is not the list of high paying keywords. The following are not high paying keywords. They are high paying niches so don’t expect high CPC if you use the following phrases as keywords..; http://myseoblog.net/2008/08/21/lists-of-niches-with-highest-cpc-adwordsadsense/
I've asked before and no one has answered...would you rather have an erratic handful of clicks in a highpaying "niche" or dozens and dozens of consistent clicks in a lower-paying one?
No one knows because You don't know how many people search for a certain niche so overall more money per click could be less in the long run.
I would definitely prefer having consistent clicks on lower-paying niche. That would mean that the site has traffic and traffic is GOOD! However, getting consistent clicks on the high-paying niche would be outstanding as well. It's all about the traffic.
Wrong. Today we have 2-3 tools from Google that alow us to understand the past, present and possible future of 95% of keywords and niches. Edit: And those tools are talked daily in DP.
Sounds to me like you should research the type of niche you would perfer .because either way high pay might mean low clicks or erratic,low pay could be more often and more consistant.I myself chose to sell a product that everyone needs on the internet.Traffic!So when you find your niche come see me for your traffic and Let the KingOfTraffic.Net serve you.
And potentially let the banning begin...sold traffic often equates to artificial impressions which is counter to Adsense Policies.
The high paying niche is probably the more competitive so if you're starting out or have the time, Id go for the dozen sites of less competitive niches.
That's my feeling too. Additionally, I don't have much interest in Lawyers, or DUI cases to keep building a site built around such content. Which means that a lot of these are going to be "flash-in-the-pan" sites that disappear when the owner doesn't become instantly wealthy.