If I were starting a blog from scratch, I wouldn't be simply starting in a niche that pays a lot - I would start in a niche where I could produce an original content on a topic I am passionate about. But what do I know.. I 've been blogging for only 7 months. Yet investing for a decade now..
Health, insurance and loans are a couple. You can search up your own niches here https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal Maybe you can find some good ones.
Loans, health, real estate... but you better grab a niche with a lower competition and make a usefull website about it. Niche sites are effective because visitors will take care of you, if you take good care of them
I agree with scubita. Going after lower competition niches in a given category (health, finance, insurance, etc.) is key to moving up in the SERPs quickly (3-6 months) with effort.
It is not advisable to create a blog in a high paying niche w/o knowing anything... Start a blog with within the are of your interest first..
the big ones are health, loans, insurance, finance etc the ones that you would find huge competition in basically so you would need to dig deep into the little niches of the big players and it still pays off. For example lets say that you were getting into the loans niche, you could narrow that down to many different niches such as payday loans, loans for poor creditors, student loans, etc.
You want high p[aying niche? go and create a blog about Mesothelioma and asbestos cancer and copy other's contents... http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=966011
this list are bs - just because every wannabe-seo tries to rank for it to make some quick $$$. its much easier to scout out your own niche with some affiliate (not adsense!) and then build a page. something thats NOT on this (terrible outdated) lists. i had a page about railway signs and an affiliate for it. was pretty good money, because there was almost no serious competition and it was easy to get into the top 10 with this site and made some money from commissions - and you dont have to update this site each day like a blog. btw here is an up to date list for the 10 top paying keywords in the us: (july 2008) conference calling companies home owner secured loan purchase structured settlements boston dui lawyer mesothelioma patient austin texas dwi lawyer phoenix dui lawyers insurance auto secured loans phoenix dui attorney