paul65359

I'm trying to decide between two niches and would appreciate any thoughts from more experienced people on which one sounds better.

1) A niche, broadly in entertainment news. The specific niche I am thinking of is exploding in popularity. There's some competition, but not too bad. Lots of search volume. I could probably hit 10k+ uniques/day without too much effort, with the possibility of getting bigger/viral over the years. I would be getting fresh unique, daily content at a very low cost. The problem is that I'm not sure of the best way to monetize it, or if the traffic is even very profitable. Adsense EPC is pennies. Affiliate merchandise (like Amazon DVDs etc.) would work, but my guess is that I won't get too many sales from the target crowd. But if I ride this growing trend up early, I might (?) get an authoritative aged site by the time this niche goes mainstream in 2-3 years.

2) A niche, broadly in health. The specific niche has stable medium/low search volume. I could monetize it in a few ways. Adsense EPC is ~$3-4, so not too bad. This would be more a more generic site - write articles, post Adsense, etc. The competition is not too bad. This niche would have a much lower volume of traffic, but I think the target crowd is both more likely to click Adsense and buy products.

So... loads of hot but broke traffic, or small amounts of boring but profit-making traffic?

Thanks!

handrewrites

No.1 sounds like it has more "stickiness". I say go for the first one - once you really become a popular site that wouldn't flinch even if it was deindexed from Google, you'll know the true meaning of "residual income". Safe, residual income. Holy grail of traffic = direct visitors.

Monetization can come later (and you can get creative with it when you've got a receptive audience). Take stevepavlina.com - within a few years this general "personal development" blogger was earning 6 figures a year with his blog (this was 5 years ago). What really made an impression on me was how less than 1% of his traffic was from Google.

And of course add a newsletter to the site and you've got lots more return visitors that you can market to continually. Real life example: Darren Rowse's digital photography blog with hundreds of thousands of subscribers rakes in hundreds of thousands a year, and most are repeat visitors.

Of course if you find that your demographic is truly broke, CPA all the way (possibly combined with competitions). Free CPA traffic for life, offer after offer. Include in newsletter for higher clickthroughs.

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emp

#1, but entertainment is fucking tough if it is high on news content.

::emp::

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blogspotter

#1: When you hit 10K a day in uniques, monetization won't be difficult. Adsense should pay 2-4 eCpm, and you can add other CPMs like Tribal Fusion/Casale. You can Adsdaq while you wait for approval from TF/Casale.

Also don't underestimate Adsense. Increasing the eCPM is an art. You may not even need other rev sources.

But its too early to be worrying about monetization. First get that 10K visitors.

Also you can get a lot of Opt in lead. These entertainment type visitors are the most prone to any of the SHITTY offers.. You can mail them Auto Insurance, edu loans, Credit checks, and damn even eciggs.

But first get those visitors.

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kakaboo

Why don't you just go for both? Do the one you feel you can commit to for a longer period of time first, then start the 2nd one once you have gotten a little stable and a little more time on your hands..

Hav3n

Both. One will eventually be a 'winner' or you'll have two profitable sites.

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paul65359

Thanks! That was very helpful. I really like your point about stickiness... I have no faith left in Google. Fans/fanatics make great sticky audiences, right? Pavlina is like a mini-Oprah cult, and a lot of entertainment niche fans probably have a similar fanaticism to them.

I was trying to think of a sticky news site, and thought of reddit. It sort of fits the bill, though not what I'm going for. Reddit is a super-addictive site for its target audience, where people just sit in front of it all day at work hitting F5. It has huge daily views. But, don't they have trouble with monetization? I'm always puzzled that I rarely see ads even with adblock off. I haven't seen their accounts, of course, but I always had the impression that they are hurting for money, even though they have more traffic than most of us would ever dream of.

I guess this is a side question, but given that Reddit is a #1 sticky site, why does their monetization suck balls (or does it not)?

paul65359

Yeah, traditional entertainment news looks almost as hard as adult niches. I'm trying to go for a unique niche that is not all spammed out yet. It's a bit harder to enter for most people but I have special leverage into it. That's the only reason I would give it a shot. Although there are definitely ways I can complement the news stuff with other types of content.

paul65359

Thanks for your advice! Basically, if I can get traffic, there will always be a way to monetize/improve monetization.

My target audience is a bit different from the traditional entertainment crowd, but I hope you're still right! Hmm... Actually that's a good point... I can think of a lot of offers they might like. It's kind of weird thinking about an audience that is different from you.

You guys are right... I should worry about monetization later, there is always a way.

paul65359

I work better when I focus on one thing at a time. Plus, once I start something, I always feel like you can do a little more to improve it/build it, and it's hard to step away from a growing project and work on a new one. I'd definitely do both if I could, but realistically I know that I'm not disciplined enough to do it.

merereilly

If you don't have the capital for both, i would opt for health.

on health sites you can advertise Acai, Colon, African Mango, HCG, Fitness, Joint, Skin, Health Insurance, etc etc etc

All really strong verticals