Over the years, this last year more particularly, I’ve noticed this trend in others as well.  I think sometimes we get so excited when thinking about the “dream” of working from home and/or being rich.  We get so focused on trying to accomplish that dream that we start cranking out ideas.  The more ideas you think of the more your thoughts expand and, then again, the more ideas you get.  This can be bad though.

I’ve seen many people in this last year trying so hard to find the right blog niche for them to blog about, the right topic to make a site about, etc. After spreading their efforts so thin all they are left with is 40 different websites, all of which are doing nothing.

If you want to avoid Entrepreneur A.D.D. I would suggest picking one idea and sticking to that one idea.  Find that best paying blog topic that fits you.  Blog about it for a few weeks and see if you like it.  If you don’t, there’s nothing wrong with minimizing your losses and moving onto another topic.  If you move on though make sure you actually move on.  Sell your old domain, or just get rid of it.  If you hang onto it you’ll come back to it after your next effort too.  It’s like when you break up with someone you immediately want to get in touch with the person you were with before them.  It’s a comfort thing.

Content is important.  What is equally important is how you display that content to your viewers.  Are you going to blog about something?  Would your site grow faster if you started it with a message board/forum?

Also, how much time do you want to put into maintaining the site?  With a blog you have to update it fairly regularly to keep your readers loyalty.  Forums are nice because, once they’re built up, you don’t have to do anything.  Your community members contribute new content daily.  The tricky part to that is it takes some time to build up a forum.  If you can go through the trenches for the first year or two, it’ll be smooth sailing after that.  Traditional websites are kind of a little of both of the above.  You don’t have to contribute as regularly as a blog or forum, but you can’t let it sit forever.  You will want to add some new content every once in a while just to keep the site “fresh”.  With a static site you should take your time and do it right.  If your site has really great, informative content then you can let that content cycle for months before having to do any updates.

Picture gallery sites are also popular.  They are easy to maintain and can bring lots of visitors.  However, people come to view pictures, not content.  So, there’s your con with photo galleries.  You can have thousands and thousands of views as people click “Next” hundreds of times to go from one photo to the next and you still haven’t earned a penny, because no one is clicking on your adspace.

Below is an example of a reader that sent us a screenshot of their high-volume gallery views, but low adsense return.

Gallery Adsense

To some, the ease of running a gallery for a couple dollars here and there is more realistic than having a lot of time to spend to try and generate more money with a content site.  When it comes to making money online, would you rather make 45 minute updates every week, or dedicate one full day to writing some great content and then not having to worry about it for quite some time?  The best decision depends on your circumstances.

The simplest way to think of how to find a high paying topic, or what to start your blog about to earn decent money, is to ask yourself another question.  What pay per click keywords are really competitive right now?  The more competitve the topic = the more potential money you can earn?  Why?  If you think about it, the ads that are displayed on your site are basically the same as Pay Per Click keywords that are displayed on the front of your favorite search engine.  People bid for their positions and placement.  They are doing the same thing for content ads (the ads that display on sites instead of search engines).

If you are also and advertiser you have an advantage.  You can easily log into your PPC advertiser account and play around with some words.  Go through the steps to set up a new campaign and play around with inputting some keywords.  How much does it tell you that you can expect to pay per click?  After you take off a random percent for what the search engine would keep for their profits, there you have a very vague guess on what a site with that type of keywords and content would pay per click.

Some of my favorite “hot” keywords are related to real estate, health and beauty and web design.  These are always competitive campaigns.  Everyone always wants to look good.  Real Estate ads have such a high ROI (return on investment) that advertisers are willing to bid high amounts.  Same with web design related advertisers.  I know of many web design firms that pay upwards of $10 per click.  That’s right… $10 per click.  That is insane, but they have huge ROI’s when you think about the thousands they’ll make by designing a high profile website.

So, there you go.  To find what blog or site topics you can earn big with, walk in someone else’s shoes for a day.  What would you be willing to pay a lot to advertise?  When you think of something that means that the same item would also have potential to earn a lot.  Now you have your next site topic.