Wednesday, January 17, 2007

If you want to start an AdSense-based site, and you are wondering which subject it should be about, here are three rules for choosing the site’s subject.

Choose a subject that interests you

You are going to invest tons of hours in building your site. This is going to involve a lot of research, thinking and writing. If this is a subject that you don’t find interesting, you will not have the required energies to put into it.

In addition, if it is interesting to you, that also means that you might know more then other people about this, and that you might be able to contribute original ideas, commentary and opinions about this subject – this is exactly what the readers (and the search engines) are after.

Last, as this is an interesting subject for you, you might be researching and reading about it anyway – this means you just need to put that into your site.

Choose a subject that has enough advertisers

Lets suppose you invested all your energy at your favorite subject, and built a solid and interesting site. Can it be profitable? That depends on lots of things, but surely if there are very few advertisers in this area, or the ads have low value, you will not be able to monetize it.

Obviously, you need to beware of choosing a subject that has fierce competition (most are…). The highest paying keywords are the playground of the pros. If you are just starting, stay away from those.

Choose a subject that is aimed at non-technical people

Ahh, this is the most elusive secret of all: The more technical savvy your users are, and the more web experienced they are, the less likely will they be to see your ads. This is called ad-blindness.

On the other hand, if your site is aimed at low-tech users, the more likely they are to click on your ads.

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