When I started working online I used to agree with the moto “follow your passion and the money will come as a consequence.” These days I have a more balanced (realistic?) view. That is, I still think that passion is an important factor, but you need to compromise a bit and filter the niches where there is also profit potential.
For example, no matter how passionate you might be about “wood toys”, it would be pretty difficult to make decent money with a website build around it. A better approach would be to compromise a bit and build a website to sell “educational toys” instead, because there are many more people interested in the latter (i.e,. parents), and they are willing to spend money.
That is why I wanted to share with you guys a list I came across a while ago on the WordStream blog, titled The Most Expensive Keywords in Google AdWords.
The amount a certain company/advertising is willing to pay for a single click has a direct relationship to how much said company expects to earn from that click/customer. That is why the most expensive keywords on AdWords can also be seen as the most profitable niches online. Here they are:
- Insurance (example keywords in this category include "buy car insurance online" and "auto insurance price quotes")
- Loans (example keywords include "consolidate graduate student loans" and "cheapest homeowner loans")
- Mortgage (example keywords include “refinanced second mortgages” and “remortgage with bad credit”)
- Attorney (example keywords include “personal injury attorney” and “dui defense attorney”)
- Credit (example keywords include “home equity line of credit” and “bad credit home buyer”)
- Lawyer ("personal injury lawyer," "criminal defense lawyer)
- Donate ("car donation centers," "donating a used car")
- Degree ("criminal justice degrees online," "psychology bachelors degree online")
- Hosting ("hosting ms exchange," "managed web hosting solution")
- Claim ("personal injury claim," "accident claims no win no fee")
- Conference Call ("best conference call service," "conference calls toll free")
- Trading ("cheap online trading," "stock trades online")
- Software ("crm software programs," "help desk software cheap")
- Recovery ("raid server data recovery," "hard drive recovery laptop")
- Transfer ("zero apr balance transfer," "credit card balance transfer zero interest")
- Gas/Electricity ("business electricity price comparison," "switch gas and electricity suppliers")
- Classes ("criminal justice online classes," "online classes business administration")
- Rehab ("alcohol rehab centers," "crack rehab centers")
- Treatment ("mesothelioma treatment options," "drug treatment centers")
- Cord Blood ("cordblood bank," "store umbilical cord blood")
Obviously you need to pick this list with a grain of salt, and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to start building websites to target those keywords directly. Nonetheless I think that having an idea of where the money is flowing online can be quite useful.
