Do comedy blogs make money?

[SarahCohen2010]

So the best way to make money is to go after a niche.....

However I have an idea for a comedy blog like:

This is why youre fat .com (sorry cant post links yet, search for it)

But can these sites make money? they presumably get lots of traffic but can you montize them? would adsense ads be to random and not targeted?

Is it worth my time?

Sarah

[TristanPerry]

An interesting idea. I guess it depends how good your template and advert positioning is.

However as long as you target a keyword for each blog post (or whatever), then chances are you will get targetted visitors and hopefully targetted adverts.

Obviously just writing comedy for the heck of it will probably get traffic but not as much revenue (since your visitors may not be interested in the ads), if (as above) you pick out a good keyword to focus on for each blog post, you can probably make a good amount of revenue.

[SarahCohen2010]

Each post is just an image - and all images are based around the same subject.

So unfortunately it will not be able to target lots of different keywords. I could see the site becoming a big hit on Digg and Social sites if it works.

Perhaps Adsense is wrong then - and i need a more general way of advertising, due to the high traffic it could receive.

Any ideas?

[samcarson]

Sarah I know someone who ran a comedy blog for a couple of years and made peanuts with adsense. If the content is too good, why would a visitor click on an ad?

[bgmacaw]

CTR on comedy sites is usually around 0.5% or less. This is quite poor. A good performing Adsense niche site should be around 10% at a minimum. The basic problem is that your traffic isn't targeted buying traffic but entertainment seeking traffic and aren't inclined to click ads.

If you're able to get enough traffic though you should be able to make some money at it. If you get 10,000 unique visitors a day you'll make around $200-300 a day, 100K uniques, maybe $1000-2000+. Most comedy sites will be lucky to get 5 cents a day though because they just won't have the traffic.

[rliddle]

hmmmm, you would have to have a spectacular comedy site that everyone knows about. and then really the adsense would take people away from your site. Not that great, maybe you could sell sponsors or banner ads if you had the traffic. or links if it got the PR.

[Lloyd Buchinski]

I have a humor site getting decent traffic now that makes almost nothing with 'adcents.' Part of the problem seems to be that if you have an article about funny things that happen in an elevator, adsense will try to sell elevators or stair lifts. It would probably be farther ahead selling joke books or humor items but can't seem to see the larger category because the word humor isn't used on the pages.

I tried replacing it with CB joke books but the selection was small and not very good. Might try Amazon next.

I actually came to this forum to ask that question about adsense today, is there a way to focus it on a large category like humor, but from the answers to this thread so far it doesn't look like it. Or would anyone know of a way? It wouldn't be hijacking the thread since it is directly related to the original post.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski

I actually came to this forum to ask that question about adsense today, is there a way to focus it on a large category like humor, but from the answers to this thread so far it doesn't look like it. Or would anyone know of a way?

For large categories to work with Adsense you have to have huge traffic in order to compensate for the low CTR and potentially smart pricing. The basic problem you have is that your traffic isn't targeted buying traffic but largely untargeted entertainment seeking traffic.

Probably the best monetization approach is to find unique-ish CPA banners that can catch the attention of the casual surfer or, if your traffic is high enough, impression based banners.

[snvservices]

According to me, people loves humour and comedy blogs will work the best for you the best as it will drive good traffic to your blogs and you will have huge list of unique visitors too.


This will automatically increases ROI of your site, also, increases your PR too.


Thanks!!

[esh]

Hi Sarah, I ran a comedy blog that just scraps videos from other sources. The site did well and i made my first $100 in 2 months. Then i youtube deleted my videos and i lost all traffic. I then switched on my focus on other sites and let this domain expire. Here are my takeaways. 1. Use video sites that revenue shares like viddler. 2. Attribute the video source in the video itself. 3. Always upload your video to 5 different sources, as one fizzles out, you can tap in to another. 4. Just upload a video with catchy thumbnail image, with no comments or content that go with it. It works well. Categorize and Niche it well, and then use tags to maximum. 5. Promote your site's feeds over the niche aggregators. 6.once you make 100-200 videos, you will start getting atleast 100 uniques a day. You can then monetize with adsense as well as revenue sharing site. Hope it helps. Esh

[JMartin]

The problem isn't AdSense it's people not thinking about their visitors.

Why are people coming to your site? What "mood" are they in? What are their goals?

Just a guess, but the typical visitor to a comedy site isn't looking to solve a problem or buy a product. That visitor might just have a few minutes and need a laugh or might just be bored. None of these = a good clicker/customer.

[sezerb]

If you're thinking about making money through adsense I don't think the clicks amount to much in the comedy niche.