Four Reasons Why the Entertainment Niche is Great for Making Money
Visitors arrive at your website to get something out of it and their preoccupations can be divided into emotional and rational interests.
For instance, they either seek out specific content or absorb information so they can re-use it in their personal or professional life. This is a rational interest.
Take the example of a blog about blogging or self-help.
Readers often seek to use the suggestions highlighted in each article on their own websites or in their professional life. They will spend time and effort to understand what you’ve written because they want to make use of the content they read.
At the other end of the spectrum, people will often visit a website because they want to be entertained. They don’t want to re-use information or apply it elsewhere, because they only seek pleasure or enjoyment on a surface level.
This is an emotional interest.
Of course, rational and emotional interests often intersect with one another. It is quite possible to have both an rational and emotional interest in a website.
While these two factors aren’t mutually exclusive, it is apparent that some websites are designed to entertain while others are less visceral and more tailored towards fulfilling a specific visitor/informational need.
Why the Entertainment Niche Rocks for Making Money
Image Credit: Paparazzi and Subject
Entertainment websites (e.g. music, movies and celebrities) are created to captivate, amuse and gratify. They appeal to emotional interests. You don’t visit a celebrity gossip blog to improve your life, you go there to laugh at something funny, to see something that kindles your desires.
I’ve recently created a big entertainment website, having spent a great amount of time within the industry online. I love this niche because it is vastly different from the usual tech/blogging/internet marketing fields, even though you are still essentially providing free content as a business model.
If you’ve run these sites before, you would know how remarkably different they are from informational blogs which generate income by educating users on a specific niche topic like freelancing, marketing, politics or blogging.
Entertainment sites are inherently easier to monetize and are excellent ways of earning some extra cash. Here are four key reasons why they are low-maintenance and yet high-profit, making them an ideal way to make money.
1. Unilateral Content Structure and One-Way Dialog
Image Credit: Kim Cathers
Most entertainment sites focus on unilateral reportage with a dash of opinion. They don’t actively engage the audience in dialogue and most of the time, visitors comment for the sake of commenting. They aren’t looking for traffic or exposure.
They just want a channel to rant about specific news topics or issues. Rarely do you see a celebrity blog engage the audience in active discussion on a specific topic. They don’t need to and visitors don’t expect it. The proverbial meta-blogging adage of pandering to your commenters/readers simply does not apply here.
These low visitor expectations make it incredibly easy to produce content and maintain an entertainment site, even when you are receiving well over 100 comments for every single post you make.
You don’t even need to read, let alone reply to the comments or user suggestions left on your site. I sure don’t. Nor do you need to worry about ‘building a community’, linking out or giving exposure to your visitors and supporters.
This lack of interactive communication and the mono-directional content structure makes the entertainment site not only low-maintenance but stress free.
2. No Need to Solve Problems, No Need to Provide Specialized Knowledge
Image Credit: Bad girls
Small niche sites around a certain topic usually attract passionate visitors with a certain level of knowledge. These visitors will seek to learn more from your website. The more you can improve their understanding on the specific topic, the more you gain their patronage, trust and readership.
This means you or your writers will need a certain level of expertise on the selected topic and must continue to keep up with the latest developments in the field in order to repackage this into free content that fulfills visitor needs.
On the other hand, the entertainment niche does not base its business model on the consistent delivery of specialized information. You don’t need to increasingly tailor your content to fit multiple visitor types (beginners/amateurs to experts/professionals).
Entertainment is a flat, one-dimensional niche that only requires you to consistently offer zero-barrier information based on popular and widely established concepts (celebrity brand names etc.). Anyone can enjoy pictures of Christian Bale or Jessica Alba but not everyone is fascinated by a blog about Wordpress.
The wide topical reach for entertainment sites naturally allows them to satisfy both new and long-time readers. If you market your entertainment site effectively through social media, it’ll easily pick up a wide spectrum of new readers because its content focus is not limited or exclusive to a specific niche.
3. Non-Savvy Audiences Are Great for Conversions
Image Credit: JR in Arles
It’s much easier to sell and profit from a crowd that doesn’t know an affiliate link when they see one. One that isn’t as cynical or ad-blind. Entertainment websites rarely disclose their affiliate links, because users don’t nitpick or care about them.
They don’t give a damn because they are not concerned with the authenticity of your opinion or the knowledge you offer. Why? Because they view and consume information as an ends instead of a means towards some other goal, which will essentially require them to verify the value of your recommendation.
News is always primary and the author is secondary. Ghost writers are extremely common in this industry. Disclosure just isn’t important when the integrity of the author is not an issue of concern. Everything goes. It’s like fishing with dynamite.
4. Exceptional Traffic Potential + Ease of Monetization
Image Credit: JWave Swinger
Informational websites tend to stink if they are plastered with ads, because somehow viewers may feel that it detracts from their ability to teach and deliver content. You might be seen as too ‘commercial‘ and this may harm your brand especially if you use it as a tool to get future clients/supporters.
Entertainment websites can be monetized immediately from the beginning because you’re not using it as a lead acquisition tool nor as a means to brand yourself in order to sell services or other products. What you see is literally the end of the line.
Celebrity blogs receive an incredible amount of traffic because they rank for keywords with very high search volumes. Their business models focuses on getting people in and then converting them into revenue through the display of high paying network or privately arranged ads.
New visitors arrive consistently to their website and repeat visits are made by the majority, who are not familiar or interested in RSS subscriptions. This high traffic turnover and straightforward revenue model is also accompanied by a crowd that isn’t strongly averse to commercial advertising.
This means visitors aren’t going to complain even if you make your entire site background an all-pervasive advertisement for a TV network (see Perez Hilton). They aren’t going to ad-block you or whine about your ethics in public.
Different Content Types Require Different Development Strategies
Image Credit: VW
I didn’t write this post to encourage you to start an entertainment website but to illustrate the differences between it and the popular pro-blogging model which teaches you to brand yourself, communicate with your readers, network with others.
Perhaps meta-blogging principles work better for informational websites who aim to teach. The different nature of entertainment sites have shown me that you don’t need to do a whole lot of tedious work to make real, solid income from free content.
Yes, the niche is saturated and very competitive. But long tail demand will always meet and perhaps exceed information supply in a very wide field.
There’s always more than enough to go around for everyone, especially when you know how to make yourself stand out from the rest of the clones.
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Thanks Maki for talking about entertainment sites. I have a couple of entertainment news based websites. Celebrity as well as sports. But I’ve strived for a low-key high-ranking strategy. So that these websites don’t have to be updated a lot - but the fewer posts still bring in a lot of traffic.
Ad conversion wise, they are the absolute best. The flip side is, they have a tad bit low earnings ceiling as the potential to create big ticket backends is low.
There are autographs and memorabilia. But other than that, not a lot of scope to sell something that would get a 3 to 4 digit income per sale.
Congratulations, I think your article is very well written. But what about image copyright? Do you not use images, or is it enough to credit the photos? Because I have a friend whose websites has been disabled from AdSense, in just one email with a standard text and one exemple of a page, where there was a copyrighted photo (hard to find any portrait photo of a star that is not copyrighted in anyway)
So what about copyright images and adsense?
Regarding Maki’s use of photos, they all have a Creative Commons licence (you can check yourself on Flickr).
He is attributing the photos (as is required) - but they also state only non-commercial use. As Maki does have ads on his site this would seem to be in conflict with the licence restrictions on the photos.
@Ankesh
Thanks for sharing.. I know many webmasters usually dabble a little with celeb sites, although the ones I know usually create them MFA-style, build links and update them sporadically. I prefer building large flagship sites that generate income from display advertising alone; the incredible amount of search traffic makes the niche perfect for it.
@James
As John has mentioned, I only used images with a Creative Commons license. I personally don’t think this goes against non-commercial use because I’m not making money off them directly (claiming they are mine and selling them etc.) nor am I trying to.
Here’s the definition of non-commercial, according to the Creative Commons license regulations:
I observe the license in the strictest sense; since there is no direct exchange of the work in return for monetary compensation, I don’t consider this usage to go against the license.
The images are freely accessible to anyone and the hosting of ads on a page is not directly correlated to the use of the images. For example, if I were running a website with content only available in a paid subscription format, or if I were to package the images within an ebook for sale, that would be a violation.
But this is probably not. It would be easier to buy stock but I do enjoy giving exposure to Flickr users I like.
Any other thoughts to do with the article itself?
Maki, what is your new site:)?? Or, are you keeping it a secret?
An interesting argument. I can see where entertainment sites would get higher conversions than niche sites in industries where the audience is web savvy (i.e. knows what Adsense is, knows what affiliate links are, etc.), but I’ve found consumer information sites in non techy/internet niches give me the highest eCPM.
When you get people to your site who are looking for information on a product, they’re already in buy mode, probably thinking of making a purchase soon. These folks regularly click ads and (even better) convert for the merchants on the other end.
People who are looking to be entertained, on the other hand, probably aren’t in buy mode. It’s a whole different mindset and in my experience these folks are less likely to click ads (unless tricked or on accident) and less likely to buy something if they do click.
That said, it can be easier to get big numbers to an entertainment site, so by sheer volume you’re likely to make some decent money. You’ll pay more in hosting (bandwidth) but it may not matter if you’re making enough.
~Annie
Maki,
You have a good point about the advantages of entertainment sites over informational sites, such as those directed at internet marketers and the like.
There is a lot of back end work involved in getting repeat visitors to an informational site that you don’t have to spend the time on with an entertainment site. If you want to have a chance of getting repeat traffic with a site aimed at internet marketers, for example, you need to spend time creating free informational products (ebooks, etc.), and then promoting those products just as if you were promoting a product for sale.
You could probably create several entertainment sites in the time it takes to fully create an informational site with free products, autoresponder messages, marketing articles etc.
Running an entertainment website seems a little like the high-risk car insurance companys — what their portfolio lacks in quality, it makes up for in sheer bulk. I’m not saying that entertainment website users are low-quality people, just that they have less interest in using the internet for their own business purposes.
Well done!
Thanks Maki - this was a real informative post. I did not realize there would be that many CC photos available to do something like this. Of course, I never looked either. Stock images would make it expensive.
As far as commercial use of the images, this is really editorial use when you are writing about the subject. I am pretty sure commercial use would include not only selling the image, but also using the image in an ad. You can’t use a photo of someone anyway in an ad without their permission. You could use it editorially without permission but you do need to be careful. I’m not a lawyer, but a photographer, so take what I just said with a grain a salt.
@Mike Pederson: I’m not disclosing my new site for now.
@Annie:
You’re right in saying that people aren’t going to be in the buy mode when it comes to entertainment sites, although they can easily be led into buying through some smart advertising (e.g. writing about a celebrity and then using an referral link for a product related to the celebrity/event/topic).
I’ve even seen large humor blogs like Boing Boing do something like that as well; they write about a personality and use an undisclosed Amazon affiliate link for his product.
However, the big money is really in display advertising, either CPC or CPM. Take for an example, Perez Hilton.. who makes around $111K+ a month from his blog.
You can see how much money the network ads on his site alone will cost at this link.
@ Lee
Definitely. Internet marketing websites have to spend a great deal of time and effort on persuasion. Even then, the amount of customers you eventually get is limited to your product/niche.
While you’ll get to earn more money per head with affiliate marketing, the sheer volume you can get from the entertainment niche is very impressive. I believe it all evens out over time.
I do think some of the entertainment sites out there are under-monetized, despite them plastering their sites with ads.
The real scary thing is if you approach the entertainment niche with internet marketing smarts.
Imagine building a list, entering into JVs with marketers, branching off into product development affiliates or direct ad deals with large companies within this niche.
You’ll really be raking in the money.
@ James (DigitalKeyToInfo)
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts. I agree with your points.
I guess thats what happens when you use too many great images in an article; People get distracted and start talking/thinking/wondering about the images instead of the actual content.
Anyone else who wants to talk about the images, please email me instead.
I am deciding on creating a magazine like celeb gossip website, still thinking about how it can be better and came your tips at the right time. Great!
Yeah I have an entertainment site too but I’m not too sure how to develop the concept of the site further such that I would be able to attract visitors. I’m still thinking hard on ways to improve it and this article would definitely help me.
Oh and why so secretive about your new site? :p
Anyway thanks for this great article Maki.
Yes that right, any body now what is the affiliate in entertainment celebrity,film,image,video in order more easy to get new info ?
Hi Maki,
Previously, I wanted to do an entertainment blog on my site, but due to a lot of start up hassle, I changed it to a personal web/tech blog.
I recently gotten a great domain for future projects in the entertainment niche, like what you mentioned. I know what you mean when you say entertainment is one of the key things people go online for.
By the way, what’s up with all the blogs suddenly saying “making money online” doesn’t work?
It does…. IF you’re a real established internet marketer and well known. Your blog will primarily sell IM stuff. Also, do not discount membership sites. By that I mean REAL membership sites with REAL good products. There are many membership sites making a lot of money.
So I guess, sooner or later…. we will be seeing a lot less “make money online” blogs?
The photos are nice. Girls are beautiful
Thanks for the advice. As a beginner with this whole blog thing I’ll take all I can get. Don’t forget though….sex sells! Always will.
I’m interested in knowing the site that you’ve come up with. I have a celebrity blog, tragicomical, and it’s so easy to create tons of content. Posting a bunch of pictures and adding opinion and snarkiness is what it’s all about.
Hey, I never knew that. This post gives new insights to me. Currently, I’m blogging about personal development.
So I guess, I’m on the rational end of the spectrum.
@DarrinW
I never said ‘making money online’ sites don’t work.
They can work if you want to get into the IM side of things. I know a lot of people who do and they do make money.
Just offering some solid reasons why I personally think entertainment websites are terrific for revenue.
They are really low maintenance and just flat out fun to market. ^_^
Thanks for a great post.
I think that I should work on something for teenagers. This could be hot !
Hobby blog and cooking blogs share some but not all of the aspects you describe. Hobby blogs, in particular, can develop quite a lot of traffic from long tailed search. (And I need to stop neglecting mine!
)
yes it is true maki.but the problem is entertainment niche sites are popping up everywhere and it is mostly recycled.i think like what lucia say.hobby blogs is better because hobby is something what most people will do and read to gain more information on it
personally i notice these 3 types of blogs are the most popular in the blogosphere:
1. make money on line
2. meta-blogs
3. celebrity blogs
Even though most of them are practically writing similar topics within their niche. Many run-of-the-mill 3-month old meta-blogs or make money sites can manage to have a decent number of subscribers.
do you think the entertainment niche will work across boundaries?
as in let’s say i am a webmaster in china..(just an example).. would i get the same kind of traffic that i wuld have had i been in the US.. even if i get the traffic will it filter into ad revenue..
on the face of it seems it will work, but it is purely intution..
Maki,
I believe there was a bit of a misunderstanding in regards to James’ original comment. To my understanding the images he was refering to were images that would be used on a “celebrity gossip site” of the sort you made note of in your post. (not the flickr imgs)
I believe he was asking about the sourcing of the paparazzi type images, of the sort you would find on these sites, as presumably the copyright would lie with the photographer. (though you tend to see the same images propagated around the interwebs)
So any word on a source for these images? as it is doubtful the site proprieters are out there capturing these image sets themselves, and equally doubtful they are paying a photographer for each set
@constructible boy– I wouldn’t say Hobby blogs are better than celebrity blogs. They can have some disadvantages and to create a good one, you must actually do the hobby. However, they don’t require the same degree of community building.
Good post. I especially liked the “3. Non-Savvy Audiences Are Great for Conversions” this really is so true. I recently started a site that fits the entertainment niche and the monetization is easier for the reasons you mentioned. I wish I have done this earlier.
Thanks for this. I’ve just started my movie/tv/pop culture blog and this came at the right time.
It was interesting to see when I posted about Marie Osmond tonight how the traffic spiked almost instantly. Now I just need to figure out how to convert those visitors into subscribers and get them to click the adds/buy from the affiliate links.
I would have to agree that entertainment/celebrity sites differ from many other types of blogs. Q Score provides pictures and videos of celebrities for the sake of just providing them to individuals. Not to illicit certain responses or to generate traffic. It is fun to post, in a non-critical way, letting the pictures and videos do the talking, instead of the writers opinion(s)
Maki - stop now, please. I really mean it. I’m getting sick and tired of having to bookmark every single one of your posts.
Do everyone a favour, eh? Spend the next couple of weeks posting crap so I have an excuse to unsubscribe from you.
Bang on Maki!
The movies/celebrity/entertainment area is a blog niche I’ve been giving serious consideration to lately, especially now that I’ve gotten my feet wet with my funny videos blog - another topic area that is easy to setup, easy to run, and is very low maintenance (actually, I do very little with it, as most of the work is outsourced, from finding the content to writing the blurbs for each post to doing the actual posting).
Thanks again (!!!) for pointing folks in another direction, i.e. something other than IM (way too much of that crud online, especially from people who have no business having a blog in that field).
Funman
Although i mostly agree with what you’ve written above, i have to say that running a entertainment blog (in my case music) isn’t as easy to maintain as some of you may think; that is if you want to run a popular one, that doesn’t survive off recycling news and such.
Recently I have started a blog in entertainment niche
I think soon I will be able to monetize it
Indeed, plus that viral marketing works great in this niche.
One of the beauties of the entertainment niche is that the backlinks come with ease. A lot of hardcore fans have google alerts set up for their favorite celebs so they’ll be coming to your site the day you post and then turning around and linking to your post on their forums, blogs, etc. So if you post first about anything, you can get some great backlinks to it. My site isn’t even completely built out yet and I’m already getting daily traffic because of google alerts. Half my traffic right now comes from opened emails.
Well, I have been running a Entertainment blog for over a year now, and I have to say, either I am ignorant and running it poorly, or its not as great as you think.
Now it could just be that I choose the wrong subject matter ( Jericho, TV Show On CBS) but still…. if anyone has any idea why this blog fails at any type of money making ….. i am totally open to suggestions.
jerichooncbs.blogspot.com
Good info here…i’ve actually been thinking about creating a blog in sports/fitness. My question would be, since i’m also into gadgets(i’m not all that technical though) and I also love women, could I maybe branch off and blog about these topics every once in a while?
Lisa,
There are several reasons your jericho blog isn’t doing well.
For one, your audience is limited to one show.
Two, your blog is very difficult to read because of the design, and frankly it’s just not that appealing design-wise.
Three, your ads are poorly placed and aren’t well targeted, especially the Adsense.
Four, it doesn’t appear your content is all that appealing either. For instance, I don’t see any pictures or particularly interesting content on the main page.
The choice of blogger as your platform was not a smart one either, and you haven’t even dedicated a proper domain to your site.
I don’t mean to criticize or put you down in any way, but you really have to dedicate yourself to making your site be the best that it can be. If you half-ass it, you minus won’t even put forward the effort in the first place.
Dear Bob
First, thank you for your comments. It has been just over a year since I began blogging, and the fact that you took time to tell me the facts of what is wrong with my blog is a great gift to me. I cannot learn what to do right with out someone telling me. I do not have the funds to get the books and such that others have to learn by.
I would love to get my blog off blogger and onto my domain, I am not sure how to do so without losing my link to CBS main page ( how to do a redirect)
I agree with everything your saying. Although my content is limited by what is happening right now with Jericho ( but I do have some awesome interviews with the cast
But, thank you for being so honest. I had no idea the blog was coming off so badly, I will say I spend hours at it, so at least in that respect, it is not half assed as I love my blog very much and I was proud of it.
I will just try to figure out how to obtain the ideas you give me some how.
Hey Lisa,
Sorry if I came off as a bit of a snob. I didn’t mean to do that, especially considering you’ve taken more action than most people ever will when it comes to putting a site up. You took the criticism well, even though looking back I see that I may have been a bit harsh. Here are a few things that you can quickly implement to make your site better.
1. Sign up with more affiliate programs. I highly suggest Copeac, Websponsors, and Hydra Media. The more you sign-up with, the better chance of finding affiliate programs that will work better with your audience. You should probably do step 2 first though, cause some affiliate programs will reject you based on not having your own domain and full control over your site.
2. Look into using wordpress. It’s free, all you have to do is download the source files. There are tons and tons of free tutorials out there on how to use it and configure it. Blogger really limits you for the future, and they basically own all your content as of now. It also doesn’t give you much control over your layout. If you’re scared about how you’re gonna design a wordpress site, there are tons of free wordpress templates on google. And here’s a free generator if you want it: http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/
3. Get hosting and a domain for your site. Domains are really cheap. We’re talking like $8 or something. I suggest NameCheap.com for a registrar. Then, get hosting, and get hosting with a company that says they have Fantastico which will easily allow you to install wordpress on your domain. I personally use AN Hosting, but there are plenty of others out there. Start with a small package. There are some that only cost $5 a month and are good, and you can always upgrade later.
4. Start covering a wider range of shows, and maybe even shows that have yet to air. Since you’re already working with Jericho, stay in the teen to young adult demographic. If Jericho gets cancelled, that way you can still stay afloat. You’ll need to adjust your branding for this to work and come up with a proper name for your site, so think about it before you purchase your domain. Also, start getting more pictures and keyword optimizing their file names and alt tags. Alot of people do image searches looking for their favorite tv stars and such, and this is one way you can get alot more traffic.
There’s a ton more I could tell you, but I think that’s enough to get you going in the right direction for now. Remember, Google is your friend. You can find free information on any topic, so use it. Hope things go better.
Sounds like the entertainment industry present an amazing opportunity for blogger.
Your highlight was very inspirational, on-point, and gave very clear instructions on the pros of an entertainment-oriented blog.
You goal there has to be the same as any other of your blog goals: create stimulating content that connects and speaks to your audience.
You hit the nail on it’s head when you said: “Entertainment websites (e.g. music, movies and celebrities) are created to captivate, amuse and gratify.”
Thanks for shedding light on this incredible opportunity!
An excellent article! i just cant bring myself to make a site strictly on celebrities, but will include them around a few of the sites i am making…
your site is chockful of great articles, its amazing! i have rss feed your site.
The point is never to finish it always leave it you know the main point out so everybody has a question to ask.
Go back in time and think tis morris time! how was it told back in a day? remember the time de lay sing o gram s…o…got a dash you know the rest… # sharp tip is tapping on the door c note singer is tapping music or wrapping. paper or rocking sissors cut off. more…got your foot in that door now…
maki, that’s why we are blogging about entertainment…
and, thanks for remembering us about this…
what blogging is about is OUR PASSION..
Thanks Maki! I used your work - this post + ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Social News Websites’ - in my 2 cents about the entertainment characteristics of social news websites.
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