Britney Spears, Top Web Searches and Where You Fit In
The desire and demand of celebrity tabloids and political gossip in the US is amazing. In a recent article form Adotas, Yahoo reported that the most clicked story of the year was Barack Obama’s presidential victory. On the flip side, Britney Spears and her massive comeback is nearly just as popular, not to mention that she has dominated (top 10 placement) the search market for seven of the past eight years. In addition to Britney Spears, other hot topics for the year were World Wrestling Entertainment, Miley Cyrus, RuneScape (game), Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan , Angelina Jolie, American Idol and Naruto (Japanese cartoon series).
Just from looking at the list, you can tell the big names in Hollywood are the majority of searches… but how can you make money from this? If you do a search on Google for any popular celebrity, you won’t find many (if any) affiliate sites… these keywords are usually too expensive and usually only big name advertisers appear. What’s an affiliate to do? Here are a few ideas how you can tap into the massive celebrity and top searches in the new year.
Create Celebrity Polls & Surveys
Yes, they are mostly annoying and all over the place… but that’s because they work. You can easily target any celebrity, movie or new topic through Google Content Network, and still get cheap clicks. The highly recommended PPC-Coach (which I am also a member of) spends the first month of your membership, walking you through how to setup your own celebrity polls and surveys, which then back out into CPA offers. In the end, you can pay cheap clicks for celebrity traffic, get them to your survey, then pass them on to a CPA offer.
(Tip: For best conversions, setup a survey/poll site that is targeted to one topic or celebrity, then try and find a backend cpa offer that is just as targeted. Rextopia has an offer that pays $1.00 and is a celebrity quiz. Create a poll that says “Is Britney Really Making a Comeback?”,… user clicks YES or NO, then is sent to the survey offer. The possibilities here are endless. More info on creating polls. )
Create a Blog
There are a ton of big celebrity gossip blogs out there. The idea of creating a celebrity gossip site may seem fun and easy, but to actually grab a viewer base from these bigger players may be harder than you expect. Try picking out ten or fifteen different celebrities, create a gossip blog for each of them, write content (or hire someone), then link up with a few other sites and soon enough you may find one of your celebrity blogs at the top of search results. Where’s the money to be made? Easy, with little effort you could place Google Adsense on your blog… or even try getting accepted into ValueClick Media or CasaleMedia for CPM ads. The best way to find what is working on celebrity blogs, is to do a Google search for “celebrity gossip”, and see what advertisements are working on those sites.
(Resource: Looking for a list of the top celebrity blogs? My friend Daniel over at DailyBlogTips, has compiled a running list of the Top 25 Celebrity Blogs.)
Celebrity Videos & Pictures
Taking the blog idea a bit further, you can create a celebrity video and pictures web site. Using the same advertising concept as the blog, you can place Google Adsense, CPM banners or CPA links through out the site. Grab your content from YouTube, or upload your own videos which then link the user back to your web site. In this scenario you are able to get free content from YouTube for your web site, while pulling over free traffic as well. (What content, and how you get it, is another story.)
There is a never ending supply of gossip and news that is funneling people to search engines every day. Just take a look at any top search queries and you will see a new celebrity or event every day. If you have a well ranked celebrity blog, targeted towards one of those new scandalous photos sent to a boyfriend, or just got out of rehab… get ready for some massive traffic and a few extra dollars. Cover all of your bases and this could be quite lucrative!
Wait... before you leave, consider these top resources:
<a class="replyTo" href="#comment-92436" rel="nofollow">@Wayne Liew:
Unfortunately most people searching for celebrities, gossip or blogs, aren't in a buying mode. They usually just want pictures and news. It's always easiest to get the user to fill out a survey or form vs. buying something, since they dont have to pull out a credit card.
You can also look at it this way. Is it easier to get a person to fill out a form (which makes you $1), or have them pull out their credit card and buy a $20 movie from Amazon, that would also make you $1 (5%).
If you have a current blog already, writing reviews on movies or products, these may index well separately in search for direct results, or people looking to buy… but on site sales for a blog in celebrity gossip is tough.
Dang it, Zac! It's no wonder you're a super affiliate and that your blog is creating more of you… hopefully, i'll get to join their ranks too. The ideas and opportunities for making money that you present here are not only great ones, but they also open your mind to a different way of seeing things and open new doorways for monetization that I would have otherwise never seen. Thanks, and keep up the good work!
I was actually looking at doing a celeb poll site the other day. I am still looking t to it. There is a ton of money there to be made still and advertising on Google content network is fairly cheap too, if you have a good poll you will convert lots.
Google trends is a great place to do research. I started a new site on the weekend and the trends for my main keyword are starting to climb lots this past year and the front page of Google only has junk listings and low PR sites. This should be interesting to see what my outcome is over the nest few months….forsure.
I am even taking it to the next level to try and beat out the rush of sites and thats to get a .co.uk name as well.
Hey, Zac:
I just recently created a Twilight fan blog and organic traffic is decent as this is a hot niche right now. And i'm monetizing it via Adsense and the Amazon affi program.
Any other tips on how to best monetize this type of blog? And do you think i should plaster it with more stuff on the sidebar. I suppose i could/should add some polls and more interactive type things. I just about this as i was typing.
Would love your feedback on my latest and greatest.
Missy.
Sorry for the quick 2nd comment. But i just thought of something else. I suppose i should look for some of the types of offers you mention above in your post and add these to the blog.
The affiliate networks i use include Shareasale. This is one of my faves, because it is nice and simple, plus they have a good selection of merchants. I am a member of CJ and Linkshare, but have not had much success with these two, yet.
And i only recently started using Amazon. I don't like that they pay 2 months after a sale, that kinda sucks. But they are HUGE and recognizable to the everyday consumer. And i really like how easy they have made it to incorporate links to one's site with the intro of the new site stripe thing. A must use network, but it takes forever to get paid.
Same with eBay. Just started dabbling with it.
I will look for some CPA poll type offers and see what i can find. Look forward to your response on my new movie and celeb blog.
Over a year ago I saw the oportunity of the combination of celebs and politics. It seemed that every celeb has a political veiw and not afraid to voice that view. I haven't tried to monitize the site yet, but I think the niche could support a significant amount of traffic. I enjoy reading the blog. thanks.
i am trying to monitize celebs with their gossip, although will lot of people doing it but just do it anyway. love blogging.
I have 4 celeb sites and they are all polls with offers and all of them together make the monthly payment on my BMW 545. Its like getting a free car cause I only date the sites like once a month. I love passive income!!!!!!!!!!!!!!