6 months later: an update on the bedtime story site for kids
Back in February I posted about starting https://bestbedtimestory.com — stories organized by reading time (2, 5, 7 minutes) so parents can quickly pick something that fits the moment.
Here's what's happened since:
The surprise: it's not just for kids. The single best-performing page on the whole site isn't a children's story — it's a page of romantic bedtime stories for a girlfriend/partner. It's now ranking in the top 3 for keywords like "bedtime story for girlfriend" across English, Indonesian, and Spanish, and it alone drove ~40% of the site's organic traffic last month. I did not see that coming when I started this.
Revenue-wise, quality beat volume. The site now earns roughly 2x more per pageview than my older, much higher-traffic Danish sister site — better ad viewability, better RPM. It recently became the single highest-earning site in my whole portfolio, despite having a third of the pageviews of the bigger site.
YouTube is the real growth engine right now. Across my sites, YouTube ad revenue is up ~144% year over year, driven mostly by a large back-catalog of animated story videos compounding over time rather than any single viral hit.
Still figuring out: whether to lean into the romantic/couples niche that's outperforming, or stay focused on the original kids' bedtime-story mission. Open to hearing how others have handled an unplanned niche that started outperforming the "real" product.
If you were in my position — an accidental niche outperforming the intended one — would you chase it or stay the course?
That’s a great problem to have—the 40% organic share and 2x revenue per pageview are strong signals, not just a keyword fluke. I’d run a 30-day two-track test: keep the main site’s kids mission clear, but give couples/romantic stories a dedicated hub with its own internal links and a small set of new pages or videos. Compare return visitors, email signups, and revenue per session by cohort before deciding whether to split the brand. Follow the demand, while keeping the option to spin it out if audience intent diverges.
congrats on a wild find. the romantic bedtime stories thing is such a good example of the internet telling you what it actually wants instead of what you planned.
I woudl chase it without a doubt. you didnot pick that niche but somehow or the other the traffic and search picked it for you and is actually outprforming on both rankings and RPM as you said in your message
the only risk I would watch for is brand confusion. bestbedtimestory being a kids site with a girlfriend content page ranking might feel a bit off to a parent landing there. keep the kids brand clean and let the other one run as its own thing.
Good insight man I would like to connect with you for a different project anyone
hanks! Happy to hear what you're working on...feel free to share a bit more here or send a DM or contact me at contact@bestbedtimestory.com
I sent you mail already
To respond to your niche, why not do both? Anything to do with children's education- reading to them our online school material always does well. I would just create a separate portal entry or create two separate sites. Interesting idea you have here.
That's actually the direction I've leaned! I split the video content into a separate YouTube channel and keep the romantic stories in their own section on the site, while the core brand stays kids-focused. Keeps the two audiences from bleeding into each other while still capturing both 😊
The 40% traffic share and higher revenue per pageview make the niche hard to ignore. Are the romantic pages also outperforming on revenue per visitor, or is the advantage mainly SEO traffic and RPM?
So far the advantage looks primarily like SEO traffic + ranking, that page alone drives ~40% of organic clicks and ranks top 3-5 across multiple languages. I haven't broken down RPM specifically for the romantic pages vs. the rest of the site yet, so I don't want to overclaim on the monetization side. But my hypothesis is it could run higher too, since dating/relationship content often attracts different advertiser categories than kids' content. I'll check the page-level numbers and follow up if it's a clear yes.
That 40% traffic concentration is a strong signal. I’d be interested in seeing what the page-level revenue data shows. If you’re open to it, what’s the best email to reach you on?
The six-month update is a great reminder that real usage can surface a different audience than the one you start with. How are you thinking about the romantic-bedtime-story segment—lean into it or keep the broader kids focus?
Good question! Honestly still working through it. My instinct right now is "both, but deliberately": keep the kids' content as the core identity (that's what the brand and the illustrated-story production pipeline is built for), but treat the romantic segment as its own lightweight vertical rather than trying to force it into the same brand voice. It's proven there's demand across languages, so it feels wasteful to ignore, but I don't want it diluting what BestBedtimeStory means to parents. Curious if you've seen others successfully run two audiences under one brand vs. spinning the second one off separately?