Cash Keywords

It's not Just AdSense Anymore - Highest Paying Keywords for Chitika eMiniMalls

This is just a superficial list, but already people are asking for Highest Paying Keywords for Chitika eMiniMalls.  Kristeen Timothy posts some keywords she feels are potentially good as high paying keywords for Chitika. 

From what I have read in other reports, Chitika works best for retail products.  In fact, Marketing Defined has a link to Chitika's recommended keyword list, and recommends looking at the top products in Amazon or Shopping.com for ideas.

Despite the fact that Cash Keywords data is based on Google, our most popular reports and keyword phrases in our Mega Report cover thousands of retail products and brands.  I know, because I have personally spent alot of time on our reports creating lists and getting the updated ones ready every month.

We'll certainly look into obtaining data for Cash Keywords' reports that more closely matches Chitika's Ad Network in the coming weeks.

Creativ's Make $5.00/day in 6 weeks or less Tutorial

Reading through an AdSense goal setting thread on DP Forums, I followed this link from Creativ to their tutorial on how to create a site from scratch and make $5 a day in Adsense in 6 weeks.

It's laid out plainly in steps, and he claims to normally charge 25% in earnings for teaching people this technique one on one. Ideally, you know something about blogs, templates, page generation (there is a correct way to do this), pinging and RSS. A little background creating scripts and databases doesn't hurt, but not necessary.

The thread took a turn to the black hat/white hat debate and whether Creativ is promoting spamming/his own agenda, but I felt more surprised that someone is openly willing to share their _some_ of their secrets.  We never share all of our secrets though.....

How much is an AdSense website worth?

How much is an AdSense website worth? thread at Webmasterworld on a topic that seems to be getting more popular all the time.  If you have been wondering too, take a look at some basic guidelines being discussed there.  You have always been ableto buy websites on eBay (not always the best quality though), and I have recently seen a Cookie cutter Mesothelioma site claming proof of income go for $1500.   I never did see proof of AdSense income anywhere in that auction, and I bet the buyer is hopping mad by now!

Playing the Numbers Game for AdSense Earnings Increase

Adsense Publishers on WMW making a medium amount of money on AdSense (defined there as between $300-500US a month) talk about ideas and tactics to double or triple their earnings per month. This thread doesn't require a membership to WMW to read, and is worth a careful look.

Getting more traffic and the quality of your website traffic becomes more critical if you are serious about generating more money through AdSense.  As this thread covers, just doing a quick AdSense math equation: impressions x Click Thru Rate (CTR) x click price = $X month  - doesn't work:

IF I get 150,000 unique visitors this month x minimum of 4 page hits per visit = 600,000 hits x at least 15% CTR = 90,000 click x $.80 per click (average) = $72,000/month.

"I once thought that way too but higher volumes of visitors doesn't always equate higher CTR or matching earnings. When you cast a very wide net you catch a lot of people who's interest levels vary in your topic and your site may not satisfy what they were looking for and they bail before clicking anything. "

In fact, as many of us have found, getting more traffic to the same pages results in a drop in click prices, sometimes by a lot. Then we end up with a frustrating process of more traffic and less overall Adsense earnings.  As I have talked about in another post, we have to account for AdSense Smart Pricing to assess your site and traffic, before we really know if the webpages we create will bring in the most money.

How Much will I make from a $3.45 keyword with Adsense?

I've been asked a few times in the last couple days the key question on Adsense publishers' minds looking at high price keywords.  It's the bottom line question: How much will I make from Adsense if I target a word worth $X a click?

The Answer:  No one really knows exactly what Google will payout for a given CPC with Adsense.  Just because you see top keyword lists with a juicy keyword at $3.45 a click, does that mean you will make all of $3.45?  No. Why not? Take a minute to ponder a closer, more accurate look at top keywords bid prices:

a. Key point: the bid prices listed is based on what the advertiser paid in Adwords.

b. Google only "shares" (pays) a percentage of the bid amount to adsense publishers which some say is 55-77%, but who really knows and is subject to vary.

c. Google uses Smart Pricing which, as I understand it, is a formula/algorithm to determine if your site/pages are a good match for the ads and creating a good ROI for the adwords advertiser.  Based on things like site relevance, ad CTR, impressions (traffic), and some other factors (nobody really knows what these are - we just make an educated guess, like we do for so many things in SEO!), Google creates a per click amount to pay out to you. So for a $3.45 top $$ keyword, based on 55% "payout" you could possibly expect $1.89, uh, depending.

I'm not the cagey one here.  Google is very careful not to reveal their methods and to have a program in place to benefit publishers, but still protect their stock holders' interests, as well as the interests of Adwords Advertisers.  In other words, "keep them [the publishers] guessing."  Google cannot afford to have their system manipulated so that at the end of the day the Advertisers are unhappy, and Google is left with less profits.  That won't keep Adsense Publishers from trying ;^)  But be smart about it.

I have heard of people creating top keyword based sites and getting very low cost per clicks back.  Sometimes, people get nice paying clicks for several weeks, then Google's smart pricing system kicks in and the $$ drop like a stone. BUT despite all this, the only way to know if what you are doing is working is to test like crazy - get a good stats tracker for Adsense and keep a log of changes you make. Joel Comm called that an "Adsense Journal" in his Adsense e-book - I just use a text file I add to as I go along; someone else may prefer to use Excel or Word.

Relying simply on keywords lists with just bid prices listed does not provide all the factors you need to look at to make more with Adsense.  You also need to look at several other factors to create a valuable list of keywords to work on.  Your time is valuable at $X per hour, isn't it? You won't be happy after putting hours into research and developing more content to have it sit there.

OK, if a top keyword database provider publishes keyword bids using Google's broad match, the bid prices are going to be off (Cash Keywords doesn't do this).  Keyword bid prices can vary quite a bit between Adwords broad, phrase and exact matches. So know what the bid prices are based on in terms of keyword matching to start. 

What about popularity?  Alot of popular keywords - esp the top 500 lists you see - are full of the lastest fads, TV and Movies names and celebrities, not exactly a good source of top paying keywords.  A balance between words that are searched often (assuming that means they are popular) and a good number of clicks per day is the sweet spot to look for.   That may mean you target a top keyword for only 67 cents per click, but that's OK.  Shoot for quantity (traffic/clicks) and quality (top bid price) in one package. Chances are the best keywords are not sexy or cool, but how better to fly under the competitive radar?

What about clicks per day?  A top paying keyword can have a bid price of $23 a click, but if the Google clicks per day are 1 or less, you will wait a LONG time to make any real money from Adsense (if you can manage to get thru the Smart Pricing effects).  This is the case with the overblown mesothelioma keywords.  It's a rare disease guys.  There are very few clicks per day, which makes the bid price irrelevant. BTW, Cash Keywords lists the Google clicks per day in Adwords as if the ad were ranked #1 for all Adwords ads. It's a guideline, but a really helpful one to use in selecting top money keywords to target.

Like any online business, if you find something that works, keep doing the same thing until it quits working. Guess what, over the years of working online, I find this basic piece of advice for making more money with Adsense, works/worked in making more money as an SEO, as an affiliate, and as webmaster.

This business is not rocket science or a magic bullet - in fact what can work to make more $$ with Adsense can be pretty mundane, becomes a routine and actually once the initial excitement wears off, it can literally be boring.  Hey, but getting a bigger check is never boring, right?

Bloggers Adsense Earnings Poll Results: ProBlogger

Darren Rowse has published his results on a Blog Adsense Earnings poll he ran on his Problogger site last month.  It could be that his audience is slanted towards new bloggers or bloggers new to Adsense, but most likely the earnings spread in his poll results is similar to Blogger Adsense earnings in general.

In upcoming posts we will dig up more examples of Adsense revenues some publishers have publicly stated on their website or in forums. The numbers themselves can be encouraging (or discouraging), but more than that, some people have stated CTR, CPM, what type of site they run, or even URLs.