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Secret To Get On The First Page Of Google

I was just reading this forum thread at Webmasterworld where this guy was complaining that he was not getting the $$ even though he was building sites targeting high-priced keywords. That got me thinking more about high-paying keywords. The rationale is quite simple - build a website around a topic where the keywords are a few dollars per click vs. a few cents per click and you’ll make more money, right?

There’s more to it than meets the eye. If it were that simple, everyone will be rich with me–the—a sites. Ha ha! The truth is you’ve got to look at things from the advertiser’s perspective as well.

If you’re the advertiser paying $10 per click, would you not keep a close watch on your ad spending? The truth is, many advertisers do not select to show their ads on the content network. That’s just because the ROI for ads shown on search results are far better than those shown on websites.

Well, let’s just say that the advertiser DOES select to show ads on the content network. Let’s say that the maximum bid for the keyword is $10. Let’s also assume a budget of $500 per day. That means if the clicks are going for $10 each, there are going to be 50 clicks per day. Translate that into one month and you’re looking at 1500 clicks per month. Suppose your website gets 10% of those clicks (that’s a very generous estimate). That equals $25 per day for you (assuming that Google gives you 50% of the click revenue). That means $750 per month for you.

Now unless your site is super targeted and your visitors are truly searching for what the ad offers rather than just click-happy surfers, what do you think the returns are going to be for the advertiser? Mr. Advertiser notices after one month that most of his clicks are coming from content sites and that he’s not making any profits from his Adwords campaign and turns off the content site syndication option.

Poof! Your earnings go to ZERO.

So… the bottom line is this. Go for keywords that will bring lots of traffic and are priced moderately - say less than $3 (that’s just a suggestion - you’ll have to test it). I think you’ll make more than if you’re targeting high-priced keywords.

I used to think that both strategies will work. High price/low volume and moderate price/high volume. Now I’m leaning towards the latter.

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