Ok - I set up a keyword lists, and got the pricing estimates for placing these ads with the adwords ad builder. How does the average CPC given by the adwords sign up compare with the CPC recieved by the publishers? I found a bunch of keywords for an area I am actually interested in building an e-zine type of site in which are going for $15-$30 per click on adwords! Thanks for any help
Is the $15 to $30 the price for the #1 spot? Adsense uses smart pricing which is a method of determining how relevant and important your site is in the eyes of google. A new site for such a high paying keyword is going to be sandboxed, so it isn't going to rank well for a period of at least 3 months - and possibly up to a year. To be considered an authority site, you will probably find extreme competition for the keyword (depending on how many searches are done for the keyword). You will probably be competing against authority sites that can spend in a lot of money on SEO. Some keywords (like mortgage related sites) can spend over $100,000 a year for a top ranking. I have some sites for sectors where the top position is more than you mentioned and they pay in the $1 to $2 a click. I think there are a lot of adsense publishers who would be happy to average 50 to 75 cents a click. Clicks in the dollar range would be considered on the high side for most keywords in my experience. Without knowing the keyword, it's impossible to say, but a click might pay 50 cents up to several dollars. To get clicks on competitive keywords that pay in dollars you should be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time to rank well with google. Some keywords are so competitive is can be a near impossible task without a large budget. It can be done, but it's not something that you should expect for some time. I would also check to see what the #10 position would cost to get a better idea of the potential. Also check to see how many people are competing for the word and what the PR of the top rankings sites are, and how many backlinks google shows for their site.
Ok - thanks for the reply! These keywords are not nescessarily so competitive. I have spent a few days researching the site out there, and in the niche I am looking at, there is only one other site. That site gets about 10,000 uniques per day, but after looking at their sitem I think I can take them down. Brian
The words must have quite a few bidders to be $15. If there was only one bidder, you would have a 10 cent word. As you know, price is set by a bidding process between people who bid on each individual keyword.
Google has filter in place for new websites. During this "sandbox" period they do not use your backlinks which calculating your search engine rankings (backlinks still show, PR shows). Since backlinks are very important in the google algorithim, it makes it extremely hard for a new website to get any google search engine traffic for a competitive keyword when they do not factor in your backlinks. This filter lasts at least 3 months, and some claim up to a year (depending on the keyword). Once google releases your site from the "sandbox", your rankings can see a huge jump overnight. There is nothing you can do to prevent or get out of the sandbox - as it based on the age of your website. Google grandfathered older domain names from the sandbox as long as ownership doesn't change. If you buy an older domain name from someone else, it will be treated as a new name (subject to the sandbox). This was done to prevent someone from just buying an old domain name to escape the sandbox. This is for domain names only- established/developed websites are exempt from going back to the sandbox.... i.e. if you buy an established 2 year old site, it isn't going to be sandboxed when the domain changes ownership.