When someone tells you to build a site with some high paying keywords, or to find what keywords are paying high and work around there don't think it's easy. Figure this one out ? I have a site on cryptozoology - the science of unknown species, such as bigfoot, nessie, mothman, etc and another site on Mesothelioma and health info. When using adwords or PPC the cryptozoology search words and phrases can often be bought for a penny to get in the #1 spots, while the health related words often cost $3-$5 or more to get in the #1 spots at times. But on my sites that use them words etc and have a lot of content for them, the cryptozoology sites adsense earns more than the Mesothelioma and other ads. In fact 'bigfoot' related ads pay me a lot more than say 'Mesothelioma' related ads. Quite a turn-around from what it was like 6 months back or less.
This is not just Mesothelioma, it's a health related site compared to a site on Cryptozoology. I find it strange that keywords that cost more than $5, pay out less for adsense then, keywords that cost a penny. I mean mothman, or bigfoot, or chupacabra adsense, earns me more than clicks on Mesothelioma, Bee Stings, West Nile Virus, etc..... I was always told that if adwords or PPC users are willing to pay a lot for keywords, the adsense ads would pay more, that is not always true I found out. There must be a LOT of variables. And yes I am new to adsense, just started in oct-nov of 2004, and have had my sites on the net since 2001
There are lots of variables... first of all, how do you know the keywords cost more than $5? Then there is smart pricing, where google tries to give the best price to the advertiser... and then there are just weird bids made by advertisers, I have some ads for all kind of wacky themes that pay quite a nice amount.