I have a new website that I've built and have really put a lot of hard wotk and effort into. I went to the Google Adword tools and went straight to the top and chose two sets of keywords that have a high CPC, one having medium competition and the other lower CPC with low competition. I'll split this up into two parts; First set of keywords. This is an EDM and I have managed to get it to #10 on Google Serps in 3 weeks of launch the CPC of this keyword costs the advertiser around $9 for each click. I have had 6 clicks on my ads based on these first keywords with my earnings being only $1.20 per click !! Search queries per month: 480 Second set of keywords: These keywords I have done some very strategic backlinking and article writing and have managed to get to #28 on Google SERPS in 3 weeks since launch. The CPC of these keywords for the advertiser is above $65 for each click. I have had 4 clicks on my ads based on this second set of keywords with my earning being only $1.60 per click !! Search queries per month: 74,000 I'm averaging about 150-280 visitors per day coming from various sources, mostly organic and I can see the landing pages and search query so I know exactly what keywords have led my visitors to my site, and some are from a mailing list with the keywords used as hyperlinks directing them to my site. My CTR is under %1 What I'm asking is why am I only receiving such a tiny share of what the advertiser is paying for the CPC? If an advertiser is paying over $70 for a keyword and I'm only receiving $1.60 how does this equate? I'm very new to Adsense and I think I might be missing something here. I'm becoming discouraged and can't see the point in chasing the high paying keywords, working my butt off to get them ranked and then get paid pennies on the dollar for it. Can somebody please explain what I am doing wrong here?
Did you check to see if your Interest-based ads were on? If these ads are on, there's a possibility that your visitors are clicking on ads that are not related to your niche.
What you see in adwords doesn't reflect what the advertizer pays for a click on your site.. It's only a maximum bid, but usually they put this much only on the google search network, which is not the adsense publishers. Plus even on publisher networks, that's only a maximum, which never happens.. They pay only a few cents more than the others advertizers are ready to pay at this particular moment where you get the click. In fact the adword tool shows you what is more competitive, so for instance if you get $1.6 per click it's already a lot. Me I look for an average CPC of $0.1, I consider it correct. But then I want a lot of traffic and clicks. That's another strategy than targeting keywords with most advertizer competition.