High-paying keywords are not enough

This weekend we visited a member of my wife's immediate family who has just started treatment for lung cancer. As a result of this, I've

been learning a lot about lung cancer and cancer treatment in general. Let me say that it's not the kind of thing you wish on anyone.

Am I tempted to start a lung cancer information site? Not really. But aren't there high-paying keywords associated with that topic? Sure.

Use the Overture view bids tool to see for yourself. But high-paying

keywords aren't enough. This topic comes up all the time in various forums. Someone new asks “What are the best keywords for building a

money-making site?” Or even better, “I've got a site loaded with high-paying keywords, but I'm not making any money, why is that?”

You have to realize that high-paying keywords probably don't pay nearly as much as you think, for several reasons. First of all, remember

that advertisers can request that their ads only appear on Google's results pages. They'll pay significantly more for that privilege, because

someone searching for something on Google is more likely to be someone they're interested in reaching. Second, advertisers can actually target

specific sites on the Google content network (which includes AdSense publisher sites as well as bigger sites that use the AdSense Premium

program) and pay more for those. Third, Google's price adjustment algorithms can really reduce the amount that advertisers pay by tracking how

likely a click on your site is going to result in a sale/conversion/benefit to the advertiser.

So really, the likelihood that some random site I develop about lung cancer is going to pay well is pretty low. Choosing a topic solely by

how expensive the keywords are isn't the way to do it. Sure, you want to check to see what the topic pays and make sure it's reasonable for the

amount of effort you're going to expend, but don't base you topic decision solely on the price of the keywords. Write about something that

interests you, something you've experienced, something you'd like to learn more about, something that will benefit others. There are lots of

reasons to build a site, just make sure you have the right reason.

Eric Giguere is the author of Make Easy Money with Google, a real (printed!) introductory AdSense book for non-technical people, available at all fine bookstores. Be sure to download the free sample chapter for more information about the book.

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