Keyword Elite AdSense Arbitrage Experiment (Part 2)

If you're just joining us for this experiment, please read Part 1 and AdSense Arbitrage - Still Alive and Well (the latter is a PDF file) before continuing.

Michael Plante's eBook

Not long after I published Part 1 of this series, one of my longtime readers (hi, Ed!) pointed out that the person who's the focus of the AdSense arbitrage report we're using as the basis for this experiment is actually selling an eBook on the topic based on his own experiences. The eBook is called AdSense Arbitrage and Leveraging. I have not read it yet, so I can't tell you if it's worth the money or not. We're going to continue this experiment using the technique described in AdSense Arbitrage - Still Alive and Well.

Michael Plante did visit my blog, though, and left me a note pointing out that my guess that he was targeting the spyware topic was incorrect. Neither was it customer relationship management. Oh well, I did say they were guesses… I'm going to continue on with spyware as the initial (public) topic.

Step 3: Keyword Analysis

At this point I've generated a list of over 1000 keywords related to the spyware topic using Keyword Elite's Project #1. Now we take the keywords and use KE's keyword analysis tool — Project #2 — to analyze them.

Again, the report's not too specific on how this stage works. On page 7:

I used KE to develop some keyword listings for this niche, using project #1, and then ran them through project #2 to get some basic information about searches, CPC, and number of Google AdWords campaigns…. I developed a list of about 10-15 high paying keywords in this niche….

Later on in the report Michael tells us to identify a group of 5-10 high paying keywords for that niche. So let's just settle on finding 10 keywords in our spyware niche.

I ran Keyword Elite on the list I generated yesterday. It actually took over an hour to fill out the list. KE throttles its queries to the various sites it's using so that you don't get banned from using them, so a full-fledged analysis can take quite some time.

Here's the top 25 keywords by AdWords cost according to KE:

Keyword	Results	Searches	R/S Ratio	KEI	Adwords CPC	Adwords pos.	Adwords clicks	Google Campaigns
spyware sweeper	1,700,000	1,698	1,001.18	1.70	$21.44 - $26.79	1 - 3	3 - 4	10
spyware doctor	1,900,000	17,924	106.00	169.09	$16.09 - $20.12	1 - 3	31 - 38	9
pest patrol	1,500,000	N/A	N/A	N/A	$14.91 - $22.37	1 - 3	8 - 9	9
spy sweeper	1,850,000	18,301	101.09	181.04	$13.77 - $20.65	1 - 3	69 - 87	10
spyware detection	2,250,000	2,705	831.79	3.25	$12.37 - $15.46	1 - 3	16 - 20	11
pestpatrol	951,000	2,782	341.84	8.14	$11.64 - $17.46	1 - 3	8 - 10	10
spyware dr	1,700,000	560	3,035.71	0.18	$10.99 - $13.74	1 - 3	2 - 3	8
stop spyware	3,630,000	698	5,200.57	0.13	$10.79 - $13.48	1 - 3	10 - 11	10
spyware firewall	13,200,000	234	56,410.26	0.00	$10.30 - $12.87	1 - 3	2 - 3	11
webroot software	1,700,000	798	2,130.33	0.37	$8.17 - $10.21	1 - 3	3 - 4	6
spyware blocker	1,620,000	3,906	414.75	9.42	$8.07 - $10.09	1 - 3	11 - 14	10
spyware checker	1,060,000	729	1,454.05	0.50	$7.97 - $9.96	1 - 3	2 - 3	11
spyware scan	2,250,000	3,279	686.18	4.78	$7.61 - $9.52	1 - 3	28 - 35	10
pc tools	340,000,000	2,982	114,017.44	0.03	$7.50 - $9.37	1 - 3	40 - 50	10
spyware killer	1,600,000	3,976	402.41	9.88	$7.46 - $9.32	1 - 3	14 - 17	11
spyware finder	1,580,000	299	5,284.28	0.06	$7.21 - $10.82	1 - 3	1	10
spyware	63,000,000	258,228	243.97	1,058.44	$7.12 - $8.90	1 - 3	1,624 - 2,030	10
free spyware scan	1,960,000	2,402	815.99	2.94	$7.10 - $8.88	1 - 3	9 - 12	10
counter spy	2,550,000	737	3,459.97	0.21	$6.97 - $8.71	1 - 3	2 - 3	5
remove spyware	4,040,000	N/A	N/A	N/A	$6.63 - $8.28	1 - 3	34 - 42	10
spywear	70,700	573	123.39	4.64	$6.54 - $8.17	1 - 3	6 - 8	10
anti free spyware	18,500,000	14,243	1,298.88	10.97	$6.50 - $8.13	1 - 3	16 - 20	10
anti spyware free	20,100,000	14,243	1,411.22	10.09	$6.50 - $8.13	1 - 3	16 - 20	10
detecting spyware	1,250,000	478	2,615.06	0.18	$6.47 - $8.09	1 - 3	1	11
spyware tool	13,500,000	525	25,714.29	0.02	$6.40 - $8.00	1 - 3	10 - 12	11

The naive approach would be to just take the first 10 keywords in this list. But the maximum CPC values shown here can be quite deceiving, as I've written before. Just because the top advertiser bids very high doesn't mean that the next-highest advertiser is bidding anywhere near the same amount. There may be a huge bid gap between those bids. Or between the 2nd and 3rd place bids. And, of course, let's not forget that these values we're seeing are for bidding on Google's search network (the search engine results pages) and not on the content network (AdSense sites), so they're definitely not reflective of the kind of money an AdSense publisher would get per-click. (Please refer to my high-paying keyword lists series for more details.)

Now, someone with access to AdSenseAccelerator could take those keywords and do a formal bid gap analysis of them, but I won't do that here because I want to replicate the experiment as described in the report.

The point of all this is to find the keywords that will trigger higher-paying ads. We'll then write content around those keywords and send traffic to that content by bidding on lower-priced keywords. If enough of the traffic converts and the spread between the lower-priced and higher-priced keywords is high enough, we end up spending money to make money — hence the arbitrage.

I think I'll stop here for now and let you think about the keywords shown above. What do you think is a good keyword to focus on, and why? We'll continue with the analysis in the next instalment.

Sponsored Link: Learn how to use AdWords effectively with AdWords Miracle.

Eric Giguere wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. His goal is to get his AdSense blog into Matt Cutts' blogroll.

Comments