Before we proceed into this topic, I’ll like to make some points clear. The first is that as you build your site to make money with Adsense, make sure that you write quality content that will be useful to your readers. Failing to do so will make you a failure. Google is now cracking down on useless adsense sites that are made for the sole purpose of generating advertising revenue. So you should build adsense sites that have unique and useful content.
The second point I’ll like to stress is that you shouldn’t monetise your site with only Adsense, go for other monetisation options like affiliate marketing and Cost Per Mile advertising. This way you’ll gain more out of the same effort you put into your site.
Now let’s see how you can maximize your Adsense earning with keyword research. But what is keyword research? This is a very huge topic on its own but I’ll give you a simplify version of what it’s all about. But wait! Do you even know what keywords mean? In case you don’t know, keywords are those words that you use when searching for information in Google or any other search engine…
Keyword research has to do with the following:
- Finding keyword phrases that have high or fairly high search volume.
- Finding keywords with high estimated Cost Per Click value (This is the amount of dollar Advertisers will pay Google per click and Google will give you a percentage of this amount) and
- Finding keywords that you can easily rank high for in Google or any other search engine.
Let’s look at these lists more closely. The tools we are going to use to find out the value of all these data are:
- Google Keyword Planner
- com and
- Traffic Travis
The Google Keyword Planner will show you what people are searching for through Google. For example, if you type in the keyword “thermometer” into the tool, it will show you the number of times that keyword has been searched for in Google. The tool will also generate hundreds of other words/phrases that are related to thermometer and the number of times each of those words/phrases has been searched in Google. From the number of searches, you can pick keywords that have high search volume (about 1500 exact searches per month and above) and use them in your articles.
Why should you use popular keyword phrases in your article?
The answer is this: If you use popular keywords in your articles, you’ll rank higher in Google whenever someone searches for that keyword. Remember that your primary aim is to make your webpages to appear on the front page of Google whenever people search for your target keyword. This technique of using popular keywords in your content is called on-page SEO.
The Google Keyword Planner also provides you with other information like CPC (Cost-Per-Click) and Adwords advertising competition among others. While building Adsense sites, you should keep your eyes on these two data. Choose keywords with high CPC and high/moderate advertising competition. For example, you may decide to choose keywords with $1 and above CPC and moderate or high advertising competition. To sum it up, you’ll use the Google Keyword Planner to find popular keywords that have high value of CPC with enough advertisers bidding for them. This is a task you’ll have to accomplish. For more information on how to use this tool, read this article about the Google Keyword Planner.
Can Your Webpage Appear on Page 1 of Google for Your Target Keywords
Like I said before, your primary aim is to make your website to appear whenever people search for information relating to what you have on your site. After getting a big list of keywords that meet the 3 criteria discussed above (i.e. high CPC, high monthly search volume and moderate or high advertisers’ competition), the next thing to consider is how difficult it will be to rank well for those keywords. To determine this, you’ll need tools like BackLinkWatch.com and Traffic Travis.
Note that when you do a search for your target keywords in Google, those 10 webpages that appear on the front page of Google search result are your competitors. To out-compete these competitors and make your own webpage to appear on the front page of Google, you have to build back links to your webpage. But how do you know the number and quality (in terms of page rank) of back links to build? BackLinkWatch and Traffic Travis will tell you that.
Now that you know who your competitors are, copy the URL of the first competing website and paste it into BackLinkWatch.com. The tool will then show you the number of back links your competitor has, together with the URL of the webpages where the back links are coming from, and the anchor text of the back links. Also do the same using Traffic Travis. With the information from these two tools you’ll know the number and quality of back links your webpage need to appear on the front page of Google search result.
The reason why we’re using both BackLinkWatch and Traffic Travis is because BackLinkWatch.com cannot show you the page rank of your competitors’ back links while Traffic Travis can. The higher the page rank (PR) of those sites linking to your competitor, the more difficult it will be for your own webpage to out-compete the competitor. For instance, if a competitor’s webpage have one back link from a PR 6 webpage, you cannot out-rank that webpage with a thousand back links from PR 0 webpages (if both sites are targeting the same keyword). This is why it is important to know the page rank of your competitors’ back links.
Generally, when analysing the back links of your competitors, you have to take note of the following:
The number of back links they have
The quality of the back links (i.e. the page rank of the webpages where the back links are coming from) and
The anchor text of the back links (i.e. the link texts of the back links)
All the criteria listed above have great influence on how search engines rank webpages. If you build large number of quality back links with your keywords in the anchor text, your website will rank higher in search engine result when someone search for that keyword phrase. To outrank a competitor, you have to beat him in terms of quality back links that have your keywords in the anchor text. In terms of number of back links, the higher the quality of your backlinks the fewer number of backlinks you’ll need to outrank a particular webpage.
Another good SEO tool for analyzing competitors is SEOSpyGlass.
In summary, to make more adsense profit, you’ll need keywords with the following characteristics:
- High Cost Per Click (CPC)
- High search volume (over 1500 monthly search volume)
- High/moderate advertisers competition and
- Low website competition: (You should be able to make your webpages to appear on the first page of Google search result for any keyword you’re targeting).
By using such keywords in your content, Google will serve up adverts with high CPC on your webpages and this will boost your Adsense revenue, every click will yield more money for the same effort made in attracting the traffic. For instance, if your Google ads got clicked 5 times in a day and Google pays you $0.05 per click, your earning per month would be merely $7.5. On the other hand, if you target popular and high-paying keywords that generate $3 per click, you’ll be getting $450 for the same click through rate (i.e 5 click per day). This is how you can boost your Adsense earning and turn your website into a cash-gushing technology. But…
Making money with Adsense is all about traffic!
You have to constantly work on attracting traffic to your website through various means like forums, blogs, article directories, web 2.0 sites and so on. Getting people to visit your site is where the work lies. You need thousands of visitors per month to generate a reasonable amount of money with Google Adsense.
Warning! See Why Google will Terminate Your Adsense Account!
If you do not read Google terms of service very well, Google won’t hesitate to terminate your Adsense account if your site is found to breach their program policies. They have extensive monitoring programs that can detect any site that breach their terms and agreements. Google terms and agreements cover things like:
- You should not click on ads that appear on your site.
- Do not generate clicks using robots or by any means
- Do not trick your visitors into clicking the ads
- There shouldn’t be broken links on your site
- The info on your site should not be out-dated, illegal or offensive
There are many more, make sure you read them very well to eliminate the risk of being ban. The terms and conditions may change with time so make sure you check back once in a while to see if there are any changes.
Finally the heart of the whole matter is proper keyword research and getting targeted website traffic.