Googles’ Pricey Top 20
One thing Google knows how to do is make money. In fact, if you conduct an online search of just how many companies they’ve acquired the list either comes close to or exceeds 100. Amazingly enough, with all the real estate owned by Google that’s not where the bulk of their money comes from. After posting their Q2 earnings for 2011 that boasted a 32% increase from the year before, it’s no wonder that many began to take an even more serious look into exactly where and how Google makes their money.
Of course, we all know Google as a search engine powerhouse. The question is with all the different business entities that Google holds, does search advertising actually generate the bulk of its income? In a word, yes. Wordstream, a PPC management platform, decided to dig deeper into discovering just how much revenue is being generated by AdWords. Although I’m sure they expected a significant portion to come from this end I don’t think anyone expected it to actually make up a whopping 97% of their income. This makes it clear that PPC advertising is, hands down, the breadwinner in the Google household.
In discovering this Wordstream decided to find out which keywords generate the most revenue for the search engine giant. They took the liberty of compiling a list of the top 20 most expensive AdWords keywords. By analyzing this list of which keywords demand the highest CPC, search engine advertisers may gain advertising insight into marketing categories that have the best profit potential. Below you will find the top 20 keyword list and their bid prices (may have changed since the date of this writing) for your review.
1. Insurance (example keyword: “auto insurance price quotes”) $54.92
2. Loans (example keyword: “consolidate graduate student loans”) $44.28
3. Mortgage (example keyword: “refinanced second mortgages”) $47.12
4. Attorney (example keyword: “personal injury attorney”) $47.07
5. Credit (example keyword: “home equity line of credit”) $36.06
6. Lawyer $42.51
7. Donate $42.02
8. Degree $40.61
9. Hosting $31.92
10. Claim $45.51
11. Conference Call $42.05
12. Trading $33.19
13. Software $35.29
14. Recovery $42.03
15. Transfer $29.86
16. Gas/Electricity $54.62
17. Classes $35.04
18. Treatment $37.18
19. Rehab $33.59
20. Cord Blood $27.80
A simple glance at a few of the bid prices on this list and it becomes a lot easier to see how AdWords keeps Google in the green. While paying such high bid prices may be out of the question for some advertiser’s budgets, it’s still a good idea to gather knowledge on which keywords create such a bidding frenzy and apply it to ad campaigns on a more affordable network, such as 7Search.com. You may be surprised to find that even on a second tier search engine you will enjoy a considerable amount of quality traffic on many of these keywords with far less competition and financial investment.