Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Horribly Wrong: Adwords keyword tool advertiser competition

Google's Adwords Keyword tool supposedly shows how much competition there is for a given keyword phrase, but sometimes when I perform a search on that keyword in Google, I see no ads whatsoever.

Here is an example:
According to Adwords there is a medium high degree of advertiser competition for the phrase "visa logo"

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Yet when I go to Google and do a search for "visa logo" I get zero ads.

Click for larger image

So, what is going on here?

When I am working with Adsense or Adwords I have started doing searched to verify that there are competing ads in Google. In Adsense, if you are trying to write content for a high competition ad, to get highly paid clicks, then you will want to know that there really are NO advertisers for that keyword.

In Adwords, no advertisers can mean a niche that none of your competitors have discovered, which is like finding money on the street.

Your thoughts?

2 comments:

Marf said...

My thoughts are to not worry if your content targets high-paying ads. Instead, write content that is interesting to lots of people. Once you get a good readership, the clicks will follow.

Techwiz said...

Writing quality content that is interesting is always the best plan. But, in choosing what to write about, a main theme for a blog, it pays to pick something that you have an interest in AND has high cost per clicks.

Thanks for coming back again, Marf!