|
|
How can I find out what keywords cost on AdWords?Dave, what's the best way to find out what competitors are paying on Google AdWords for specific keywords or related? I don't have an AdWords account, however, or I could just use that to find out, I imagine. Even if you had a Google AdWords account, I am pretty darn sure that you can't find out what a specific competitor is doing because of privacy and confidentiality policies. You can, however, certainly pay attention to what searches you do when you find their ads show up then research those specific keywords to ascertain the going rate for a given keyword. In terms of finding out how much ads are going for on AdWords, you can actually use the AdWords system, or, if you find that as Byzantine as I do or simply don't have an AdWords account, you can approximate things by using the easier - no account required - Yahoo Overture ad tool. Start off by going to the Overture Bid Tool. You'll need to verify your identity so the system knows you're not a spammer: ![]() Let's pick a keyword that should be fairly valuable: refinance. Sure enough, the per-click bids are pretty darn high: ![]() You can see that the number one position is going to cost you about $6.45/click, while number two and number three are both at $6.13/click. Those are really extraordinarily high! By comparison, plasma TV costs $0.69 for the #1 slot and mp3 costs a slight $0.14 for the top position. But don't race over to Google and start bidding! Turns out that the reason that these are cheaper keywords is because they aren't specific. Smart pay per click advertisers, whether using Overture or AdWords, know that there's a world of difference between "plasma tv" and "buy plasma tv", and sure enough, the latter is twice as expensive for the top slot. It's very interesting to experiment with this idea too. For example, ipod costs $0.60, buy ipod costs $1.01, cheap ipod costs $0.52, and discount ipod costs $0.66. The phrase free ipod doesn't have any bids, interestingly, nor does ipod killer (maybe Microsoft will bid on that down the road, once the Zune is released?) Once you have a sense of what keywords are worth in your space, the next step is to figure out how commonly they see searches. Let's stick with the Overture toolkit, though you might find that alternatives like Wordtracker.com or Nichebot.com are more to your liking. This time, you need to go to a different tool on the site: The Overture Keyword Selector Tool. Here's what it looks like: ![]() The keyword ipod generates: ![]() and if we go back to our earlier keyword of refinance, you can see the results: ![]() It's a bit of work, but you'll want to dig around with some keyword research, identifying those narrow, specific keywords that will help you precisely identify potential customers, then use the bidding tool to see how much it would cost for you to have top placement. Not necessarily slot #1, however, because you can easily overspend to be at the very top, but perhaps #2, or #3. Then you can focus on converting that traffic rather than worrying about how your competitors are bidding.
More Useful Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Articles:
✔ How much money should I be making with AdSense?
Hey Dave, I get ~130.000 views per month and for 30 days of using AdSense I earned $60, is it a lot or...
✔ Add Po.st Social Media (Facebook, Google Plus) widgets to your blog?I really like the set of social media buttons you have on the pages of your AskDaveTaylor site, Dave. What are they, and...
✔ How is CPM calculated on Google AdWords YouTube Video?Have you bought Google AdWords Video [actually it's called "YouTube Promoted Videos" -dt] before? I'm confused about whether the CPM bid for 1000...
✔ How do I connect my Google AdSense and Analytics accounts?I'd like to connect up my Google AdSense account and my Google Analytics stats account. I understand that if you do this, you...
✔ Why doesn't AdSense earn me any money?I subscribe to any Google Adsense earnings but zero in the day, I do not know why: I hope you can advise me...
Let's stay in touch!
Sign up for my weekly AskDaveTaylor Newsletter and you'll receive even more tech and gadget help
right to your inbox, along with exclusive news and industry updates. It's good stuff. I promise!
Categorized:
Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
(Article 6831,
Written by Dave Taylor)
Tagged: adwords, bidding tools, keyword research, overture, ppc Previous: How can I time portions of a Linux shell script? Next: What is the Taguchi method? Reader Comments To Date: 6Toha said, on February 1, 2008 7:12 AM:
None of above links to those tools works? Jenny Pretty said, on March 28, 2008 12:45 PM:
why did you give us the link that is not working? so, can you please tell us how to know the adwords keyword cost? susanne r. said, on July 2, 2010 10:11 AM:
I was looking for this info for a really long time until I found this, and this is exactly what I needed! Thanks so much! (the overture bidtool does not seem to working at the moment though!) Jay said, on July 17, 2010 11:20 PM:
I'm also looking for this information. Please update this post. jinny said, on May 8, 2011 11:01 AM:
thank you for all your efforts on this Web site
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!Check This Out Too... |
Recent Entries
Look for Answers
Recommended
All Our Categories
Apple iPad Help
Articles and Reviews Auctions and Online Shopping Blogs and Blogging Building Web Site Traffic Business and Management Computer and Internet Basics d) None of the Above Facebook Help Google Gmail Help Google Plus Help HTML, JavaScript and Web Site Programming Industry News and Trade Shows iPhone and Cell Phone Help iPod, Sony PSP and MP3 Player Help Kindle Fire Help Mac OS X Help Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising Pinterest Help Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Shell Script Programming Tech Support Video Help The Writing Business Twitter, LinkedIn and Social Network Help Unix and Linux Help Video Game Tips and Help Windows PC Help Find Me on Google+ ADT on G+ |
RIP to this tool. Any other good ones out there these days?
I had some in my bookmarks but those have grown reeeduckulously large to navigate - thus my current search.
TIA