AdSense Tip #11: Plumb AdWords for keywords

Hopefully you've been following my ongoing series of Google AdSense Tips in your quest for better earnings with AdSense. This tip is for those who followed my advice in AdSense Tip #10: Join the AdWords program. If you're not an AdWords customer, you can't do this.

AdWords customers have access to a number of useful tools, including the following:

• Keyword Tool to build keyword lists and do keyword comparisons
• Traffic Estimator to see how well certain keywords perform

Now while these tools are designed for advertisers to use, they're also extremely useful for us publishers. Particularly in finding the right keyword combinations for attracting more visitors (and ideally more clicks) to our site.

Here's what you do, it's all very simple. First, log in to your AdWords account. Then click on the Tools link in the Campaign Management tag:

Next, click on Keyword Tool:

Now type in the main keyword/keyphrase for your site and press the Get More Keywords button:

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Additional keywords to consider link:

Scroll back to the top and select Cost and ad position estimates in the Show columns drop-down list:

You won't see any estimates until you enter a value in the Calculate Estimates using Max CPC field. Use the maximum value for the currency you're working with, which in my case is CA$120 (approximately US$100), and press Recalculate:

Now you'll see estimated average cost-per-click values for each of the keywords in the list. Click twice on the Estimated Avg. CPC link to sort the list in descending order (highest to lowest value):

And presto!, you have a list of potential keywords showing what it would cost you on average to get top billing for your ad:

AdSense earnings are based on what the publisher pays per click, so this handy tool gives you a good idea of which specific phrases are good ones to target. That said, be aware that the price you see listed here is only the maximum bidding price and that most advertisers will in fact pay less. That and Google's smart pricing algorithms will all conspire to reduce the amount of money you actually earn on a per-click basis. So don't treat the values you see here as the Gospel truth — but they're good for judging the relative worth of different keyword combinations. See my high-paying keywords page for more information.

Once you've looked through your list and identified promising keywords, head back up to the Show columns drop-down and select Keyword popularity to see which keywords are the most searched for and which how popular they are with advertisers. If most of your traffic comes from search engine traffic, you'll use this information to further refine the list of keywords you should target.