For exam ple, take the sub jects that are fre quently dis cussed by the writ ers here at Con sid er ations. I did a Google Adwords search for the top ten most-expensive key words asso ci ated with a topic cat e gory. Then, I cal cu lated the aver age for the top ten. Here are the results:
- Finance $34.53
- Busi ness $32.65
- Mar ket ing $28.67
- Chris t ian $20.84
- Dat ing $16.43
- SEO $16.12
- TV $14.50
- India-Rupee $14.20
- Jewish-Israel $10.38
- Music $10.35
- Soc cer $8.96
- Eco nom ics $8.53
- Islam $6.56
- Reli gion $5.85
- Cul ture $5.84
- Pol i tics $1.79
The aver ages com prise the top ten key words in the cat e gory. Google, on aver age, charges com pa nies the listed price when ever some one clicks on an online adver tise ment gen er ated by a highly-popular key word in that cat e gory. (Google then pays part of that amount to the web site owner, though the com pany does not dis close how the exact amount is determined.)
The impli ca tions are obvi ous: blog gers and web site own ers who focus on finance, busi ness, and mar ket ing con tent and key words can make a lot more money from online adver tis ing than those who write on reli gion, cul ture, and pol i tics. In a way, this is not sur pris ing — the salaries of people who work in finance and busi ness are much higher than those who work in reli gion or pol itics. It is yet another way in which the online world is becom ing a mir ror image of the offline one.
After all, prices increase when there is more com pe ti tion in a mar ket for a prod uct or ser vice that is per ceived as valu able. Take the Finance cat e gory — I once worked for a forex web site in Israel in which there was intense com pe ti tion to be ranked on the first page of Google search-results. (There are many forex web sites doing the same thing.) The com pany fired a search-engine opti miza tion (SEO) staffer every week because some one was always viewed as not per form ing past 100 percent.
The forex web site gar nered roughly 400,000 page views per month. Say that 0.5% of vis i tors clicked on Google Ads (this is a rea son able click-through ratio). That would be 20,000 clicks. Mul ti ply that num ber times $34.53 aver age price for a top finance key word, and Google’s monthly rev enue from the site was $690,000. The forex com pany would then receive an (unknown) por tion of that amount.
Now, take the same web site traf fic for a polit i cal web site — Google’s monthly rev enue is $35,800 based on the aver age PPC of $1.79.
Finance and forex web sites, of course, are inher ently more valu able in mon e tary terms because the busi nesses aim to make money from exist ing money. Polit i cal web sites are comprised of opin ions that rarely gen er ate rev enue by themselves.
In a sense, the online PPC mar ket resem bles the offline labor mar ket. After all, peo ple work ing in finance earn sig nif i cantly higher salaries than those work ing in pol i tics or religion.
If a web site owner (or worker) wants to earn a lot of money, he will look into finance and business. If a web site owner wants to pur sue his pas sion, he might dis cuss pol i tics and reli gion. But if a web site owner’s pas sion hap pens to be finance and busi ness — well, then, he may strike dig i tal gold.
