High AdWords Cost with Low Traffic
-
I'm seeing a lot of keywords with very little traffic but high, sometimes very high cost per click in AdWords.
Can someone explain to me why this is common?
I'm researching buying keywords. With the low traffic they seem like little value but when I see people $20 a click it seems like high converting and thus maybe worth going after. But the high cost is just not making any sense to me for many of these keywords.
Thanks.
-
Here is an example. It seems to be of little value to rank for:
The word is "tool competition" and has a search volume for exact match is 46 and the CPC is over $17.
However when I google that term I saw no ads on my US or Philippines IP addresses. So I'm GUESSING that there are ads targeting a website of high value. I know very little about AdWords.
Doesn't have much to do with SEO now that I think I figured it out.
-
I see the results in SE Cockpit which I am pretty sure that they get it direct from AdWords though.
I'm not bidding, I'm trying to evaluate the buying keywords. You know, needle in the hey stack.
High CPC with high search and low competiton. (number of competitors is NOT an indication of competition strength. I don't even look at numbers for competition analyse.
I'm mostly curious why I see people paying huge fees so often on keywords that just happen to have low volume. If it was a brand name for their website, I could understand but usually it isn't. I see this a lot, perhaps I'll go dig out an example or two. Looks like I need to.
-
Cost is based on the competitive market for the keyword, not necessarily on the search volume, so don't let low search volume mislead you as to CPC.
Where are you getting your Cost per Click figures? Google often suggests a much high bid than is required. Also as you drop down in position you can see a significant drop in CPC. Position 1 might be $20. per click, while position 3 might only be $1.25 per click.
Sometimes you do run across a keyword where you can't justify the cost. Just keep looking, there are plenty of other keywords you can consider.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Target Search Terms Changed - does this affect traffic?
We spent the last 12 months targeting a particular search term (mortgage broker) and have been ranking well for it consistently for about 6 months now. We have decided to change the target search term to something else (insurance broker) but noticed that our traffic has started to decline since we started doing this. We are still ranking well for the initial search term, and our ranking is slowly improving for the new targeted search term in SERPs but traffic is down about 60% from January. Is it normal/expected for this to happen?
Keyword Research | | monique-plaw1 -
Does it make sense to pursue long-tail keywords with low search volume
Hi Moz community, I need your insight into what would ensure better rankings. Some of the pages that I am optimizing are dedicated to niche products targeting specific verticals and the main keywords have really low average search volume (below 50). I'll give you an example (these are not the exact keywords, just an example to illustrate my dilemma): if my long-tail keyword is "student information management software" with search volume of 20, when do I stand better chances to gain search visibility: by optimizing the page for this long-tail keyword and incorporating it in the title tag, or by pursuing more generic keywords with higher search volume: "student" and "information management software"? If I am targeting short-tail keywords, will the page also rank for long-tail searches that are a combination of these keywords? In other words, which scenario gives better chances to rank higher: 1) pursuing short-tail keywords with high search volume in the title-tag 2) pursuing fewer long-tail keywords with lower search volume that are a combination of those in scenario 1? Thanks in advance for your help!
Keyword Research | | Scratch_MM0 -
Any recommendations on how to find non-branded keyword phrases revealing searcher’s intent with high volume and CPC?
-Most of the organic keywords driving traffic to our website are branded. -I’ve used UberSuggest, but those keyword phrases tend to have low CPC and low volume -Thus, the UberSuggest keywords usually produce a low benefit & K.O.B score. -Andrew
Keyword Research | | Todd_Kendrick0 -
How to calculate how much traffic and how much revenue we shoudl expect?
Hi, I am trying to select some keywords and keywords I selected i know that it'll be bring traffic but how would i know how much traffic it could bring and what revenue i should expect? Thanks
Keyword Research | | Rubix0 -
How can i lfind low competition keywords that will send me more traffics
i'm new on seo world, and i want know how to get low competition keywords that will send me traffic
Keyword Research | | ANDIAmine0 -
Plummeting traffic and rankings for main KWs
Hi there mozzers, You have been so helpful in the past and we'd really appreciate your insights into our problem... we have two data recovery companies in the UK, one has been established for 11 years (dataclinic.co.uk) , the second (datlabs.co.uk) is a subsidiary that's been around for 5 years. Dataclinic has always ranked highly, usually in the top 1-5 on page one for relevant KWs and towards the end of last year we had traffic of approx 1,800 UK visitors/month - now we're down to only 600. Week on week we're falling and I have started to dread the monitoring checks. We're slipping in the rankings too. As our business relies almost 100% on Google rankings our phones just aren't ringing. In contrast our subsidiary company datlabs is climbing up the rankings and drawing more traffic - but unfortunately nothing like enough to compensate for the decline in the main company's traffic. We have used the same kinds of marketing strategies for both but have invested more energy into social for dataclinic, and more energy into local for datlabs. I'd say that our strategies have been less than sparkling clean - we've paid for directory links but not with the really spammy directories. We're at a loss to understand what has happened to have had such a dramatic and devastating effect - please help!! Thanks so much Sue
Keyword Research | | 3Amigos0 -
SEO research via Google Adwords
I've read several times of this technique for determining if a particular keyword phrase is worth the effort of optimizing for in organic search. In Adwords create an Ad Group with a single exact match keyword phrase and let it run in Adwords until you have enough clicks to measure valid results (I've often heard 200-300 clicks). If you are unable to convert the search term via paid search, the theory goes, it's probably not worth the effort to rank top 3 for that phrase and you should put your efforts elsewhere. Do any of you use this strategy? If so, have you found the results to be pretty consistently accurate? Thanks, Mark
Keyword Research | | DenverKelly1 -
Search Traffic down 50% but rankings same?
One of my client's sites is experiencing a major decrease in search traffic (by 50%) but the main terms she usually gets traffic for, she's ranking the same or even better over the period of time that the traffic has decreased. What could cause this?
Keyword Research | | bvrob0