How to find the highest CPC keywords from Google

One of the most important steps in selecting a new niche or trying to increase your adsense earnings is to understand what the highest cost-per-click (CPC) keywords are for your niche.   It’s important to know these high paying keywords, so that you can target them by writing useful, but targeted content involving the keywords.  This will have a dramatic effect on your Google Adsense earnings.

Let’s say you average 500 unique visitors per day.  If your site averages $0.10 per click, and you receive 20 clicks on your Adsense units per day, you’ll be receiving $2.00 per day in revenue.  There are three ways to increase your revenue per day 1) Increase your traffic 2) Increase your click through rate or 3) Increase the CPC received.  We are going to concentrate on the third option, which is increasing the CPC.  Let’s say we can target higher paying keywords, and the average CPC increases to $0.20.  Without any other variables changing you are going to make $4.00 per day, which is a 100% increase in revenue.

Follow these steps to utilize the Google Keyword Tool to hunt for the highest paying CPC keywords from Google:

1) Visit the Google Keyword Tool at http://www.google.com/sktool/.  You should also have a Google Adwords account, as this link will now redirect you to the latest keyword tool included within Google Adwords.  The new link is http://adwords.google.com/keywordtool.
You should see a screen similar to the image below…


2)Enter the captcha information (in the image it’s theories. cactua), and click search so that the captcha goes away
3) You see the categories listed on the left hand side of the window?  You should have some idea about what type of Google Adsense site you want to create, or select the category of your current website.
3) After you have selected a category, the list of keywords will be displayed in the main, center, window.  You’ll notice that the list of keywords contain columns providing information about competition, Global Monthly Searches and Local Searches.  The CPC data is not displayed by default.  Click on the columns button in the upper right hand corner of the keywords listing area, and you’ll see a drop down.  This is shown in the image below.  Check Estimated Avg CPC to include a new column in your data that will provide CPC data.
4) Now you should be see a listing of keywords, along with the number of searches, the competition and avg CPC data!  This is important information.  I usually click on the column header for CPC so that it will sort the list displaying the highest paying CPC keywords first.
5) You now have the steps necessary to find the highest CPC keywords from Google for Adsense.  Check out some other categories to see what the payout ranges are for various niches.
Bonus: Take a look at the competition column to find high paying keywords with low competition.  It will be easier to rank in Google for these keywords.