Many of you have probably heard that Google’s Keyword Tool has now added search volume. For those that haven’t this is a major upgrade and I am mentioning this due to the number of emails I get asking about what keyword tools to use. It seems that not everyone is aware of what Google has just done. In the past you could use the Keyword Tool in order to find related keywords in order to target your adwords campaigns. Google would provide a list of terms as well as show you how competitive each term was in the form of a little green bar - much like the PR bar. The problem was that this only told you a term had more or less competition than other terms. In other words it basically told you whether there were a lot of other adword campaigns targeting a keyword. This was fine if you ran adword campaigns. The shortfall has been the lack of actual search traffc numbers. Most of us don’t run adwords campaigns (PPC) but rather want to know how many searches a keyword gets each month in order to create Adsense blogs. We don’t need to know how many adword advertisers there are aside from knowing that a few exist. We want to know how many people are looking for the keywords we build our blog around.Now Google is finally releasing a monthly estimate of actual searches done. This means that you no longer have to buy a program like Keyword Elite to give you this info. This doesn’t render keyword elite useless though as it still has many other functions that are useful in regards to keyword research that isn’t available elsewhere for free. It does mean that beginners can finally access search data for free from a reliable source - the best source in fact. Google.I have compared a few lists between Keyword Elite and Google’s Keyword Tool and the numbers are significantly different - not a surprise though as only Google will have estimates that come close to reality.I ran the term “How to Make Money” through both programs and have posted the results below. I was always aware that the numbers provided by Keyword Elite were severely low in the past based on my own stats.Here are the results for last month provided by Keyword Elite.(Click to enlarge all images)
I picked the term “How to Make Money” because it is a term that I rank number 1 or 2 for in most data centers. I know how many visitors I had last month searching for this term. My own stats added up to just over 9200 visitors for that term. Keyword Elite estimated the “Total” traffic for the term last month as 7450 searches. I don’t get all the traffic for the term but clearly I received far more than what the estimate states. I have long noticed this in regards to the estimates released by Keyword Elite and hence have known that the numbers are usually only a fraction of real traffic. I didn’t know how low the estimates were however but now I do.The image below shows Google’s estimate for “How to Make Money”.
As you can see Keyword Elite provided only a third of the real traffic. Google estimates 22,000 searches and this makes more sense and jives with the traffic I see. Position 1 should capture at least half the total traffic and I do in a rough sense. It’s not exact as I bounce back and forth between the top 2 spots. I have compared several other keywords that I rank well for and the Google search results do appear pretty accurate which of course they should - who would know better than Google?The end result is that I encourage you all to take advantage of this resource. You can now know far better than before just how much traffic any particular keyword might be expected to produce. This is one of if not the most important factors to know before you start building your blogs. And it’s free.You can find Google’s Keyword Tool here.On another issue - let’s talk about Alexa. Have any of you managed to figure out what the hell they are doing. I am mystified by the results I get from them. I see huge swings from day to day and yet my traffic is pretty much stable from day to day; pretty much the same amount of uniques, return visitors and page views and yet one day I will rank 27,000 and the very next day 450,000. I have been assuming that the “new” sampling they use has a few bugs in it to account for these ridiculous numbers. Since I began the new MMO blog I am even more mystified. The new blog is averaging a few hundred daily uniques and this blog averages several thousand. So why is my new blog kicking this blogs ass in the Alexa rankings?The stats for yesterday for this blog.
Same day stats for Make Money Online with Grizzly
Just curious what everyone thinks of the NEW Alexa rankings. Do any of you find them accurate in relation to your own stats? Are you getting wild swings as well even though your traffic is stable? I was hoping that the new system would prove to be reliable if only because a traffic benchmark would be a handy bit of info to have especially for advertising purposes or when purchasing existing domains. At the moment I have to think Alexa is no better or more accurate than before. Let me know what you think.Cheers,Griz
AdSense Announce Changes to Ad Ecosystem.
Today AdSense publishers (or at least some of them) received the following email outlining some recent ‘changes and improvements’ to the Google ad system.
These changes largely revolve around new features that they’ve added to AdWords to let advertisers target websites differently (more control).
One of the big changes is the introduction of ‘Ad Planner’ (currently in an invite only beta test) which allows advertisers to search for sites with certain demographics and interests. Advertisers can now also target sites with a combination of both contextual targeting (having their ads appear on pages with certain keywords) as well as placement targeting (targeting specific sites and ad positions on them).
Really there are no changes in terms of features for us as publishers - but it will be interesting to see how these changes impact the bottom line. It should advantage bloggers targeting specific niches and lucrative demographics (what those demographics are we’re yet to see). It’s also incentive to develop blog posts that target popular keywords to advertisers. It could hurt sites with more mixed topics and demographics.
Here’s the email from AdSense.
As one of our AdSense partners, we’d like to keep you updated on changes and improvements to the Google ads ecosystem. We’re writing to let you know about some recent developments in how advertisers can find and target your sites, which are intended to bring more advertisers to the AdSense content network. We hope that this will result in increased revenue for publishers like you while also benefiting your users with even more relevant ads.
We’ve recently launched Google Ad Planner, a media planning tool which will help give your sites more visibility and exposure. Using Ad Planner, media buyers can search for sites by demographics and interest. This will be useful especially for sites with niche audiences, since it’ll now be easier for advertisers to find sites that attract the types of visitors they’d like to target. As a publisher, you can also use the tool to gain insight into your audience and their preferences. We’re still beta-testing Ad Planner, but you can sign up for an invitation at http://www.google.com/adplanner/.
Also, we’ve recently made a change within AdWords to allow advertisers to target their ads through a combination of contextual targeting and placement targeting. Advertisers can continue to create campaigns targeted to your sites or ad placements, but can now also add keywords to those campaigns so that their ads appear only in the most contextually relevant placements. In addition, advertisers can now adjust bids by individual site in order to spend more of their budgets on specific sites which give them the most high-quality, converting leads. These changes may help improve the relevance of the ads on your sites, and advertisers who become more confident that their ads are reaching the right audience may increase their ad spend on the content network and on your sites.
With these improvements, we’re looking forward to expanding the number of advertisers who use the AdSense content network, helping them find your sites, and increasing the relevance of their ads on your sites. You can find more information about Ad Planner at http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/06/introducing-google-ad-planner.html and the AdWords changes mentioned above at http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/07/use-keywords-and-placements-together-on.html . If you have additional concerns, please contact your account manager. We’re working towards strengthening the relationship between our AdWords and AdSense partners, and we’ll be sure to keep you posted on these types of developments in the future.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team