Expensive Search Terms
I was shocked to hear in lecture that Google can charge up to $60 per click on certain ads. How could a click cost as much as a family dinner? How could 100 clicks be worth as cheap car? Many huge companies get the majority of their business through internet searches, and for them, the hefty price they pay may turn out to be worth it. Companies specializing in attorneys, investment, rehab, and so on need people to click on their ads to stay in business. Of course, competition between these companies drives the ad prices up, and in the end only the biggest companies can afford to buy ads that show up on the first page of a Google search. It turns out the the price for different keywords can differ drastically based on how profitable the term can be to a company. For example, searching “car accident lawyer in Houston, Texas” usually means that there is someone looking to spend a good amount of money to get help with a car accident case, and could cost up to $60. On the other hand, searching “Vickrey–Clarke–Groves” won’t produce any ads since the searcher clearly isn’t trying to buy anything, though if someone happened to be selling VCG merchandise, an ad would cost very little.
I was also surprised to find out that alternatives to Google, such as Bing and Yahoo! also charge insane amounts for ads. Bing’s most expensive search term, “lawyer,” is currently priced at $109 per click, and is always rising. Close contenders are “attorney,” “structured settlements,” and “DUI” which all cost upwards of $70. These top search terms show how profitable it can be to deal with the law. According to a study on Google AdWords from a few years ago, Google’s most expensive search terms are “insurance,” “loans,” “mortgage,” “attorney,” and “credit.” Apparently more people with money problem search on Google and more people with law problems search on Bing.
An important part of advertising online is figuring out how much each click is really worth. Factors that determine this price include the ratio of people that click on the ad to people that actually end up purchasing a service, and and how much that service is expected to be worth. Basically, the amount companies pay for the ads has to be significantly less than what they make from the new customers they bring in, or else they’ll soon go bankrupt.
See more top search terms here:
https://contently.com/strategist/2015/03/24/infographics-the-most-insanely-expensive-keywords-on-google-bing/