Google Adwords: Why I should still blog about Jodi Arias.

With all the interest in the George Zimmerman trial,  I wondered why my well researched articles about the issues were not generating income.  I certainly did well with posts about Jodi Arias.

So I consulted Google Keyword Tools. With the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, I compared  keywords and phrases for global searches (which are based on 12 month results) and approximate CPC (the average of the keyword's cost-per-click bids across all ad positions.)  The results showed that the attorneys are the stars, especially if you put the word attorney after their name, which is something I didn't consider when I wrote a blog post about the attorneys and their tweeting. But is this accurate, or just an estimate?

Keyword
Global Monthly Searches
Approximate CPC (Search)

jodi arias
1,220,000
$0.80

trayvon martin
301,000
$0.46

george zimmerman
246,000
$0.86

benjamin crump
1,900
$3.51

benjamin crump attorney
260
$4.98

mark o'mara
2,900
$2.15

mark o'mara attorney
390
$11.41

jury selection trayvon martin
-
-

jury selection george zimmerman
-
-

jury selection jodi arias
-
-

Before buying adwords, Google advises you to check the traffic estimator. Then the picture changes drastically. For example, with a CPC of $1.00, "Mark O'Mara, attorney," with global monthly searches of 2900,  gets no daily traffic.  An advertiser paying $1.35 per ad word for "Jodi Arias" gets a daily click. So Jodi Arias still has potential as a cash generator , especially when her trial restarts.

This week and for at least the next 3 weeks, the testimony is going to be about jury selection in George Zimmerman's trial. So far "George Zimmerman Jury" gets 58 global month searches and a CPC of  $0.10, while "the Zimmerman Trial" gets 9,900 global monthly searches and a CPC of $.58.

A 12 month lag in statistics for keyword searches measured on a monthly basis and a traffic estimator that calculates daily, are not easy to reconcile when blogging or advertising for current events..  "The fact that the tools provide data with different statistics makes it nearly impossible to provide relatively accurate projections for advertisers." 

Article first published as Google Adwords and Traffic Estimators: Why I Should Still Blog About Jodi Arias on Technorati.