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Who Knew Insurance was so Expensive: Topping Google AdWords Cost-Per-Click List for 2011

February 29, 2012 By Sally Wood

googleadwordsSo, by now, we all know what Google AdWords are, right? For those of you that have had your heads buried in the sand for the last 10 years or so, they are those little text ads that appear whenever you search for something (using Google obviously). Google makes an absolute fortune from these little text ads. To be precise, 97% ($33.3 billion) of Google’s revenue over the last twelve months was derived from AdWords. Of course, advertisers wouldn’t be using AdWords if it didn’t work, but some advertisers spend more than others.

Wordstream, a company that automates search engine optimisation, undertook research into which keyword categories attract the highest cost per click. They used their own database of keywords, over 90 days, to work out the top 10,000 most expensive English words.

Just for you, here is the list of the top 20 highest cost per click words, as discovered by Wordstream:

  1. Insurance
  2. Loans
  3. Mortgage
  4. Attorney
  5. Credit
  6. Lawyer
  7. Donate
  8. Degree
  9. Hosting
  10. Claim
  11. Conference Call
  12. Trading
  13. Software
  14. Recovery
  15. Transfer
  16. Gas/Electricity
  17. Classes
  18. Rehab
  19. Treatment
  20. Cord Blood

Topping the list, ‘insurance’ pulls in around $55 per click for Google. Not a bad little money spinner at all. The most regular search queries included ‘buy car insurance’, ‘building contents insure’ and ‘life insurance comparison quotes’. Even ‘loans’, which comes in at a close second to ‘insurance’, nets Google around $44 per click.

As you can see, the most expensive keywords are a product of society’s needs. We all seem to use the web today to search for information and assistance with topics that we are not necessarily experts in, but are a part of daily life: finance, professional services, health and education.

  • About
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Sally Wood

Editor at Marketing.com.au
Sally has worked in marketing, communications, and PR for over 15 years. She is the Chief Wordsmith at Wordly: a copywriting and content marketing agency that works predominantly with WordPress powered websites.

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Filed Under: Advertising, Latest News, SEM Tagged With: adwords, cpc, Google +, keyword, ppc, search, search engine optimisation, sem

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