If you are using AdSense placements on your site to monetize it, then it makes sense that you want the biggest payoff possible. Who wouldn’t?
You need to be strategic about which niches you write in and what keywords you are optimizing for because not all ads will pay equally. If you can use your content to drive clicks and conversions in high-paying niches or keywords, you will see more profit coming from the ads placements that you have available on your site.
This kind of strategy is what will make the difference between making a few cents per click and driving significant revenue that has a real impact on your life and business.
We wanted to help publishers see the kind of revenue they are hoping for when they become AdSense publishers, so we did some research. We used SEMrush’s CPC Map tool to take a close look at the top paying ad niches and keywords so that you can shift your content to start accommodating them today.
The Best AdSense Niches In the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia
Finding the most profitable AdSense Niches is going to be a good place to start when you are creating content with the goal of monetizing through the Display Network, but you want to keep in mind that there are variations based on location.
Let’s take a look at the best niches in the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, and remember that targeting the right niches can be even more beneficial when you combine the knowledge with the top-paying keywords, too.
The Best AdSense Niches in the US
In the United States, insurance is easily the highest paying niche, which has an average CPC of $17.55. All types of insurance fall under this niche, including health, home, auto, and life insurance. Businesses are willing to pay more for clicks on an insurance ad because they can have an incredibly high ROI, even with much higher CPCs.
After insurance, the best niches are as follows:
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Online education at $12.08 a click.
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Marketing and Advertising at $6.45 per click.
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Legal averaging $6.11 per click.
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Internet & telecom at $4.96 per click.
After these niches, things drop off a little bit, with nothing costing more than $2.28 per click. However, if you have or are building a blog with a ton of traffic, even $1.90 per click from the jewelry industry, for example, can add up. It won’t add up as quickly as a $17.55 CPC, but you should weigh volume and relevance with a high CPC like this.
The Best AdSense Niches in the UK
Like the United States, insurance is clearly the niche with the biggest CPC in the UK, with the average cost per click coming in at around $6.86.
No other niches even come close here, with Marketing and Advertising being the second most profitable with an average CPC of $3.49, closely followed by Internet & Telecom at $3.21 and then Cryptocurrency at $1.82.
The Best AdSense Niches in Australia
Australia’s most profitable niches closely resemble the United Kingdom’s.
Insurance is once again hands-down the best niche for publishers in Australia, with a CPC of $8.39. The next best niche is Marketing & Advertising at $4.12, Cryptocurrency at $3.08, Internet & Telecom at $2.67, and Online Banking at $2.09.
The Best AdSense Niches in Canada
The average cost per click is much lower in Canada than it is in other countries, making Insurance the niche with the highest average cost per click at $3.57.
Following Insurance is the Marketing & Advertising niche at $2.74, Home and Garden at $2.21 tied with Internet & Telecom, and the Legal niche at $2.19.
Overall, Insurance, Marketing & Advertising, and the Internet & Telecom niches are the most profitable across the board, which can be good to know if you are targeting audiences across multiple countries.
The Top-Paying Keywords in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, and Canada
While it is great to know which niches, in general, will have the highest CPCs, it is also useful to know which keywords are most likely to yield the highest payouts.
There are two things to look at here: which keywords are the most expensive and will yield the most per click, and which ones are the most popular and then, therefore, drive more clicks. You can adjust your content strategy accordingly to incorporate a mix of both into your content.
The Top-Paying Keywords in the US
In the United States, there is little overlap between the most expensive and the most popular keywords.
In the insurance industry, the most expensive keywords are Geico insurance ($83.24), instant auto insurance quote ($69.72), and get auto insurance online ($67.28).
The most popular keywords, on the other hand, are Farmer’s insurance with a volume of 450,000 monthly searches, farm insurance (450,000), car insurance (368,000), and travel insurance (368,000).
The most expensive keywords in the Online education niche are “start online college today” at $68.22, “apply for online college classes” ($67.36), and online college application ($66.08). The most popular keywords have search volumes ranging from 550,000 to 110,000 monthly searches.
In Marketing and Advertising, the costs of the most expensive keywords are relatively close, ranging from only $27.85 for “email marketing” to $20.95 for “seo consulting services.” The most popular keywords are much more general terms, like “PR” and “marketing,” ranging from 90,500 to 135,000 monthly searches.
The Top-Paying Keywords in the UK
The United Kingdom focuses more on life insurance and business-related insurance when it comes to the most expensive keywords, with the top 5 most expensive keywords ranging from $28.83 for “low cost life insurance” to $42.25 “for business health insurance.”
Their most popular keywords, however, are similar to the United State’s top 5, with a focus on car insurance and travel insurance dominating each slot.
Marketing and Advertising range from $20.80 per click for a local SEO company to $32.81 per click for a B2B advertising agency; most high-value searches are the ones that are likely to have higher CPCs. The most popular keywords are again more generic, like “logo design,” “SEO,” “PR,” and “branding.” These are easy to create content around.
The Internet and Telecom industry has an enormous range in CPC for the top 5 most expensive keywords for UK audiences, going from $36.80 for “3 mobile broadband” up to $155.13 for “internet security firewall.”
The most popular keywords in the UK for this niche have big gaps as well, going from 22,200 monthly searches for “cyber security” to 90,500 searches for “mobile phones.” Some of these searches are so broad it may be difficult to rank well for them, and they ironically get more specific (and easier to rank for) the lower down the list you go.
The Top-Paying Keywords in Australia
Comparing Australia’s data to the previous two countries is a powerful reminder of how different the details can be across geographical locations, even when there are similarities in general niche performance.
Life insurance keywords were easily the most expensive, and were close in cost, ranging from $53.34 for “family life insurance quotes” to $58.50 for “life insurance quote.” That being said, the most popular keywords were travel and car insurance-related.
In Marketing and Advertising, CPCs ranged from $31.62 for “web marketing company” to $112.93 per click for “search marketing company.” Here, the most popular keywords were closely related to those in the UK, but at a much lower search volume, ranging from “marketing’s 9,900 monthly search volume to 33,100 for “advertisement.”
Cryptocurrency also had a big range, demonstrating once again the importance of research in your industry. Their highest CPC was $50.51 for “how to buy cryptocurrency in Australia,” and their least was still high at “cryptocurrency trading sites” at $31.49. These are high intent searches.
The most popular keywords ranged from 49,500 monthly searches for “btc” to 201,000 for “bitcoin price.” All of these posts would make excellent topics to base content around, and help drive plenty of clicks to your site.
The Top-Paying Keywords in Canada
In Canada, the CPCs and monthly average search volumes are all significantly lower than other geographic locations. However, there is still plenty of potential revenue that can be generated as a publisher.
The insurance niche’s top 5 most expensive keywords range from $12.47 for “commercial business insurance” to auto insurance price quotes at $17, and these keywords are actually pretty diverse. The most popular keywords are pretty similar to each other, with a theme around some variation of “insurance,” resulting in 40,500 monthly searches.
In Marketing & Advertising, the average CPC is higher than Insurance, even though the Insurance industry yields more profit overall. The lowest CPC here on the top 5 list starts at $17 for “search engine marketing agency” and goes all the way up to $26.10 for “email marketing”. The most popular keywords are similar here to those from the UK and Australia, with vague terms like “seo,” “logo design,” and “pr” dominating the top slots.
The Internet & Telecom niche has plenty of potential as well, with high average CPCs for the country, with network security monitoring being the most expensive keyword at $24.82. Their most popular keywords have a wide range of search volumes, though, with “internet” having a staggering search volume of 40,500 but the fifth most popular keyword being “cyber security” at only 6,600.
The 4-step Process on How You Can Benefit from This Data
This is a lot of data all in one place, and it can be difficult to feel overwhelmed by it all. To help with that, we have developed a 4-step process that will allow you to benefit from the information we have featured so far in our post.
1. Define Which Keywords to Target in the Chosen Niche
Once you have identified which niches you want to target (and remember that you don’t just have to stick to the top niches we have identified), you will want to do industry-related keyword research to optimize for the most profitable and popular keywords.
Use SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool to look up an industry-related “seed” keyword (like “insurance” to find the most relevant keywords that hold the highest potential for profit.
Pro tip here: Play around with sorting. If, for example, you sort keywords by the highest CPC, you will likely get long-tail keywords with low volume, but these can potentially yield high long-term income. If you are looking for keywords with high volume, on the other hand, you will probably end up with keywords that average lower CPCs but high potential exposure. Consider your strategy and find the optimal mix that allows you to maximize revenue.
2. Find Which Keywords are Driving the Most Revenue to Your Competitors
Sometimes your competitors may already know a thing or two that you don’t, and it never hurts to snag a few of their best keywords so that you can profit, too.
Just imagine being able to view the keywords that drive the most clicks and revenue for your competition. With SEMrush’s Organic Research tool, you can do just that.
Underneath the “Positions” tab, you just have to follow four quick steps:
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Enter your competitor’s website.
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Scroll to “Top Organic Keywords” and then click to see the full report.
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Sort by CPC.
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See a whole list of potential keywords that you can now use, finding the perfect balance between high search volume and high CPC.
Go through this process with at least 3-5 sites to get a good idea of which keywords you should be targeting, forming a diverse but very effective profile.
3. Find Topics That Will Resonate Most
When you are creating content, you want to find the topics that will resonate most with your audience so you can optimize for relevant ads to appear on your site.
This can be challenging in and of itself, but our Topic Research tool can help. All you need to do is type in an industry-related topic like “insurance,” and you will be shown the headlines that resonate most with people searching for content related to it.
4. Create Content With the Highest-ranking Potential
Creating great content that is targeting high CPC and high search volume keywords is great, but it won’t amount to much if you aren’t able to get people to your site so they can see the content, see the ad, and then click.
This means that you need to have your content optimized to rank as well as possible in the SERPs.
Our SEO Writing Assistant can come to the rescue here, assessing the readability, SEO potential, originality, and tone of any piece of content you write in just a few seconds.
The tool will offer specific suggestions for how to improve the potential ranking of your post, giving you actionable advice that will help you improve your content’s SERP ranking and drive more revenue as a result.
Conclusion
When you are monetizing your site as a publisher, you should do a little extra research to ensure that you are getting the biggest payout possible. Remember, though, that you will likely only be successful if you are choosing the most profitable niches that are relevant to your target audience
Know your audience, and think about what would be most relevant to them. The more relevant the ad, the more likely they will click, and that is how you maximize your revenue overall.
Interested in estimating ad revenue and potential to monetize with Google AdSense? Use our AdSense Benchmark Tool!