Making money online can be quite hard, especially if you are looking to monetize your blog solely via ads.
To be a successful Adsense publisher you need a lot of traffic but you also need that traffic to engage with the ads that are being displayed on your site. 
The adsense CPC that you get paid will depend on the topics that you write about. 
In the world of blogging, you can either write articles that will compete for clicks that will pay a few cents or be strategic and write content that will pay the big bucks.
If you are serious about making money online with Adsense and building a successful business, I suggest you target these top paying keywords and industries.
I broke down this post by:
  • Top paying Adsense keyword industries
  • Types of ads that pay the most
  • Exact long-tail keywords that have insane CPCs
  • 4 Bonuses to make even more money with Adsense

Here are the top 10 highest paid Adsense keywords for 2019 (by industry/niche):

  1. Insurance $58 CPC
  2. Gas/Electricity $54 CPC
  3. Mortgage $47 CPC
  4. Attorney $47 CPC
  5. Loans $44 CPC
  6. Lawyer $42 CPC
  7. Donate $42 CPC
  8. Conference Call $42 CPC
  9. Degree $40 CPC
  10. Credit $38 CPC

Why do these Adsense keywords pay so much?

Because the companies behind the ads have a high customer value and can afford to spend a few hundred bucks to acquire a customer. It all boils down to their business economics.

So, how can you profit from this data and rake in thousands of dollars each month?

Let’s run through a hypothetical example.
  1. You notice that insurance related blogs will carry a high CPC.
  2. You then research a few keywords and find that “car  insurance companies” pays decently well.
  3. You get to writing the best article you can on car insurance companies
  4. With an amazing on-page SEO, you are able to get your blog post high on google rankings,
  5. You get a good amount of high quality organic traffic to your site, and then monetize into more Adsense revenue.

Which Adsense ads pay the most?

In addition to picking the best niche for adsense, you also have options as to which ad type to show. The options are: 1) text & display 2) matched content 3) in-feed and 4) in-article.
In my own experiments, I’ve found higher click through rates with native in-article ads. Those ads perform the best on any of my sites.
The in-article ads will naturally blend with your content and display midway through your blog post. I like these types of ads because they are contextual and usually receive a good amount of clicks.
Sidebar ads are not as good since we are already trained to tune them out.  

Pro tip: Use Auto Ads by Google

Adsense Auto Ads take advantage of machine learning and place themselves automatically on your site where Google thinks they will perform well.
Google has been testing the Auto Ads feature as a beta since September of 2017 and recently (early March) released this feature to everyone.
Since Google has millions (if not billions) of sites to test, they will most likely be better than you or me when figuring out the right type and placement of the ads.
The only downside of this is that you won’t have much control of how many ads are shown or where they are placed, which if you are picky, might annoy you.
To set up Auto ads on your site, follow these steps:
  1. Sign in to your AdSense account.
  2. In the left navigation panel, click My ads.
  3. Click Auto ads.
  4. On the “Choose your global settings” page, use the controls to select the ad formats that you’d like to show.
  5. Leave Automatically get new formats selected if you want AdSense to automatically add new ad formats to your global settings as they become available.
  6. Click Save.
  7. On the “Place code on your page” page, click Copy code.
  8. Paste the ad code between the <head> and </head> tags of each page where you want to show Auto ads. If you’re not sure how to do this, see Google’s Code implementation guide.

Bonus Keyword Industries/Niches

Here are other high paying keywords that you can target in your blog posts
  1. Treatment $37 CPC
  2. Software $35 CPC
  3. Classes $35 CPC
  4. Recovery $34 CPC
  5. Trading $33 CPC
  6. Rehab $33 CPC
  7. Hosting $31 CPC
  8. Transfer $29 CPC
  9. Cord Blood $27 CPC
  10. Claim $25 CPC

Which exact keywords pay the most CPC on Adsense?

If you are looking for exact top paying keywords such as mesothelioma which pays $1000+ per click, you can check out the list compiled of 1M+ adsense keywords by GrepWords here. For instance, they reported the ultimate top paying keyword “mesothelioma survival rates” at $1006.56 per click. 
Here are a few of my favorite top paid keywords per industry found through SEMRush (data for 2017, 2018 and 2019):

Mesothelioma Keywords sorted by CPC

Mesothelioma is a type of cancer that lines the lungs, stomach, heart, and other organs, and unfortunately can’t be cured. Nevertheless, treatment can help reduce the pain. People that contracted mesothelioma did so at their jobs so that is why you see searches like “mesothelioma attorneys”, “mesothelioma law firms” and “mesothelioma compensation”.
This is a very competitive keyword set so unless you can outrank WebMD and MayoClinic, I suggest you look for other industries.
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)CompetitionResults
compensation mesothelioma1064.96568.670.91594,000
mesothelioma attorney houston3055.72545.840.74109,000
mesothelioma attorney california1055.3390.080.86223,000
mesothelioma compensation11064326.850.84596,000
pleural mesothelioma stages9071.76318.440.93148,000
mesothelioma lawyer directory2063.42290.340.86212,000
mesothelioma lawsuit settlements11061.8276.440.85139,000
statute of limitations on mesothelioma claims9053.98274.070.8264,000
lawyers for mesothelioma4058.43265.920.86537,000
mesothelioma settlement fund4059.3257.120.82262,000
*Competition of 1 means highly competitive.

Top Paying Keywords for the Lawyer Niche

Being a lawyer must be nice. You get to dress in a suit (which I love) and you also get to afford to spend exorbitant amounts of money for website traffic. Not too shabby.
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)CompetitionResults
car accident lawyer moreno valley9052.02584.441112,000
ft lauderdale car accident lawyer1048.18566.171267,000
auto accident lawyers in chicago9059.03542.9512,280,000
car accident lawyer ny3053.89508.6211,320,000
car accident lawyer in phoenix2055.27504.5301,070,000
california motorcycle accident lawyer3047.51475.7815,410,000
car accident lawyer augusta9044.3463.711416,000
car accident lawyer in fort lauderdale5047.13462.9711,110,000
personal injury lawyer ft lauderdale1043.06429.361860,000
dallas truck accident lawyer9049.674261721,000

 

Doctors keywords CPC Adsense

In this list you will find a mix of people looking for Physicians and people looking for a PhD program.
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)Com.Results
can you sue a doctor for wrong diagnosis4070.83250.960697,000
doctorate in security7074.61189.19125,000,000
doctor after car accident4060.59136.95129,200,000
doctors car insurance1066.17128.4613,100,000
car accident doctor atlanta7043.8122.421762,000
rehab doctors21059.77118.49022,900,000
business doctoral programs online3073.19118.1911,810,000
best doctoral programs in education3077.26114.31111,000,000
top online doctoral programs in business1071.32112.461995,000
educational leadership doctoral programs online2081.12108.971734,000

 

Best Attorney Adsense Keywords

I thought attorneys and lawyers were the same. Guess I was wrong.
Here are some other keywords pertaining to attorneys:
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)CompetitionResults
personal injury attorney cape coral fl7044.08573.710.79302,000
accident attorney rancho cucamonga9046.05548.48171,000
mesothelioma attorney houston3055.72545.840.74109,000
truck accident attorney san antonio5047.2432.950.85703,000
motorcycle accident attorney orange county3052.34404.050.832,180,000
auto accident attorney colorado springs7051.94396.780.66280,000
accident attorney riverside ca3043.12390.880.51331,000
mesothelioma attorney california1055.3390.080.86223,000
phoenix accident attorneys2054.24358.080.711,500,000
louisville accident attorney2046.44345.620.63674,000

 

Bitcoin CPC Adsense KWs

I threw this one in because the crypto space is just so hot right now. These keywords are not the highest paying on my article roundup but I expect their cost per click to rise in the coming years.
Aside: I personally just love blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Actually, I love it so much that with my company Flux Ventures we launched an entire division just to buy and sell bitcoin and alt-coins.
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)CompetitionResults
bitcoin merchant account2056.0264.320.87217,000
bitcoin merchant services3062.3533.240.87336,000
bitcoin mining cloud computing1066.0532.650.73604,000
buy bitcoin australia3052.3621.470.32783,000
buy stocks with bitcoin5083.421.080.466,010,000
software mining bitcoin1065.7518.190.62936,000
bitcoin mining gpu7071.5918.190.36696,000
buy stock with bitcoin3081.9417.590.4864,000,000
bitcoin stock chart21073.8616.240.09–
how to invest in bitcoin stock5077.6416.160.711,060,000

 

Top Paying Insurance Related Adsense Keywords

The insurance companies surely make a killing from those outrageous premiums they charge us. Otherwise how could they afford all those TV commercials and these crazy spend on Adwords? If you are in the insurance blogging space, kudos to you. You’ve picked a winner.
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)CompetitionResults
compare car insurance7078.04469.1215,720,000
auto insurance troy mi1066.48420.290.841,080,000
car insurance comparison quote1077.7342.540.882,400,000
cars with cheapest insurance rates4085316.470.893,200,000
best learner driver insurance1067.65300.260.77830,000
insurance quotes young drivers1076.73299.630.946,490,000
automobile club inter-insurance2084.42299.490.81783,000
car insurance personal injury1082298.540.952,210,000
auto insurance conroe tx4069298.080.82443,000
auto insurance philadelphia pa17063.03293.140.481,330,000

 

I actually took some of those keywords ^ and launched my site TheInsuranceNerd to attract those high paying clicks ?. So far, so good.
And lastly, how could I forget this…

Best Digital Marketing/SEO Adsense Keywords

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you are most likely interested in all things online marketing / SEO so this list is for you:
KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)Competition
seo explanation1073.3108.420.42
digital marketing degree florida3077.4100.480.96
online courses on digital marketing1073.8892.381
digital marketing certificate programs online2080.7487.560.91
digital marketing course review2067.7285.60.9
internet marketing classes online7074.3683.931
courses on online marketing1072.883.630.73
online marketing education3075.6580.560.91
email marketing wikipedia1079.376.140.71
digital marketing degree course2075.5672.711
digital marketing classes online3073.7870.720.94
seo marketing company9057.5258.440.65
search engine optimization articles2078.1358.320.54
seo companys2059.8954.770.87
types of seo services5044.3453.130.86
seo technology11072.0949.290.75
search optimization companies1061.6148.650.83
seo specialists21074.345.350.61
search engine optimization marketing services1060.444.830.59
seo company3059.6343.010.74

Keywords to target if you are in the ‘software for fitness’ niche

KeywordVolumeKDCPC (USD)Com.Results
fitness showrooms stamford ct1076.54138.60.322,000
ea fitness26068.984.160.03116,000,000
fitness barre cranberry3076.4172.410.89371,000
fitness center software1054.4967.10.814,240,000
fitness gym software4050.5463.030.5624,100,000
apogee fitness3069.760.030.16420,000
fit online classes1064.8259.650.39381,000,000
rpac group fitness classes4084.7957.80.1–
fitness management software1052.852.730.5617,100,000

Aw man, you still forgot my industry…

No worries, you can find all these keywords (and more!) by going into SEMRush and clicking on Keyword Analytics > Phrase Match (or Related Keywords), typing the keyword(s) that you want and then sorting by cost-per-click. 
Here are other ideas to do keyword hunting.
Now, onto my favorite part. The bonuses.

Bonus #1: Target these countries if you want to earn 10x more

Aiming for the right countries can really skyrocket your adsense earnings. Here are the top 10 countries to target:
No.CountryAvg. CPC ($)Max. CPC ($)Avg. CTR %Average RPM ($)
1United States (US)0.40 – 2.3>502-32.04
2Canada0.50 – 2>3021.83
3United Kingdom (UK)0.10 – 1.6>191-21.37
4Germany0.40 – 1>111-32.62
5Thailand0.30 – 1621.6
6United Arab Emirates (UAE)0.15 – 3.11142.07
7Japan0.20 – 0.85432.44
8Switzerland0.20 – 1632.35
9Italy0.10 – 0.5031-30.73
10China0.10-0.3041-20.9
If you take a look at this chart, you will notice that most of the countries in this list are first-world countries.
How do you target a particular country in your blog?
The easiest way is to blog in their native language. To get visitors from Canada, US, UK or australia, your blog must be in English. Similarly, write in German if you are looking for people from Deutschland.

Bonus #2: Unlock even more revenue by blocking low CPC ads

As a publisher, you have a good amount of control as to which Ad Categories you want to show on your site.
If you are trying to raise the CPC, RPM or CPM of your Adsense ads, then I suggest you take a look at your ad performance and start blocking categories that are not paying well.
Here’s how you can do that.
  1. Go to Adsense and on the left hand column click on “Allow and Block Ads”
  2. Click on “General Categories”
  3. Sort by % Earnings (Ascending). You will now see something like this.
    block low cpc ads
  4. In there you can take a look at which ads are taking a good amount of impressions but generating relatively low earnings. For instance, in this example the “Hobbies Games & Leisure” category is taking 4% of impressions yet just making 0.7% of revenue, so you can block it.
You may also experiment by blocking certain ad networks. I haven’t personally tried this, but some people claim it works.
A word of caution: Don’t block too many categories (or ad networks) or else you will significantly reduce the bid competition and will start driving your revenue down.

Pro tip: Run Optimization Experiments

You can always run an Experiment (found under Optimization > Experiments) and see if blocking your ads yields more revenue or not.
You can also test if showing 50% of your total ads vs. 100% of ads yields more revenue.
Google Adsense experiments typically last for 30-40 days, up to 100 days (depending on your experiment and traffic).
For instance, I am running the experiment of blocking certain categories, and as you can see below I already started to see some good results (unfortunately Adsense policies prevent me from sharing the exact numbers).

Google Adsense experiments block ads

Bonus #3: Steal your competitor’s lunch (aka. find which keywords are driving the most revenue to them)

What if you could view which keywords gets your competition the most clicks and revenue?
I’ll show you how I do it.
The process is very simple and uses SEMRush.
All you have to do is:
  1. Find any authority site in your niche. (For the sake of example in online marketing, I will use my own site)
  1. Type that site on the search bar in SEMRush
  1. Scroll to “Top Organic Keywords” and click on “See Full Report”
  1. On that report, sort by CPC.
  1. Voilá, you have a list of potential keywords that you can now use.
  2. Rinse and repeat with other sites that you admire.
Once you do this process with 3-5 sites, you will have a good set of keywords that you can target. (By the way, you can hire someone on Fiverr to write average articles for you so you don’t have to actually spend time doing it.) 

Bonus #4: Find more high paying keywords using Search Console

Did you know that Google already provides you with the keywords that you rank for?
What if you could optimize your existing blog posts to target even better keywords?
Instead of spending tons of hours writing a thorough post, you could use update an old one and pick juicier keywords.
Here’s how.
  1. Install the Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension
  2. Head to the Search Analytics under the Google Webmasters Tools
  3. Choose your website
  4. Be sure to check the Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position boxes at the top
    google webmaster adsense keywords
  5. Filter by any specific page that you want keywords to show for: i.e. https://alejandrorioja.com/blog/high-cpc-adsense-keywords/
  6. Since you installed the Keywords Everywhere tool you will see an additional 3 columns on your list, namely: Monthly Volume, CPC and Competition
    how to find high cpc keywords
  7. Unfortunately you can’t sort by CPC so you will have to copy all the data into a spreadsheet and sort it there. I suggest you hit the Show 500 rows at the bottom of Webmaster tools.
  8. I made a Google sheet for you that you can copy (File > Make a Copy..) to sort all your keywords.
  9. Copy and paste all your keywords, and then hit the arrow on the column of CPC and sort from Z->A
    top paying keywords adsense
  10. Voila, you will see all the keywords that your blog post ranks for, all ranked from highest CPC to lowest CPC.
    sorted cpc keywords top paying
As you can see this last trick will yield keywords that might not be applicable to your blog post. In my case, “mesothelioma lawyer directory” does not apply to this specific post so I will just ignore it.
However, it will also find keywords that I am already getting impressions like “top paying keywords” but for which I am still ranked on page #2. The secret here is now to extend my existing blog post to include that new keyword so that my page gets bumped to page #1.
Pro tip: You can also sort by Volume or competition to find other hidden gems.
(Remember that now with the new RankBrain algorithm you shouldn’t target each specific long tail keyword but rather target medium-tail keywords that cover a broader topic.)
Related: Remember you can also show ads on Youtube (here’s a fun guide to Youtube SEO). 

so, how can you make $100 a day with Adsense?

I don’t know about you, but 100 bucks a day on ads sounds like a good passive income to me ($3k/mo).
Let’s run some calculations to see what it would take to make $100/day on Adsense.
First, some assumptions.
  • You are targeting US readers (as we saw earlier, US ads pay the most on average)
  • Your CTR (click-through rate) is 1% (i.e. 1% of visitors click on ads)
  • Your CPC is $0.50 (your niche is strong but your site is just getting started)
  • Your RPM (revenue per 1000 impressions) is $2
With these numbers we can now calculate how many visitors we need to earn our target amount.
The formula is = Visitors * CTR * CPC + Visitors/1000 * RPM 
So with 15,000 visitors per day we obtain around $100/day on Adsense.
(15,000 * 1% * $0.5 + 15,000/1000*$2 = $105/day)
But how do you obtain 15,000 page views per day? Is that reasonable?
Yes, it is reasonable. To do that, you can either
  • produce 15 articles that get 1000 page views (hard)
  • produce 150 articles that get 100 page views (much easier)
Want learn how to get more organic visitors? Check this out!

Tips for Youtube CPC

In case you were wondering the same steps apply if you are looking to grow your earnings on Youtube. The same industries, languages and countries discussed above will also do well on YT.
To further optimize your Youtube earnings, you should also include a thorough description of your video that includes the high paying keywords you are targeting.
Here are more Youtube SEO tips.

Conclusion

I hope you found this list of high cost-per-click keywords useful.
I also hope you liked the strategy to find keywords that your competitors are getting money from. If you want additional tools to find keywords, head to my SEO tools list. 
Building a high grossing blog is a combination of picking a solid niche, doing SEO on your articles and having fun while at it.
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