PPC Keyword Tool: Making Money with HubPages

It's true that if you just start writing hubs on any topic, you will start to earn a little bit of money over time.

But you can rapidly increase your earnings by using a PPC keyword tool.

PPC stands for "pay per click." PPC ads are what appear at the top and right sidebar of search engine results pages (SERPs). PPC ads also appear in the content of thousands of websites in the form of Google AdSense. This hub, in fact, has Google AdSense installed on it.

By using the right PPC keyword tool, you can find out what advertisers are paying per click. The Google AdWords keyword tool, for example, shows not only what people are paying for their ads to appear, but also shows the number of searches per month, and a bar graph showing the relative amount of advertisers competing for those precious clicks. Best of all, the Google AdWords keyword tool is free for anyone to use.

But if you are trying to write hubs that actually make money, I highly recommend you invest in a paid ppc keyword tool.

You see, here's the problem. Though the Google AdSense keyword tool will show you the strength of competition among advertisers for a certain term, it won't show you the strength of competition among organic searches - the positions in the search results that aren't paid.

And, if you're trying to get started making money with HubPages, you are shooting for high listings in the organic search results on Google and the other search engines.

If you can get your hubs to rank on the first page of Google for their keyword terms, you are going to make money, pure and simple. And you will make more money per click from AdSense and faster by using a ppc keyword tool to research the right terms to target than you would by blindly writing hubs on random topics that seem like a good idea.

I've been using a ppc keyword tool for nearly a year now that I really like. I had been using it for writing articles and optimizing my own websites before I discovered HubPages.

And, though I'm still fairly new to HubPages, it is already making me a little money. And that is because of two things - targeting the right keywords, and getting backlinks. (I'll write more about backlinks and seo in future hubs.)

So what is this keyword research tool? It's called Micro Niche Finder. Let me tell you a little bit about how to use it for making money on HubPages.

To get started, all you do is type a keyword and conduct a search. Micro Niche Finder (MNF) will then research how many people a month search that term, and it will also tell you the average price people are bidding for that term on AdWords. This will tell you more or less what a click from your hub will be worth.

(Actually, it's a bit less. Google takes a cut, and contextual ads on sites like HubPages pay less than clicks straight from the Google search pages. Plus HubPages takes a healthy cut, but those clicks you will never see in your stats.)

Now here's the good part. Micro Niche Finder has a function called "strength of competition," or SOC. This will give every keyword a score based on a ratio of how many sites out there use the keyword (the "supply," if you will) in comparison to the number of people searching for that term.

Say there are 1,000 websites out there that target a certain keyword, advertisers are paying top dollar for PPC clicks, but only 5 people a month search for that term. On the other hand, there may be a related term that is found on only five sites, pays about the same in ppc revenue, and 1,000 people a month search for that keyword. Which keyword to target in your hub becomes a no-brainer.

As you can see from my very rudimentary example, it is much better to target keywords in your hubs (or your articles, your own website, etc.) where the demand is greatest and the supply is lowest.

Other functions of Micro Niche Finder include a measure of backlinks, as well as a scoring system for how commercial a keyword is.

For the measure of backlinks, what MNF does is look at the sites that rank well for a term, and tells you how many backlinks they have. In other words, you find out how many backlinks your hub would need to beat them in the search engines, get a higher listing, get more traffic, and make more money from the PPC on your hubs.

The "OCI" score on MNF takes a look at the commercial nature of your keywords. When people use a web search to look for something, they will use different kinds of keywords if they're just looking for information - rather than looking to buy something.

The more commercial in nature the keyword is, the more likely it is you can make more advertising revenue from your hub, whether from PPC Adsense clicks, referring a sale to Amazon or eBay, or recommending another affiliate product.

What's more, you can search for products on Amazon, Clickbank, and other locations straight from the MNF interface.

So what are the drawbacks? One is the price. At $99 it's not cheap. But it is a one-time fee - there are no recurring costs. And it is well worth it. Write 100 hubs using keywords you target using Micro Niche Finder, and you'll likely get your money back (plus some) at the end of the month.

The other drawback is that it can take some time to compute your SOC (strength of competition) scores for your keywords. But it's not that bad, and a little patience definitely pays off.

What's more, the technical team behind the product are constantly updating it. I have bought software before that worked for awhile, stopped working, and when I contacted them, they said they weren't supporting that product anymore. Not so with MNF, these guys work hard.

So that is my experience with Micro Niche Finder. Some of my hubs are already on page one of Google in top positions, and I'm making over $2 a click.

Get your own copy of Micro Niche Finder here. And be sure to sign up for the free videos!

Find out more about making money with HubPages.