Do you really need links? (not a newbie question)

[offwhite]

 

[blacat]

The ads that are shown on your site are not necessarily related to your keywords... especially since Google introduced the retargeting/remarketing feature for advertisers. That is one explanation for the diff in the average CPC.

In addition, I assume that your main keyword has a very low competition. My assumption is based on the low bid suggested. That's why, good content that adds value can rank almost without links. Good internal linking plus exact match or near exact match domain are enough.

...and yes, Google is not exposing accurate numbers on the Keyword planner (used to be Google Keywords tool). Yet, the CPC is a good starting point to have an indication on the competition.

 

[offwhite]

@blacat - yes you're right what you say. That's one of my points really - although i didn't make it explicit - you can earn well out of sites with a low cpc when the conventional wisdom is to go for high cpc niches.

 

[blacat]

@blacat - yes you're right what you say. That's one of my points really - although i didn't make it explicit - you can earn well out of sites with a low cpc when the conventional wisdom is to go for high cpc niches.

Absolutely. You made a good point with going against the conventional wisdom. I was just providing explanation for the point that CPC on the keyword planner is not necessarily relevant for the actual ads that will be shown.

 

[berkay1907]

Probably you are ranking because of your site is 6 years old and visitors must be clicking the other pages of your site. The reason your Cpc is high because google pays more when the traffic is coming from google itself and its the best quality you can ever have. I have seen this on a lot of sites. For example there are 2 sites in same niche when traffic comes from fb,twitter etc. your cpc will be much lower than the site with traffic coming from google. What i mean is the traffic source is the most important thing imo after keyword selection.

 

[Xtremerank]

With enough content and a proper silo structure, it is possible to rank without backlinks. However, some relevant high authority, high quality links will definitely help you reach your goal faster.

Cool thing about on-page adjustments, you can submit your site to get crawled and you'll notice your rankings change in real time. I'd suggest playing around with an authority site to get a feel for silo structures and keyword density (very important if you're looking to stay away from links).

 

[blacat]

Probably you are ranking because of your site is 6 years old and visitors must be clicking the other pages of your site. The reason your Cpc is high because google pays more when the traffic is coming from google itself and its the best quality you can ever have. I have seen this on a lot of sites. For example there are 2 sites in same niche when traffic comes from fb,twitter etc. your cpc will be much lower than the site with traffic coming from google. What i mean is the traffic source is the most important thing imo after keyword selection.

That's a good point about the referrer. I've also noticed that I get higher CPC when the referrer is from a relevant blog and trusted sites (real backlinks).