How much related to the content does a keyword have to be?

[M3nsch]

Hi!

I own a german website about a german soccer team and, as most webmasters, suffer from small CPC rates.

So I searched for high CPC keywords via the adwords keyword tool and discovered that "soccer betting" is very profitable. So, while my site deals with soccer content, it does not deal directly with betting content. On the other hand I am sure that a lot of my visitors are interested in soccer betting.

So, my question is:
Do you think that adding the keyword "betting" to my title and content in a sophisticated context is something that can my get banned, although my website is not totally unrelated to that topic (because it deals with soccer)?

Thanks in advance! :)
Benjamin

[leadegroot]

I can't see that it would get you banned from adsense, but it might ruin any organic rankings you currently have.
Here's a better way to do the same thing:
- research a couple of 'soccer betting' topics - find the exact keywords you want
- write up a couple of pages on these topics - well, at least one :)
- publish the new page on your site. You don't need to put adsense on that page, but you can if you want
- on the pages where you currently run adsense, add an 'adblock' that is a link to your new page. (I don't mean make it look like adsense, but it should be a block of text that links through to the new page. Usually the easiest way to integrate it into an existing page is to treat it link an ad)
- *slightly risky element* place AdSense Section Targeting tags around the new text block (that links to the new page). I say its slightly risky because I've never heard of anyone being banned for section targeting a somewhat off topic chunk, but that doesn't mean you won't be the first.

Apart from the possibility of the section targeting, there would be no reason for any problem, IMHO.

[M3nsch]

Sounds interesting.

Problem is, my website is a single-page-website, so publishing new content to it is difficult. The reason it consists of only one page is that my visitors love to get the information they want right on the first page. i generate around 3500 unique visitors a day this way.

next thing i should mention: i dont care about google ranks. my website serves a very special niche, nobody gets to it via special keywords except the name of the site itself. so, my aim with keyword optimization is getting high cpc ads only, google rank doesnt matter.

so, you say that adding a poorly related keyword to title and content is not likely to get me banned?

[buckworks]

First, CPCs are often much lower on the display network than in Google search. So be careful not to assume too much when you're dreaming about high-paying clicks.

Second, if your site is about soccer and has decent traffic it's likely that soccer betting advertisers are already targeting it to the extent that they can.

[M3nsch]

I did not see a single betting ad on my page since i do adsense...

So, you think i should not focus on getting the "betting" keyword to my page but focus on channel optimization?

I did set up a channel, but i am not really sure wether i did well on this whole channel thing.

I have 2 ads and a link unit on my page and threw them all in one channel called "soccer fans website". I described it by saying "This is a single page website that is visited by around 3500 soccer fans a day. Most of them are male and between 15 and 50 years of age."

Thats it. What could i do to improve my channel strategy? Are there any good guides?

Thanks so much in advance!

[chrism]

First, CPCs are often much lower on the display network than in Google search. So be careful not to assume too much when you're dreaming about high-paying clicks.

Interestingly, I've found the adwords tool estimates to be quite accurate to what i receive since the wording changed on the tool to something along the lines of 'averaged across positions on the first page'. Of course the numbers on the keyword tool are what the advertiser pays, so you have to knock 30% off to get the approximate adsense cpc figure. Before the tool changed they were way out for me.

[chrism]

I should add that assumes google detects the correct keywords for your page, as red widgets might pay considerably better than small red widgets, so have a good scan through the keyword tool suggestion to make sure there arent tons of low value terms that could describe your page.