While I was recently researching search arbitrage (yes I know I’m 6 months late) I spent a lot of time in front of keyword discovery and bid level tools looking at terms like car insurance. What I found was a huge variation in keyword bid levels, and it got me thinking; using bid $ levels to guide content creation could speed revenue generation for an AdSense blog like mine.

Which explains why I’m talking about car insurance and not some other high paying keyword or more “tech” related topic. In fact I do have a lot to say about car insurance, and this article should have a decent change to rank for the term. If not the secondary keywords usually still demand a higher price and are much easier to rank for.

I have the wonderful privilege of living in Massachusetts, which means I pay 1 amount for my auto insurance no matter which insurer I choose (I just choose an “agent”). All those glorious (and costly) car insurance commercials on TV from Geico, State Farm, All State, AIG, Progressive, and Esurance are useless on me as I can’t save any money, and their services don’t matter to me in a state where the price is regulated. It’s all explained better at the DMV.org site.

I also need to point out that advertising auto insurance on price alone, isn’t a great idea for the consumer unless they are in dire need of the cheapest coverage available. You want to make sure you’re protected in case of an accident, and that might mean slightly higher premiums to cover hospital expenses and possible injury to other occupants. Which depending on how you look at insurance in general, may be worth it for you (head of household primary source of income anyone?).

The second item I wanted to discuss was the search results in Google for the term “car insurance”. It’s completely dominated by the commercial players in this market, and Wikipedia is no where to be found on page 1. Interestingly the results over at Mahalo paint a much different picture. Not only are the large national providers listed (with a simple link), but also Car Insurance Tips and Buying Guides, Car Insurance Company Comparisons, Car Insurance News & Articles, and information on Car Insurance Scams & Fraud. This is an area where the consumer and one could argue the insurance companies are better served by human search. But I digress.

Coming back full circle, I’m going to track just this post (using AdSense Channels) to see how it pays out over time, and compare it with the average for my more tech focused and misc topic posts.