Average Bid?

We usually start at half of what Google says the average bid is and inch our way up until we get into one of the top of page one ad positions. The bid to get there is never as high as Google says it is.

Hi, Rebecca

This is a very complex question but the 2 most important things you need to take into account are:

1) The bids that the keyword planner shows are for Google Search ads. Obviously someone who searches for a business gas supplier on Google is potentially a very valuable customer. Much more than someone who clicks on a display ad next to an article about business gas suppliers. While a high suggested bid amount does mean that the keyword is valuable to many advertisers, it doesn't really tell you how much you could earn per display click. In general, it could mean higher earnings per click but most likely not even close to £30.

2) The Adsense ads which show up on your site aren't always related to the content of your site. Advertisers have many different targeting options. Keyword and topic targeting are the ones which match ads with related content but there are also interest targeting and demographic targeting which means that someone on your site could see an ad which is relevant to him while completely unrelated to your content. Not to mention remarketing ads which are very popular.

You cannot opt out of remarketing (and you shouldn't anyways because these can be some of the more expensive clicks) but you can block ads based on users’ interests and demographics. You can even block ads leading to specific URLs if you don't like a particular ad on your site.

However, I've never done it and I don't think that you should. AdWords is an auction where all the different advertisers compete for clicks and theoretically if you exclude some of the participants, you end up earning less.

It's impossible to say what's more profitable for you without any testing.

Adsense is sort of a lazy monetization method and you need lots of traffic to earn any significant amount. But it's also easier to get someone to click an ad rather than to click and buy something.

I personally use Adsense + Amazon affiliate and I like both of them. And I didn't feel like adding Amazon affiliate offers hurt my Adsense revenue, so I'm happy to use both at the same time.

The only way to know is to try it. It sounds like a good idea and it's worth trying.

If Google Ads have worked well for you in the past, then it should be good. Google Ads are the widely used since they are linked to everything everyone uses on the internet. However, try other option in case you fail any Google regulations.