CPC, or cost per click, is what advertisers pay Google each time someone clicks their ad for a keyword. RankDots shows it because it is a quick signal of commercial value: advertisers pay more for searches that tend to lead to a sale. You don’t pay it - it describes the ad market, not your costs.
Where you’ll see it
- Keywords screen: CPC columns for each keyword.
- Pages screen: a CPC columns for each page.
- A page’s details: Cost per click, with Min, Avg and Max.
All values are in US dollars, whatever your project’s country.
How to read it
- Min and Max are the low and high ends of the cost per click Keyword Planner gives. A wide gap means the price depends heavily on which ad wins.
- Avg is the midpoint between Min and Max - a simple middle of the range, handy for comparing keywords and pages, not the price most clicks sell at.
Higher CPC usually means more commercial value. Searches close to a purchase attract more advertisers and higher bids. A page with a high CPC can be worth more per visitor than one with more traffic and a low CPC.
Read it with keyword competition. High CPC with High competition is a strong sign of buyers. A high CPC on a keyword with few advertisers can be a niche worth a closer look.
It is not ranking difficulty. An expensive keyword can be easy to rank for in the regular results, and a cheap one hard.
How we get it
RankDots takes CPC from Google Keyword Planner, the same source as search volume and keyword competition, for your project’s country, and shows it in US dollars.
For a page, Min, Avg and Max are the averages of its keywords’ values. For a topic cluster, they are the averages of its pages’ values. CPC is fixed when your project is created and is not refreshed afterwards.
It is an estimate of the ad auction, not a price anyone has quoted to you.
What it doesn’t tell you
- Whether you can rank. Use keyword difficulty and Weak spots.
- What a visitor is worth to your business. That depends on your own sales and margins.
- Today’s prices. Ad prices move; CPC shows them as they were when your project was created.
- What you would pay. Actual ad prices depend on your bids, your ads and the competition on the day.