In a roundabout way, Google is making money off “insurance”. No, they haven’t actually started selling policies. One of the ways that Google generates revenue is through Paid-Search keywords. It turns out that the key word phrases that use the word insurance make the most money for Google.
You probably use Google to look up information online. If I had to guess, I would think that Google’s search engine is the one that is used more than any other company’s search engine. People use it so often that the company name has become a verb.
“What time does the movie start?”
“I don’t know. I’ll Google it.”
In addition to its awesome search engine, Google has a lot of other features. If you have a gmail account, then your email is through Google. Once you have a gmail account, you can set up a Google calendar to help you keep track of day to day appointments. You can add interesting blogs to your Google Reader, (which makes it easier to find out when each blog updates). Google + (pronounced “Google Plus”), is something brand new to play around with. All of these features are free for everyone who wants to use them.
One of the ways Google makes money is through advertising revenue. There is something called Google AdWords. In short, Google places an ad on a website or blog, and makes money every time someone goes to that page. More money is made when a person clicks on the ad itself. This is a very simplified description of how that all works.
Google made about $32.2 billion dollars last year in total advertising revenue. Around 97% of it came from ads that were placed on Google sites. It turns out that certain keyword phrases generate more money for Google than others do. What is a keyword phrase? It is the words you, or anyone else, type into a search engine. It is the words that describe what you are trying to find online.
Larry Kim, founder of and chief technology officer of Word Stream, did some research about the keywords that generate the most income for Google. The word “insurance” came in at the very top of the list. 24% of the most expensive keyword phrases included the word insurance in them.
This means that phases like “auto insurance”, “car insurance quotes”, “affordable health insurance”, and others like those were big moneymakers for Google. It helps that none of these phrases are the names of a particular brand or company.
Another helpful factor is that most people don’t know very much about insurance, and yet, it is something that people need, or are often required by law to purchase. If you are a new driver, who has never bought auto insurance before, you suddenly have an interest in looking online for car insurance quotes. There are a lot of people searching for information on health insurance options right now. So, even though Google isn’t an insurance company, it is making lots of money from “insurance”.
Image by Tomas de Aquino on Flickr