You need to go into your AdSense control panel and create a series of systematically named channels (e.g. "Ad Unit 1", "Ad Unit 2", etc.).

You then need to add these to your different ad units. From this you will be able to track ad units under your advanced reports in AdSense.

I think you can also directly look at revenue by ad unit in advanced reports without channels, but I really prefer to use channels.

I have my AdWords and GA accounts linked.

Hmmm. Are you expecting that there is some correlation to your AdSense earnings and your AdWords account?

But I can't find out anything that indicates what type of ad is generating revenue.

What do you mean by "type of ad?" Image vs. text ad, size of ad ?

Is there a way to find out which keywords are doing best for me?

Not sure what you're referring to here. Keywords from an AdSense perspective? Please elaborate.


FarmBoy

Keywords from an AdSense perspective?

Arbitrage?

Sorry, I am always confusing adsense and adwords.

I am referring to AdSense -- I'm a publisher and I am trying to optimize content to get max. revenue from AdSense.

I have setup my ad units to have individual channels -- I have four channels for the left and right units (small and large).

What I am trying to understand are the keywords that would be generating the clicks. I am already tightly focused -- I write about cloud computing. But I have a choice to make: should I write about investing in cloud computing or IT use of cloud computing.

Or are there specific aspects of IT use that I should write more about?

Knowing which ad units are working isn't much help. I want to know which type of advertiser I should be trying to attract.

Why don't you just write about both subjects and see which gets more revenue and expand on that one?

I agree with Johnmoose, but don't look only at revenue.

Does one topic area have more likelihood of garnering quality links from other sites?

Attracting good links can often provide as much boost to your income as trying to monetize every page to the nth degree.

Write about your topic as if it is your passion and you want your readers to be well informed. You will get referrals and links.

Write about your topic as if it is your passion to generate AdSense clicks for yourself while using the topic as a vehicle to accomplish your goal and it will show. Visitors will abandon your site within seconds of finding it.


FarmBoy

You need to understand how AdWords works with the Content Network (which is where your site resides in Google's entire advertising network)

Google uses keywords for Search and the Search Network partners - i.e. an advertiser bids on a keyword, and if the stars align correctly, his ad shows up when someone searches on that keyword.

But for Content, there are no keyword searches. So Google takes the keywords in the adgroup (as well as some other factors, like the type of site or category it thinks your site falls into) and tries to match the ad up that way. Google serves contextual ads to the Content Network by *theme* and not by specific keyword. So is entirely possible for an ad to show up on your site when the keyword the advertiser has specified doesn't show up anywhere on your pages.

Savvy advertisers (such as myself) separate out their Content campaigns into very tightly grouped themes with just a few keywords, so as to target as closely as we can. Then we go back and look at the sites where our ads appear, and if certain sites standout as good performers, we up our bids or placement target a campaign directly to those sites. And we cull out the dogs.

The best way you can analyze what's best for your site is to segment your content as best you can, and look at it that way, rather than by keyword.

Building on the good advice othershave given, consider the long term durability of what you write.

You can write for the short term with headline grabbing ideas and concepts that may only have a short life span. That might generate immediate traffic and quicker earnings, but how long either last is questionable.

Or you can write the kind of content we call "evergreen", or as close to that as possible. Content that people refer to years down the road as benchmark quality.

Writing benchmark quality content is might be more difficult, but in the long run it is may well be worth more. This is the kind of content that just keeps paying and paying long after it is created.

If I don't look at revenue, I won't be able to keep doing this. The basic problem I have is on big traffic days, I am not getting any increase in revenue.

On some other days, I do very well.

I could start segmenting the content more with the CMS and creating channels to match it, but that's a lot of prep work with me guessing as to which topics I should focus on.

I am getting the idea there are no tools that will help me from Google

If I were running my own ads, I would know which ones were clicked on. It is frustrating that I can't get any feedback on which ads the readers are responding to.

Do you have your Google ANALYTICS (not Adwords) and your Adsense accounts linked?

If you do, you can find out the keywords that are giving you the most Adsense revenues

You just go to Traffic Sources --> Keywords --> click on the tab called ADSENSE REVENUE at the top and then you can find how much each keyword has contributed to your Adsense revenue.

If I don't look at revenue, I won't be able to keep doing this.

... but that's a lot of prep work with me guessing as to which topics I should focus on.

When AdSense came along in 2003 a lot of sites already existed. People were creating sites out of interest, hobby, etc. and some were using various means to try and monetize those sites.

AdSense was introduced as a new means of monetizing an existing site. I call that the dog wagging the tail.

Now. instead of using AdSense to monetize a site/topic that would have existed anyway, lots of people seem to be putting up sites/topics for the sole purpose of generating revenue via AdSense. I call that the tail wagging the dog. That business model can be frustrating, especially if a person is depending on the money & hoping it will be generated.

Chasing topics with AdSense in mind can be futile and frustrating. Some people do it successfully, many don't.


FarmBoy

If you do, you can find out the keywords that are giving you the most Adsense revenues

Yes, I see that. But I am not seeing most of the revenue showing up here, connected to any keywords, even though I get about half my visits from Google. That leads me to assume that even if AdSense-clicking visitors came from Google, they are clicking on second or third pages. Or that most of my AdSense clicking people are coming from other sources.

That's why I started to trying to understand which pages were resulting in revenue.

I call that the tail wagging the dog. That business model can be frustrating, especially if a person is depending on the money & hoping it will be generated.

I'm really not quite as narrow focused as I may have come across. As I said, I have worked on websites where we sold direct -- and then we had our ad server stats to show us which ads were working for the audience. In that case, the process of building the product, and selling was well-finance. I am bootstrapping.

I am not planning to live off Google alone -- but it is an easy way to jump start a business and get revenue while the traffic is too small to justify direct sales.

I'm just trying to learn everything I can about what I have available.

Unfortunately, it's not an exact science. That's what you give up in exchange for the ease of just putting some code on your pages and collecting a check. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it successfully.

Or that most of my AdSense clicking people are coming from other sources.

If you have your Analytics connected with your Adsense, you will see which are the sources of traffic that gives you the most Adsense revenues

In our case, Google is not in the top 5 source of visitors that earn Adsense revenues for us.