What keywords cause my website to be chosen for an ad?

Some questions from an Adsense newbie

[nubbin]

Hello all,
Well, this is a really fascinating forum and has really opened my eyes to what might be a good way to make a bit more money from my web site.
My web site is 2 years old, has about 1500 pages of content about vintage items I sell and ranks well in Google for my target key words. A few days ago I put adsense on half the pages in a fairly unprominent position, just to see what would happen and to learn.

I am still trying to understand the basics of Adsense. Can anyone with more experience help?
1. Is it possible to know what key words are resulting in ads being put on my page, and how much advertisers are bidding for these key words? If I knew this I might be able to fine tune my pages to rank higher for higher paying relevant key words.

2. How do I find out how much a key word/phrase costs for an advertiser. For example say I reckon my web site is very relevant to searches for "old blue widgets". To find out how much an advertiser would pay for a click on a link would I need to work my way through Google's Adword purchase process and see what CPC I need to bid to get close to number 1 position in an Adsnes block of adverts? Or is there an easier or better way to do this?

3. A lot of the ads that adsense preview tool suggests it will put on my site are for my competitors. Is it a good idea to block those URLs even though they are the highest paying ads? I can't figure out whether the revenue I would get from clicks would be wiped out by losing sales to competititors. My instinct is to block the ads.

Thanks
Nubbin

[goodroi]

If I remember correctly Adsense gives more attention to keywords towards the start of the page. As for trying to get better paying keywords, you can do the research yourself or you can buy a list of expensive keywords. Then just write articles about them. Of course 1 or 2 or a thousand people have already tried to take advantage of Adsense so Google is well experienced in this area. My best advice is to review the old postings here. The questions you are asking have been discussed alot.

[nubbin]

Hello Goodroi,

Thanks for your help. I will keep reading the excellent threads on this forum and hopefully find answers. I have discovered that Yahoo provides tools that let you quickly assess how many times a term has been searched for, and what the current bids are for advertising for that term:

[searchmarketing.yahoo.com...]

This may save some other newbies some time.

Nubbin