Im always yammering on about optimizing the way your ad units look so that they fit onto the page. Im forever talking about putting the ad blocks in the right place and in the right format so that users can see them and click on them easily. Ive probably spent hours in front of the keyboard writing about finding keywords and bringing up the highest-paying ads.

All of those things are important.

But they all take for granted what is probably the number one most important factor in generating consistent, high revenues.

Know what Im talking about? Right... consistent, high quality content.

Now, if youre thinking, Well sure Joel, that goes without saying! just head over to Google, type in a keyword related to your sites content and see how far it goes without saying.

Youll probably find that about 95 percent of the sites that that keyword pulls up are garbage. Maybe two sites on the first page will be worth reading. The rest will be stuffed with dull information thats taken almost word-for-word from some other site long forgotten. Or theyll barely touch on the subject and contain nothing of any interest to anyone. Or theyll be filled with pages that contain little more than ads.

Lots of people have become pretty skilled at pushing their sites up the search engine rankings. Theyre much less skilled at producing the sort of content that gets users to come back regularly without a search -- the sort of content that people actually want to read.

But having good content isnt only important because it increases your traffic. Its important because it increases your trust.

And its trust that gets people to click.

The reason that high-earning AdSense publishers get plenty of clicks isnt just that they know what to do with their ads (although that certainly helps). Its that their users trust them to deliver the content they want to read. And that includes the content that they reach through the ad links.

Thats why Ill always turn down a high-paying keyword if Ive got nothing new or interesting to say about it. Sure, I might get a few clicks but Im not going to get consistent clicks, and Im not going to get them for long.

That doesnt mean Im going to ignore keywords. That would be crazy. But Im always going to be much better off with a good Web page using a medium-paying keyword than a dull page with a high-paying keyword. It just pays more... in the short-term and the long run.