I have a three-step process for making changes to my sites. Although the process is very simple in theory, I have found that it helps to keep me focused.

1. Experiment. Even if you think that your site or blog is perfect, there are always new things that you can try. I have found that the short term hit in performance that you may see is more than worth it. For example, in the past few months I have tried running ads from Adsense, YPN, Adbrite, and Text Link Ads to see which perform the best. I learned something from each of these experiments. Some things you might want to experiment with are:

• Advertising Programs (contextual, pay per impression, affiliate, etc.)
• Ad placement and Size
• Related ebook sales
• Creative partnership or link exchanges

2. Track. Experimenting is great, but in order to know if you are headed in the right direction or aimlessly wandering, you need to be able to track your experiments. My method of tracking usually depends on the nature of the experiment. For my Adsense tests, I set up custom channels for each version of the ad that I would like to try, and then I will rotate the ads using PHP code. This can also be done with javacript.

To keep track of the days when I make the changes, I mark the days in my yahoo calendar. I learned to do this the hard way after being unable to remember when I started some of my experiments. To get a good idea of how the test is performing, I try to run each test for at least a week.

3. Optimize and Repeat. Once you have tracked your changes, you can alter your site based on your findings and repeat the process. Over time, a series of small changes can really add up into something big.
If you need some further inspiration, you can learn about how I used this process to boost my Adsense click through rate by 34%. Good luck with your experiments!

This is post is a part of the ProBlogger group writing project. I encourage you to check out all of the other great posts from around the web.