Just recently we went through all of our affiliate websites to see if there was any way we could improve the income we were making from them. A good majority of these websites haven’t been touched in over a year and the only income they were really generating was from Google Adsense ads.

From our analysis we realised that with just a few changes we could increase the income from these sites and we went ahead and did just that.

This got me thinking that it might be timely to write a blog post about it since I know one of them most common questions I see from people with predominantly Google Adsense type sites is how to increase the number of clicks.

I have put together a list of methods below but it is important that when trying these that you make one change and then test it for a few weeks to see the difference in income rather than go all out and make multiple changes in one go.

1. Create URL Channels

The Google Adsense program provides a systems of Channels to help you to keep track of exactly where clicks are coming from. These channels can be created on a per ad basis or a per url basis as follows:

• Custom Channels – allows you to track the performance of specific ad units on your website.
• URL Channels – allows you to track the performance of specific pages on your website.

What we have done in the past is create one Custom Channel per website. In this way we have been able to get the total number of Google Adsense clicks per website. But what if we want to know how many clicks are generated per page on our website? This is where URL Channels come in to play.

The benefit of creating URL channels is that you can see exactly what pages the clicks are coming from and also which web pages are getting a lot of higher value clicks.

For instance, say we have two pages on our website and we have created a URL channel for each page in Google Adsense. After a week has passed we go in and check the channel stats in our Adsense account and we can see that page 1 gets 100 clicks for a total of $19.00 while page 2 gets 100 clicks for a total of $95.00.

If we do the calculations here we can see that page 1 is paying out an average of 19c per click whereas page 2 is paying an average of 95c per click.

So what does this mean to us? Well it means that we can put more of our effort into getting backlinks and increasing traffic to page 2 since that is paying more on average per click.

2. Change the position of the ad

The position of a Google ad can make a significant difference to the number of clicks received. Check out some of the big Adsense sites to see where they position their ads – (see askthebuilder.com and about.com). Many of these sites get help from Google in terms of ad placement.

Move your ads around and test using url channels to see if a certain spots on your webpages generate more clicks than others.

Also if you have regular visitors to your site then it is most likely they have become immune to your ads so try moving them around every now and then.

3. Change the link text color

There are two schools of thought on this. One is that you should choose the same color link text as you have on the rest of your website so that it blends in and looks like any normal link on your site. The other is that you should use the default ‘click me blue’ color that most everyone knows is a link.

Again this all comes down to testing. Change the color and try it out for a few weeks. Change it again for the same period and compare the two.

4. Use relevant keywords on the page and in meta tags

Google displays ads based on what is written on your page and the keywords in your title tags and metatags. By writing content with relevant keywords you will find that your Google ads are more targeted to the content. This means that when someone visits that page they will be more likely to click on that ad as it is relevant to their search.

5. Create more content

The more content you create the more pages you will have on your site and the more Google ads you will have to display.

6. Place more than one ad on the page

Don’t just stick to one Google ad on a page. You can have up to 3 ads which you can place in strategic locations. Just try not to make it look too much like a page full of ads. This turns people off real fast.

7. Change the size of the ad

The size of a Google ad can make a big difference in the number of clicks. That’s not to say that you should plaster a big ad across the entire page but going up a size may see an increase in the click through rate.

8. Blend your ad in with your content

Ensure your ad blends in nicely with the rest of the content on your site. If you are using a 250×250 block for instance, then try to right or left align it with the content.

9. Increase your traffic

Well this one is kind of obvious. Increase your traffic and you will be more likely to get more people clicking on your Adsense ads.

10. Testing, testing, testing

Most of the above options require you to do a bit of testing. This is so important. Make small changes and keep track of the number of clicks and keep comparing.