Earn Money by selling ad space

Until a few years ago, AOL and other online services made the vast majority of their money from subscription revenue. Then they discovered something that newspapers, radio and TV stations figured out a long time ago: They can also make money by selling advertising and products.

The same could be true for your Web site.

Your Web site is probably set up to promote your products or services or to sell merchandise. If you're attracting a significant number of visitors, you might be able to further "monetize" your site by selling advertising.

A number of companies can help you sell advertising space. Some charge fees, but there are plenty that will do it on a percentage basis--they collect a fee from the advertiser and pay you a percentage of what they collect.

Some of the services worth trying are:

Chitika: Chitika offers search-targeted advertising solutions. Web publishers can make money from their search engine traffic using our smart, personalized targeting ad solution that provides premium content called: Chitika | Premium. These ad units can be used on websites with Google AdSense or as an AdSense alternative.

AdBrite: Provides various banner, full page and in-line ads.
More on http://www.techrecipe.co.cc/2008/12/making-money-with-adbrite.html

DoubleClick is the 800-pound gorilla of online advertising, and it's a great choice for large advertisers who want to hook up with high-traffic Web sites. However, there are other agencies that specialize in small and up-and-coming sites.

Flycast (http://www.flycast.com), for example, has a program for Web sites that attract as few as 20,000 impressions a month. An impression is the number of times people see an ad. If you have one ad per page, then an impression would be equal to what is called a "page view." Every time a visitor visits a page, you get one page view and every ad displayed on that page equals an impression. So, if 20,000 people visit your site and see an ad, or 10,000 people visit two pages on your site, you've reached the 20,000-impression threshold. If you're accepted as a Flycast "publisher," the company will provide you with some HTML code that you put on your Web page so it can display ads. They keep track of all the impressions and pay you what they earn, less their 45% commission.

ValueClick (http://www.valueclick.com) is another agency that places advertisements on smaller Web pages. Instead of paying you per impression, they pay per click through.

The idea is that you get paid for every visitor to your site who clicks on an advertisement. How much you get depends on the number of visitors to your site. Lower traffic sites (called "affiliate hosts") get 12 cents per click through. Sites with 100,000 or more impressions get 17 cents, and higher volume sites can get as much as 25 cents per click through.

Adflight (http://www.adflight.com) is one of the more interesting advertising companies because it will affiliate with virtually any Web site that gets 5,000 or more impressions per month. There are exceptions. It doesn't, for example, accept advertising or place advertising on so-called adult sites or others that contain material that is illegal, violent, demeaning or otherwise inappropriate for a general audience. You also have the right to reject specific advertisers, including competitors you feel are inappropriate.

The company returns 70% of all advertising revenue to the site owner and offers both impression-based and click-through-based advertising deals. It also lets you establish your own advertising rate based on a "cost per thousand," or, as they say in the ad biz, "CPM." Publishers set their CPM based on a number of factors including the reputation of the site, the demographics of its visitors and even the subject matter, according to Adflight CEO Albert Lopez. Sites that reach a broad consumer market, for example, will have a lower CPM than those that cater to a well-heeled crowd that is more likely to buy a lot and spend lots of money per transaction. A site aimed at information-technology professionals who buy computer equipment for large companies, for example, would have a higher CPM than one aimed at general consumers or teenage game players. Non-targeted ads typically command a CPM of $5 or less while advertising placed on relevant and focused sites can go for as much as $200 per thousand impressions.

You can affiliate with Adflight by filling out an online application. Part of the process allows you to create a "media kit" which, like the media kits created by large publications and Web sites, tells prospective advertisers about your site and the demographics of your audience.

Once you've submitted your application, you can begin displaying ads immediately. At first, you'll get what the service calls "run of the net" ads that are randomly assigned to your site, but if your media kit appeals to specific advertisers, you might start to get ads tailored to your audience. The more tailored the ad, the more likely people are to click on it, which is good when you're being paid by the click.

In addition to advertising, you can also make extra money by joining an affiliate program. Amazon.com, for example, allows you to create your own online bookstore and pays you a commission for every book sold. You can find information about other affiliate programs at http://www.top-affiliate-programs.com.

Before you join any affiliate program or start taking advertising on your site, consider its potential impact on your business. It can bring in some extra money but ads can, in some cases, slow down your site and can also dilute your message. Be especially vigilant to avoid any ads or affiliations that could embarrass you or send out messages that might make you or your visitors uncomfortable.