2.4 Selling Advertising Space

Selling advertising space is one of the oldest methods of revenue generation. In the past, it has been used on billboards, on radio shows, in newspapers, and in magazines. Since the advent of the Internet, selling advertising space has become even more popular, as it allows advertisers to better target customers by demographic breakdowns.

While selling advertising space on the Internet has traditionally been done through banner advertisements, image ads, and textlinks past, that is no longer the case. Now, selling advertising space is usually done through some sort of third party program.

The most popular type of third party program for selling advertising space is Google's Adwords/Adsense combination. Through Adwords, advertisement publishers create ads and distribute them throughout Google's network, which includes both search engine partners and sites and blogs with content, such as yours. By simply tuning variables and submitting an ad to Google, the publisher can completely avoid having to find sites to advertise on; and can, at the same time, avoid paying for "page views," rather than performance or action.

Through Adsense, you can begin selling advertising space for your blog by generating code that matches the your layout. You can then insert it into three different places per page. You can also insert a search function, which will also yield ads that will match the visitor's search keywords.

While this has become considerably more popular in recent years, it is important to note that older forms of selling advertising space still do exist. You can still sell advertising by seeking out larger firms and asking them if they are interested in purchasing a periodic image or text advertisement on your website. You can also work through a third party "link broker" and have them do the same thing for you.

Additionally, you can still engage in banner selling or banner exchanges. While they have fallen out of favor somewhat as of late, they can still be a reliable means of generating blog revenue.