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How to monetize your website with ads

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While your website might be providing information about your business, it can be used as a secondary form of income. Hosting advertisements and banners from other companies will monetize website while being lucrative if it’s set up correctly. Once you place ad onto the website, they have potential to continue making you money 24 hours per day. One of the best parts is that you don’t have to spen extra money to get on board with these services.

Types of advertisement campaigns

There are three main types of advertisements that are the most common for making you money: Pay-Per-Click, Pay-Per-Impression and Affiliated Marketing. All of these systems are easy to operate and can be used on virtually any website. In fact, some people make a living blogging as these ads generate enough income to replace full-time jobs. However, this takes a great deal of dedication and marketing on your behalf.

It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it can give you money for doing nothing more than managing your website – which is something you should be doing anyway. One thing you need to be aware of when you monetize your website with ad placements is the inevitable link that will display your competitors. It may also be possible to show ads that are not appropriate for your content. Unfortunately, you can’t see the ads your visitors come across on your site. However, most systems allow you to fine-tune what you’re displaying by category.

Pay-Per-Click campaigns

The pay-per-click campaign is one of the most often utilized on websites. In this environment, you are paid anytime someone clicks on an ad. For instance: If someone visits your website and clicks an advertisement they see, you make money. The amount you receive varies on several factors, but it can range from $0.01 up to several dollars per visitor. In most systems, the amount you make is determined by how much the advertising company is paying for the space.

Pay-Per-Impression campaigns

Some online marketing companies offer pay-per-impression platforms. In this environment, you’re paid anytime that advertisement is displayed on your site. If someone visits your website and sees the advertisement, your make money. In most systems, the amount you’re paid is determined by the advertiser’s cost-per-thousand impressions, or CPM. For instance, you would get two-one-thousandths of a cent per impression if the advertiser offers a $2 CPM. This may not sound like a lot of money until you take into consideration the traffic to your website. If you generated 10,000 visitors per day, you could make $20 for doing nothing more than showing the ad.

Affiliated marketing

Affiliates work differently than PPC and CPM styles of advertising. You’re paid a commission of sales if someone purchases goods from the company you’re advertising. This has potential to make more money than PPC or CPM platforms, but requires a great deal more attention and marketing on your behalf. It works like this:

  • You sign up with an affiliate sharing company.
  • You look for companies you want to advertise on your website.
  • You apply to those companies to advertise their goods.
  • Once accepted, you copy and paste the advertisement code to add ads to website.
  • If a visitor on your site clicks on their ad, a special code is used to track whether or not that visitor makes a purchase.
  • If he or she buys something from that company’s website, you get a commission.

Each company on these affiliate sites offer varying degrees of commission. Usually this is in the form of a percentage of the sale, although some will offer flat rates. For the most part, you’re only paid if one of your visitors interacts with the advertiser’s website such as making purchases.

What kinds of ads are available?

When it comes to promoting ads on your website, they can come in two forms: text and image. In many situations, you have control over what kinds are placed on your website. While some people have better luck using imagery, others have made more money with text-based ads. To find what works best for you, it may take some time while analyzing the data provided by advertisers to see which have the most impact on your target audience.

Text ads

Text ads are those that simply use words to describe the company or products that are offered. These are some of the most common and are widely used throughout the Internet. In fact, you may have clicked on some of these yourself when visiting other sites or when using search engines such as Google.

Example text ad

Image ads

Image ads are growing in popularity due to their return-on-investment and the technology driving the Internet today. These can range from simple graphics of products or services to elaborate moving and interactive Flash-based banners.

Example image ad

Link ads

These are simple ads made up of simple text links: no images, and limited to a single line.

Example link ads

Video ads

Video ads belong to a category of ad known as rich media ads, which are generally intereactive. Video ads are playable, stoppable ads rendered within a video media player.

Example video ad

Ad sizes

Ad units are usually available in a variety of standard ad sizes. Some of the most common ad sizes are listed at the end of this article, and are generally available for both text and image ads. You should be able to find something that’s suitable for your website design, whether it’s a horizontal banner, a square banner, or a tall skyscraper banner for the side of your page.

The most common ad sizes are listed below. Note that not all ad types will be available in all size formats. Video ads in particular are usually only available in a restricted number of formats.

Most common ad sizes

Medium rectangle (300 x 250)
Large rectangle (336 x 280)
Leaderboard (728 x 90)
Wide skyscraper (160 x 600)

Horizontal ad sizes

Half banner (234 x 60)
Banner (468 x 60)
Large leaderboard (970 x 90)

Vertical ad sizes

Skyscraper (120 x 600)
Vertical banner (120 x 240)
Large skyscraper (300 x 600)

Square ad sizes

Square (250 x 250)
Small square (200 x 200)
Small rectangle (180 x 150)
Button (125 x 125)

Where do you get advertisers and/or affiliates?

As this is an incredibly popular method for companies to advertise their products and services online, these systems are growing in number. Although Google Adsense is one of the more common forms to add ads to website, there are several alternatives available such as:


Affiliate websites are just about as common as ad sites and can provide you with links to sell goods from some of the biggest companies in the world. Should you want to try your hand at this form of ad revenue to monetize website, you can visit sites such as:


Tips for maximizing your site’s potential

If you plan to monetize your site with ads, follow the advice below to try to get the most benefit from the ads, with the least impact on your visitors.

Ad placement

Using the provided code, you can essentially put the ad anywhere on your site. You want to put an ad in a location where it will be seen by the most people. If you use platforms such as WordPress or Joomla, you can place these ads on side navigation areas that will be shown on every page of your site.

Avoid over-crowding

It may be tempting to add a bunch of advertisements to your website, but you need to avoid crowding your pages. It looks tacky, it can be distracting from your own content and it could ultimately damage your site’s reputation online. It’s best to limit yourself to a few and swap out ads that are not working for you.

Relevant content

Keep your website relevant to your ads. Although many systems such as Google Adsense deliver ads according to the visitor’s online activity, you want to display material that is related to your niche. For example, you would want an affiliate banner showing ads for boating supplies if you have a fishing website.

Main image: David Evers