Pay-per-Click Advertising
Every time a visitor to your
website clicks on an ad link, you make money.
Ka-ching!
Of the many revenue streams available to website owners, pay-per-click (PPC) is the easiest and perhaps the most promising.
It's easy because it takes almost no time to add pay-per-click ads to your website, and they pay commissions thereafter: 24/7/365/forever.
How much they pay depends on a complex commerce involving ad word auctions. The auctions, in turn, depend on the popularity of the keywords linked to the ads, and the budgets of the advertisers.
A click might pay a few cents or several dollars. If it's a few cents, and you get few clicks, you make pocket change. If it's a dollar or more and you get 50 clicks a day, you make $18,250+ per year.
If the keywords are "Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer" you may earn $10 per click and you may make a lawyer's income without even having a law degree.
PPC is such a good system for everyone concerned— advertisers, website owners, visitors —that the pay-per-click commissions rise substantially every year.
Ad word auctions are also international, so there's no downside from currency fluctuations (at least not for website owners).
Currently the most prominent contextual-ad program is Google AdSense, but other search engines—such as Overture—offer alternatives.
