Display ads have been part of my life for almost as long as making websites.

300×250 might not mean much to you, but I’ve had these dimensions memorized for years.

Whether it’s a leaderboard or a skyscraper, we see online display advertisements all of the time. We typically notice them when they are done really well – or done poorly. Not sure how many of us are clicking, but there is always a percentage that does.

I’ve sold display ads for media companies and I’ve made them for clients, but finally I got to the bottom of how I can make money by allowing them on my websites.

AdSense Ads Are Everywhere

For the last several years (and since I was introduced to paid online display ads), I wondered how everyone set these up. I played around with my original fantasy football website and learned a PHP code that manually flipped out ads on a rotation. Was this how all ads were done?

Certainly all the ads on the internet were not individually sponsored and put on the website by the webmaster.

In comes Google AdSense.

After a quick online search, I learned that there was a display advertising network named AdSense. Website owners sign up and add code to their website. Advertisers sign up and target their customers. Google basically runs the whole operation and makes money in the process.

I was, and still am, far from an expert at Google AdSense and making money from display advertising. Reasons?

1. My business works mostly with local small businesses selling their own services – not national websites trying to get mass website traffic.
2. All of my hobby websites are created for my enjoyment and never really focused on getting a mass audience.

Since making money on AdSense and Display advertising takes getting a lot of website traffic, it was never in my best interest to spend too much time focusing on endeavor. Recently I started getting a lot of traction for various articles on my blog and realized that I should give a little more focus on some of my hobby websites. I will touch on these in the coming months.

The Premise of Fat Stacks Blog

I stumbled across the Fat Stacks Blog Podcast when searching for “ways to make money online” in Apple Podcasts. Since this was the theme for the month, I wanted to learn about every possible option. There were a lot of podcasts focused on AdSense, but I felt Fat Stacks Blog did a great job explaining AdSense vs. Affiliate Marketing (a topic we covered in previous Listen of the Week blogs).

So what is Fat Stacks Blog Podcast?

Podcast about building a digital publishing business that includes blogging, publishing websites, website monetization with AdSense and other display ads, affiliate marketing, SEO and pretty much everything and the kitchen sink about launching and growing digital assets.

Fat Stacks Blog Stitcher Bio

Why Did I Pick a Podcast about AdSense?

If you are not one of the local Ohio Valley businesses I work with, you might be someone looking to earn some money from your blog. I know that if I had unlimited time I would be pushing a Fantasy Football blog, a professional wrestling blog, and a Walt Disney World blog. These are my hobbies and I would love to make money by talking about them. If I could generate enough traffic, maybe people would want to advertise on these topics.

We covered Affiliate Marketing in the last few blogs so why not just place links in the page and go that route? Thankfully, the recommended podcast this week covers some very important reasons why AdSense is a great option.

• Content Freedom – you can write about anything and not just products.
• Easier to hire freelance writers or content creators.
• Fewer Risks with commission compared to Affiliate Marketing
• Buyer Intent and harder to build links for Affiliate Marketing

There are a lot of pros and cons reviewed in the entire podcast, but overall its a great little listen on some of the benefits to working with AdSense.

The Podcast: “AdSense vs. Affiliate Marketing – What’s the Best for Monetization?”

This podcast is an easy listen with very little small talk and zero commercial breaks.

Enjoy.