Ah yes, here we are at the topic that most people are interested in. The question of how to make money on the web has been on the lips of many, many people for the last few years. Fortunately, Google has made it quite easy for web publishers to tap in to a large network of online advertisers.

Once you join Google's AdSense program (take the tour to learn more) you will be able to have advertising displayed on your web site just by adding a small piece of code that Google will provide you. The revolutionary thing here is that Google will actually look at the content on any given page and display ads that are relevant to that content. This is called context-sensitive advertising and billions of dollars are spent on such advertising. Your piece of the pie is waiting for you.

When setting up your advertising with Google, you will be given the option of having text-only advertising or image/video advertising. You might be thinking that images and video are the way to go because they do a better of grabbing a user's intention. However, quite contrary to this common belief is the reality that text advertising, when blended within a web site's content, can perform better. The best thing to do is not make any assumptions and instead to test different ideas regardless of how off-the-wall they may seem to be.

So how much money can you expect to make from Google? That's going to depend largely on how much work you put in to attracting users to your web site. The key is that, if successful, you'll be making a small amount of money from every visitor and so you'll need a lot of visitors to earn a respectable amount of money. In addition, your web site's topic will determine how much, on average, each visitor earns for you. This is because different categories of advertisers are willing to pay different amounts per click. For example, a pet supplies business is likely going to pay a lot less for advertising than an investment services company.

Although other search engines such as MSN and Yahoo have jumped on to the contextual advertising bandwagon, Google still remains the dominant player. I highly recommend that you start with Google and only after you have a good feel for their system do you consider trying another service.

Finally, a warning. You may be tempted to click on the ads on your web site possibly out of innocent curiosity or because you want to generate ad revenue for yourself. Resist the temptation! Google will detect your clicks, will not pay you, and will likely cancel your account.