Google AdSense is a free tool that enables Google to target ads to your site’s visitors. Introduced in 2003, Google AdSense lets enterprise companies, small organizations, individual bloggers and everyone else in between place ads that are specific to their audience.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you have a  blog and want to make some money off ads. You reserve a banner area (468 x 60) in the top pane but are not sure how to sell the space. This is where Google AdSense jumps in. You simply let Google AdSense know that you have a 468 x 60 space available for an ad and it will look at your content, determine which ads in their network are relevant, and put the ad(s) on your site. It will even dynamically change based on the existing content. In other words, as your blog evolves, so will the ads.

Moving forward, if someone clicks on the ad, looks at your page, or buys something through the ad, you Google AdSense will pay you. It all depends on how the advertiser wants to pay you. You can read more about it on one of my previous posts: Types of affiliate marketing. Eventually, you may even want track your earnings through their reports so you can be more selective about which ads you want on your blog.

Basically, Google AdSense does all the matchmaking for you and you’ll have access to tens of thousands of advertisers. Although you will want probably want to use other revenue streams as well at some point, Google AdSense is a wonderful place to get your feet wet in affiliate marketing.