1. Understand how the pay-per-click (PPC) model works. An advertiser pays a search engine company like Google for ads to be placed in search results or on websites with which the company has agreements. Website owners sign up with Google and allow ads to be published on the websites. When visitors to the site click on the ads, the advertising money put up by the advertiser is split up between the website owner and the company (in this case, Google). Google, in particular, does not disclose the amount split, and you can assume that Google probably gets a bigger share than the website.
2. Get a monetizable website. Monetizing your website means making your site capable of earning money through PPC advertising. For this purpose, you need a website that will draw a lot of people, with space where Google can place relevant ads. A website about cars, for example, can place ads about cars, parts, and related products and services. Finding a website that draws a lot of people requires trying out different topics and researching what ideas are searched for most on the Internet. Websites about making money do well. Additionally, you can go to Alexa (see Resources below) and see the top visited websites.
3. Set up Google AdSense. AdSense is the name of the product that Google uses to place ads on websites. To get set up with AdSense, go to google.adsense.com and set up an free account. Provide information about yourself and your website, and how Google should pay you. You'll need to pick out different options for how the ads will appear on your website.
The options are things like the color of the ad, borders and text. Many websites have success by having the ads look similar to their own site. According to your picks, Google will show you some code. Just copy and paste the code into your site. Google will give you some direction on how to do this.
4. Use AdWords. AdWords is Google's advertising program that is basically the opposite of AdSense. Sign up at adwords.google.com and select a website or keywords that you are willing to pay per click for someone to visit your site. AdWords and AdSense cancel each other out to some extent, but this is a good way to start getting visitors to your site without paying a lot in pay-per-click advertising. Consider other advertising that will bring people to your site, such as link exchanges.
5. Test things out. Try different types, sizes and placements of the ads on your website to see what works best. Subtle changes can make a difference. AdSense allows for many different choices, just copy the new code for each change in AdSense and paste it where the old code exists. Be sure to delete the old code.