The Internet is powered by advertisements. Since the Internet is free to use, the companies or individuals that have their own website sites aren’t paid when you, or any other person on the Internet, visits them. Therefore, they put advertisements on their websites to profit.

How do this work?

Advertisements on the Internet work similarly to commercials on television. There are basically four parties involved in advertising. Let’s break this down with an example from a prior Super Bowl:

1. Advertised Company – This is Go Daddy. The company may be advertising anything and in any form. This company pays the second party, the advertising company, to have their ads placed.
2. Advertising Company – This is the company that seeks places to put the first party’s advertisements. This company is not named in the example, but most of the time when you are dealing with Internet advertisements, this is Google.
3. Content – This is what the consumers want. In the example that we are giving, the content is the Super Bowl. The consumers are watching the channel that these advertisements are placed on for the Super Bowl, similar to how a consumer may be browser your website where advertisements are placed. If you are interested in optimizing your website for search engines, YOU are probably the provider of this content.
4. Consumer – The consumers are the people that are, in this case, watching the Super Bowl. They are looking for the content, but are shown advertisements in an attempt to distract them from the content to the advertised company. These would be the visitors to your website. Ultimately, the number of people who find the advertised company depends on the number of consumers.

How do this affect me?

Advertisements are a relatively easy way to make money on the Internet. Easy, that is, compared to starting a business based on services and skills that could be done. Creating a website that has advertisements only requires the ability to create the content that is on it. With modern content management systems, such as WordPress running this blog, this doesn’t require much technical skill. If you are creating a website, and you plan to put advertisements on it, you are content, the third item on the list. Your goal is to attract as many consumers, number four on the list, as possible. These consumers are your ticket to profit.

How does SEO play into this?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, plays a big part in this process of advertising. The higher your website ranks on a search engine, or the better optimized it is to do so, the more consumers you will attract to your website and the more profit you will make.

Tags: Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Super Bowl