How do I make money from my site? A lot of people don't realize this, but just like the television or magazine industry, the entire internet is supported by advertising in one way or another. When you go to any major site, you will see ads. Without advertising the internet would not exist the way it does today. When you sign up for free Web space at a place like Bravenet , you can expect to have advertising on the site that you make there. Companies need to include advertising to support their businesses.
When you get free space from a free host, you will have advertising on your site. When you purchase your own domain name and your own Web space, you will not have ads on your site. You don't have ads because the Web host is supported by the money you pay them for the space. If you own your own domain, you can get in touch with an ad agency to see if they would like to place ads on your site. Some advertisers require your site to have as little as 5,000 pageviews a month in order to accept your site into their agency. Some advertisers require you to have over 1,000,000 page views a month.
If you get accepted into an ad program, the agency will sell a certain amount of your ad space. Any ad inventory that remains unsold is usually sent to public service advertising, which will run for free on your site. You can avoid having public service advertising on your site by setting up a default ad. I sell my default space to people with personal sites.
There are two main types of advertising. One is known as CPM and one is known as CPC.
CPM Means "cost per thousand." The M is the Roman numeral for the number 1,000, therefore CPM. This means that you will get paid a certain amount every time the CPM ad loads 1,000 times. Each ad that appears on your site will have a different CPM. Usually, your ad agency and the advertiser set the CPM rate for your site.
CPC Means "cost per click." Each time that someone clicks on a CPC ad, you get paid an amount that is determined by your ad agency and the advertiser.
Both of the above methods are usually used by an ad agency. Some of your ads will be CPM and some of them will be CPC. 
You can choose to run CPM ads only.
I am represented by three ad agencies:
All three of these agencies are excellent. I use one as my primary agency. When that agency has sold as much ad inventory as they want for my site, the ads then roll over to the next agency. When the 2nd agency has sold all they want, it rolls over to the 3rd agency. When they're finished selling the ads, my default ad, Dreamhost, appears.
I also use Google AdSense. Google AdSense is different from the above ads in that it is text based, and not image based. Google supplies text links on your site that match your content. If you look at the Google ad on the left, you can see an example of content matching. This is a great program because it really finds things that would be interesting and relevant to your visitors, and makes it more likely that they will click on the ads. It helps your visitors and helps your site at the same time.
Another type of advertising is the affiliate program. Affiliate programs are easier to be accepted into. You choose which products you think you can sell on your site, and add an image link that they provide. The affiliate partner tracks the number of times your ad actually appears, how many times the ad is clicked on, and any products you have sold.
One popular affiliate program is Amazon. There are many others.
Having a PayPal donation button on your site may help, but usually you will only receive enough money to defer the cost of your Web site hosting. People tend to donate if you offer a free service or a lot of free useful information.
You will generally make more money with an ad agency than with affiliate programs. In order to apply to the above agencies, find the publisher link on their site. You'll need to know how many unique visitors you have per month and how many pageviews you have per month before you apply.
Good luck!
