Golden rules of Advertising.

If you want to make money online, there are a few things you must remember. You blog or website isn't going to sprout into a full grown money tree overnight.

If you don't have traffic, advertising with you is useless.

There are plenty of ways to build traffic. You could advertise, but do you really want to invest in your money sapling? Nah, not when you're in the budding stages. What you really want to do to build traffic is gain exposure through natural means.

1) Social networks. Have a like button, have a tweet button, maybe even a dig button. Could even go as far as a stumble button. This allows people who like what your site has to offer a way to easily share it, and it reminds them to do so.

2) Build your search engine ranking. Links to your blog, your posts, anything about you, will build your ranking here. Everytime you post (or at least the good ones) tweet it, share it on facebook, Google will notice, and you'll be higher on the search rankings for it.

3) Comment on other blogs (this was my main form of advertising in the super early stages) commenting on other blogs, especially small ones with low traffic, will cause that blogger to take note of you. s/he'll become curious who you are, and check out what you have to offer. Don't be so blunt as to ask for an exchange, but genuinely interested in what he has to say.

4) Forums and other. Answer peoples questions related to your blog topic on forums, or other website (yahoo answers is great for this). Provide the best answer, then tell them they can read more at one of your blog posts and provide a link. You can gain a life-long reader.

Keep in mind, none of those things will directly earn you megabux but the money won't come without the traffic, and traffic won't come without exposure.