If you have a site, or multiple sites, you’ve probbaly heard of and/or used Google Adsense. As you see from the image/button to the right you can configure AdSense for referrals too. What a lot of people don’t know about AdSense though, is that you can use it for free advertising for your own sites.

What do I mean? Well let’s say you have two sites (and you’ll probably need at least that). Site A is where you plan on putting your Google AdSense. Site B is one you already have and are looking to advertise.

When you go to create an AdSense advertising block (AdSense for content), you’ll notice that at the bottom (on the single page setup) there is a small section (just above where you can find the code to paste in): Alternate ads or colours.

There are three options:

  • Show public service ads
  • Show ads from another URL
  • Fill space with a solid colour

The first option is selected by default. The one you want however, is the second one. Assuming that you have already decided (and selected) the ad size you want, you now need to make a graphic to advertise Site B. Let’s choose 160×600, a skyscraper ad.

You make your graphic, and then make a simple webpage to house the graphic. Inside the <body> tag, you put the <img> tag pointing at your graphic, and then link it to Site B (i.e., <a href=”Site B”><img …).

Upload your image to your site somewhere, note the URL. Then back to the Google AdSense page, select the middle option cited above, it will open up a text box, put in the URL and that’s it! Get the Google AdSense code and paste it into Site A.

From then on, any AdSense block that Google cannot create contextual advertising for, that would normally leave an empty block or a public service ad from Google, will now show your ad for Site B.