Everyone has seen media spotlight focused on big dot-coms who, dependent on ad revenues, have either gone out of business or been forced to cut back.

Unfortunately, it's same story for small business owners. The economic downturn leaves many potential advertisers much more reluctant to pay prices they would have a year or two ago.

I recently came across a message board where one advertiser summed it up this way: in these hard economic times, she has read that people are less willing to make purchases. This means that she is much more at risk to suffer a loss rather than make a profit.

Like most people, this advertiser does not have any extra money to spare - and certainly none to lose to a failed ad campaign. To turn odds in her favor, she regularly goes bargain-hunting for ad specials.

Frustrated webmasters and online editors are feeling pinch of lost ad revenues. This is particularly evident with recent launch of ad auction sites such as WebmasterBids.com and EzineAdAuction.com. These sites are specifically meant to aid newsletter editors and webmasters in selling their remnant ad space - space that would otherwise remain unsold, profits lost forever.

This doesn't mean that you can't benefit from your ad space! Quite contrary. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Encourage Customers to Book Multiple Ad Slots.

Offer large discounts on multi-ad packages. This is a win-win situation - your customer receives excellent value, and more of your ad space is booked with less stress.

2. Auction Off Remnant Ad Space.

1. Using Banners to Promote Your Site

Banner exchanges are about oldest form of advertising on Internet, and while they won't flood your site with customers, they can be an effective low-cost promotional tool.

How it works: Your banner runs on other sites in a banner co-op while their banner runs on your site, simple as that.

Two of longest running free banner exchanges are Link Exchange at http://adnetwork.bcentral.com, and Banner Swap at http://bannerswap.com. These are both pretty reputable and have some good features. Of course there are many more banner opportunites out there, and some of them are great, just use good sense, and avoid sites with claims that sound too good to be true.

Be smart with your banners. There are a few basic rules to banner use.

*Don't place banners at top of your page. They take time to load and detract from your page content. Place banners at bottom of your page.

*Banners that tell people to "click" to get something good far outperform other banners.

*Animated banners work well only if their file size isn't too big.

*Yellow gets attention best but is hard on eye. Blue is most soothing color.

2. Classified Ads