The observant among you will have noticed the new 125 x 125 ad block in the right sidebar. The block is called a 125box and is a new advertising option that I think could be quite popular for bloggers that are looking to make money blogging. We’ve all seen the 125 x 125 ad become quite popular on sites recently but a lot of bloggers either don’t have the time or the knowledge to be able to sell their ad space. Sure you can fill any empty spots with affiliate offers but in the end, direct advertising is often going to be more profitable.

Also, once you DO sell your ad space, the maintenance can be a pain. I’ve been lucky on this blog to attract some great advertisers but not every blogger is going to be that fortunate. So, what should you do if you don’t want to worry about keeping track of advertiser payments and uploading ads and all the fun little details you never think about when deciding to sell ads?

Well you could always let someone else do it for you, and that’s where 125box comes in. You put in the ad size and location that you want to sell (you’re not limited to just the 125 blocks) and the price you want to charge and viola, 125box creates the code for you. You pop the code into the correct spot on your site and you’re done. When an interested advertiser comes along they simply click on the ad and up pops an order form. They fill it out, upload their ad image, and select the length of time they’d like their ad to run (you can set different prices for different time frames such as 1 month, 3 months, 1 year etc).

That way, you don’t have to worry about chasing advertisers down to re-up their ads or hoping you get paid this month or any of the hassles that you can run into when selling advertising. Now, 125box does take a cut of the profits in exchange for their services but for many bloggers it will be well worth the time and aggravation it saves. Besides, you can just do what I did, which is raise the price enough to compensate for their cut

Anyway I don’t want to come across as pushing them too hard but I thought the idea was a great one and also wanted to let everyone know what the heck that box is doing over there. I am having a bit of trouble integrating the ad box into my ad rotating plugin but I’m sure that’s just operator error and I’ll have it worked out before long. I’ll be testing the service for a while and might even expand to offer another ad spot but as always, I’ll report back on my experiences and how much (if any) money I make.

Also, if you have any tips on money making services I should try, feel free to drop me a line at blogex[at]bloggingexperiment dot com. I’m always on the lookout for new programs or services to improve this blog’s earnings.