Hi Alison,
To start, I'd recommend visiting sites within your field/area of expertise that you feel are "best in class." Then I would take note of the types of advertising on their site. Is it branding/awareness for a large brand? Or is it more direct response for "As Seen on TV" products like the neverending swimming pool or weight-loss products. Or is a "bop the monkey on the head" to win a Plasma TV type of advertising?
Getting into the routine of walking the shop of your peers and competitors will give you an understanding of the market for your kind of content, and what types of advertising is the best fit.
Remember, advertisers are looking for good content partners so they can drive sales. That being said, don't just give away your traffic to the first bidder or even highest bidder if it is not a good match for your site.
For starters, you may want to setup a Google Adsense account, where Google scans the content of your page and tries to find a good fit among its huge list of advertisers. From a time perspective, this might be more efficient for you than scanning the web and reaching out to individual advertisers.
Once you start to see the types of advertisers flowing through Google Adsense onto your site, you may get the courage to contact a local vendor or someone who seems to be a good fit for your site (if, for example you notice that ads for Tutoring show up a lot on your site). Once you connect 1:1 with an advertisers, I highly recommend a "rev share" or revenue sharing plan that pays you a comission for each product sold. That alligns your interests most closely with that of the advertisers. But be warned, it may be months before an actual sale occurs if the advertiser is not a good fit with your content.
A few more online advertising pricing metrics for your back pocket:
CPA: cost per action/acquisition (similar to rev share, you get paid for driving a customer action like buying or visiting a web page)
CPC: cost per click (you get paid when someone clicks on their ads)
CPM: cost per thousand (m) impressions (you get paid for showing a thousand impressions, or showing their ad to a thousand people who visit 1 time)
Flat Fee: flat upfront fee for a fixed placement (you command a fee at the beginning of the month, with the promise of delivering a large audience to your site to view the advertisers ads).
My last bit of advice to you would be to stay away from people who offer you a few hundred dollars to sample your traffic and then tell you what it is worth to them. That tactic might have worked 8 years ago, but in a modern Internet marketplace you are entitled to know a little bit more about your advertisers business model -- anyone who can't answer "how do you make money" or "what is the user experience" is worth staying away from. Stick with the standard ad models above, and try to help advertisers sell without alienating your audience.
Good luck!
NM
