BIG SANDY, Texas--The founder and operator of Barnabas Ministries and the popular BibleStudy.org Web site is assisting The Journal with a new option for this newspaper's advertisers.

Barnabas's Alan Ruth of Farmington Hills, Mich., explains how a new advertising option that has been in the planning stages for several months is ready to roll out.

"The time has come for highly visible advertisements to go on The Journal's Web site," Mr. Ruth said. "Web advertising is still new to most people, but Web advertising offers a number of benefits."

The Journal already posts every ad in every issue on its Web site. However, Mr. Ruth's innovation takes Web-published ads a step further in visibility.

The current ads are a PDF (portable document format) version of the entire Connections advertising section of The Journal. Mr. Ruth's innovation will not involve PDF files; instead, they will be similar to "banners" that will automatically and instantly be visible to visitors to The Journal's site.

(The Journal will continue to post links to the PDF files as well.)

Mr. Ruth said The Journal's current printed-page and PDF-file advertisers will benefit from a "reduced rate" in taking advantage of the new program.

"The same basic ad that appears in the newspaper can be adapted to the new, much more visible system," he said.

Mr. Ruth, who has built Web sites for more than a decade, points to "more flexibility" in Web advertising than is feasible strictly in print.

"There is more freedom with space and being able to move things around," he said. "In a newspaper ad, whether in print or in a PDF, everything has to fit. Sometimes the print has to be very small.

"On the Web a full-page ad that had to be in 6-point type in the print version in order to include everything the advertiser wants to say can appear on the Web in much larger type and therefore be easier to read."

Another benefit, he said, is that the advertiser may easily link the ad to his own Web site.

"Some people are cheap," said Mr. Ruth. "They may borrow someone else's copy of The Journal but they won't buy their own. Those who do not receive The Journal will get to see the ads in an easily-accessible format."

Mr. Ruth noted that another benefit is the ease with which ads can be corrected and updated.

"Any changes or corrections of errors can be made as soon as they are found," he said.

"If advertisers have an ad in the current Journal, we can use the same advertisement," Mr. Ruth said. "We will format it for the Web site, then we will send the advertisers a proof and ask them to approve it.

"If they want a brand-new ad, that will take a little more time. Darlene will have to put it together and send it to me."

Darlene Warren of Big Sandy is The Journal's ad lady.

Concerning advertising charges and billing, Mr. Ruth said advertisers can pay by check or money order or by credit card using Paypal.com.

Mrs. Warren said that "prices will be based on certain criteria. Of course, our advertisers in the print version of The Journal will get the biggest discounts."

When asked how long an ad will be posted on The Journal's Web site, Mr. Ruth said: "More or less 30 days. The flexibility is that we can start that 30 days at any time. We will start day one when the advertiser approves the ad."

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