Banners

The importance of banners

Banners are advertisements on websites that, when clicked on, link to an advertiser’s website. They are usually ¾” by 6” in size. Banners fulfill two purposes:
To increase traffic to a website. This happens as Internet surfers click on the banner they are taken to the website directly.
Establish name recognition or branding. The more people see a website’s banner, the more the company name gets branded into their minds, like commercials.

Banners are viewed a lot by many people as they surf around the Internet; however, banners are not always being clicked on all the time. Here you will learn how to effectively utilize banner campaign to increase traffic and sales for you business.

Methods of getting banners on the Internet

There are many different methods to get your banners out in front of your target customers; here three main methods will be reviewed:
Purchasing impressions
Banner exchanging
Banner placement on search engines

1. Purchasing impressions
Impressions are the number of times a banner is seen online. As someone pulls up a website with your banner on it, then that counts as one impression. The average impression cost throughout the industry is $0.02 to $0.05 per impression. A click-through is when someone clicks on your banner, which transfers him or her to your site immediately. The industry click-through rate is less than one percent. This doesn't sound too good, but here you will learn how to increase that click-through rate.

There are banner networks out there that will allow you to purchase impressions from them. You can utilize these companies to advertise; however, make sure that they allow you to control the types of websites/categories that your banners are shown in. If they are just placed on random categories, you will not get a high click-through rate. However, if they allow you pick the website categories that your banner will be shown in, this can be an effective method of placing banners online.


2. Banner exchanging
A second method of getting banners online is through banner exchanging. Through this method, you are actually finding websites that complement or go hand-in-hand with your own and offering to trade banner ads with them. So you would place their banner on your website, and then they would place your banner on their site. This is effective because you are actually controlling the eyes of who is viewing your banner. So you’ll get a much higher click-through rate.

If the company that you want to trade banners with does not want to trade, they may be interested in you just paying to have your banner placed on their site, which is also fine. However, in purchasing banner space, try to get the company to charge you on a cost-per-click (CPC) method. This means that you are only paying when someone actually clicks on your banner. Most companies will charge on a CPM method, or they charge you a flat rate for every 1,000 impressions your banner gets. Which is fine, but this does not guarantee any traffic, so paying on a CPC method is better.

3. Banner placement on search engines
A third method of placing banners online is through targeted banner placement on the search engines. Any time an Internet surfer searches for something on a search engines, a banner that relates to what they searched for will usually appear at the top of the page of the search results. This is where you would want to advertise. So you would want to pay for advertising space for the banners that appear at the top of a search under specific keyword phrases that relate to your site.

Many search engines charge on a CPM method, so you are paying for every thousand impressions. You can do this, or a better method is to find search engines that pay on a CPC method, so you do not have to pay anything unless someone actually clicks on your banner and goes to your website.

Designing effective banners

The key to a successful banner is to have a good headline. The headline is 5-7 words long, like a magazine advertisement headline. It would be a good idea to look through magazines and read through the different advertisement headlines and see what grabs your attention, and then write your headline.

Focus your headline on words that are action oriented that grab the attention of consumers. The following is a list researchers at Yale University say are the most powerful attention-grabbing words: free, secrets, discover, easy, guarantee, health, love, money, money-back, new, powerful, proven, own, results, save, tested, and you are some examples.

Once you’ve got the headline written, you’ll want some graphics for your banner. These can be either animated or static, but keep in mind that your banner is small, so your graphics cannot be really large. Some good graphic websites are the following:
www.mediabuilder.com
www.bellsnwhistles.com
www.animfactory.com
www.eyewire.com
www.andyart.com
www.photodisc.com

For the finishing touches to your banner, make sure you have Click here written on your banner somewhere. Also, you’ll want to have your domain name on the banner, this will help with branding.

When programming the banner, you can either pay a website design company to program the banner for you, which would cost between $100 and $200 per banner. Or you can design it yourself through website building and editing programs like PhotoShop, DreamWeaver, or other programs that you may find.

Online websites and resources

www.bannersgomlm.com
www.mediabuilder.com
www.bellsnwhistles.com
www.animfactory.com
www.eyewire.com
www.andyart.com
www.photodisc.com