Home
Categories:
Articles
Banner Ads
FFA Resources
Free Content
Free Money
Newsletter Ads
Search Engine Resources
Top Site Lists
Contact Us
Our Link Partners
by Jeff Lee
Everyone has seen banner advertising, in fact it's everywhere you go on the net. Placing a banner ad can cost anywhere from $5 to $100 depending on the web site and the level of audience targeting. For a new business or webmaster, buying banner ads can be costly relative to the benefits, as banner ads are faced with low click-through ratios, sometimes as low as a half percent. For those that want to banner advertise for free, there are banner exchanges which will display your banner on a pool of web sites in return for you displaying banners of other members. While these banner exchanges are free to join, be careful how many you participate in. Each extra banner added to your web site will slow down loading times, lessen the attractiveness of the site and steal the attention of your customers. In my personal experience, banner exchanges have been disappointing, causing me to drop them from my pages. I received very low click through ratios, about 0.3% which was discouraging enough, but the added load time and the unprofessional look of a banner exchange also played heavily into my decision.
If you do decide to banner advertise, there are some simple things you can do to increase your click through ratio. Use bright colors, such as neons or use a catchy background that will be noticed. Web surfers won't click on your banner if they don't even realize it's there. So make it stand out from the rest of the web page. Use power words and phrases in the banner copy such as: free,, money, get and receive. Make sure that your banner copy relates some sort of benefit to your user. If the web surfer has nothing to gain from your site, they won't go there. Make it clear to the web surfer that your banner is something to be clicked. Tell them to "click here." Another factor that influences the click through of a banner is the placement of the banner. Banners at the top of a screen will enjoy more click throughs. Usually with a banner exchange though, you have little control over the placement of your banner.
In order to lessen the unattractiveness of banners, design your web page with banners in mind. A well-integrated layout will make the banner appear less obtrusive and can actually enhance the page's appearance. Most major web sites such as ESPN.com and CNN.com effectively integrate their banners into their web layout.
There are several things to look for when joining a banner exchange. Check to see if the banner exchange will allow you to target your banners. If you are a sporting goods store, you want to be advertising your store on sites with a sports theme, not a site catering to soap opera information. Advertising your banner to your target market will dramatically increase click throughs and consequently sales. Several banner exchanges which allow you to target your audience are: LinkExchange, Hyperbanner and Plemx. Another thing to look at is the credit ratio. Most sites give a credit ratio of 2:1, meaning that for every two banners you display, they will display your banner once. Ratios better than 2:1 are good, but if you have to sacrifice market targeting, then this may not be a good deal.
Banner exchanges are just one type of promotion. Make sure that you do not rely on just banners alone, expecting them to bring you large amounts of traffic. A good promotional strategy makes use of many different tools.
*Jeff Lee runs the Free Money Resource, ( http://go.to/earn-freemoney ), devoted to listing and reviewing FREE money opportunities on the web. He also runs the Web Promotion Resource, ( http://go.to/promotion-resource ), bringing you tips, tricks and online resources for web promotion. This article is free to be republished as long as this bio is reprinted.