Add this to your favouritesGet a Banner For Your Site And Compell Customers Into Visting Your Business
In general, I don’t recommend putting banners on your site. No one clicks on them, and they hurt your site’s credibility. However, there may be a special situation here you require a banner. Suppose you’re implementing an affiliate program.
In that case, you will need banners for associates to display on their Web sites. Yes, banners are ineffective. No, most people won’t even look at them.
Why Do I need a Banner Then ?
Do I hear you asking… “Why use them at all?” Good question! Here’s the answer: When you’re faced with a choice between an affiliate member throwing up your banner or doing nothing at all, you’re better off with the banner. Even .5% is better than nothing.
Sure, your “super affiliates” know the importance of PREselling your product — but for the vast majority, posting a banner will be the extent of their participation. (A banner advertising campaign is completely useless, as you’ll find out later.)
You have two choices when it comes to banner ads:
1) Contract the job out to professionals…
2) If you’re on a shoestring budget, you may wish to attempt building your own. Difficult? Nope. Simple static banners are still within the realms of what a beginner can accomplish. But, and this is one BIG but…
Be forewarned!
Banners still remain an important “branding tool.” If your banner looks terrible, customers will assume the same of your company. Your banner is your virtual billboard in cyberspace. Make sure banners look decent. If not, save up for a professional job, or leave well enough alone for the time being.
Want to give it a try?
Building a static banner is easy. Best of all, you have several options:
Using a Generic Template
Your best bet is to simply use a generic template, and customize it with your own text. Some potential sources…
Creative Connectivity has a page full of templates. Download them to your computer (right click with your mouse and choose “Save Image As…”). Use your graphics editor to add your own text. This takes a little more effort, but a graphics editor will usually do a better job of adding customized text than an online service…
Quick Banner is a free service that provides dozens of templates and lets you
customize banners online, Media Builder offers a free banner generator as well…
Using a Graphics Editor
Your other option is to build the banner from scratch in a graphics editor. Just decide on the dimensions, and build a single gif image to those specifications.
Unless you’re a pretty competent graphics designer, here’s what I’d suggest…
• Use riveting text — and don’t use too much of it!Keep it simple. Very simple!
• Make sure it’s easy to read, with one uncomplicated, legible font.
• Finish with a call to action — i.e., “Click Here!”
• Keep file size to a minimum.
• Be honest with yourself! No one wants to admit their “golden goose” is an“ugly duckling.”
• Get a second and third opinion from people you know will tell you the truth.
Animated Banners
Animated banners are simply a couple of gif images strung together by an animator program (not a difficult process). Use a graphics editor to build a series of gif images. Then use the “wizard” function of an animation program to string them together. The animation program displays each image after an allotted period of time so the banner appears to be animated. However, it’s merely a series of images displayed one after another.
The best animated banners are very small — only a few frames/images are used.
This is essential if you want to keep file size to a minimum. It’s very tempting to get carried away, so be careful with your experimentation.
Here are two animation programs to research…
Although there are services that will let you build free animated banners online, I’ve yet to see one that produced the kind of results I’d put on my Web site. Bottom line for animated banners is…
- experiment with building your own.
- save up for a professionally done one!
Oh yes, and If you’re joining a banner exchange program, make sure you know all the dimensions — in pixels, and kilobytes. There’s nothing worse than spending hours getting it “just right” to find out you’ve exceeded the kilobyte restrictions. Phew! Just one last thing, and you’ll be ready for anything…
