Banner Basics

by A.T.Rendon

Banner advertising remains one of the most effective and cost efficient manners of gaining targeted responses to visit your web site.

To benefit from this form of online advertising you must have a web page. It would also be preferable, though not essential, if the traffic to your web page is already established.

The reason is that banner exchange programs base the number of times they display your banner on others web pages based on how many times their banners are viewed on your web page. And although a banner that belongs to someone else that is displayed on your web site is like an exit for your visitor to leave, the positives far outweigh any possible negatives.

Here are a few tips to improve your responses and increase your visibility via banners:

1. NEVER put a banner on your main entry page unless that banner is yours! When that banner is clicked it will take your visitor to another web page within your own site. After all, what is a banner but an invitation for someone to click it and be whisked off to another web site?

It takes a great deal of very hard work to build a steady flow of traffic to your web site. After doing all that hard work, does it not seem foolish to allow your visitor to leave immediately? Especially if it is to someone elses web site? That is like you doing all the hard work to build traffic only to give the benefits away to someone else. If you must have a banner on your entry page, make it your own banner that will take your visitor elsewhere within your own web site.

2. Feel free to put the banners on several web pages as this will provide you with additional credits from your banner service exchange choice. Normally, they allow you to change part of the HTML tt that they originally give you to include on your web pages and this designates that the banner is being placed on several different web pages. Be certain to read all the information provided by your link exchange provider to take full advantage of all that they have to offer. 3. It is a good idea to put banners close to the top of the web page because the banner will load faster and thus insure that you get credit for its display. If the banner is at the bottom of the web page, your visitor might see the link they want and leave the page before the banner has had the chance to load and thus before you can get your credit.

4. If you have access or the ability to write HTML tt on your web site, then make certain to include the WIDTH="" HEIGHT="" BORDER="" numbers as this allows images to load much faster. And while you are at it, include the ALT="" tag with a description of your banner that could then be viewed by those running without graphics on or by those that employ the use of text readers.

5. Do you have access to the web page that comes up within your own domain that shows whenever someone types the wrong URL or if one of your pages is down for updating? You know the page I mean, the "Not Found 404" page that displays by default. If you have access, place a banner or two on this page and increase your banner views immensely. The "Not Found 404" web page is one of the most viewed pages within a given domain.

6. Have a banner with "Animation". Studies prove that results increase by 26% or more over static banners. Most of the exchange programs will accept them so long as you keep within the total size limitations. Try not to use anything that is too annoying or overly animated. Too much might kill your response rate.

7. Quick load time is a must. That is why Link Exchange holds their banners to a 7k maximum... People don't want to wait forever just to see what your banner has to says.

8. What you most want is for the viewer to CLICK on the banner! A short one or two lines should be more than enough to accomplish your goal. Provide the viewer with some sort of "incentive" to click on the banner. If you are offering something for FREE then by all means say so.

9. Studies prove that using the words "Click Here" work better than banners with the same message but without the call for the action of "Click Here". It may seem obvious to you and me but if it works better than why not make good use of it.

10. Name recognition is great if you have it to get folks to click on a banner. But if you are like most people you will do better if you stir their curiosity to get them to come visit your not-so-well known business, etc.

11. If your URL or email is short and me on the banner. Maybe they do not want to click and visit just then but will jot down the info for a future investigation and visit.

12. Test Your Banners. If one banner message or design is not performing then try another. Keep testing different lines of text and color combinations till you find the right mix for your success.

13. Remember, banners with action phrases such as "Click Here", "Submit", "Press Here" and that have graphic buttons to push are known to result in greater response.

With the hundreds, no, thousands of ISPs that will host your site (I think the last estimate was around 4,500), you have the opportunity to pick a good one. You can also really get ripped off if you aren't careful. It can be a very hard decision. Start with your list of possible ISPs. In my case it was a very long list, but I managed to narrow them down when I tested them in these six areas:

1. Speed. This is very important. See how fast the ISP's pages load, and some of their customer's pages load.

2. Customer Support. This is another biggie. I find myself emailing customer support all the time, asking questions like "why is my site not accessible" to "how do you set up email forwarding". It's nice to have 24/7 tech support, but even more than that, you want prompt replies to your messages. Try emailing a question to all the ISPs you are thinking of signing up with, and see how long it takes them to respond, if they ever do. I cut my list in half by doing this.

3. Features. Ask yourself, what features do you need in an ISP? Say you need a CGI-Bin, Email forwarding, mailing lists and at least 25 megs of storage. Does it let you have that? Does it have features you may want in another six months?

4. Reliability. You want your web site to be up as much as possible. Talk to some of their existing clients, do they think the servers are reliable?

5. Credibility. The most important... is the company even legitimate? There are so many fake companies out there, you have to be really careful. Check:

Does the company list address and phone number on their site?

Do they make a list of past clients available? If not, ask for some.

Ask their past clients what they think of the service they got.

Do they have clients testimonials on the site? If not, ask for some.

Is the site just a badly designed site? If so, it's a sign that it might be a fly by night operation. Not for sure, it just could be.

If in doubt about a site, call their phone number. If they aren't legitimate, they will most likely not answer the phone.

You can go through this list before you buy anything on the 'Net. It's usually good to take a few precautions.

6. Value. You don't want to pay a whole pile of money for all this. But you want a good server, too. You need to find a balance bet wean the two. Now, my server costs me only $10.75US per month plus $10.75 setup. I thought it was almost too good to be true considering most cost about $19.95US per month... but they seem to be working out pretty well. No major glitches, and the server is reasonably fast. It has all the features that I want, too. No reason for me to pay twice that for others!

Things you need to be wary of in an ISP:

- Does the ISP offer "unlimited transfer"? Be wary. Ask them what they mean by that. It isn't possible for them to give you unlimited transfer. Consider if you are huge site getting millions of hits a day. They would go broke! Usually somewhere in the contract it tells you how many you are allowed, often saying something like a "reasonable amount". That's an vague sort of measure if you ask me. When I questioned my ISP about it, they said that as long as I was getting under 200,000 hits a day, it should be okay. But it's always good to make sure.

- Make absolutely sure that the ISP will NOT list themselves as the administrative contact on your Internic registration. Believe it or not, many ISPs will do this. In reality, it means that they basically own the domain name, even if you payed for it. I have heard many horror stories about this. Note that a lot of ISPs will list themselves as the technical contact, that is different, there is nothing (or there shouldn't be) anything wrong with that.

I hope these tips help. It's not the complete guide to finding a host, or anything like that, but it should help.

If your business is diversified, or if you participate in mailing lists and newsgroups with different formats, you could benefit significantly by a trick that costs nothing and us extremely easy to use:

Custom-design signatures for different purposes, and keep them in a text file for easy cut-and-paste into the end of a post. Even if your business focuses on one area, having three or four versions of your sig will keep interest fresh.

I have nearly a dozen different versions that I use: My main one, emphasizing marketing skills, for private postings; a slightly shorter one for the major mailing lists, three others specific to certain lists where I want to emphasize certain topics -- and in some cases stay within a tight 4-line limit. Then there are topic-focused ones I use for private postings: one as the editor of my arts and travel magazines, one in my role as "The King of Frugal Fun," etc.

I have found over and over again that this diversity of signatures leads to other people either contacting me or visiting my site -- who would not have responded to a "one size fits all" sig. And yet, I've hardly seen anyone else discuss this in three years online.

Building an internet community is a strong way to promote your web site and provides the most steady flow of traffic for a web site. It involves getting your page noticed and bookmarked, making friends on the internet, and being recognized for what you do. If you do all of this, your web site will have a steady flow of traffic as long as you keep in touch with your visitors.

Getting your page noticed and bookmarked is the first step to your long term goal of building an internet community. Your site should be rich in content and easily navigated. You should start getting your site noticed by building your page for the major search engines and taking your time submitting to them (especially Yahoo!). You also should submit for as many of the other search engines/directories and free for all link pages as you can. You should trade links often, it is important that you trade links especially with sites like yours and keep in contact with those webmasters. Send information and feedback to e-zines on your subject (your signature file will come in handy there).

On your site, you should offer to help people in anyway you can. Have free services for your visitors, make sure it is something your visitors can use, and that by advertising it you bring the right visitors to your site and not a totally different group of people. Use this to keep in touch with your visitors, and be sure they are satisfied. If you can't help them, send them to someone you know who can. If you have resources such as access to a CGI bin, you can offer things to your visitors like message boards or online discussions, which bring your visitors back more often.

Another way to help people is to answer (or ask) questions on message boards. By answering questions, you are offering information to a person who you can help. Of course, other people will see your answer too. By asking a question, you help yourself gain more information, and help others that never even thought about approaching your subject that way. A signature file come in handy here, but you should consult the rules as they vary on different message boards.

OK, your site is getting traffic from links to your site in search engines, directories, free for all links pages, reciprocal link pages, other pages related to your pages topic, information you provide to e-zines on your topic, answering and asking questions on message boards, and bookmarks of regular visitors to your site making good use of the free services you provide for them (I hope I didn't leave anything out). After all of that, people will recognize you for what you do (some more than others, it takes time). Then, I recommend writing your own e-zine (or a section... thanks Josh). Doing this, helps you keep active with your visitors and other webmasters on your subject.

An important thing to remember, this whole process is going to take time and continue to grow... its never-ending. Always answer e-mail, help people, and keep up your page and your community will stay alive. If you do not, it will die. Without it, your stuck battling with the search engines forever, under their tables begging for anything they will give you.

Banner Basics