It's no big secret that banner ads have become less effective than text links over the years. This phenomenon is called "banner blindness". Banners were so ubiquitous in the early years of the Internet that users simply began to ignore them.
So what did many advertisers do to combat banner blindness? They made their banners harder to ignore by causing them to flash, rotate, jump around, and all sorts of other annoying tricks.
This of course led most users to like banners even less!
Does this mean that banner ads are useless? No, not at all!
There are several things that you can do to make your banner campaigns more effective. First of all, ensure that each of your banners is pleasant to look at and blends in well with the web page it's displayed on. Match up the design and color scheme with those of the site.
This means you'll need to create a customized banner for each and every site you advertise on, but the results will most definitely make the extra effort and expense well worth it!
You also need to place your banners on relevant pages (not just relevant sites). For example, a banner ad for a logo design service will convert much better on an article page about web design than on a page about dog grooming.
Another technique that works extremely well is making your banners look just like regular text links. Here's how to do it:
1 - Create a normal text link for your offer that is designed to fill up the space used by a regular 468x60 banner.
2 - Upload a blank page with the text link on it to your website and view it in your web browser.
3 - Press the "Print Screen" button (Prt Scr).
4 - Load the Windows Paint application and click "Edit", and then "Paste". You'll see a screenshot of your new web page with nothing on it except for the text link.
5 - Click "File", and then "Save As". Save the image as a JPEG.
6 - Load the saved JPEG image into any photo editing program, then crop it to 468x60 pixels. You now have a standard 468x60 banner that looks just like a normal text link!
Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources, one of the fastest growing Directories on the web. Visit http://www.rlrouse.com and submit your URL!