Online banner advertisements are rectangular advertisements which appear on websites and vary a lot in the way they look and what they are about. But they all share the same common objective to encourage a viewer to click on the ad and then be taken to the advertisers website or squeeze page.
Banner ads are available in many different sizes and are measured in ‘pixels’. A pixel is the smallest unit of colour that makes up images on a computer screen. Popular sizes are long banners that run horizontally across the page (full banner at 486 x 60 pixels), large square box banners normally located at the side of the page (250 x 250 pixels) and button banners, normally with several grouped together (125 x 125 pixels).
The size of ad banner you choose fro your work from home online business is dependent on your budget, the position of the banner in the website, the amount of traffic to the website and how long the banner will be online.
What Makes a Banner Ad Effective?
As with all advertising, an effective banner ad is the product of a number of different elements.
Firstly, your banner ad must be congruent with the website. In other words, if your work from home online business is about helping people to make money online it is doubtful that you will have much response if you place your banner on a website about dog training.
The objective of the banner ad is to ‘sell the click’. Make sure that your message is about a want, desire or concern about your product or service, so that viewers are encouraged to click on the ad to find out more. Ideally, you want to aim at receiving one to five leads per day from a banner advertisement.
Do not use loads of busy graphics and, although this sounds odd, do not try to sell – use your message as a solution to a problem. For example, if your work from home online business is about weight loss you could say something like “If you want to loose weight but can’t – click here for the proven method that has helped thousands of people”.
Link the ad to a squeeze page with an opt-in form that provides a little more information and encourages the viewer to submit their name and email so that they can get even more information about your product or services. Ideally this information should be provided free of charge. Then, when they enter their details, they will be on your list and your auto responder emails will do the rest.
You need to establish a relationship with your customer before they will buy from you.
A few other tips include, putting your banner ads at the top of the page, rather than farther down and ensuring that the website that you are adverting on receives sufficient traffic. If your home online business is aimed at a competitive market, such as the make money online market, then I would recommend that you consider websites that receive more than 10,000 visitors per month.
You can check the traffic on websites at a number of different online sources.
How to create an online banner ad
Once you have chose a website on which to advertise for your work from home online business, you will have to supply the artwork for the banner. This is normally supplied via an upload to a link that that website owner will provide you. Often, your affiliate partner or merchant for your home online business will have ready made banner artwork for you to upload to your chosen website. All you have to do is supply the link to where the viewer will go when they click on your ad.
There are also several free online banner creators where you can create your own ad. You can also outsource the creation of your banner graphics. There are many online resources available.
How to book an online banner ad
Most websites will have an area where it will provide details of the costs to advertise on their website. If not, you can contact the website owner direct and ask for details.
To save contacting loads of different websites to find out their rates and statistics, there are several ‘broker websites’ who provide all the information for you. It can save time as these websites provide all the info on costs for a huge variety of different websites.
The cost of banner ads is calculated in two ways. One is for a set period of time (normally 30 days) and the other is for the number if impressions (ie, how often the ad is shown). If you are just starting out with your home online business, I would recommend that you opt for a set period of time. This way you know exactly how much you are spending over what period of time.
Does online banner advertising work?
Some web ‘experts’ say that banner advertising is not effective and some say that it is a very successful way to drive traffic to your website.
As mentioned before, online banner advertising is like any other type of advertising. You must ensure that your banner gets the attention of your target audience and creates interest in your product or service. The ad must encourage the viewer to want to find out more and thus take action by clicking on your ad.
If your banner ad has got somebody to click on it, then it has done its job. It is then the job of your squeeze page or the website page to where you have sent the viewer to do its job. And that is a whole other story.
