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There are many styles of banner you can choose from -- from simple, static text banners, to fancy, rich media banners. Good banner design requires you to choose the appropriate format, size, color, and message.
Banner design
The Internet is heavily filled with advertising banners these days. Web surfers have become quite accustomed to them, so designing a quick banner hastily will not get the most effective results. That does not mean that your banner must use complex features like animation or flash, but it is true that animated banners attract more attention and get higher click throughs. They have multiple advantages over static or single screen banners.
But in banner design, creativity is more important. Effective design can easily mean two words on a plain background if it can grab the attention of the viewer. Creativity can easily determine the difference between a 0.5% click through rate to a 5% click through rate. One part of creativity is putting the ad in the right place, such as placement close to important content or navigation points.
Some experts recommend that you should not use too many words in your banner. Try to use less than seven words describe what you want to tell your web audience. Note: The best word you can ever use is F-R-E-E! That word motivates most people who see your banner, and many will click on it.
Remember that banners are not like pictures to decorate a page. Surfers are not used to clicking on a page's graphics. They click on Submit buttons and underlined blue links. Banners should be made like a message that jumps out and grabs the viewer's attention. Do not assume your viewer knows what to do next. Tell them to click on your banner!
Normally banner size should be maintained at 3-5K, no bigger than 7K. Larger banners take much longer to load and you run the risk of the visitor not seeing your banner at all before they move to another page.
Rich media has become more and more popular in banner advertising. Rich media has some impressive success rates at boosting banner click-throughs. Most visitors prefer to interact with a rich media banner. But you should remember that rich media banners will cost more to produce and place; they are not available on all web browsers, and not everyone is a rich media fan, as the banners can sometimes slow down web page download times.
Last but not least: test, test, always test your work. No matter what kind of banner ad you have, you should take the time to design and place your ads carefully. You should also constantly monitor how well they are working. Once you've got a good banner, design another one. This means you should prepare more than just one or two banners. A good ad campaign typically involves a series of new ideas and designs because the average life effectiveness of a banner is about 15 days. Sooner or later even the best banner runs out of steam.
When you decide to start your banner design, you may think about doing it yourself, or you may want to hire a design firm. BannerWorkz has some suggestions about that.
