Tips For Creating a Winning Banner Ad

Simply having the right software won't help you in creating a good banner. Here are some tips on creating a good banner design.
1) Use the words "Click here" or "Enter" every time you design a banner. You may think that these are overused words in the online world. However, it has been proven time and again that these do increase the effectiveness of a banner ad by about 20-30%.
2) Animate Your Banners. It is also said that an animated banner increases your banner ad's effectiveness by 30-40%. The key when using animation is to keep it to a minimum when creating your banner. The reason for this is that having big pictures and images or live video in your banner will mean that it loads too slowly.
3) Create quick loading banners. Having banners less than 10-12 KB ensures this. However, this may be difficult to achieve when using animation in your ads. Generally the majority of animated banners are within the 15-20 KB but that is a way too large to load quickly.
4) Use an awesome headline in your banner. Also remember that simply having a fine looking banner doesn't mean people will click on it .The key to an effective banner advertisement is to have a good headline. It is advisable to have the same headline on your banner ad as what you have on your entry page.
5) The best word to use in your banner headline is "FREE." This doesn't at all imply that you have to include the word "FREE" in your banner and have no other text. The fact is, that by using the word "FREE" in almost any headline makes your response rates increase radically.
6) Blue underlined text will often increase your response rate. Having blue underlined text usually implies they are links. Therefore by having your headline in this type of format will ensure a higher click through ratio as people know it is a link to another site.
7) A blue border gives you a better response rate than any other color border does for a banner. Using blue for the border color of your banner will influence a greater number of people to click on the entire banner. It is often a fine idea to use your web site address in the banner. Use of a web address or company logo in a small section of the banner just helps to produce a branding effect on people's minds and gives you a few extra hits.
8) Change your banner ads frequently. Research has proven that banner ads loose their effectiveness after about the third viewing. If a person hasn't clicked on it by at least the third viewing, then that person will probably never do it.

Banners - Better Ways to Use Them

If you want to build high quality traffic, banners are certainly the last on most people's list of things you should use. But the mere fact that most people don't use them doesn't mean they are totally useless. It's how you use them that determines the results you get. If you want a knife to do the work of a fork, it will do a lousy job. Let me some you how to get the most from banners.
1. Don't link directly to a sales page. Use it to drive traffic to a content page that pre-sells well. Yes, people see banners as ads and they have built up their resistance to them. But what happens when they come to your site and discover that you have high value content? They mellow down and you have the opportunity to warm them up before monetizing them.
2. Use it to build your brand. I used to wonder why Coca-cola with all its popularity still buys ads. They have a huge brand. However, they also know that if they leave the space for a long while, companies like Pepsi-cola will take over their market's mind space. So treat banners like billboards on the highway. They are helping you maintain a space in people's subconscious.
People hardly ever stop driving to make a purchase because they saw a wonderful billboard. However, one day, when a need arises and you need a solution that an billboard promised company X would provide, their name pops up. That's what you want your banners to do for you.
3. Have you found a product that has a high commission but you do NOT think is good enough for you to recommend to your visitors? Then promote such a product with a banner. Banners tell your visitors that this is something you are paid to do and not an endorsement.
4. You can take the use of banners to the next level by looking for relevant non-competing sites to buy ads from. If your site is about wedding gowns placing your banners on a wedding cake site will send you highly targeted traffic.