Banner
Ads
impressed, but
still it'll draw someone's attention more than just a normal text
link. I'll show you my banner as an example, it was for my
old make money online site. Now would you click
that link back there first or would you click this banner?
It's
not too bad at drawing your attention in huh? I realize I
made
this a little taller than average, 24 pixels to be exact, but you get
the idea. This is lacking some information in my mind.
What
do I have to do to make this easy cash? Some people might be
naturally curious and click it, but others may not even bother.
Hmm. There's really not all that much space to work
with
though. How can I put more information into this banner ad?
Well, you can animate it.
Animated Banner Ads
Animating
your banners not only gives you more space for more information but it
also makes them stand out more. The movement draws attention
a lot more than text or even a stationary banner. So to
start, you're probably going to need some other image creation
software. I have Photoshop CS2 and it doesn't do animation,
but Adobe
ImageReady CS2 comes with Photoshop, so that's what I use.
That, to me, makes Photoshop worth the price; you're getting
two great programs in one. So either get yourself a copy of
ImageReady or find another program that will do .GIF animation.
What I do is make my frames in Photoshop and save them as a .gif file before I even open ImageReady. A frame is just a single picture in your animation, kind of like a single frame in a movie film. What you'll want to do is open up Photoshop, or whatever you use, and then create your banner with just the background. Save that file as any name, I usually just number them, so that'd be one.gif if I want my animation to start out as a blank background. If you don't want a blank background to start, you'll still need that one picture saved separate. So that, every time you want to change your banner for the next frame, you don't have to redo the background.
Alright so you've got your background made and saved. Now, if you want your banner to start out with something more than just a blank background, add something to it. Add some text or some graphics and then "save AS" a different file name, like one.gif. That will be your first frame. Now open up your blank background again and modify it to say or show what you want on your second frame. Now "save as" a different file name, like two.gif. Keep repeating this until you have all the information you want, but try not to go overboard. This is an animation though, so get creative, you can do anything you want with enough practice.
Alright, now that you have all your frames saved, it's time to open up ImageReady or a similar program. In ImageReady you just click "Window" up top and select "Animation." That will open the tool bar so that you can see each frame in your animation. Now you'll want to open all your frames in the program and minimize all of them except the first one. What I do is open the second one and then copy that frame. Then I'll minimize it and click on the first frame and paste the second frame to that. Make sure you paste it after that frame. You'll want to keep doing that until you've pasted all the other frames to the first one.
So now when you look at the first frame it'll have all your other frames right after it. I like to set my animation to run forever in a loop, so that it doesn't just stop running on the page. So, do that if you like, and then you'll want to view your animation. It's probably going to be really fast. Now go through and change the speed of each frame. If there's a lot of text on a frame or if it's your URL then you're going to want that frame to stay up for a while. So keep changing the times of each frame until it looks good to you.
Now you're going to want to save your file. In ImageReady, you'll want to go to "File" and then select "Save Optimized As" to save your file correctly. You want to save it as optimized so that it is as small of a file as it can be and will load quicker on the internet. Before you do that you'll want to look at the first frame and click the "Optimized" tab to see what your picture will look like optimized. If the preset is set wrong, then your picture will lose most if not all the color. So off to the right there's a tool bar where you can select the preset. I always choose GIF 128 Dithered or I change the colors to 256, that seems to keep the colors the same as I had them.
Alright, now that you saved your file, you'll just want to follow the same steps above to get your banner uploaded to a host. And then use your web page editor or some html to get it on your website. I showed you an example above of the only non-animated banner I made, now I'll show you some of the banners I've made since then. I'll start off with the banner I made for this series of info pages. This banner is in the correct (normal) size, but the other ones are taller than normal. So you tell me, would your eyes be more attracted to this banner or the one above?
What I do is make my frames in Photoshop and save them as a .gif file before I even open ImageReady. A frame is just a single picture in your animation, kind of like a single frame in a movie film. What you'll want to do is open up Photoshop, or whatever you use, and then create your banner with just the background. Save that file as any name, I usually just number them, so that'd be one.gif if I want my animation to start out as a blank background. If you don't want a blank background to start, you'll still need that one picture saved separate. So that, every time you want to change your banner for the next frame, you don't have to redo the background.
Alright so you've got your background made and saved. Now, if you want your banner to start out with something more than just a blank background, add something to it. Add some text or some graphics and then "save AS" a different file name, like one.gif. That will be your first frame. Now open up your blank background again and modify it to say or show what you want on your second frame. Now "save as" a different file name, like two.gif. Keep repeating this until you have all the information you want, but try not to go overboard. This is an animation though, so get creative, you can do anything you want with enough practice.
Alright, now that you have all your frames saved, it's time to open up ImageReady or a similar program. In ImageReady you just click "Window" up top and select "Animation." That will open the tool bar so that you can see each frame in your animation. Now you'll want to open all your frames in the program and minimize all of them except the first one. What I do is open the second one and then copy that frame. Then I'll minimize it and click on the first frame and paste the second frame to that. Make sure you paste it after that frame. You'll want to keep doing that until you've pasted all the other frames to the first one.
So now when you look at the first frame it'll have all your other frames right after it. I like to set my animation to run forever in a loop, so that it doesn't just stop running on the page. So, do that if you like, and then you'll want to view your animation. It's probably going to be really fast. Now go through and change the speed of each frame. If there's a lot of text on a frame or if it's your URL then you're going to want that frame to stay up for a while. So keep changing the times of each frame until it looks good to you.
Now you're going to want to save your file. In ImageReady, you'll want to go to "File" and then select "Save Optimized As" to save your file correctly. You want to save it as optimized so that it is as small of a file as it can be and will load quicker on the internet. Before you do that you'll want to look at the first frame and click the "Optimized" tab to see what your picture will look like optimized. If the preset is set wrong, then your picture will lose most if not all the color. So off to the right there's a tool bar where you can select the preset. I always choose GIF 128 Dithered or I change the colors to 256, that seems to keep the colors the same as I had them.
Alright, now that you saved your file, you'll just want to follow the same steps above to get your banner uploaded to a host. And then use your web page editor or some html to get it on your website. I showed you an example above of the only non-animated banner I made, now I'll show you some of the banners I've made since then. I'll start off with the banner I made for this series of info pages. This banner is in the correct (normal) size, but the other ones are taller than normal. So you tell me, would your eyes be more attracted to this banner or the one above?
I think that's a bit more eye-catching. Now take
a look at some of the other animated banner ads I've made.
Hopefully this will give you an idea of the benefits of
animation and maybe sparks some ideas for you. The first ad
is for my online clothing store, the second one is for my clothing
store's designer page where you can design your own shirts.
Places to Post Your Banner Ads
Alright,
now that you've got a better idea on what banner ads are and how to
make your own, let's talk about where you can post them to get more
traffic to your website. I'm going to quickly go over some of
the places that I post banner ads to. There are literally
hundreds of thousands of places to put a banner ad, but these are all
free and easy. Copy me or come up with your own ideas, but
here we go:
- Personal Myspace Profile - Yes, this is my Myspace profile and no you cannot spam or harass me. I put this up as an example to show you how simple it is to place a banner ad here. This link will be taken down if abused. This is simple, just go to "edit profile" and paste in some html code for your banner and you're set. You can put it on any section you want. You can also post your banners in a bulletin, as an ad in the classifieds or you can respond to want ads using your banner ad. I will be going more in-depth into Myspace Marketing later in these series of pages.
- Personal Myspace Blog - Everyone has a blog if they have a Myspace profile, but they may not use it to advertise. Write a short blog about your site and put your banner ad on your blog entry. As you can see, these are pretty simple ways to advertise.
- Free Advertising Forum - If you're a member of this site, once you log in there's a section where you can post your banner ads. Just click the "Add Banner" link up top in the middle. Then what you need to do is click the 10 banners on that page, look at the pages if you want, and then you can post your own banner. It has to be 468 x 60 pixels to post here.
- Free Advertising Forum Personal Page - Another benefit to joining the Free Adveritising Forum is the personal adveritsing page they give you. You can put a banner ad on the top and bottom of this page and then advertise this page wherever you want to.
- Will B. Guilty Rags Myspace Profile - I like to make a separate profile on Myspace to use it soley to advertise for one site. I'll go over this more in the Myspace Marketing section in these pages. What I like to do is to post the banner ad and to also, using html, make a box so that anyone looking at my page can just copy and paste the html code on their page and then they have the banner on their page too. This can be really helpful if anyone wants to help promote your site; it's free advertising.
- Will B. Guilty Rags Myspace Blog - You can use your Myspace blog on your advertising page, like you do on your personal profile, if you like. But what I like to do, in the blog customization, is to use a little basic html and make a custom header. Then your banner ad is on the top of the page on every blog people view on this profile.
- Home Business Opportunities Myspace Group - The next step is to make a Myspace group to promote your site. This is the group I made for this series of websites. I'm going to use it as the forum for these pages, if anyone wants to talk back and forth about the ways they try to make money online. Just paste your banner ad in the group description on here using basic html. You can use the html box again if you want to have others help promote your page. Another thing you can do with the Myspace groups is to search the groups for places you can advertise your site. This is helpful if you don't want to make your own group. Just find a group that fits what's on your site and paste it in a new topic with a little description on your site. That way people can view it and then leave comments on your site.
Basic Banner Ads
To make a basic banner ad you
need some type of image creation software. I like to use Adobe
Photoshop CS2
to make mine. It's pretty much top of the line for such types
of
software so it's pricey, but it's definitely worth it.
If
you want, you can try this new free online program called Fauxto,
I haven't used it yet but it looks really good. Or, if you
have a slow connection, maybe you should download Paint.net
or Gimp for free. So open up
whatever software program you're going to use and you'll want to create
a new picture file. I'd say the most common size for a banner
ad
is 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. So when you are
creating
your new file make sure to punch in those dimensions, it should have a
place for you to do it.
Alright so now you have a blank banner. I'd suggest making some type of colored background for the banner. Plain white just isn't that appealing to the eye; it's too normal. So either fill it with a solid color, design something with paint brushes and filters, paste a picture in or do all three if you like. You just want a base background so that your banner will stand out from the page that it's on.
Ok so now you have a banner that's all colored up and will stand out on most websites. Now you have to think of some content to put on the banner. You need to let people know what's on the page that the banner ad is linked to; a summary of sort. So what's on your page? If it's like mine, you may want to put something about working from home, making money online or put small pictures of dollar signs or something. The basic idea is to put text or graphics on that will attract the eye to your banner and will give them an idea of what's behind that banner ad if they click it. If they see something on your banner that they want or are interested in, then they're most likely going to click it and check out your page. So make sure not to be misleading with your banner or, when they get to your website, they'll just quickly close their browser because your page wasn't what the banner made it out to be.
So now your banner is starting to look pretty good. You have to think of a banner ad as pretty much a picture link; it's a picture that links to another page. So what do a lot of text links usually have visible? How about the actual URL for the page that it's linking to? You don't have to do this, but sometimes it's a good idea to put your URL text on your banner somewhere. Showing someone your URL can either help them remember your site, if they want to go back to it at another time, or it can help them feel safe, like they're going to a legit site. A lot of times I don't remember what site I was on and might have forgotten to bookmark it. And there's a lot of shady sites on the internet these days so people are cautious, they want to know where they're going.
Ok so finish up your banner ad and we'll get onto hosting your banner. You can either upload your banner to the host you use for your web page or you can use a completely different site. You can upload to your normal host too if you like, but if you're using a free web host then you may not want to. You may not have enough disk space or you might be running out of
Alright so now you have a blank banner. I'd suggest making some type of colored background for the banner. Plain white just isn't that appealing to the eye; it's too normal. So either fill it with a solid color, design something with paint brushes and filters, paste a picture in or do all three if you like. You just want a base background so that your banner will stand out from the page that it's on.
Ok so now you have a banner that's all colored up and will stand out on most websites. Now you have to think of some content to put on the banner. You need to let people know what's on the page that the banner ad is linked to; a summary of sort. So what's on your page? If it's like mine, you may want to put something about working from home, making money online or put small pictures of dollar signs or something. The basic idea is to put text or graphics on that will attract the eye to your banner and will give them an idea of what's behind that banner ad if they click it. If they see something on your banner that they want or are interested in, then they're most likely going to click it and check out your page. So make sure not to be misleading with your banner or, when they get to your website, they'll just quickly close their browser because your page wasn't what the banner made it out to be.
So now your banner is starting to look pretty good. You have to think of a banner ad as pretty much a picture link; it's a picture that links to another page. So what do a lot of text links usually have visible? How about the actual URL for the page that it's linking to? You don't have to do this, but sometimes it's a good idea to put your URL text on your banner somewhere. Showing someone your URL can either help them remember your site, if they want to go back to it at another time, or it can help them feel safe, like they're going to a legit site. A lot of times I don't remember what site I was on and might have forgotten to bookmark it. And there's a lot of shady sites on the internet these days so people are cautious, they want to know where they're going.
Ok so finish up your banner ad and we'll get onto hosting your banner. You can either upload your banner to the host you use for your web page or you can use a completely different site. You can upload to your normal host too if you like, but if you're using a free web host then you may not want to. You may not have enough disk space or you might be running out of
bandwidth too often.
If you have a lot of images that are hosted on your personal host, then every time someone loads your page, your file size of your images are included in the bandwidth usage. Which means that you're cutting into the limit you have more if your pictures are uploaded to your host. And if you still don't get that, no matter what host you have, you're limited on how much information you can transfer over the internet per month.
If your website is all text then it may only be 5 KB, but if there's tons of images on it your web page file size may be something like 20 KB. So let's say, as an example, you're limited to 1,000 KB a month for your bandwidth. I know these numbers are low but it's just an example. That means that your text-only page can be looked at and loaded 200 times in a month. Now if you had chose to load your page up with pictures, using your personal web host to host your pictures, your page would only be able to be loaded and looked at 50 times in a month before you go over your limit. W
I hope that sunk in a little better. Now why did I explain all that? Because you don't have to host all your pictures that way. You can cut down on your limitations by hosting your pictures on other sites that are free to use. The one I use the most is TinyPic. It's pretty easy to use and they'll give you a couple different types of codes, if you need them, along with the basic URL to your picture (banner). If you loaded your banner this way, then you won't overuse your bandwidth as easily each month. And this is a good thing: no bandwidth = your page isn't going to load for anyone.
Now your banner is uploaded and you're ready to put it on your page. If you use some sort of web page editor then this will be easy for you. Just insert your picture and then go into the properties of your banner and make it a link to whatever page it's advertising for. I use a free web page editor called Nvu, so this step is simple for me. But sometimes I'm posting my banners on pages I didn't design, so I have to use some html coding. Start off with your link using the <a href=" code. Close that off with a > and then start your image code like so: <img src=". And then close it all off with the /a> coding and your picture (banner) is now a link to your website. I hope you all know basic html, if not here's a page to help you understand this better.
So what do you think? Are you impressed with your creation? I made one like this a while ago, using a banner that was already halfway set up, and just entered my information. I wasn't too
If you have a lot of images that are hosted on your personal host, then every time someone loads your page, your file size of your images are included in the bandwidth usage. Which means that you're cutting into the limit you have more if your pictures are uploaded to your host. And if you still don't get that, no matter what host you have, you're limited on how much information you can transfer over the internet per month.
If your website is all text then it may only be 5 KB, but if there's tons of images on it your web page file size may be something like 20 KB. So let's say, as an example, you're limited to 1,000 KB a month for your bandwidth. I know these numbers are low but it's just an example. That means that your text-only page can be looked at and loaded 200 times in a month. Now if you had chose to load your page up with pictures, using your personal web host to host your pictures, your page would only be able to be loaded and looked at 50 times in a month before you go over your limit. W
I hope that sunk in a little better. Now why did I explain all that? Because you don't have to host all your pictures that way. You can cut down on your limitations by hosting your pictures on other sites that are free to use. The one I use the most is TinyPic. It's pretty easy to use and they'll give you a couple different types of codes, if you need them, along with the basic URL to your picture (banner). If you loaded your banner this way, then you won't overuse your bandwidth as easily each month. And this is a good thing: no bandwidth = your page isn't going to load for anyone.
Now your banner is uploaded and you're ready to put it on your page. If you use some sort of web page editor then this will be easy for you. Just insert your picture and then go into the properties of your banner and make it a link to whatever page it's advertising for. I use a free web page editor called Nvu, so this step is simple for me. But sometimes I'm posting my banners on pages I didn't design, so I have to use some html coding. Start off with your link using the <a href=" code. Close that off with a > and then start your image code like so: <img src=". And then close it all off with the /a> coding and your picture (banner) is now a link to your website. I hope you all know basic html, if not here's a page to help you understand this better.
So what do you think? Are you impressed with your creation? I made one like this a while ago, using a banner that was already halfway set up, and just entered my information. I wasn't too
Banner
ads are similar to text links, they both link to your website, but a
banner ad will draw more attention than any underlined text
will. After
being on and using the internet for a while you just get used to seeing
links all over and don't really notice them as much. But with
banner ads you can add your own creativity to coax people into clicking
them. Hopefully it'll be something they haven't seen before
and
will possibly make them curious enough to want to know what page the
banner ad links to.
I'm going to go over some basics with you on how to make banner ads. Then I'll show you a few examples of places where I put my banner ads and hopefully it'll spark some ideas in you.
I'm going to go over some basics with you on how to make banner ads. Then I'll show you a few examples of places where I put my banner ads and hopefully it'll spark some ideas in you.