Banners

By James Harvey Stout (deceased). This material is now in the public domain. The complete collection of Mr. Stout's writing is at http://stout.mybravenet.com/public_html/h/ .

Jump to the following topics:

1. What are banners?  
2. Advantages and disadvantages.
3. Features of banners.
4. Using banners effectively.  

What are banners? They are graphics which are linked to a website -- generally a different website, although they can also be linked to another page of our website. Usually they are rectangular boxes which look like billboards, at the top or bottom of a web page.

Advantages and disadvantages.

1. Advantages of having banners on our site.
   • We can earn revenue. We can be paid for each visitor who views the ad, or clicks on the ad.
   • We can gain free publicity if we swap banners with another site. We display someone's banner; in exchange, the other site displays our banner.
2. Advantages of using our banners on other people's sites.
   • Banners are a low-cost means of advertising our site.
3. Disadvantages of having banners on our site.
   • They add to the file-size of a page; thus, the page loads more slowly.
   • Some people's banners will be inappropriate for our site. Our site might be cluttered with banners which are ugly, over-animated, or embarrassing.
   • Banners are not appropriate for some sites. We expect to see banners on pages where information is displayed for free; for example, at cnn.com, the banners help to pay for the free information. But at a website where we are selling goods or services, banners might suggest that "we aren't successful with our own sales, so we are using banners to pay our bills."
   • They encourage our visitors to leave our site. We worked hard to entice people to visit our site; banners entice people to go to a different site. We can use these options to encourage people to make use of the banners and to stay at our site:
     • Under the banner, we can add a note: "Right-click on the banner, to open a new window." A new copy of the browser will display the banner's site, while the original copy of the browser retains our site.
     • Under the banner, we can add a note: "Right-click on the banner, to bookmark for later" or "Left-click to visit the site now; right-click to bookmark the site for later." Of course, if our visitor goes to the other site from a bookmark, we will not be credited for a click-through -- but this would be irrelevant if we are being credited on the basis of page-views instead of click-throughs. ("Page views" are the number of times that our web page is viewed by our visitors; "click-through" is the number of people who click on a banner.)
4. Disadvantages of using our banners on other people's sites.  
   • Banners are becoming less-effective. The average click-through rate was 2%; now it is 1%.

Features of banners.

1. Size of the banner. The standard size is 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels tall. However, we can create a banner of any size, as long as it would be acceptable by the other site or by a banner exchange. (We can determine the size of a banner by putting it into a graphics program and viewing "image size" or some other function which would tell us the size, in pixels.)
2. File size. A banner should be as few "k" as possible; we can strive for 5k or less. 
   • File size is important:
     • Some websites and banner exchanges will not accept a banner which is larger than 7k or 10k.
     • If a banner loads too slowly, it won't even show up on the page before our visitors start to scroll down the page; thus, the banner won't be seen at all.
   • We can reduce the file size. The chapter regarding "fast-loading web pages" gives tips for reducing the file size of graphics.
3. Colors. Despite extensive testing, experts disagree on the effectiveness of particular colors in banners. However, there is general agreement on the following points:
   • Use only a few colors. Many successful banners have only two or three colors.
   • Use bright colors. For example: yellow, orange, red, and light blue.
4. Text.
   • The amount of text. A banner is not meant to give a complete description of our product or service; it is only a teaser to bring people to our site where we have the description. The banner can be limited to six or eight words.
   • Clarity of the description. Some banners are vague; they say something like, "Click here for a terrific surprise!" Perhaps these vague banners are effective for some businesses -- but most netizens are too busy to click on a banner which has only a small possibility of satisfying their particular interests. Aimless web-surfing is becoming passe; if we want to entice today's goal-oriented internet users, we have to say exactly what we are offering.
   • Honesty of the description. Some banners are deceptive; they promise something which the site does not deliver. These banners might cause click-throughs, but they will not cause many sales. The visitors were attracted by the offer in the banner; they might not want what we actually provide. And they might even have a negative reaction to us; we lied to them to bring them to our site, and so they might wonder whether we are lying about our products, services, guarantees, etc.
   • A call to action. "Click here" or "click now." Some businesspeople have reported better results when a banner instructs the people to click. These words might seem unnecessary, but they do work. (And some newbies might not realize that banners can be clicked on.)
   • Use a large type-size. A banner is a headline which needs to attract attention with big type.
   • Our URL. If people are too busy to click on the banner at this moment, they might remember our URL.
   • Branding. Even if people don't click on our banner, they might remember our company name, product name, logo, or URL. We might have a click-through rate of only 1%, but we can present our "brand" to 100% of the people who view the ad.
   • Other tips from the chapter regarding "ad copy." Some of those guidelines apply to the text of banners; for example, banners and other types of ads are generally more productive if they use the word, "free."
5. Design. The banner should be simple and bold, with only a few words and graphics, so that we can catch the attention of people who glance at our banner for only a moment.
6. Animation. Animation attracts attention because of the movement. But we can consider these ideas:
   • Animation increases the file-size of the page, because each frame of the animation is a separate file. Therefore, the page downloads more slowly.
   • Animation can be a distraction from the content of the page. Webmasters and visitors might be irritated by this distraction.
   • Animations should "time out" (i.e., stop) after a few repetitions. The visitors might glance at the banner when they first visit the page, but then they want to focus on the page's content, without the continual animation.
   • Animations can lose our message for the many people who print web pages on a printer. The printed copy will show only one frame of the animation -- a frame which might not reveal our URL, company name, or other vital information. There are various solutions to this problem:
     • We can display that vital information in each frame of the animation.
     • We can make certain that the final frame of a timed-out animation has the vital information.
7. Interactivity. Visitors can interact with a banner which contains pull-down menus, scroll bars, and check boxes; the visitors' selection will take them to a specific web page. (Sometimes the menus, etc., are "fake"; any selection will take the visitors to the same web page.)
8. Sound. Our banner can be more than just a image; it can also have sound. However, some visitors (and webmasters) will dislike this noisy imposition (particularly if the visitors are secretly web-surfing at work).
9. Java. Java allows other possibilities for our banner design and activity, but many sites will not permit Java-enhanced banners (and many visitors will not be able to view the banners if their browser cannot handle Java).
10. Shockwave. Shockwave allows other possibilities for our banner design and activity, but many sites will not permit Shockwave-enhanced banners (and many visitors will not be able to view the banners if their browser cannot handle Shockwave).

Using banners effectively.  

1. Placement on the page. We can consider various options:
   • Top of the page. This is the standard position for banners. Everyone sees the top of a page -- but if the banner is loading too slowly, it will not appear on the page until after we have started to scroll down the page; thus, we will not see the banner. Also, visitors are accustomed to seeing (and ignoring) banners at the top of the page, so the banner is likely to be disregarded without even a glance.
   • Part-way down the page. This placement solves the problem of a slow-loading banner not being seen at the top of a page; however, this banner will not be seen if the visitor stops reading before reaching this point on the page.
   • Bottom of the page. This placement solves the problem of a slow-loading banner not being seen at the top of a page; however, this banner will not be seen if the visitor stops reading before reaching this point on the page. If the visitor does read down to the end of the page, this placement can be particularly effective, because the visitor is thinking, "I am finished with this page; what should I do now?" The banner answers that question: "You can click on this banner." At the bottom of the page, the best position is the right corner, near the scroll bar.
   • Inside of a frame. If the ad is in a frame, it will always be visible as the visitor scrolls down the page.
2. Placement on the site.
   • A page where a visitor is waiting for a download. While the download is occurring, our visitor has time to visit other sites via the banners.
   • A final page. At some point, we have finished our business. The visitor has downloaded our product, or paid for an order, or read our information. This is an ideal place for a banner, to tell the visitor, "You can go to this other site next."
   • Inappropriate pages.
     • The main page. This is probably not a good idea. We have not yet had an opportunity to present our message, but we are already offering an exit.
     • The order form. We have brought our visitor this far. Let's not present a diversion at this critical time. After the order has been placed, another page could pop up, with a "thank you for your order" message -- and a banner.
3. The number of banners per page. Each banner slows down the loading of the pages, so we might want to have no more than two banners per page. To put more banners onto our site:
   • We can add more pages, with more information. Each additional page can have a banner.
   • We can create more pages, without adding more information. We simply spread the existing information across more pages; i.e., we put the first half of the info onto one page, and then we have a jump to continue the info on another page (where the visitors will see another banner). However, some banner exchanges might consider this action to be an abuse of the system; if we are using only one paragraph per page, we are artificially inflated the number of page-views on our site.
4. The linked page. When people are at someone else's site, and they click on our banner, we can bring them to our main page -- or we can bring them to a different page. If our banner deals with one specific product or service, the link should bring the people to the page where that product or service is described. People do not want to navigate through an entire site if the banner promised information regarding that specific product or service.
5. Banner flipping. "Banner flipping" (or "ad flipping") is the changing of banners on a page while the same visitor is there. For example, one banner is presented for a 30-second period; then another banner is presented, and then another. Obviously, banner flipping is sensible only if the visitor remains on the same screen for an extended period of time.
6. Alt tags. An alt tag is a text description of a graphic; it appears in the graphic's place, so that the visitors who have turned off their browser's graphics capability will know what the graphic is. Banners, too, can have alt tags (unless we are using some type of banner flipping or banner rotation).
7. A few unpleasant aspects of banners.
   • Banner-blocking software. Several companies sell software which prevents banners from being displayed by a browser. The purpose is to speed the loading of the page. Fortunately, there are very few people who use this type of software. If the software becomes more popular (or if it is integrated into a future version of a browser), the financial effect on websites which depend upon banners for advertising and revenue could be catastrophic to the internet as a whole.
   • Requests for uninterested persons to click on banners. Some websites have notices such as this one: "Please click on the banners, to support this website." This type of notice could be considered unethical, because the webmaster wants to be paid for click-throughs from people who have no intention of buying from that other site. (At one free site, I had to give a password, which would be acquired by this means: "Get the password by clicking on the banner; the password is the tenth word on the advertiser's website.")
   • "Banner burnout." We see this phenomenon in various ways:
     • The average click-through rate is one-half of what it was a year ago. In general, people are not clicking on banners as frequently now.
     • Any particular banner will become less effective eventually. We can view this effectiveness on a bell curve; people might need to see a banner several times before they will click on it -- but after 100 viewings, they have either clicked on the banner already, or they never will.