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Basic Advertising Methods | Article #13 : BANNER EXCHANGE ADVERTISING

In this installment of our series on advertising, we're going to briefly go over banner exchanges.

The one good thing you can say about banner exchanges is that they're a legit form of advertising. Lets face it, all over the Internet on just about every site you see, there's a banner. For those who don't know what a banner is, here's an example of what a banner looks like.

Just click on the link below.

http://www.wagtunes.cashhosters2.com/biz/images105/hip_banner001.gif
http://www.wagtunes.cashhosters2.com/biz/images105/hip_banner001.gif

That's a banner. And if you click on it, you'll be taken to the person's web site.

And therein lies the first problem with banners.

Unless the banner actually says the words "click here" or something like that, not everybody is going to know that this banner is anything more than a picture.

Again, you have to put yourself into the shoes of the average Internet surfer. Not everybody is computer savvy. Not everyone knows that a banner is meant to be clicked on. Some people will absolutely look at the above banner and think it is nothing more than decoration.

So, if you are going to do a banner exchange with another site, the first thing you want to do is create a banner that clearly tells people that they have to click on it in order to get the great offer that the banner has for them.

Another thing you have to understand about banners is that they are like newspaper headlines. They have to attract somebody's attention RIGHT AWAY. Take the above banner. It clearly says "2 hours daily = $500 monthly income." Granted, it doesn't say to click here, but that can be added in small print underneath. Other than that, this is an EXCELLENT banner if somebody is looking to make money online.
Not only do you want your banners to get right to the point, but you want to make sure that they appear on sites where people are going to see it and have a pretty good chance of being interested in it. This means you want to do your banner exchanges with sites that are similar to yours.

And therein lies the problem. It's called human greed.

Conquering the problem of appealing to the site's visitor is one thing and not that hard. But conquering the problem of the greedy site owner who ONLY wants to do a banner exchange with somebody who can "do something for him" is a monumental task. If you're first starting out, most likely your site doesn't have a very high ranking with the search engines. If that's the case, then getting a site that is higher ranked to do a banner exchange with you is quite unlikely. Think about it. What is in it for HIM? On the other side of the coin, doing a banner exchange with a site lower ranked than yours isn't going to do YOU much good.

So what you need to do is find sites that are closely ranked to yours. And this takes a lot of doing. If it's a large niche market then you might actually find quite a few. But if you're marketing something that isn't that popular, finding sites in general is going to be tough. Finding any that are in the same league as yours is close to impossible.

However, if you're fortunate enough to get yourself a banner exchange, what you want to do is agree to what they call a rotating exchange.

Let me explain.

You want to link to a number of sites. But the problem with doing this is that banners are big, not like links. Just a few banners can easily fill up a web page. So what you want to do is plug in a little JavaScript into your site that will rotate all the banners that you've done exchanges with. Please make sure you tell the site that you're using a rotating exchange. Also tell them that it's okay if they do the same. In most cases they probably won't bother and your banner will be displayed on their banners page round the clock. Of course the problem with this is that most people don't go to banner pages. So the chances of your banner being seen, even if it is up all the time, is less than the chances of the banner you're rotating on your main page being seen. Kind of ironic, wouldn't you say?

Just goes to show you. Sometimes, less is more.

Banner exchanges back in the good old days used to be very effective because they were new and the banners were actually quite interesting. But, as with everything else, over time banners have become something that most people pay no attention to unless they come out screaming at them.

However, as marketers have gotten smarter, so has banner placement.

Back in those good old days, banners were always placed at the top or bottom of a web page. But now, marketers are getting smart. They're starting to place their banners in the middle of articles. This way, a reader has to see the banner. They still may not click on it, but they'll see it and it will be in their mind at least for a while. Plus, today, banners are coming in all shapes and sizes.

Yes, we are getting smarter. But overall, banner advertising still isn't going to get you a ton of traffic. You may get a few hits here and there, but it's not something to be counted on. Again, this is just my opinion and you may want to test banner exchanges out for yourself and see how well you do.

In volume 3, we’re going to pick up with more advertising methods, starting off with one of the more recent forms of promotion, blogs.

Sincerely,

Steven Wagenheim
Creator Honest Income Program
http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/

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