Banner advertising has been around for many years now. The ‘web ad’ was first introduced to the internet as a form of advertising way back in 1993. The simple form of a web ad is a graphic displaying an advertising message drawing the readers attention to a certain product. Today the graphics are hyperlinked [linked to the product sales page] and often with tracking which is an easy way to advertise a product and measure the response rate and sales.

Banner sizes

Advertising banners or web banners come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and can be used on websites, splash pages, blogs or anywhere where there is a space to advertise your marketing message. Over time banner sizes have become standardised for convenience. Many home business owners now use banner advertising as a cheap method to promote their business and products.

Banner sizes

Banner design

There are many places online that offer banner designs, custom banners for those who are not inclined to creating their own. Otherwise for those home business owners who would like to give it a go there are various free programs that will create a simple html or flash banner. There are also easy to use software programs that one can purchase for a small fee and that will create good looking professional banners in any size you desire.

Here are a few examples of banner ads, that I use, which were created by YORGOO-Ycademy members:

yorgoo

468×60 – standard banner size used in many programs all over the internet

cheap hosting

120×600 – A thin skyscraper banner used where a vertical image is required.

202×200 – flash banner used to advertise the YORGOOblaster.

There of course is the debate as to whether flashing and animated banners are more effective than the more simple graphic banners. Personally, if I am looking for good content or information on a site I find flashing banners irritating edspecially if they are irrelevant – non-contextual: eg: insurance ads on a food site. Using banners contextually is more likely to get a click through as it adds to the content and informs maybe about new products etc. A good example of contextual ads is Google Adsense ads that are always contextual to the site theme.

Beautifully designed web graphics like these created by Bianca Gubalke for Zoom Terre [owned by Laetitia Paris] enhance the whole browsing experience online which could otherwise be as dull as reading a school text book.

Zo Nicholas