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How To Design An Effective Banner Ad

Banner ads used to be all the rage when the Internet first started to really take off in the world of the consumer. There used to be quite a wide variety of banner ads ranging from the basic ones with just a line of text and a link below to all kinds of fancy ones with animation and text and even drop down boxes. But as email and search engine marketing began to evolve and develop, banner ads began to fade from the Internet marketing arena. Although banner ads have very much declined in use of recent years , they do offer advertisers an inexpensive medium to increase the overall exposure of the business and services. Here are a few tips to help you build effective banner ads:

The most important aspect of any ad is a call for action. A simple "click now" will work but you want to add a little more incentive. Instead, try saying "click now to receive your discount". This is still fairly simple but it not only prompts action, it provides motivation to the reader to take action. You need to get to the point by using the minimum amount of words as possible. Lets be honest, people are not really inclined to click on banner ads in the first place so in reality you have only only a second or so to capture the attention of the reader.

You really need to make this very small window of opportunity count so do not waste valuable time of long 'wordy' ads. There is not time here for explanations. You just need to get the person to click on the ad. The explanations of the service benefits can come later on the website. The most important job of the banner ad is to get the viewer there so you have an opportunity to promote your business in full.

And it really is the benefits that you need to stress. The features that your business offers can readily be explained in full detail on your website. In a banner ad, you need to simply tell people the positive affect that clicking on the ad will bring to their lives. For example, if you run a staffing company you may offer resume writing assistance to applicants. In a banner ad, you may just say something simple such as, 'For A Great Job Today, Click Here!'. See the difference? People do not want to know how they will get a great job or in fact any of the details. They just want to know that by clicking on your ad is going to get them a great job. You can then tell them about your resume writing services in the proper place where the time issue is not as important.

Banner ads do indeed work. Surprisingly, the most effective ones are the simplest. They are the static banners with a simple call to action that conveys some benefit to people if they click on the link. While you may not want to rely on banner ads for all of your marketing, there is no doubt that you will generate traffic and visitors by using it correctly. And besides, it is one of the least expensive methods out there in Internet marketing and if it works, why not use it to the fullest?

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Desmond Mantor is the Marketing Manager for Have Traffic, a company specializing in traffic generation for for commercial websites. Please visit http://www.havetraffic.com for information about our revolutionary web site promotion service __________________________________________________________________________