How to design a banner - Goals In Designing A Banner
   
Home: Graphic Academy
 
Graphics Books
 
Graphics File Formats
  Animation File Formats
Bitmap File Formats
CAD File Formats
Cursor File Formats
Font File Formats
Icon File Formats
Metafile File Formats
Prepress File Formats
Vector File Formats
Video File Formats
Web File Formats
More Graphics File Formats
 
Graphics Software
  Banner Design Software
CAD Software
Diagram Drawing Software
Illustration Software
Photo Editing Software
Video Conversion Software
More Graphics Software
 
Graphics Tutorials
 
  • Adobe Dreamweaver Tutorials
  • Adobe Photoshop Tutorials
  • AutoCAD Tutorials
  • How To Draw Tutorials
    Banner Design Tutorial
    Banner Display Tutorial
    Color Combinations Tutorial
    Color-Safe Conversion Tutorial
    eBook Covers Tutorial
    Favicon Tutorial
    GIF + Photo Tutorial
    Good Web Design
    Image Slice Tutorial
    Image Tiling Tutorial
    Imagemap Tutorial
    Photography Tutorial
    Prevent Copying Tutorial
    Screenshots Tutorial
    Should I Use Flash?
    Text to Images Tutorial
    Web Image File Formats
    More Graphics Tutorials
  •  
    Graphics Glossary


    Advertisement
     
    Christmas Graphics Super Pack
    Over 1500 High Quality Royalty Free Christmas Images To Download Immediately


    The 156 Meg Christmas Graphics Super Pack, Is Chock Full Of .jpg, .gif, And .png Files To Keep You Busy Clear Till Christmas!
    Click here

    or

    Read the Review of Christmas Clipart
     
         
    GraphicsAcademy.com  >  Tutorials  >  Design A Banner  >  Chapter 3

       

     

    How To Design A Banner

    Chapter 3: Goals In Designing A Banner

    What makes a good banner?

    There are a number of things that you need to consider when designing a banner: The most important of which is that you should always remember that banners are advertisements, not purely artistic creations. In other words, don't focus so much on the artistic considerations that you forget the primary purpose of the banner, namely advertising.

    The next consideration is what is your advertising goal? There are two main goals that are commonly given for banner advertising:
    1. Branding: Increasing awareness of your brand because people see your banner.

    2. Direct Response: Getting people to click on your banner, come to your site, and respond how you want them to (buy your product, sign up for your ezine or whatever).
    If you have (or are building) a well-known brand like "Coca Cola" or "Nike", I can see that there could be value in increasing brand awareness. However, for small sites and businesses, I personally am rather doubtful than banner advertising can help you with this goal - because you're unlikely to get nearly enough people seeing your banner to make a difference.

    So, let's focus on direct response...

    What are the goals for a direct response banner?
    1. First, you need people to see your banner.

    2. Second, you need people to click on your banner(in order to get to your site).

    3. Third, you want to try to encourage the right kind of people (people who would be interested in whatever it is that you have to offer) to be those clicking. It's no good having random people, or worse yet, people who aren't likely to be interested in what you are offering, clicking.
    So what tips can I offer you offer on designing your direct response banner?
    • Keep your banner files small: This is because banners can take a few seconds to load, the larger the file, the longer, and you don't want people to have scrolled past the banner before they've even seen it.

    • Make your banner look clickable: If your banner looks like a picture, then that is what many users may assume it is. Try to make it obvious that users can click on your banner.

    • Include a call to action: Including a phrase such as "Click Here" or "Sign Up Now" can dramatically improve the number of people clicking.

    • Use bright colors: Blue, yellow and green banners may have a higher response rate than black-and-white.

    • Attention grabbing: Your goal should be to make sure your banner is sufficiently attention grabbing that users will notice it, but not so attention grabbing as to be annoying (otherwise they may simply click to a different page). Animation (but not over the top animation) can help here.

    • Good copywriting: Make sure users can see why they should click on your banner and visit your site. This is about benefits that your site/product/service offers (what's in it for the reader) rather than features, or even the benefit from clicking on your banner (for example: "Need help with taxes?" - if the answer is on your site).

    • Keep the message short and on-point: Shorter text messages usually attract a higher response than wordy banners.

    • "Free": Using the word "Free" can increase response rate for some banners. Of course, this depends on context - a free trial of a product/service is one thing - but offering free money will probably just arouse suspicion.

    • "Fake" banners: These are banners that look like they contain buttons or windows elements (and can be made by using screenshots - see How To Make Screenshots). Using such elements can help make your banner both more attention grabbing, and more obviously clickable. However, you probably don't want to go so overboard as to make your banner deliberately confusing so that users click it by mistake.

    • Track everything: Try several banner designs and see how each performs. This way, you'll be able to pick the best ones out and perhaps iteratively improve them. To do this, you'll need statistics for each banner design that you use, so if you don't already have it, invest in some ad tracking software and then track the performance of each design separately.

    Related Pages on this site:
    Related Software:
      
    How To Design A Banner:
     
     
      << PreviousIntroduction   1   2   3   4   5   6Next >>  
       




       
     
       
     
       
    Disclosure: Our company's websites' content (including this website's content) includes advertisements for our own company's websites, products, and services, and for other organization's websites, products, and services. In the case of links to other organization's websites, our company may receive a payment, (1) if you purchase products or services, or (2) if you sign-up for third party offers, after following links from this website. Unless specifically otherwise stated, information about other organization's products and services, is based on information provided by that organization, the product/service vendor, and/or publicly available information - and should not be taken to mean that we have used the product/service in question. Additionally, our company's websites contain some adverts which we are paid to display, but whose content is not selected by us, such as Google AdSense ads. For more detailed information, please see Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures

    Our sites use cookies, some of which may already be set on your computer. Use of our site constitutes consent for this. For details, please see Privacy.

    Click privacy for information about our company's privacy, data collection and data retention policies, and your rights.

    Contact Us     Privacy     Terms Of Use     Advertising/Endorsements Disclosures

    Copyright © 2005-2020, Answers 2000 Limited

    In Association With Amazon.com
    Answers 2000 Limited is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
    In Association With Amazon.co.uk
    Answers 2000 Limited is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
    As an Amazon Associate, our company earns from qualifying purchases. Amazon, the Amazon logo, Endless, and the Endless logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.



    CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
    CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE,COMES FROM AMAZON EU S.à r.l. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.

    All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
    All third party content and adverts are copyright of their respective owners.

    Some graphics on our web sites are Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Hemera Technologies Inc., and used under license. All such pictures are provided for viewing purposes only and are not to be saved or downloaded. All such pictures of recognizable individuals are models and used for illustrative purposes only, and not meant to imply any association or endorsement of said individual with any product or service.