4.0 Best Practies
Ad Placement and Position
The placement of your banner ads on a website is a very crucial factor to engagement and click-throughs. There have been numerous studies into the relative click-through rates of ads in certain general areas of a webpage. For example, in general, ads that are near content tend to perform better than ads out on the periphery of a page.
(Available at http://www.squidoo.com/heat-map)
| Area on webpage | Ad Response % |
|---|---|
| Content | 44.66 |
| Heading | 27.32 |
| Right Column | 9.28 |
| Left Column | 7.88 |
| Below the Fold | 1.93 |
Powerful Heading
A good, strong heading that demands attention is an intrical feature for any banner ad. Remember that a visitor’s eyes will scan a page within seconds to you need to have something to catch their attention within those critical few seconds. Also, if you’re heading isn’t powerful enough, you’ll fail to retain interest in your offering, and lose a potential visitor to your site.
Attention-grabber
You could also try implementing an additional “attention-grabber”, for example, some form of interesting illustration or graphic (something more than just text). Just look at the dragon-like creature in the banner ad to the right (the ad was designed by ElegantBanners).
Call-to-action
Right, so you’ve got someone looking at your banner ad, now what? Tell them how to proceed! Yes, the natural inclination of the person would be to click the ad anyway, you can’t just assume they’ll do it. Provide some kind of call for them to explore the offering more.
Animation
Animation also plays a big role in getting people’s attention with your banner ad. Studies show that animated ads outperform static ads altogether as motion grabs the user’s attention. This doesn’t mean you go overboard with animation either, the best ads are shorter than 15 seconds, and have fewer rather than more frames.
It's also worth mentioning as a sidenote that you use a reliable web host so that your website remains up at all times, and if any technical issues arise, that they're there to support you along the way rapidly. You don't want to be throwing money down the drain by sending people to a defunct website!