Understanding Banner Ads

Using banners for driving traffic to your websites was one of the earliest forms of paid search, and it is still around because it is still somewhat effective depending on your large scope needs. It is still a highly respected and effective way of driving paid traffic to individual websites regardless of what the self proclaimed “gurus“  might say. Effective as it can be, it can also be one of the most expensive ways to drive traffic to your site. If you use banner ads, you need to  make sure that you are getting the very best returns possible from the investment that you make in banner ads.

Miscalculations made regarding banner ads will waste your money. They will also give you false hope in many instances. You may be thinking you are going to get good traffic to your websites through these banner ads and you will end up sitting and waiting for a long time to see results not realizing that they actually aren’t working. While you are trying to be patient,  the problem is with the banner ads them self. If that is the case,  you need to take alternative steps to drive traffic to your website. Sometimes banner ads are just not appropriate or sensible for promoting your particular product or service. Take some time to investigate and see if there is really a reason to invest in banner advertising.

Here are few tips on how you can get the best out of your designated investments in banner ads and get the desired traffic.

An excellent example is as follows: You are a hosting service provider. Logic would dictate that as a matter of course that you will be able to  get good conversion rates by placing your banners on websites that sell website templates or web design services. People who are looking for website design services will also require web hosting services. Targeted placement makes a tremendous difference. If you randomly place your banner ad all over the web with little or no regard as to who it is most likely to appear in front of, then you have a scattershot approach and random clicks are the best you can hope for.

Another aspect of this that you need to keep in mind is the traffic level of the website that hosts your banners. If the website you are advertising does not have much traffic, then there is no use in paying for your banner to be displayed since there are no visitors to see it. Research the sites you are considering to ensure they have enough traffic so you will be able to get good traffic and conversions. This is a matter of spending wisely – targeted spending – not the scattershot approach discussed above which doesn’t work.

Look for websites with good solid  PageRank as potential hosts for your banner ad. When you get websites with good PageRank, the odds are they will also probably have good search rankings for top keywords. If that is the case, you will be able to get a good back link from a high PR website. This will help you get good search rankings. This is just a secondary benefit of banner ads – high PageRank sites usually also have good traffic, so obviously this is the primary reason for targeting high PR sites. Happy Linking!

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