Website owners are always looking for ways to get more traffic to their websites, and one such way is through banner advertising.

In this article I’ll look at the pros and cons of banner adverts for small online businesses.

What is a banner advert?

A banner advert is usually a small square or rectangular box advert displayed on a website promoting a separate site.

Some websites sell multiple banner adverts on each web page, while others may only have one or two strategically placed on the home page.

Keep reading to discover the advantages of banner adverts.

Banner advert pros

There are different pricing methods used when it comes to banner adverts. Some websites may just charge a small fixed monthly fee, while others charge a sum based on the number of impressions (times your advert has been displayed), or clicks through to your site.

• A fixed monthly fee for a banner advert provides transparency and you can track the number of clicks back to your site via Google Analytics to see if it’s working well or not.
• A well-placed banner advert could potentially drive traffic to your site as well as generate new enquiries.
• Depending on the site you advertise on, a banner advert can help build awareness of your brand which is useful if you’re just starting out.

There are downsides to banner adverts to as described below:

Banner advert cons

Banner adverts are only as good as the website they’re being placed on.

• One of the big disadvantages of many banner adverts is that the site being advertised on is not relevant to what’s being promoted. For example, if your business is selling golf clubs online, placing a banner advert on an equestrian clothing website will not be relevant at all.
• If you opt for a banner advert where you have to pay based on impressions, you could be paying money for nothing. For example, even if your banner advert gets 10,000 impressions one month, you may not actually have got any visitors clicking to come through to your site.
• Placement of banner adverts is another big issue. Website owners don’t want to give pride of place to ads that are going to direct people to another site. With this in mind, banner adverts are often placed in places where they’re not likely to generate many click-throughs.

Summary

If you decide you want to try out a banner advert, I’d suggest getting it professionally designed, only signing up for a short period, paying a fixed monthly cost, and choosing a site that is very relevant to your own.

Banner advertising doesn’t enjoy the greatest of reputations when it comes to generating a positive online return and many people prefer using Google Adwords as it allows them to target visitors at the time they’re looking for a specific product or service.

If you liked this article, you should also read: Are you wasting money on Pay per Click advertising? 

Image credit: Peter Kaminski (license) 

This entry was posted on Monday, January 7th, 2013 at 10:49 am and is filed under Guides for Beginners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.