Banner Schemes

There are many types of banner schemes going. They offer different exchange ratios (the ratio at which you earn banner showings from showing banners on your pages), and there are specialised schemes for some subject matter (eg: craft sites can sign up to a craft banners scheme).

Virtually all the schemes offer you the chance to buy credits to enable your banner to be shown more. This could be quite an expensive way of getting publicity for your site, and unless you've got the most amazing banner in the world you're unlikely to actually get that many hits.

There are also banner schemes where you can get paid per click! Obviously without a great deal of traffic then you're not going to get rich through this.

The normal size of banner is 468x60 pixels.



Its quite a fair size if you're designing pages at 800x600, (more so if you're still designing for 640x480). The best way to include banners, is to fit them into your design, so that they don't just stand out.

Other isssues to think about are the fact that these schemes often have quite strict rules about placement of their banners. Rules may include: banner must be shown at top of page, no other company's banner may be shown on the same page, only one banner per page, no notice asking people to click on the banner, etc.
These rules can seem quite restrictive, but once you start getting interested in a banner scheme you'll start to notice how imaginatively they can be included into the design of a page, and almost seem like part of the site.

You'll also have noticed on your travels on the Net, pages with nothing but banners. You'll know from your own experience that its actually quite off-putting and unlikely to achieve anything (Ok, you might get lots of page views, but will you not be found out? Companies often check on high page showings to make sure people aren't cheating, and can refuse to give you your "earnings" if you've fraudulently obtained them. Besides which, do you really want your banner showing on a scheme that allows people to create such horrid pages?

One important thing to note is, unlike the graphic above, is that banners are pulled from other servers, and this adds to the delays in them appearing. This is something to quite seriously bear in mind. If you're going to have two banners on each page, then how much will that slow down your page? You don't want to be too greedy, and risk putting customers off.

See also the article on Commission Junction, and the Links page for links to banner schemes.

Why not join Exchange-it!