Proper Affiliate Banner Management Will Increase Your Sales
We've been talking about how to create and optimize a niche website to sell affiliate products
. I want to move a little different direction and talk about using banners on your websites to drive prospects to sales pages. If someone clicks through from your banner to my sales page and purchases, you're going to earn an affiliate commission, so it's a great idea to learn how to use banners.
But What Exactly ARE Banners?
Just to make sure we're all one the same wavelength about banners, let's stop and define the term. A banner is one of those graphics that appears when you click on a website, inviting you to 'click here' to learn more about a product. In affiliate marketing, banners contain affiliate codes that tell the person selling the actual product who should receive the commission.
Banner Basics
So, just how hard is it to get a banner up and running on your website? If the person you're selling products for is like me, it's easy! It's simply a matter of copying a graphic to your website, copying in some HTML code and linking the graphic to an affiliate link. All three components should be supplied for you.
If you designed and published your own website, you should have the basic skills to get the job done. If someone else does your web design, ask them to add the banner to your website.
If, on the other hand, you decide to create your own banners, there's also help available. Several sites now offer free or low-cost banner creation. Try Googling "free banner creation" and checking out the tools available to create your graphic.
Once your banner is operating correctly on your website, a site visitor should be able to click on the "Click Here" link and arrive at the product's sales page.
Effective Use of Banners
Thought you were all ready to go? Sorry! There are a couple of other things we need to discuss to optimize your use of banners. Here's the down and dirty on effective banner use:
* Placement: banners at the bottom of the page are more likely to be clicked than those at the top. Really. To convince yourself, experiment with banner placement and track the click-through.
* Relevance: put your affiliate banner on a page with somewhat related content, i.e., if you're advertising my private lending products, the banner's going to look strange on a daycare webpage.
* Number: see the section below about the evils of too many banners!
* Testing: banners that don't load correctly, take too long to load, or don't click through to the right site are just plain annoying! Make sure yours work before you unleash them on your prospects.
Banners Behaving Badly
This is the part where I tell you how NOT to use banners. There are 'banner addicts' out on the Web who post affiliate banners EVERYWHERE on their websites. It's a little like walking through Times Square every time you enter their websites! Most site visitors will see "flash, flash, flash", and click on to a saner site.
The bottom line is use banners wisely. If you've already got one posted on your home page, and it isn't showing results, consider replacing it with a different affiliate product banner for awhile. Of course, I'd like that one to be the banner I've created just for my affiliates!
Affiliate marketing can produce a nice income when done right, and using banners wisely is one of the best tools. If you don't have what you need to add my banner to your website, let me know. All you have to gain is more income!
E. Alan Cowgill
by: Alan Cowgill
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