Online Punch

You may have heard the term “web banner” written a lot on the web. This word distinguishes two varieties of imagery. First of all, you have the well-known advertising banner, usually applied as a way to drive traffic to another site, as a click on the banner takes one to the advertised site. The other kind is located at the top area of a regular site - the website header. This section usually familiarizes a user to the website with a main title, maybe a secondary strapline, and some imagery to assist in theming the site. Advertising and website header banners play primary purposes in both driving people to a site, and making a site “sticky” - by instructing them plainly with the primary purpose of the site, and inviting the individual to read the site further, employing compelling imagery / strapline text.

How do you go about making banners? There are numerous services which are able to serve you with this chore. Not only that but many also give you hosting as well. Simply enter a phrase such as web banner maker into Google and you’ll discover a myriad of online services.

So what to put in your banner? Well, if you are selling products, it’s a great plan to arrange the payment gateways your site uses for taking payment, because it hands to the visitor a visible hint that your website is an e-commerce store while letting the individual see how they can pay. Put in some pictures of the items you are vending as well, as this is a further visual hint as to which types of products you vend. Finally, the strap line phrase is primary too. Make sure the strap line distinctly and concisely posits what the site is about in only five or six words.

As self-explanatory as all this sounds, a slip many sites make is to take for granted every site visitor knows instinctively what the website is about before visiting it. We can’t assume that the visitant what your website is about beforehand, so you must hold each visitant’s hand in the precious first couple of seconds they visit your website.