You often see graphic representations of an advertisement on a web page. These are called web banners. They may be still and have no motion or they can have moving parts to further attract attention. If you are searching the web and you click on a banner you will be directed to the website of the one using the banner as an advertisement. A banner does not differ from other forms of advertisement in that its intention is to direct customers to your site for more information and hopefully to purchase something. And as with any payperclick campaign, typically when someone clicks on the banner the advertiser is charged a small click through fee.

Banners started to pop up on the internet at the beginning of the 1990s. Companies started to provide them as a service. They come in various standard sizes to fit on your website. One good thing about banners is that there is computer software to track how many times a banner is clicked, where these clicks are coming from and if a sale developed from that click. With this information one is able to adjust his campaign to get the most out of his marketing campaign and place the banners on pages which are getting the most response. When advertising with a newspaper or magazine one does not have that luxury.

Based on your budget you may use a very simple banner at no cost which you can find online. You can also find and purchase custom banners, 3D banners or very sophisticated banners. They are not difficult to make. It takes a little bit of knowledge of html code to be able to produce them. For the more complicated ones that takes more programming knowledge. People analyze what it is in an ad that attracts attention and what does not. Over the years there has been some shift in viewpoint as to what attracts attention. It used to be that banners or ads would flash all over the screen to attract attention. Perhaps this being a novelty at the time did have its merits, but today the focus for the most part is more on what looks professional and is not offensive. People tend to be annoyed with ads flashing in their face. Moderate use of flashing ads may be excepted.

You can exchange banners with other sites if you are building links to your site and work this out with other site owners. As with any link building this should be beneficial in driving traffic to your site. Or you can pay to have your banner placed on other sites. There are banner exchange networks which put your banner around to other sites, but you may find your banner in places where you do not care for it to be.

If you have a site where you have an affiliate program, you can provide banners to your affiliates to help promote your site. There are many uses for banners as a promotional tool. Find out about them, use them and see how they work for you.