The following is an article I read that I think will benefit anyone interested in online advertising.

-Dave Englund

As you begin marketing and promoting your online business you are going to run into some unbelievable advertising opportunities. Generally speaking if the ad offering sounds too good to be true–It is.

There are companies that will tell you they will get you listed in the top 10 search engines or place your link on millions of sites or they will get you listed in the top 10 returns of search engines. This last one sounds similar to the first, but there is a big difference.

Google searches over 3 billion pages during their searches. The companies that tell you they will get you listed in the top 10 of the major search engines would have to defy all the principles of math to do this. They could not work with more than a few companies in order to achieve this and honestly, there is no way they can get you listed in the top 10 of the search engines placements at all unless they make up their own search terms and people search on that specific term.

Stay away from the companies that tell you they are going to place you in search engines for a fee, for the most part they will do nothing more than use a site software submitter. You can get your own software for this or use an online service and submit your site yourself for a lot less than what most SEO companies charge for this service. Guaranteed traffic– They work fine for free sites or if your goal is to build a database of names, but if you are selling a product or service, you will get hits, but not many sales.

Mass email — Any company that tells you they will send your ad to millions of people for $20 or $30 is simply taking your money. This might sound inviting, but do not waste your money. They are either using site submit tools or sending your ad to millions of harvested email addresses. The companies who tell you they are going to submit your site to millions of pages will most likely do what they say, but you will not see any return and may even get you Spam complaints.

Mass emails are a complete waste of your money regardless of what product you are selling. There are many sites that will tell you they will send your ad to double opt-in lists of people. We have tried over a dozen of these services and have barely received a hit, much less sales. The problem is you lose control over your ad when you use mass email companies. There is no way to verify the ad was sent and if you could verify it was sent, there is no way to tell it was sent to the numbers they promise. Plus, you run the risk of being accused of Spam.

Solo ads– These are by far one of the best methods of promoting your product and service. They are targeted, you can verify the numbers and you can subscribe using a unique email and verify the ad was sent on the day and time it was supposed to be sent.

Consultants– Use your best judgment when hiring consultants, call some or send an email and ask about a money back guarantee if they cannot meet the objectives they set forth. I am not a big believer in money-back guarantees because if a service is valuable and you can see the value before you buy, then a money back guarantee is not necessary. However, if someone comes to you and says, I can make your site profitable within 30 or 60 or 90 days and it is going to cost you X amount of money, then they should give you your money back if they do not achieve the desired results.

A good consultant will work with companies that he or she knows they can help by relying on their background and expertise in certain areas of marketing and advertising. Nobody knows everything, but if someone has an expertise in an area that I lack knowledge with, I would hire him or her in a second if they can honestly help me and they can prove they can help me and they will back up what they tell me.

There are consultants who will tell you what you want to hear, just to get your business. They take your money and run and they will not help you a bit. We hired a copy writer one time who seemed like a good fit for our company and only after she finished the writing at $120 an hour did she tell me that she would not buy my product. Not because she could not benefit from it, but she refused to pay for anything online. Her copy was terrible and we ended up re–writing the entire sales page. Her feelings and beliefs came across in her writings. It was simply impossible for her to write positively when her mind was telling her negative things.

We have many marketing and advertising partners and all the companies we partner with have been tested by us to offer valuable services, but there are thousands of other companies on the Internet and you might find a very good company with a very good service that works for you and within your budget. Not all companies are out to cheat you, but the purpose of this article is to forewarn you regarding where you spend your advertising dollars.

We have spent a lot of money and time buying and trying different advertising options and by using our own ad campaign and link tracking system for all our advertising campaigns we have the data to back up what we say.

Research your advertising options carefully and do not get pulled into a good deal just because it sounds like a good deal. You do not need to spend a lot of money to advertise and promote your business, you just need to use your common sense and think long term.

It was discovered that banner designs can be the most annoying form of web advertisements after pop ups and pop-unders. However, many advertisers still report that the banners are still their most effective tool. First of all not all banner designs are annoying. Each day we often come across various informative, suggestive, thought provoking, interesting and brilliant designs. The key that small businesses, advertisers and marketers need to understand that in order to be effective their design needs to be less annoying and more web friendly or I would say more audience friendly.

Lets first understand the anatomy of a horrible banner design; it’s design is noisy, offensive, unintelligent, dumb and boring, the banner makes false promises and fraudulently invites the user to click it by displaying deceptive images. Bad, bad, bad!

To make a banner design a really effective marketing tool we need to remove all the elements that make our banner annoying and instead we should add elements that would make our banner design more click-able and likable. Think of your banner ad as an online billboard (with only 3 seconds to read it)

Colors, using colors that do not hurt the eyes of the viewer is something that cannot be stressed more. Using red as a banner color background influences impulse buying, using brown or green as a background color influences trust and should take the visitor to a “non-product” page, they should be landing on a page that describes the services you offer. I’ll write more on this later!

Animations, it is wonderful to know that an advertiser paid extra money to get an animated banner design. Even though most designers would tell you that faster animations make a banner less click-able. But businesses believe that the designers are avoiding extra work, hence they insist on more animation. Please note that a banner that animates too fast not only looks ugly but is less click-able. Use simple animations that are not too fast and not too distracting, for instance try using a 2 panel animation, i.e. “question” for panel 1 and “answer” for panel 2, it’s educational and keeps the user engaged.

Fraudulent banners are the most offensive ones. These are the banner designs that pretend to look like an operating system menu and warning the user about some potential threat or an announcement that they have won something. There are even banners that offer people instant wealth, fame and glory. We all wish the world was that easy. So please stop making a fool of yourself no one is actually going to click on such a banner with an intention of becoming a customer.

Better Banners Mean More Business

Here are some essential guidelines for creating effective banner ads:

1. Ask for Action. Your banner should say ‘Click Here Now!’ or invite the viewer to visit for more information. Arrows, targets, anything that implies action or movement to the hyperlinked site will improve response.

2. Use complex graphics sparingly, but effectively. Graphics can convey a great deal of information in a short time, but can also dramatically increase your file size. The fact is that smaller gifs get downloaded quicker and more frequently, and don’t get halted in midstream by impatient surfers. Optimize your banners using some of the tools noted below, such as Gif Wizard.

3. In most cases, research indicates that unbranded ads generate more clicks. Hmmm. Create mystery, ask a question, imply missing information available with a click. All these generate inquiry in your viewers.

4. Animated banners are more effective than static banners, but as with graphics, use good judgement. Ads that are too busy increase file size, and can confuse the viewer. Market a single concept, even if it is an umbrella for many other products and services. For instance, in our banner ads, we market resources for Internet Business People using the phrase “Master The Internet”. Now this includes our training products, our newsletter, free tools and resources on our website, and many other subjects. But the single concept we market is to Master The Internet.

5. Change your banners frequently. Web surfers are very unlikely to follow a banner link after seeing it the third or fourth time. Your click through rate will fall from an initial high to almost nothing as it is viewed between 100,000 and 200,000 times.

6. Strongly consider using targeted advertising. For obvious reasons, targeted ads pull much better. In spite of higher costs for the targeted ads, the much higher click-though rates result in a typically lower cost per visitor.

7. Consider adding a blue border around your banner – strongly suggesting the banner is a clickable link (as of course it is).

8. Use the word FREE, and create urgency by suggesting time limits or quantity limits.

9. Larger is better. Some banner exchanges offer 468X68 pixel banners, while others limit the size to 400X40 or similar. All other things being equal, the larger sized banner will generate a higher click through ratio. But remember to try and keep file size small

I hope this helps

-Dave Englund