Banners Don't Have to be Boring!

By Merle
Posted Thursday, July 15, 2004

How to add banner rotation to your website easily.

Banners Don't Have to Be Boring!

It's very common to see a banner at the top of most webpages. Usually, they are 468X60 in size, which is the most popular format for banner advertising. But instead of pasting just one banner at the top of your page, how would you like to put eight or twelve in that spot? Incredible, you say? It can be done with what's known as a banner rotation script or service. Every time someone loads your webpage containing the code, they'll see a different banner appear in exactly the same spot.

There several advantages to rotating banners:

1) It allows the pages they're displayed on to "look different" every time someone loads a page, giving your site a more "fresh" appearance.

2) You can display a variety of banners without adding more bandwidth to your pages or taking up their precious real estate.

3) If you participate in a variety of Affiliate Programs where you make a commission on sales, now you can rotate those banners they give you and possibly make more money at the same time.

4) It's a known fact that after someone views the same banner over and over they'll become immune to it, thereby reducing click thru rates. With rotation, they're always fresh.

5) If you want to sell banner advertising on your site you'll need some sort of banner rotation script to track click thrus and impressions for your clients.

The advantages are clear, so where do you go to get a script like this? There are a number of websites that offer them for free. All you need to do is download them and tweak a few lines of CGI Code. Try some of these more popular sites:

Free Scripts (http://www.freescripts.com/scripts/)

Big Nose Bird (http://www.bignosebird.com/)

The CGI Resource (http://www.cgi-resources.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/)

Matt's Script Archive (http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/)

If you're not comfortable with CGI scripts, you can hire someone who specializes in "configuring" to do it for you. The cost will vary depending on the complexity of the script, but you should plan on spending between 0.00 to 00.00. A few programmers who freelance are listed below. Contact them for their current rates.

William@willmaster.com

DavidBlack@theWaveCave.com

info@planetcgi.com

There is a third option. There are a lot of "FREE" banner and ad rotation services that will do all of the "behind the scenes" work for you. All you have to do is sign up, upload your banners, and cut and paste the code they give you. The reason they do this for free is they usually take anywhere from 5 to 15% of your banner rotations for their own use. It's a small price to pay for the ease and convenience they offer. They will also track click-thrus and impressions of all banners served, which is great for knowing what's pulling and what's not.

Some of the best ad rotation services are:

Orbit Cycle (http://orbitcycle.com)

Hosted Scripts (http://www.hostedscripts.com/)

Ad Zerver (http://www.adzerver.com/)

Ad Rotator (http://www.bannerpower.com/)

Rotating banners on your website is a quick way to keep the look of your site fresh and keep those "click thrus" coming. Now that you know how to do it, there's absolutely no reason not to.

About the Author
Merle is an internet marketer, promotion consultant and ezine publisher. Visit her sites at (http://www.mcpromotions.com/), (http://www.merlesworld.com/) and (http://www.ezineadauction.com/).