Banner Design Success Techniques
Banners have been a major part of the World
Wide Web world since its early days. Copywriters burn the midnight
oil looking for new designs that will grab the visitor’s attention
and compel him to click on their banner. This article discusses some
of the most successful banner designs.
Teasing your curiosity
“Do Not Click Here”. How many of you have seen this slogan in a
banner? What did you do when you first saw it? If you are like most
people, when you first saw it, you clicked on it. What makes this
simple sentence so powerful that it compels the visitor to click on
it? The answer is curiosity !!!
Copywriters and web designers are always looking for ways to arouse
the website visitor’s curiosity. As banner designers their goal is
to attract the visitor to the banner, usually completely ignoring
the other elements on the web page that are more important to the
website owner. However, because the “Do Not Click Here” slogan tells
us nothing about what is on the next page, it arouses the visitor’s
curiosity and makes it almost impossible not to click on this banner
to see what’s behind it.
Simple integrated design
When Larry Page and Sergey Brin first introduced their product,
“Google”, to potential investors, they mentioned Adwords as a backup
option in case they didn’t make any money. We all know how lucky
they were that they eventually needed to use that backup plan. What
made these “boring” ads such a great success?
Unlike other ads, Adwords neither arouse the visitor’s curiosity nor
disturb the main flow of the web page. In fact, the opposite is
true. Adwords are meant to look like part of the search results
giving the user the feeling that those ads are there because he
asked for them. No one has any doubt that this simple design helps
Google to promote both their search engine and the Adwords
advertising program.
Take part in the action
Banner designers wisely used interactive technologies like Flash to
develop type of banners that invite the user to take part in the
action. Drawing the user into the action can be accomplished in many
creative ways. Some web designers use popular old games elements as
part of the scene. You all know the famous game pacman. One of the
banners that I like the most is the one where the user is allowed to
let pacman “eat” few dollar signs. At the successful completion of
this mission, a nice slogan is revealed asking him to open a saving
account that will earn money with a fixed interest rate. The idea
behind those interactive banners is simple: Let the user take part
in the action and then at the right moment when his mind is less
resistant, show him the sales message. Those interactive banners
proved to be very efficient. Their biggest disadvantage is that most
webmasters will not allow that kind of banner because it distracts
too much from the web page content.
Back to Black and White
Website designers are always seeking to be different with their
design ideas. One banner fashion trend that can be found lately is
Black and White banners. Although research shows that blue and
yellow are the most efficient color to use in a banner, Black and
White banners have been seen a lot lately. It’s probably something
that will eventually vanish, but the idea behind it is to be
different and to make the user wonder what’s up and hopefully click
on the banner to find out.
Get Out of the box
Have you heard about the milliondollarhomepage.com? If not, check
out this website before continuing to read this article. This
website has proven that creative thinking not only can bring you
money but also create a whole new trend. Right after the
milliondollarhomepage.com got the internet community’s attention,
many designers used this idea to deign a banner on which they sell a
10x10 pixel area. Like the original concept, this banner design had
its impact. Advertisers are investing money on these ad spaces while
at the same time visitors are curious enough time after time looking
at those unorganized pixel banners to click on them.
What about the next trends
What the next trends of banner design will be is something that
probably no one can accurately predict. It’s up to some web designer
to come up with a new concept that proves to be efficient. There is
no doubt that in the future we will see new ways of designing
banners, especially when more and more advertising budgets are being
spent on the internet instead of commercial TV and other types of
advertising media. I guess we will just need to be patient. |
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