General Banner Guidelines:

Your banner needs to grab attention! Movement or blinking tends to do this very well. One effective banner design is where you make the banner look like part of the web page that someone would have to click on (as below). This is a bit sneaky, but testing has proven it to very effective.

When creating banners, there are 3 basic sizes:

468x60 pixels ( as for most of the ones below)

150X50 pixels

120x60 pixels

To start creating a banner, open your image editor ( like Lview ) & File> New. you can then set the size of the image to the desired banner size. If you are going to make an animated image, then you need a separate image for each frame in the animation. It's easy to make animations with GIF Construction Set: you simply select the image files in the order you want them to appear in the animation, then specify the delay between frames. The software does the rest - it's really simple.

Your banners will generally have to stay below 20K in size so you can't go crazy with animations or complex graphics. Remember this simple rule - TEXT SELLS! So forget about the flash & focus on writing copy that is compelling & sells the benefits of what you're offering. Read your banner text as a headline. If it doesn't cut it, then scrap it. By the same token, sometimes the most ridiculous thing may be the most effective. The only way to find out is to test & track each banner ( get more info on this below ).

Once you create your banners, find sites that get traffic that is in your target market & email them about getting your banner on the site. They will ask you to pay, to  provide the location of the banner you want to use, and to provide the URL where the banner link should redirect to ( your website ). If you have the option, have the image hosted on your webhost's server not theirs. This will allow you to test different banner designs in a month simply by uploading a different banner with the same name to your hosting account. 

I include the 1st banner article below  for your reference.

Banner Examples:

Use Gif Construction Set to make 3 images (dropshadow banners). Then use the wizard to animate them with a 2 sec delay.

Use an html editor to make the form on a webpage. Then take a screenshot of the web page using Lview. Save the image. Then select/copy the dropdown arrow part & paste into a new image in Lview. Change the background color to red & save the red button. Copy the red button back to your 1st image & place it over the grey button & save this as another image. Then open GIF Contruction & use the animation wizard to create an animation using the two form images ( one with grey button & one with red) with a 10msec delay.

This is just like the 1st banner with more frames ( images ) in the animation...

This shake idea came from a guy who tested it against a non-shake & saw the shaker get 5x more clickthrus - go figure? You just use the same image twice but move the contents over a bit in one, then animate it with 2 frames.

smaller banners I have setup for specific affiliate websites:

Here's part 1 of the banner article:

How to Make Banners Work for You
Copyright 2002 lessworkmoremoney.com
By Armand Melanson

There is alot of BS info about how to succeed online. Let me
explode 2 myths I hear all the time:

1) Banner ads are a useless waste of time because nobody pays
any attention to them

2) Submit your site to all the free banner exchanges you can &
you will make a killing

THESE ARE BOTH DEAD WRONG!!!

Banner ads are a good way to advertise on the net, but not via
free banner exchanges - that is a waste of time. The only way
to make banner ads work is to make sure that they are exposed
to your target market - that's people who want what you are
selling.

If you are selling a specialty tool, you will not make a single
sale posting your banner on sites that are offering webhosting.
You have to reach your target market. So here's how you make
banners work:

You find sites that are of interest to your target market & you
get your banner setup there. So to sell your specialty tool, you
find wholesale tool sites, 'how to' tool sites & the like. You then
email or call the site owner & ask him how much he'll charge you
to run a banner on his site. For really targeted markets, it won't
cost you more than $100/month.

Find out how to pay for the banner space, then give them the URL
to your banner ( which you have uploaded to your webhost ).

The key part of banner ads (or any advertising for that matter)
is tracking. You have to be able to measure how many people are

1) clicking on your banner
2) buying your product after having clicked on your banner

These are not the same thing. Number 1 tells you if your banner
is getting people's attention. Number 2 tells you if those
people whose attention you got are actually buying anything.

You track your banner clicks & sales using an advertising tracking
software like Adminder (costs about $11/MO):

http://www.adminder.com/go.cgi?id=itworks

If you are not using a service like this, then forget about
selling on the net - if you can't measure exactly how much
you make or lose on every online ad, you are wasting your time &
money. So if you are not using something like this, do yourself a
favor & check it out.

To illustrate, I just setup banners on 2 sites, both at $50/MO.
Both sites are producing the same number of clicks, but site
2 is producing many more sales. At the end of the day, sales is what
counts.  Site one is losing me money while site 2 is making me 4
dollars for each dollar I spent. Without this info, how would I know
which ads were working & which ads I needed to change or kill? So
track you ads or perish...

If you are not getting any clicks on your banner then you test
different text & designs. Also try different sites at which to
advertise.

If you are not selling anything to your banner clickthrus but
you are selling to your regular traffic, then you are probably
not finding properly targeted sites to advertise at OR your banner
is misleading & needs to be more clear about what you're offering
(i.e. you only want people who want what you have to click the
banner). 

You don't know how to build a banner? Next week I'll show you
how anyone can do it for free...