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 10×10 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.
