Ban the Banners

New webmasters often hold the mistaken belief, that the more banner ads theyhave on their site, the more money they will make. They blanket their siteswith them, hoping, that the more banners people see, the better the chance,that someone will actually click on them.What they don't understand, however, is that they are actually drivingtraffic away, by making their sites unattractive and slow. The banner adsthat were supposed generate income drive away potential customers.Do you like banner ads? Now, ask yourself the question: "Why do you think,that others would feel different than you do?"While large ads may be successful in magazines, newspapers and telephonebooks, what person would wants them to consume his or her bandwidth on theweb? Isn't the Internet already slow enough?Why do you think that one of the most popular sections on our website is theone that covers programs to eliminate banners and pop-up windows? Manypeople are sick of obnoxious, in-you-face advertising. They are fed up withthe useless clutter of ads filling most websites.No long ago, we removed all the banner ads at our site, leaving only textlinks. The results were that we saw dramatic increase in both traffic andrevenue. Removing the banners increased both our popularity and our profits.Amazingly enough, not one person wrote back to us and complained about thebanners being removed.Now you may be asking yourself, "Why do advertisers use banner ads, if theyare so unpopular with the public?"The answer is simple: Name Recognition!The truth of the matter is advertisers don't really care if people buy fromyour site as long as at some point in time, people remember the product orservice and buy it.Think about it. You annoy your visitors with dozens of ads about somedot-com, causing them to flee your site. Later on, the same visitorsremember those ads and go to the site directly. The company makes a sale,and they don't even have to pay the person, who advertised it.There are some very popular sites on the Internet with huge affiliateprograms. You can find their banners everywhere. You might think that itwould be a cinch to make money off such sites by simply placing one of theirbanners on your site, but guess again. With so many ads, people don't needyour banners to find them. Most people have bookmarked them already. Toeffectively advertise such popular sites, you need to target your readerswith custom reviews or inform people about specific sales and promotions sothat they feel compelled to click on the link immediately.Now, I am not here to tell you that removing the banners off your site willmake you an instant success. Without compelling content on your site, youstill may not see any changes in traffic. A site that is nothing more than aseries of ads is unlikely to be successful, regardless of what form theadvertising the webmaster uses.I am not suggesting that everyone should remove banners from their siteeither. Indeed, it would be foolish for the owner of a popular site toremove paid advertising that is generating income. If advertisers arewilling to pay up front for banner ads, or if you have banner ads that areperforming well, by all means, keep them!What I am suggesting, however, is that if you have banner ads that aren'tgenerating income that you expected, you might think about removing orreplacing them. Consider text-based adverting with compelling reviews aboutthe products or services. Give your readers something more than just flashyslogans or pictures of beautiful models. Provide your visitors with reasonswhy they actually need a product or service, so that they buy it from yoursite now, rather than later.Instead of simply placing a banner on your site for a site where people canbuy a product, write an informative article or review about the product, andthen tell your readers where they can find a great deal on it.