What’s an Ad banner?

Advertising banners are the featured image that appear at the top of social media pages, web pages or on advertising boards. These banners are incredibly important to the success of your business, and not just because they give viewers a first impression of your company and new product or service you are offering. Advertising banners can also be very useful for your SEO needs as they can be heavily packed with SEO data such as alt text and meta description. which makes them a very important aspect of your SEO strategy. Get ready to take some notes and learn everything you need to know about advertising banners, including how to get started with your own and why a banner design agency would be able to help you.

What is an Advertising Banner and Why Do You Need A Banner Design Agency?

An advertising banner is the featured image located in the header of a social media page, webpage, advertising section on a website or on a billboard. These advertising designs can be either static or animated images. Although advertising banners are often best known for their amazing looking product images or photo retouched model, an advertising banner which is designed by a professional banner design agency is one of the first prompts a reader  to click on a post at all. Because of this many businesses spend a large amount of time and effort creating unique banners representing the products they are trying to advertise..

While “what constitutes a great advertising banner?” is a subjective question, there is actually some key commonalities among excellent advertising banners:

Types of Banner Ads

High Quality Images- Using stock photos is a very popular method to set the tone or content of an advertising banner. Even though they are less original than custom illustration designs, stock images are useful because they are typically high quality images and relatively easy and less time consuming to obtain.

Custom Graphic Designs- Custom graphic design images are a more effective method in conveying your message as you are in 100% control of what the image is. You can customize to your exact needs. You are able to use your imagination to its absolute max as anything is possible with photoshop graphic designers. 

Mixture of Design Elements and Text- This is by far the most effective amongst all the options as you will have text to back up whatever imagery you have behind the text. You can emphasize your advertising banner message with a text call to action.

We have 2 examples of a before and after of an advertising banner. The before version of this image contains a basic advertising banner, the after version of this advertising banner showcases a banner that is far more engaging that influences a higher conversion rate among viewers and visitors of a website by utilizing the principles listed above. 

An advertising banner that is designed by banner ad designers is usually a wide, but short image placed at the top of a website. advertising banners might also be referred to as featured banner or header banner. Although you should also ensure that your website has a header that states your site title,  advertising banners refer specifically to the image at the top of each individual page, whether that’s a product page or one of the top menu pages of a website. Most websites and companies change their banners often for each product and every post, so visitors have something new and exciting to look at each time they visit the website. It’s also a great way to push any new products you may be launching.

The dimensions of most advertising banners are 1200 x 628 pixels, which is the size of a WordPress featured image. You can use a 16:9 aspect ratio image, but part of your advertising banner might be cut off, so always make sure to check your host website’s banner size requirements to save time and problems. You can present your banner design agency with these dimensions and they should be able to format your advertising banner to this size.

A professional banner design agency use completely original photos for their advertising banners. Others use custom graphic design images or illustrations that pertain to the advertising banners. No matter the style, the result is the same: Advertising banners provide a visually pleasing, interesting image that encourages potential buyers to make a purchase, contributes to your SEO needs and ranks your website higher on search engine results pages, and helps skyrocket you to success.

Advertising Banners from advertising designers Entice Readers

Let’s put the SEO game on the side for a moment, let’s focus on the user experience visitors have when they click on your website. Visitors are typically going to do a quick scan of the title and banner image first as that tends to be the first thing they see, then read any short description you may have, and then scroll down your page if they’re intrigued by the previous content. 

The advertising banner image is usually a very easy way to come off as professional, clean, and credible to your visitor, buyer or potential client. It can also work to encourage viewers simply because it’s pleasing to look at a nicely designed image. Website visitors are more likely to stay on pages with several high quality graphic design images, and you should start with something that catches the visitor immediately.

Advertising banners that you get from a banner design agency can also be used to tell your viewers or website visitors what to expect from your business. For example let’s say you have a website where you have loads of categories each that have many products. You also use these category pages to announce any promotional sales you currently have going on or new product launches that you want to make people aware of.

For those product pages however, you might use a special advertising banner so that dedicated visitors of your website know as soon as they look at the product category pages that they can find your products there. There is no shortage to the amount of banners you want to include on a page. Whether that’s a top banner spreading across the page or a long one running down the side of a page. 

For many websites regardless of what product or service you are offering, advertising banners or featured images are also the default socially shared image. This means that whenever the link to this blog post is shared, the image will accompany it. Unless you manually share the image instead of the link. Bearing that in mind, it’s crucial that your advertising banner images are completely unique, interesting and in line with your content, and SEO has been implemented..

Advertising Banners Push Your Site Higher on SERPs – Why a advertising design company can help

Now getting to the nitty gritty—why advertising banners should be part of your SEO strategy. You most likely already know by now that adding custom graphic design images to your web pages is essential in terms of getting your site up in the rankings and higher on search engine results pages (SERPs). But featured banners are specifically important because they allow you to include extra metadata before your content begins.

Adding SEO keywords and meta tags to your advertising banner with the aim to push your page higher on the SERPs and into more targeted audiences. You have to make sure that you  include your main keywords in your featured image, as well as in the metadata that visitors or potential buyers might be searching for. As is always the case with SEO keywording, make sure you only include tags that are genuinely related to the web page it is being featured on.

Advertising banners can also assist users to find your website when they may be searching for specific images. If your advertising banner image has a direct and obvious link to your website content, it’s all the more important to include unique and pleasing advertising banners.

Let’s say for example, you’re running a cleaning business and you’re preparing to advertise your growing business. Your advertising design company will create a banner image that includes photos of before and after pictures of your service. You would then ideally add meta tags like “before after cleaning service” “cleaning service example,” and “cleaning service before and after.” This way, someone on the internet searching for images using those exact phrases can find your website..

This method might seem unlikely, but it’s still a meaningful method for websites to find new users. It’s also a great tool if you have any paid search campaigns on your website. 

How to Create a Great Advertising Banner

A custom graphic design creation can be exciting, a sharp look for your website can be as basic as finding a photo you like and resizing it to fit your needs. However, there are some vital steps you don’t want to miss. Advertising banners can differ from professional pictures to ecommerce images to photoshop graphics and many more, so the opportunities are limitless. You can create an amazing advertising banner whether you’re a professional photographer, an up and coming graphic designer, or a total newbie. Here’s how.

Sourcing Images For Advertising Banners

You can source content for your advertising banners from anywhere, but ensure the images are

• licensed for trademark use.
• high resolution quality, you can make your photos look professional with this guide.
• and have appropriate dimensions.

The top bullet point is one of the most important. If you use images that are copyright protected by another party on your site, you can be sued by the company or whoever is the rightful owner of the image. This tends to start with a cease and desist letter, and it should never be taken lightly. You should be extra careful if your website has the potential to make money through products, services, ads or affiliates, you must choose images that you have the rights to use.

Fortunately, there are countless images that can be licensed on the internet! Tools such as Wikimedia Commons or Unsplash are commonly used to find perfect images. These pictures and images are also available to be used for repurposing. This allows you to pop them into photoshop, onto a banner image if you want and add other elements to your advertising banner.

Please note you can use the filter “Creative Commons licenses” on Google’s image which is another helpful tool, but make sure you check these images in case of errors. When using Wikimedia Commons and Unsplash, you have freedom to use any image you find. The pictures on Unsplash are very often professional and creative. They can instantly bring your website up a  level.

You can also try sourcing images by creating them yourself. If you have a DSLR camera or even a decent megapixel camera on your phone, you can take advertising banner pictures using that. If you use your phone then make sure it’s a high resolution image. This way, the photos you can be certain they won’t show up blurry or pixelated if someone views your site on a larger screen or zooms in.

Whenever you’re taking photos, you have to prioritize natural light and simplicity, since a smoother photo looks great as a banner image. Advertising banners can be as full as you like, but for instance, the banner title on top of the image, you’ll want to use a background with a colour that easily allows the reader to see the text without issue. You don’t want the text to be the same or even similar colour to the background. You’d want it to be the complete opposite or close to it. For example a dark background, you’d want a bright font colour. 

Matching Your Pictures With Your Content – banner design agency

After we’ve covered sourcing images, let’s explore picking images. As previously discussed, it’s crucial to pick pictures and graphics that closely match the content on your website — sometimes that can be difficult, especially if you sell a product or service that is in a very niche field. For example if you are a business and want corporate banner design then ideally you would want a picture of people talking on a conference table to people mingling in suits.

For example, let’s say you’re selling something very niche and a little boring. The literal translation of this might be too boring or there simply isn’t a way you can take an image of this product or service creatively. But if you match your content better and choose a photo of someone working with your product or a custom graphic design image that showcases an organized work station. These 2 options speak clearer to the purpose of the website.

Using Advertising Banners To Brand Products – How a digital brand agency can help.

As you style your advertising banners, take into account how you’ll use the banners to brand your business. As discussed, you can use certain banner templates depending on the purpose, like the custom advertising banner example. But you can also style each and every advertising banner to match your brand identity which a digital brand agency can assist you with. It’s usually better not to include a lot of text in your custom advertising banner image, but you can use an advertising template to make sure your social media accounts are on each and every advertising banner, for example. You could also use a design template so that each banner shows up inside of a sort of box that matches your blog’s brand identity. Using the same templates can be as simple as a minimal box around each custom design image or as complicated as an inset for social media accounts and your business logo. Regardless of how you choose to do it, advertising banners are an opportunity to brand your business so visitors know exactly where this awesome imagery is from.

Types of Advertising Banners

Each website has its own style and branding. If it doesn’t then it’s not a good website and you need to to get a responsive website design. That’s why it’s vital to pick a type of advertising banner that fits your brand and website, whether that’s a simple, sleek photograph or an eye-catching custom graphic design. Here are a few types of advertising banners you can use for your blog posts.

WordPress Featured Banner Images

WordPress uses the term “featured image” to refer to each page’s advertising banner. Pretty much all of WordPress themes include a featured image or the option to add one. Make sure to match the aspect ratio which is 1200 x 628 whenever you’re uploading a featured image onto WordPress, so you don’t run into any weird formatting and misalignment on different devices.

These custom graphic design images created by a professional creative brand agency can be anything you want, and your pick of image depends on your tastes and what you prefer and what WordPress theme you use. Bearing in mind that your header on your website will still appear above the featured banner design, it’s important to choose custom design images that don’t clash (or blend in) with your website header.

Advertising Banners As Thumbnails designed by a banner design agency

On website management platforms such as WordPress, your advertising banner serves as the thumbnail for that page. That means that when it’s shared on social media, hovered over online, or seen on Google, the custom advertising banner image will appear. Some sites allow you to change the share image, but most of the time, your advertising banner will act as your page thumbnail.

This isn’t actually a negative thing. It saves time rather than choosing a thumbnail image manually, and it makes the links on your website look super professional whenever they’re shared online. Thumbnails can go a long way in bringing pages higher on the SERPs, as previously discussed earlier.

Conclusion

Advertising banners are very important for every page on your site especially if you are selling something and all banner design agencies will tell you the same thing. Whether you’re selling a product, service or sharing information, the pages with ad banners will impress, and make visitors aware of the information you want to spread. When they include an attractive image at the top of the page. The addition of metadata and more imagery will keep your link higher on the SERPs also, it’ll help more visitors find your website.

Please ensure to always add a plain or styled custom advertising banner to each and every custom responsive webpage. You’ll see varied results almost immediately in the form of more users on your site within days. Not to forget, when getting the rights to your stock images, choose the exact resolution you need and aspect ratio, add your targeted keywords, and always pick photos that are unique and interesting. If you need help with this then NoBound Design is banner design agency who can help you