Banner Ads

A banner ad is basically a graphic, text or an image displayed on websites that aim to promote a company's product or service. They are actually small HTML codes, but their importance in internet marketing and business is significant. Banner ads vary in sizes and orientation but will often come in rectangular shape and are 486 x 60 pixels high (full banner). There is actually no universal rule when it comes to banner ad file sizes, but the size will still depend on the website where it will be displayed. These sites impose certain limits to banner sizes since it adds up to the total size of the web page they are displayed on, thereby resulting to more waiting times while the page loads on a browser.

Due to the banner ads' graphic elements, you may find these ads somehow similar to those you see in printed media such as magazines and newspapers. However, these banner ads have the ability to direct the user to the advertiser's main web page. If you are interested in displaying or posting a banner on a certain website, you can arrange with the publisher to have your banner posted or pay a banner network to post the ad on a number of websites. You may also arrange with the publisher to simply display their ads on your site in exchange for them displaying your banner ads.

Pop-up Ads

During your internet surfing time, you probably have come across many of these pop-up ads. These are advertisement windows that appear once you visit a website. Their aim is to generate traffic or simple capture your e-mail address.

Many people have found this internet marketing method quite annoying since it disrupts them from getting information from the website they are viewing. However, these ads, intrusive as they have been tagged, also have certain advantages. For one, they are much more effective than banner ads. They pull up a 15% click through rate while the banners only yield a mere 3%. Pop-up ads also are effective and gives a click through percentage of 6.5. Since they are more effective than banner ads, they also cost you a lot more. However, the return on investment with the use of these ads is much higher. Furthermore, when this ad is the only window on the page, there will be no other images that will conflict with the brand that you are selling.

In the recent years though, these advertising methods have become less popular due to the development of pop-up blockers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO

Whenever you search for a topic on Google, Yahoo or MSN, you usually get pages and pages of websites that have the keywords you typed in the search bar. Have you ever wondered why a particular website is listed first on the results of your search? The primary reason for this is Search Engine Optimization.

Search engine optimization allows a website to become search engine friendly, making it rank higher on search results compared to other websites that have the same keyword contents. Usually, these search engines read and archive sites regularly so that they can be found easily whenever a search is performed by a user. For example, if a user types in “parenting” in the search bar and your website is about the same topic and is optimized properly, your website will appear in the first page of the search results.

Basically, SEO makes your website easier for these search engines to understand. Its goal is to increase your website's rank in the search results that will in turn bring in more traffic to your site. Remember, the more traffic you get, the more potential for profit you will have.

On-site and off-site factors are the ones that can determine your search engine rankings. On-site factors include your page content and your title heading. Off-site factors like pages that link to your site, words used to link to your page and how long such link has existed also come into play. It is important that you focus on your site's SEO continuously because if you get good search engine rankings consistently, you will always have free traffic.

Pay-per-click or PPC

PPC or Pay-per-click advertisements, also known as Cost Per Click, are used to bring in traffic to websites where advertisers provide compensation to the hosting site whenever their ad is clicked. There are two models for determining how much is to be paid per click – flat-rate and bid-based rate. In both models, advertisers consider the value of a click from a certain source where such value depends on the type of customer that the company is targeting and what can be gained from his or her visit (which is usually revenue).

If you currently have a running website or a blog and would like to earn extra profit, you can try this internet marketing method. Put in pay-per-click ads on your blog or web page and merchants will pay you a percentage every time your visitors click on them.

One of the most popular PPC is Google Adsense. It is very easy to add this to your blog and more so if you use Blogger which is also managed by Google. Adsense displays a number of advertisements that target a specific audience on your blog. In order to sign up for pay-per-click ads like Google Adsense, you will need to complete an online form as your official application.