There's always been controversy surrounding the effectiveness of banner ads for generating traffic. However, I've used them for years and I've had good success with them so I have no qualms about suggesting them here as a means of generating traffic to your site. And besides, banner ads are now so assimilated into the framework of a site that a visitor expects to see them.
Buying banner ads on other sites provides not only generates traffic, but also increases exposure for your site. Doing so on industry-related or product-related sites further enhances the potential to generate traffic. for those that are unfamiliar with banner ads, banners work by providing a link back to the site it is promoting. A prospective customer/visitor sees the banner, finds it interesting and clicks on it. They are then taken directly to your site. Easy!
As an added bonus, banner ads help build brand recognition of the site or product being promoted. A banner is an advertisement in itself, and people usually pay attention and remember banners if they're well designed, or adversley if they're really badly designed. This then represents a wonderful opportunity to brand and present a site.
There are a number of online resources where you can design your own static or flash banners, or download pre-made banners. Do a search in your favourite search engine for 'free banner templates' or 'free banner creators' and you'll get hundreds, if not thousands, of results.
Participating In Banner Exchange Programs
This premise follows upon the same reasoning as banner ads, and is the easiest option to follow.
Banner exchange program increases exposure and visibility on the net, as well as provide branding opportunities.
Such programs work on a swap ratio of 2:1 usually. Typically, if a banner is being shown on your site, for every 50 views on your site, in return, your own banner will be posted on 25 other sites.
In order to participate in a banner exchange program, you must be able to add a short javascript code to the pages of your site or blog. This is very simple and requires no knowledge of html or coding whatsoever.
That's today's traffic generation idea. Hope you found it useful.
Until tomorrow,
Terry
