For sites with high traffic levels or specialised audiences, banner advertising can be a means of generating revenue. For smaller sites, banners can be swapped to provide a network that is attractive to both visitors and to search engines.
If you are considering hosting banners on your site, take care that they don’t detract from the prime purpose of your site. They need to be interesting to your visitors, without directly competing with your own product or service.
Banner swap sites act as brokers and can provide you with an instant solution. You may have to accept a portfolio of banners served in sequence by the banner host and some swap sites partners may actually detract from your search engine ranking.
Direct contact with compatible sites will give you greater control. Use a search engine to find sites that have a similar audience to your own and phone or e-mail the site owners with a banner swap offer. Unsolicited approaches by e-mail will probably be treated with suspicion, so give clear contact information and show that you have personally visited the site.
A standard size for banners is 468 x 60 pixels, and most swap sites limit the file size to 10KB. Animation is generally reported to improve the click-through rate, but the design obviously depends on the site context. Some kinds of animation breach accessibility guidelines.
Read more about standard sizes for adverts, buttons and banners.
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