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You may have seen ribbon ads like the one above around the place - they can be a great way to draw attention to an offer you're running without occupying too much useful screen real estate or requiring major changes to your page layout. The secret behind the success of the ribbon ad is that it's lightweight, highly visible and a little out of the ordinary; so it attracts the attention of the traditional banner size-blind audience. You can use ribbon ads for many purposes, including creating a sense of urgency to increase sales, contest and survey announcements, discounts and promotions, updates to products or drawing attention to your newsletter.
Creating a ribbon banner ad is really quite simple. First you'll need to create an image 250 pixels x 250 pixels. Alternatively, you can use one of the basic template images that I've supplied in the free ribbon ad script kit download). Here's an example:
The ribbon area should be around 50 pixels wide, with the rest of the image being set to transparent. You may need to experiment and make the overall image size smaller, depending on whether it interferes with your site navigation or other crucial page elements. Next, you'll need to create a special CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) file that contains the following attributes - this is also included in the free ribbon ad script kit. If you use a different image size, change the height and width attributes in the CSS to suit. Save the file as ribbonad.css Finally, insert the following code into the page/s where you want the ribbon ad to appear. Place it just above the closing body tag (</body>) - again, this code is also in the ribbon ad script kit download: You'll need to change the 'href='http://YOURURL' and the alt='YOUR ALT TEXT' to suit. Be sure that the paths to and filenames of the css and image file you'll be using match. That's it, done - your ribbon ad should now appear; but depending on what sort of web page editor you're using, you may need to publish your changes first before it will display. Other "beyond the banner" ideasBy the way, if you're looking for a *really* eye-popping type of ad; take a look at this page peel script. Another way to grab attention particularly if you want to boost subscriptions is through the use of popup hover ads - don't let anyone tell you they don't work as they certainly do when implemented correctly! I also offer a free hover ad generator; so give it a whirl!
Michael Bloch Copyright information.... This article is not available for reproduction without explicit written permission from Michael Bloch and Taming the Beast.net Click here to view article index
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