How to design a website banner

Website banners are an integral part of modern websites. These small graphics can either be used to advertise products or they can form an attractive header for your website template. In this guide, find out how to make your own banner that will make your website stand out from the crowd and potentially increase your revenue through internet advertising platforms.

Creating a banner with an image editor

As most amateur websites are made from templates, the best starting point is to load the page in a web browser and save the banner to disk. This can be done by right-clicking on the banner and selecting "Save Image As". Adobe Photoshop or GIMP When you have done this, you can open the file in your graphics editor of choice. If you don't have access to professional tools like Adobe Photoshop, you can use the open source graphics editor called GIMP. Use the marquee tool Use the marquee tool to select the original graphic and delete it. Make sure that you work in layers whilst creating your banner as this will allow you to easily create and delete separate areas of your design. Using a colour picker tool can help you to identify the exact hex codes of other colours in your website. Failing this, you can also refer to your website's CSS file to get exact colour codes. When you are happy with your design, be sure to export the file as a web-friendly PNG file to save space and maintain any transparency effects that you might have used.

Making money with banners

Google AdSense Web banners can also make you money if they are used correctly. Revenue sharing schemes such as Google AdSense program allows you to create custom advertising graphics for your site. These banners will be generated based on the keywords used on your site so as to make maximum impact. The best way to make money with advertising banners is to make them match the design of your site as closely as possible. This way, people will be more inclined to click on the adverts. Pay special attention not only to the colours that are used, but also to the typeface that is used in the adverts. Final consideration Your final consideration is the placement of the web advertisements. Try and put them in side bars and part way through your content to maximise views and potential click through opportunities. Your website's theme may allow you to easily change placement through the administration interface. Failing this, you may have to manually change the code through a program like DreamWeaver or Text Wrangler.