Making a banner for your website. Without a designer and for free!

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Banner advertising in the contextual media networks of Bing and Google is an effective way to promote completely different topics: entertainment, trade, services, events and many others. A "selling" banner should have an attractive appearance, interest the user and keep his attention. Create such a banner can be created independently, without asking for help from web designers. The main rules - compliance with the size of the chosen format and originality of the idea.

Types of banners

In each of the themes of "popular" are certain formats of banners. Let's highlight the fourteen basic formats of advertising banners:

• standard: 468x60 px;
• widescreen: 728x90 px;
• square: 250x250 px;
• square small: 200x200 px;
• rectangular: 336x280 px;
• recessed rectangular: 300x250 px;
• skyscraper banner: 120x600 px;
• wide skyscraper banner: 160x600 px;
• Half-page block banner: 300x600 px;
• vertical rectangular: 240x400 px;
• large widescreen banner: 970x90 px;
• Billboard banner: 970x250 px;
• smartphone banner is large: 320x100 px;
• smartphone banner widescreen: 320x50 px.

As statistics show - for each topic is better to use one or more of the presented formats. For example, in the theme of games and entertainment, a greater response cause banners format "recessed rectangular", and in the topic of health and beauty - the most clickable formats banner block on half a page and a large banner for smartphones.

Creativity and contextual advertising

As you know, contextual advertising can significantly increase sales. But you can face the opposite effect, if the ads are too intrusive, ill-conceived or boring. A creative approach can increase attention to the banner, and the change of creative ideas not only provokes an increase in appeals, but also arouses the interest of users in the next advertising campaigns.

Changing creative ideas means not only replacing the advertising product in each banner, but also the very approach to its presentation. Each of your products or services should be associated with separate visual images.

It is convenient to use spy-services to find creative ideas and approaches. This is a source of inspiration for advertisers, allowing them to see how similar companies in the same or another niche have solved the problem. It is not worth copying ideas, but it is possible to determine the process of generating creative for yourself.

Advertising agencies use the approach of creative rallies - the team works on brainstorming, mind-map and other technologies, generating different ideas, and then analyzing and selecting the best ones from them.

Banner design

To implement a ready-made creative idea in a banner web designer is easier than to generate it, it remains to take into account a few principles. Remember about size and format, choose colors that are pleasant to look at, avoid sharp corners and lines, choose readable fonts.

Professional graphic editors can be used to create a banner. If you have no experience with them, try your hand with online editors that provide a lot of tools and features, are intuitive for inexperienced users and are designed to facilitate the work. One of the services that allows you to create a banner for contextual advertising by yourself is Canva.

What can CANVA do?

• create advertising banners with no experience in graphics;
• Use stock images for design and upload your own;
• use ready-made graphic elements: stickers, icons, icons;
• choose from a large number of fonts for Cyrillic and Latin, without loading your own;
• save banners in project folders, sorting by orders, advertising campaigns, products and any other convenient way;
• return to work on already completed and uploaded banners.

The process of creating a banner

To create your own banner ad in the service, log in and proceed to select a template. On the basis of the blank to design easier - the logic of the elements is already thought out, it remains to pick up your images, graphics, add text.

Images and graphics

To replace the image, go to "Photo" or "Background" in the toolbar on the left. If you have a pre-made photo, add it through the "Downloads" section.

After adding, edit the tools over the layout. Use colorful color schemes, but not too bright, so that viewing is not uncomfortable.

In our case, the image is prepared so that there is room for text. If you use a photo without negative space, the future banner text is better placed on the background of a separate graphic element.

To do this, go to Elements and select a rectangle or a square, or any other object that can accommodate your text. You can edit an element with the mouse or with the buttons above the working field.

A little bit about text on graphic banners

The text should be short, presenting the main information succinctly and attracting the user's attention. To add an inscription field, go to the "Text" section.

Add a few blocks and edit the text using the buttons above the layout. The text should be readable without problems and quickly, so using calligraphic fonts is not recommended.

Save the finished banner

You can download the finished banner with the button on the top blue bar on the right. Select the appropriate format and select the save destination for the banner. You can go back to work on your banner from the service's home page. You can edit the banner both through the web version of the service and through the mobile app from your smartphone.

Use all the features and settings to create your perfect banner. Without overpaying web designers or graphic design experience, and most importantly - quickly.