How to Use A Banner on Your Website or Email
Okay, so you’ve either made your first banner, or someone else has made one for you, but you don’t know how to use it, or what you can actually DO with a banner now that you have one. Well, luckily there are a TON of things you can do with your banner now that you have it, and this article is going to show you what those options are and how to “use” your new banner.
The most popular way to use a banner is to place it on your website. To do this, you will need to have a way to change your webpages (via ftp, easy editor or file manager), a banner to place on your webpages, and a way to upload that banner to your webpages (FTP or file manager).
The first thing to do is to upload your banner image to your webserver. There are many ways of doing this, so just choose the method you feel most comfortable with. You can also find a free photo hosting service on the internet to upload your personal photos (including your banner!) to the net (or you can start your own Yahoo Group, etc). So long as it is accessible via the internet.
Once you have uploaded your file to the internet, you will need to know the code to place into your pages to show the banner. This is very easy, and you don’t even have to know anything about websites or coding to use this code. The code will look something like this:
Copy that code exactly like it is there, and paste it into your website pages exactly where you want the banner to show up. Now replace the part that says “yourwebsitehere” with your own business URL (this can be a website address, an affiliate URL or whatever you would like it to be). And replace the part that says “fullwebsiteaddress/toyourimage.jpg” with the exact location of the image on the internet. For example, if you had uploaded the image to the main directory of your website and your site is located at http://www.widgets.com (Alexa) and the image is named “mybanner.gif” then your code would look like this:
The first part of the code tells what website to go to when someone clicks on the banner, the middle part of the code is what actually shows the banner, and the last part of the code () closes the code so that the browser can read the rest of your site correctly.
That’s only one way to use your banner on the internet however! If you don’t have a website, or webspace to add the URL to, you can also add it to your email signature line, or you can add it to a banner exchange on the internet.
To add a banner to your email signature, the first thing you will need to do is to place the banner somewhere on the internet, as above – this can be a photo sharing website (search google for “Free Photo Hosting”) or on a Yahoo group, etc.). Once you have placed your banner on the internet, when you see your banner image on the net, right-click your banner and click “Properties” and copy the URL of the location of your banner.
Now you will need to open a blank notepad file. To do this, simply open notepad in your computer. Paste the code shown above for placing a banner on your website into that empty notepad file and make sure you change the website address to reflect what address you would like people to go to when they click on it, and replace the address to the image with the location you copied earlier. Make sure you don’t erase ANY quotes or brackets in the code!
When you are finished, click on “File” in the notepad menu, then “Save As…”, and save as emailsig.html (you will need to type that in). Make sure “All files” is selected in the drop down list instead of just .txt files when you save. Next go to your email client (usually outlook express or something similar) and navigate to where you set your signature. In Outlook Express you need to go to “Tools” in the top menu, then “Options”. From there you click on the “signatures” tab and click the “New” button to create a new signature. Name it what you would like to, then below where it says Edit, click the button next to the word File and click the browse button to navigate to where you saved that file on your computer. Once you have selected the correct signature file, save your changes in Outlook Express. And there you have your banner added to your email signatures!
Finally, you can also use your banner in many free banner exchanges. Some of these don’t even require you to have your banner on the internet – just on your computer! Do a google search for “Free banner exchange” to see what you can find!
Overall, banners are an easy and effective way to advertise your business on the internet. Banners are easy to make and use and come in a variety of shapes and sizes! Some companies even provide free banner submission services, and other banner advertising options for you to use. Good luck with your banner advertising on the internet!
Stephanie Davies is a 28 year old work at home mom to a 9 year old boy in Mid-Missouri. Her hosting company, Hosting WAHMs at http://www.hostingwahms.com offers premium webhosting from $2 per month and up, with an easy to use sitebuilder! She also loves to knit, build websites, and talk to people.
