Moved away from banners!

[webmasterlane.com]

I have decided to move away from full size 468 X 60 banners on my site and am starting to implement boxes with a little picture and a write up.

I have constructed one so far and would like your opinion. It is here: http://www.webmasterlane.com/

What I am hoping to do is create these targeted boxes for each category of my site.

Do you think this box I created is better than a banner? Does it catch your attention?

Thanks for the help!

[syanet]

I thinkyour particular one takes up way to much room. The idea is good though, as you can customize the text to increase click throughs.

[jaiem]

A pci with text is always better than just a banner. But I agree, takes up a lot of room.

[Son Nguyen]

I think it's great! But you should deliver what your site could give them before showing people what you want them to buy.

I always like commmission-based program rather than network CPM/CPC

[webmasterlane.com]

I will make it a little smaller. I am also going to spend a few hours and really craft and good headline and body of text to really entice them.

Do you think I should put it under my categories and search box? OR keep it the way it is?


I just found a site last night http://www.adcopywriting.com/ and will be redoing my ad copy for my newsletter and ad boxes over the next few days.

[theplonk]

hey.. your idea is a pretty good idea... let me try it...;]

[richjb]

I like the idea, but it is not original.

The ad should be smaller, and not at the top. The location makes me think that it's the main thing of your site, as I don't want to scroll down. Seeing just that ad actually gave me a negative feeling about your site, as I then thought that to get to anything I want I would have to scroll down through a series of numerous "ads" similar to web-master.tv (Or something like that, which isn't bad, but if your not looking for that info it is extremely annoying).

You should also specify that it is an ad. Otherwise, when clicking through, I will most likely assume that everything I see is still sponsored or even made by you, which could be good or bad, but overall is not good business.

The best example of what you would probably want to attempt in this would be sitepoint's main page: http://sitepoint.com

You will see the ad between the articles section and the bottom forums section, I believe. This is a good place, and the notice of it being an advertisement is attractive, but allows me to realize that it IS an ad, and not some featured page.

Also, because of its location, the size is not too big.

Richard

[mkaufman]

Looks pretty good, also a good idea!

But shouldn't this be in the web review forum?

[webmasterlane.com]

Well, I wasn't asking for a review, but comments so I do not think it needs to be in the web review forum.

I am currently trying a few different ads to see how they work. I think I will move it farther down the page and include it as a sponsor so my visitors know what it is. I know this is not original I was not trying to be original, but MAKE MONEY that is the point of all of this.

So far I am receiving great click throughs around 3%, which is 6X better than what I was getting with banners. So I think it has been a successful move overall.

[richjb]

Perfect!

Well, almost. The location justifies the size. I like the border your added arround it. The only thing which you might want to consider doing would be to place the sponsor thing in the bottom right instead of the top left, that way as people slowely scroll down they don't see the "sponsor" before the actual ad...because its' location make it possibly a little too obvious.

Then again, I'm not sure that the means of the above suggestion outweigh the work, so it's perfect as it is.

Good job on the increase in click throughs...that is a high percent.

Richard