Exchanging banners with other websites is a good place to start when advertising your website, it helps to attract people to your site whilst increasing the number of backlinks into your website (more on backlinks here). So how do you go about exchanging banner links?

In order to do a banner exchange you will first need your own banner, a banner exchange will consist of a graphical image like the one below in figure 1.0, a link address to your website and a reciprocal link on your website.

Banners can be of any size however a standard banner size that is used for banner exchanges of this nature is 468 pixels in width and 60 pixels in height (usually referred to as a 468 x 60 banner), banners will usually be in one of the 3 file formats shown below:

File Formats

jpg – Usually used for images of a photographic nature with many colours.

gif – Usually used for images with few colours (less than 257 colours).

png – A new format introduced to replace the gif format.

When you submit your banner to other websites for a banner exchange they will ask that your banner is in one of these file types( jpg, gif or png), other files types such as (bmp, tiff, raw) will not be supported. When you make your banner it should be in one of the 3 supported types, but it is something to be aware of if your banner is rejected. Also try to keep the file size of you banner quite small ( < 30kb) as this will allow it to load up on a page faster.

So how do you get a banner?

You can either make your own banner using programs such as Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop (free trial versions available) or a basic program such as MS Paint that comes with windows. Or you could use the services of our banner creation wizard from within your account (goto wizards --> banner wizard from your site menu) or use similar services on the web, such as www.bannerbreak.com. Alternatively there are places that will design and make you a banner for a small fee such as www.the-design-guru.com and www.kidredproductions.com

Once you have got your new banner you now need to upload it to the internet so that other people can see it. If you need help to do this please see this tutorial here.

Now comes the part of exchanging banners.

When you find a website that you would like to exchange banners with they will usually have some kind of form to fill out for link exchanges or a sign up page. If they do not simply email them (look for contact details on the website, if you cant find one try emailing the webmaster of the website, usually webmaster@<insert web site address here>, e.g. webmaster@diy-dating.com

Now the details that you will need or will be asked will be:

The url of your website - This is the site where you want people to go to when they click on your banner

The url of your banner – This is the address of your banner on the internet (you will get this once you upload your banner)

The page you will be adding a reciprocal link to - This is where you will be adding the link for the site you are exchanging links with, this will usually be your links page, however you can add it to any page you like.

Once you have sent off these details to the website for banner exchange and you add the reciprocal link to your site the banner exchange is complete.

note: Make sure that your banner is added to the site you exchanged links with and that when you click on the banner it takes you to your website. If your banner is not working or not visible then contact the website again and mention this to them. If it is not resolved remove their link from your website.