Another reader wrote to criticize us for calling Geocities and Tripod "Spam Sites"... we apologize if we stepped on any toes.
#97 Banners: who benefits?

Your site within Tripod or Geocities is probably a wonderful website. However, most often, banners placed at the top of the page are just spam. If they move, animate, blink or otherwise "steal" bandwidth from the content they are SPAM. Tasteful banners might be okay -- to some. Better yet is the concept of "Content Channel" marketing which attempts to integrate soft promotion into the actual content of the page or site.

Now, answer this: why did you develop a website?
Todays banner marketers are interested in only one thing: click-throughs. Advertisers are interested in only one thing, getting readers to their sites.
__ When a banner ad is placed at the top of your first page, and is so engaging that it causes your reader to click on it, what happens? Who has benefited from this transaction? Who has lost?
What if the reader arrives on the advertisers' web page and sees yet another compelling banner at the top of this page and is distracted enough to click? Now who has benefited? Which is more important to you: your website content or the advertisers'? Isn’t it sort of self-defeating to send visitors AWAY? Do you close the magazine when you see an ad?
__ In my humble opinion banner exchange programs are doing you a grave disservice. If you don’t want people to read your content, don’t put it up there. If you SELL ads in the form of banners, that might be another issue. However consider that when your reader clicks to that advertisers' site, they're gone. You can't even realistically count that visitor to your site. Maybe the porno sites have the right idea after all... pages of paid ads to other porno sites. No need for content.... click.... they’re gone!
__ Hopefully you've provided good reasons for that visitor to return and spread the word about your site. If not, then you've got to work that much harder to get more real readers to your site.
There are better ways to form mutually beneficial relationships with advertisers than banner ads. Unfortunately, the advertisers are so wrapped up in the click counts and instant gratification that few will consider real marketing relationships. That's sad. It does a disservice to you -- to the reader -- AND the advertiser.

Thanks for writing.

Fred

Sidebar: A reader responds... "But it doesn't cost me anything"

PS: This was not intended to insult you or make you mad. Remember that our first consideration and obligation is to YOU... not your advertisers. Please write and let us know what you think!

Fred Showker is director of The Design & Publishing Center on the web at http://www.graphic-design.com/, and is a co-founder of both The User Group Forum on America Online, and The User Group Network at http://www.user-groups.net/. He has been a user group activist and supporter since 1984.

###

---

Would you like to carry the 60-Second Windows column in your newsletter or web site? Ask us about our syndication program... join hundreds of others who now publish 60-Second Windows!

60-Second Windowô is a syndicated column by Fred Showker which appears in various monthly news services and many Macintosh User Group Newsletters around the world, and other computer, graphic arts related publications. 60-Second Window is copyright ©1986 - 1998, All Rights Reserved.

Fred Showker, nationally recognized designer author and speaker, is a 25-year veteran of the graphics industry, with his own firm Showker Graphic Arts & Design. Heís an associate editor for the Mug News Service (MNS) as well as Home & School Mac. You can see Fred in action at any of his Design & Graphics workshops around the country sponsored by Dynamic Graphics Educational Foundation, InHouse Graphics, PrintFest and others. You can chat with him directly on America OnLine, where he is ìAFA Shwkrî, a forum assistant in the User Group Forum (UGF), or in eWorld as co-host of the WORKING SOLO forum.
---------
Product names listed are the trademarks of their respective owners.