Banners - How many are too many?

[Guard Dog]

Casino Banners - How many are just too many for your website?

It's always a tough call to figure out how many banners (if any) you will put on a website. Sites can quickly become 'Banner Farms' with more banners than a user wants to deal with.

For your homepage, how many banners do you place (at maximum)? Do you limit the amount of banners and use textual links? Will textual links then give the program 'link juice' to outrank you?

My Banner Strategy - New and Improved

My new sites are taking on a different approach to gaining players. I call it the player-minded approach, but really it is a more subtle way to market to players.

Banners are nearly gone from some of my newer sites where once I had 5-10 banners, now I have 1-2. I am using a 'Hot Button' approach to marketing geared towards using 'call to action' linking.

This means that banners are typically at 1 per page and links to the casino sites (don't forget the 'no follow') are now the primary driver to the casinos. These links are 'Hot Buttons' in some cases and straight textual in others.

• Hot Button - A 'Hot Button', to me, is a button that has a clear 'call to action' and will draw the eye to it's existance. It drives the user to click on it because of the increased noticeability.
• Text Links - They seem to be just a bit more credible (if not overused) and are geared towards folks that click typical links (like those on Yahoo, MSN, Google).

For me it is about helping the player understand where to play. And for the player it is about not being beat over the head with 20 banners and no idea which one is a good quality casino.


Please share your own thoughts!!!!!

 

[SuperiorShare]

I've always believed in properties listing, logos, promo info and amounts plus a link to a review is one of the better techniques to make your site looks professional and provide users with a good guide without using too many banners which is clearly becoming more and more annoying. Taking into consideration many users are not beginners in the online world anymore and we're all looking for clean and reliable sites with good links.

3-5 Banners Max on front page to feature your Hot picks and then use banners in each property review and other sections of relevance.

My personal point of view.

 

[nascar1]

I will agree and disagree.

My best performing site normally has no banners. Occasionally 1-2.

A site that runs a very close second to that 'may' be considered by some to be a dreaded banner farm.

It currently has a paltry 23 banners on the front page.

It all depends how you lay it out and what you are trying to do.

 

[majah23]

I think banner can get the attention of other casino gamers, they take a look

for good promotion and highest paying online casino. And thinking its has good

casino software for a good banner

 

[Adrian-LiveCasinoPartners]

I'm trying to replace banners with "call to action" + information in the same footprint as the banners. I figure that the internet users mentally filter out many banners, and are more information orientated.
It's a hard transition, but I think it works. I do not have any conclusive evidence, but so far so good.

Here's an example :

On this site www.livecasinouk.com I've replaced the center horizontal banner with three images of live roulette, blackjack and baccarat with a textual call to action on the right of that.

That's been converting better than a standard banner in the same location. That's why I feel information plus a call to action works better, just like Andy suggested.

 

[dominique]

I look at a banner as interior decorating of the site - tastefully displaying something of interest.

Some banners will look good and can be a focal point, too many will result in sensory overload and the visitor will look at none of them.

As a rule of thumb I get more clicks on text links, but not always.

 

[TheGamblingGuru]

Will textual links then give the program 'link juice' to outrank you?

Banners are nearly gone from some of my newer sites where once I had 5-10 banners, now I have 1-2. I am using a 'Hot Button' approach to marketing geared towards using 'call to action' linking.

This means that banners are typically at 1 per page and links to the casino sites (don't forget the 'no follow') are now the primary driver to the casinos. These links are 'Hot Buttons' in some cases

Andy, where is your site so we could see the "Hot Button" you are talking about..what's your website address?

On the "No Follow" deal, how do you do that when the (for example) the "Superior Banner" says this on it...

<!--Advertisement Code - Please do not modify -->
<a href="xxxhttp://superiorcasino.com/get/a/xxxxxx"><img border="0" width="468" src="http://get.superiorcasino.com/get/i/xxxxxx" height="60"/></a>
<!--End of Advertisement Code-->

I mean, do you just go ahead and modify it anyway?

 

[WCD Admin]

Yeah, you can modify it anyway. I think its basically the "coding" people at most of these places automatically comment around links and the such because beginners can mess the link up if they don't know what they are doing. The only thing that matters is the <a href="xxhttp://www.thisistheonlyimportantthing.com">

 

[TheGamblingGuru]

Yeah, you can modify it anyway. I think its basically the "coding" people at most of these places automatically comment around links and the such because beginners can mess the link up if they don't know what they are doing. The only thing that matters is the <a href="xxhttp://www.thisistheonlyimportantthing.com">

Thanks for clarifying that for me WCD, much appreciated.

Now, just to make sure I do these correctly, is this the right way here...

<a rel="nofollow" href="xxxhttp://superiorcasino.com/get/a/xxxxxx"><img border="0" width="468" src="http://get.superiorcasino.com/get/i/xxxxxx" height="60"/></a>

Do most of you guys do this? And is the main reason that you do this is to give your site more link juice and not the banner links?

Sorry if this is derailing the thread here

 

[Guard Dog]

Andy, where is your site so we could see the "Hot Button" you are talking about..what's your website address?

http://www.slotsonfire.com

On the home page I have what I call a 'hot button'. That, to me, really means a 'call to action' link to the casino.

If you look under the 'Game of the Week' , you will see a 'Play Now: Omni Casino'. (Yes, that needs to be changed since they are no longer Crypto).

A 'Hot Button' can also be a real button, like:

www.progressive-watch.com

There is a 'Play Now' button on that page that is my 'call to action' button:

So - maybe not very NICE hot buttons, but the simple call to action is what I prefer to use when I can It is a lot better to me than a bunch of 'in your face' banners.

And, yes, I change banner code even when it says not to.

 

[TheGamblingGuru]

Thats a real nice site looking site you have there Andy..

Sleek and streamlined looking.

EDIT: I am curious though after looking at the home page, the only casino that I could see there that anyone could sign-up to was Omni Casino...is that right??

 

[TheGamblingGuru]

Andy, I'm sure you are familiar with the site Website SEO Tool | Website Grader

I was curious and ran a test of your site "slotsonfire" and it came back with this:

E. Readability Level: Advanced / Doctoral Degree

Now I'm not quite sure that that level of reading will attract your everyday, average, Joe Blow casino player. So in that situation I would guess that a few more banners would be the right action there but I'm an idiot most of the time so what the hell do I know...

 

[Guard Dog]

hahaha. I think that website is crazy. I'm pretty sure a dumbass could understand what's on that website.

I am in the process of completely renovating it, though, so maybe the next rev will show for 'Bachelor degree's individuals' or something

 

[tryme1]

I never seen that website grader thing before. I think I'll put a few of my sites through it and see what's what.

 

[TheGamblingGuru]

I never seen that website grader thing before. I think I'll put a few of my sites through it and see what's what.

I've actually found the website grader to be a fairly valuable tool to optimize your site for peek efficiency. It gives you quite a bit of analytic type feedback. Another great free tool that I have been using to optimize and compare with too is SEO PowerSuite