With Todays Internet, Is Banner Advertising Worth Your Time?

A banner exchange program is a network of websites that group together to promote each other's website. This is a free service and to join you simply submit your website with the network.

Most banner exchanges are set up with an exchange rate of a 2 to 1 ratio. Which simply means that for every two banners your site displays, your banner will be shown on one of the other sites in the network one (1) time.

Each website that participates in the network displays a banner on their web page. The banner will advertise another persons website that is a part of the program. With each site being linked to the network, every time your page is viewed, the banner will change with a new advertiser. The idea is a rotating process so everyone's banner will be displayed (depending on the ratio).

To find a banner exchange program, you can go to any major search engine to search for networks you may want to consider. You can find banner exchanges that have from hundreds to thousands of sites participating in the exchange program.

The Concept:

Participating in a banner exchange program may sound somewhat appealing since this is a free service, but you need to read on.

First off, lets take a look at how much traffic you may get from this type of marketing, or I should say, how much targeted traffic you'll receive.

If you are in a banner exchange program that offers a 2 to 1 ratio and you displayed your banner 1,000 times, you would get your site displayed 500 times.

At this point it would seem like this is a good marketing venture, but it's important to know that the click through rate on banners has changed considerably.

Today most viewers ignore banners whereas the average click through rate (the likelihood that someone will click on the banner) has dropped to a half percent. Now if you take the figures above (500) x 1/2 percent, you will get (2.5).

So this means that for every 1,000 times you displayed a banner, you may only get 2 to 3 people who actually clicked on the banner to your website.

Still not convinced, well lets take it a step further. With some banner exchange programs the network may not categorize the websites in the network. There can be hundreds of banner ads with each one promoting to a different market trend. So this would mean your chances of getting targeted traffic to your website are slim.

You can end up getting a lot of traffic from people that has no interest in what you have to offer (that appeal is starting to wear off a little, isn't it).

If you do a little researching, you will find some banner exchange networks that do categorize and will give you a better ratio than 2 to 1.

So if you want to get the best results from using a banner exchange, our advice is to look for networks that categorize and offer the higher ratio.

Our point of view on using banner exchanges is not necessarily to give a negative view, but that we feel there are other ways to promote your business that will give you far better results.

The truth of the matter is, years ago banner exchanges worked very well and were extremely popular. As the Internet has grown, as well as the people who use it, this form of marketing will give you little results in today's Internet.

John Kovacs is the CEO and founder of "A Home Business Opportunity". His website mainly focuses on supplying free marketing tips, resources and support for home startup businesses and Internet marketing. To get a step-by-step guide in building an online business, visit http://www.ahomebusinessopportunity.net