How to Create Optimized Ads and Member Spotlights
There is a charge for banner ads and side ads. And – we ask for a minimum of three months for this type of post.
There is no cost to members in good standing for a “Member Spotlight” which is located in the upper right corner of the page (under the IMAP posting).
For best results, following are some guidelines and recommendations to consider when designing ads and spotlights for the website.
Banner ads:
- jpg or png file format
- maximum width: 300px
- max height: 130px
Include the url that the ad should link to.
Sidebar ads:
As with the banner ad, the sidebar ad is restricted to 300px wide. However, there is no real limit on the height, which makes it tempting to take an 8.5 X 11 piece that was created as printed collateral, and post it as the sidebar ad. This approach generally doesn’t work, as the text in the flyer looks great when printed, but is too small for the website when the text is embedded in a flyer.
It should also be noted that pdf files are not browser friendly, so if the ad links to your website, you get almost no “link juice” credit from Google for your webpage rank, because Google counts this type of link as “low quality.” As all of the google ranking algorithms are closely guarded secrets, no one can say for sure, but it’s also possible that a link from a pdf will negatively affect the web page rank.
If for some reason the ad must be a “flyer” — convert the pdf to a bitmap file, (jpeg or .png) Google will read the “alt text” associated with the image and determine the quality of the link to assess “link juice”. Include the url that the ad should link to.
There are 2 ways to solve the “embedded text too small” problem:
- Limit the text on the flyer to just a few words, say a slogan or tag line and use very large font size.
- Don’t use embedded text – send us a logo or image that you want to use in the ad, and send the text as text along with any design direction and the hex color number that should be used for the text on the website. By design direction, I mean, “place the text above the image” or “center the image and place the text below”, etc. The text and images will be laid out as part of the webpage, thereby ensuring that the text is legible, regardless of the screen size being used to view the website.
Include the url that the ad should link to.