I hope it was able to help you create a banner that will work until you can get a professional one made.

Thanks for your comment.

Act on your dream!

JD

I don’t have a banner on my blog yet. I am looking to get one professional looking banner soon. I usually create small banners on my own but for one of my blogs I need a better banner.

Thanks for the post. I will check out the banner creator soon.
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Sure, that should work, as long as the graphic is the correct size for Sire’s script. Some scripts also check for file size, so usually it’s a good idea to make the graphics smaller in size so they’ll load faster (smaller in kilobytes, not pixels).

Most scripts can handle graphics in jpg or gif format. An increasing number can handle png graphics, too.

I think I mentioned that I needed to make a banner for this blog. All I plan to do is grab the title at the top, resize it to fit, crop to 468×60, add a border, and upload it to my server.

Then I’ll have a banner, and I’ll head over to CoolBlogLinks.com and see what I have to do to join. I’m going to give y’all a run for the top spot, but I don’t have any pretty feet to show.

The tricky part will come when I create some buttons for this blog. I’m not sure what kind of graphic I want to create.

The beauty of it is that they can always be changed if they don’t work out the way we like.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. Regarding changing buttons and banners. That’s how the banners work for the special promotions of Site Build It!.

A few months ago, the affiliate manager introduced the new special promotions ad units. All we affiliates need to do is post the proper links where we want. When there is a special promotion, the team at Sitesell changes the graphics on their server to reflect the current special. When there is no special running, they change them back to the standard graphics. Once our links are set up, it’s set it and forget it.

Just imagine if you had hundreds of banners and buttons promoting your book. In November, you could have changed them to “Price Increase Imminent!” and then changed them back when you did your maintenance a few days ago. Who knows how many books you may have sold by spending a few minutes on your banners and buttons.

But, now, you can get rich from that huge jump in price.

Sires last blog post..Increase Return Commentators With A Simple Plugin

It showed up as a banner, but all I did was a screen print of my main page, then cropped it into a banner of some size. I figure that should be good enough, eh?

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Welcome to our discussion.

I know what you mean about complicated programs. They are a real pain to learn.

I guess I’ve been using Photoshop so long that I don’t really remember learning it. Actually, for most of what I do these days, I’m probably using less than 20% of what it’s capable of doing.

I hope you’ll drop back in after you’ve had a chance to use Instant Banner Creator and let us know what you think of it. I know I’d rather learn that than tackle Photoshop, GIMP, or PaintShop Pro as a beginner!

(Photoshop was a lot simpler when I originally learned it. One of our main problems back then was dodging the remaining dinosaurs that were still wandering around.)

For your site, it took about 90 seconds for the article text to show up so I could start reading. It looks like all your content was loaded by about 4 minutes, although the recent visitors widgets were still loading avatars for another minute or two. I didn’t see any timeouts or problems.

And, when I say I’m on a slow dialup connection, I mean it. Most days I connect at 24K and now and then manage a bit more. I’ve never seen 30K, let alone 56K. There’s a lot of ancient copper between me and the phone company.

I’ve learned to have multiple tabs open and I generally work on something else while a site is loading, so it’s not as bothersome as it may sound.

It beats the heck out of those 110 baud modems I rented from AT&T Longlines back in the late 1970s.

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you like Instant Banner Creator.

Act on your dream!

JD

Like Sire I use PaintShop Pro (Older version 7) I also like Gimp a lot. I had Photoshop once but it took me all day to figure out how to do anything. Way too complicated for what I need.

BTW, if you have a minute can you go to my site and let me know how well it loads with a dialup connection. I’ve been wondering because it’s heavy in both content, script and graphics. I have a feeling it will load slow, I just hope it doesn’t time out.

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Sires last blog post..Increase Return Commentators With A Simple Plugin

I think you’ll find that PaintShop Pro will still be your best bet for creating quality banners, but Instant Banner Creator offers other things, such as storage and bandwidth that makes it easier.

Using their system, you also can centralize your preferred banner and button templates and save your finished graphics all in one place that is easy to get to.

So, by combining custom templates you create yourself, and the ease of changing the text and or clip art that Instant Banner Creator provides, it could be a really nice combination.

And, as you say, for people who don’t have the professional graphics programs, or the skill and talent required, I think ISB provides real value.

Good to see you, again. I’m planning on getting over to your blog tonight. It’ll be good to catch up and see what you’ve been up to for the last few weeks.

Act on your dream!

JD

Yes, that’s a banner you have on CoolBlogLinks.com. One of the standard size banners is 468×60 pixels and there are lots of places they can be used. You just gave an excellent example of one.

Banners can also be advertised on a huge variety of websites, sometimes free, sometimes paid.

I use banners on some of my websites. Some placings I sell, but mostly I use them to cross-promote my other sites.

Other standard button sizes are 120×60, 120×90, 125×125, 88×31, etc.

You can learn all you want to about standard ad units at IAB – Ad Unit Guidelines.

I’m going to have to check out Sire’s Blog Links when I can make some time for it.

It’s a good reminder that I need to create a banner and several buttons for this blog.

There’s never enough time to do all that needs doing.

It’s a good thing I love what I’m doing.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Still, I think I left out part of my thought process, because I worked on that review for a few hours and I was getting tired and wanted to publish it.

I have been using Photoshop and TypeStyler for years and actually prefer using them for creating banners, buttons, t-shirt designs, etc.

It takes a lot of time to get the most from those programs and they’re expensive.

I got to thinking about how many people don’t have the time and money to master these programs and how much you can do with Instant Banner Creator for free.

That was the tipping point. For most people, they can make adequate banners and buttons using their system and even have them hosted on the site – all for free.

If someone wants to create something now and then, it’s a very good solution for that. Heck, it’s a good system for people who want to create lots of items, but at some point they’d have to upgrade to get more storage – which is fair.

I would expect a site like this to run probably 90% free members and maybe 10% paid members, who really foot the bill for everyone else.

If I were just getting started, I’d probably be very happy with Instant Banner Creator.

For most of what I do, however, I’ll stick with my professional graphics programs, even if I don’t have the talent to get the most from them.

As far as having a banner is concerned, I don’t think they’re all that important unless you are active on the traffic exchanges, and then they are very important.

I have a couple of banners I created for two of my domains. One domain, GetAFreeMarketingSite.com, redirects to LinkScout. The other links to one of my Squidoo lenses, but I don’t use that one as much as I used to.

Here’s the banner I use on the exchanges:

Since I’m active on about a dozen traffic exchanges, I generate and/or buy thousands of banner impressions every month, and get regular sign-ups from them. Yes, it’s a low conversion method, but it still generates a couple of dozen sign-ups per month.

In general I prefer using text links rather than graphics links, but sometimes the graphics work better. It’s a matter of testing.

All things considered, I think Instant Banner Creator is a worthwhile system and provides value even for free members – if you need what they offer.

Does that explain better why I ended up giving them a firm thumbs up?

Act on your dream!

JD

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