Needlework Banner Exchange Questions

General Information

What is a banner exchange? A banner exchange is a group of web sites that get together to advertise each others web sites. Each member has a space on their own web site to display a banner ad. Each time the page is viewed, a banner ad for one of the members is displayed.

Visit Yarn Tree's home page to see the Needle Banner Exchange in action. The banner is near the bottom of the page.

What is the cost? It is FREE. The Needlework Banner Exchange is sponsored by Yarn Tree and the Needlework Retailer trade magazine.

Where can I place the banner? You can place the banner ads anywhere you like on your page. I would suggest placing at the bottom of the page. You can place the banner on any page in your site, but the home page is suggested simply because it has the most traffic. Remember that the more times a banner ad is displayed on your site, the more times your banner ad will be displayed on other sites.

Naturally, there can not be any attempt made to hide the banner ads. You can display a limited number of other banners, ads, etc. on the same page that you place the Needlework Banner Exchange code; but please be fair to the other members of the exchange. Placement on a 'Links Page' will not be accepted because it is not fair to other members.

Who can join? To join you must be either (1) a retail needlework store, or (2) a wholesale needlework business that has advertised in the Needlework Retailer in the past 12 months. Non needlework businesses are not allowed to join.

How does it work? You copy and paste some HTML code into HTML code of your web page. Each time your page is viewed a banner ad of another member is displayed on your page. If someone clicks on the banner ad, a new browser window is opened for the advertised web site (your web page remains open). Each time your page displays a banner, you earn one display credit; each time your banner is displayed on another web site, one display credit is redeemed.

The program is designed for .html pages. If your pages do not end with .html or .htm I can not guarantee that it will work. I will be happy to help you setting up on .html/.htm pages, but I can not help with other pages.

Can I purchase additional display credits? No. Because we try for a 1 to 1 display ratio (that is, you earn one display credit for each banner displayed on your site) there are no extra display credits available for sale.

Can I limit the type of banner ad that will display? To a point. When you sign up, you indicate what type of needlework business you have (either retail or wholesale). You can also choose which type of banners you will display on your site (either retail, wholesale, or both), and what type of sites you wish your banner to appear (either retail, wholesale, or both).

I suggest that unless you feel strongly about it, you should sign up to accept both types of banners, and to display on both types of sites. We will try to keep the Exchange balanced, but if too many business sign up for just retail or just wholesale, it is possible that that the Exchange will become unbalanced and your banner may not be displayed. For example, if everyone signed up to accept only retail banners on their site, but wanted to only display their banner on wholesale sites; then the exchange would not work. If this happens I will need to change your settings.

How much will the Needlework Banner Exchange increase traffic to my web site? Realistically you will not see a large increase in web traffic. The click through rate (how many people visit a site by clicking on a banner ad) is very low for banner advertising--under 1% is common. What you are doing is building name recognition. For this reason, your banner ad will probably just be your name and logo.

Creating The Banner Graphic

Your banner graphic must be a .jpg or .gif image 400 pixels wide by 60 pixels high. The color must be RGB. The file size must be under 15 Kb.

The name of the file should be unique (yourbusiness.jpg or business78.jpg, for example); do not use a general name (do not name it banner.jpg, for example). Use all lower case (name.jpg, NOT NAME.JPG).

The banner graphic should be tasteful. Usually you will just show your name and logo. Try to use pleasant colors. Make it something you would be happy to display on your own web page.

The following will NOT BE ALLOWED in banner ads:
NO 'on sale', 'xx% off', or 'free' anything ads. NO special events or 'limited time' offers. NO special effects like flashing or moving graphics. The main goal is intended to increase name recognition, so a simple, tasteful banner is best. Please contact me if you have a question.

Changing Your Banner Graphic

You can change the banner graphic that you are using by simply uploading a new image. Go to the Exchange main page and click on 'Modify Member Details'. Please keep the same file name. This prevents the program from being filled up with unused images.

Inserting the HTML Code Into Your Web Page

When you sign up, you will be shown the HTML code to insert into your page (you can also get the code by clicking on the 'View HTML' link on the Needlework Banner Exchange main page). Highlight this text and copy it. Open your web page and insert the code into the source code (not in the regular layout view). Here are step by step instructions.

Banner Placement

You can place the banner ads anywhere you like on your page. I would suggest placing at the bottom of the page. You can place the banner on any page in your site, but the home page is suggested simply because it has the most traffic. Remember that the more times a banner ad is displayed on your site, the more times your banner ad will be displayed on other sites.

Naturally, there can not be any attempt made to hide the banner ads. You can display a limited number of other banners, ads, etc. on the same page that you place the Needlework Banner Exchange code; but please be fair to the other members of the exchange. Placement on a 'Links Page' will not be accepted because it is not fair to other members.

Problems

If you still do not see a banner ad after you have loaded your page to your server and have viewed the page in your browser here are a few things to check:

Click on the 'reload' or 'refresh' button of your browser.

For the banner ads to display, the browser must use JavaScript. If JavaScript is not available, nothing will appear. Check to see if your browse has JavaScript turned on.

Check that all 4 of the XX's in the inserted code have been changed to a number.

Looking at the browser, you should not see the text that you inserted into the page. If you see the text of the code, then the code was probably inserted in the design view, not in the code or source view. Go back to your original copy and try again.

Check to see if the browser is looking at the revised page. Make a simple change to your web page (change a word, for example) and load the revised page to your server and view in your browser.

View the source code of the page in your browser (in the Windows Internet Explorer browser you can go to View->Source to see the source code). Compare with how the source code in our home page looks.