A Quick Start Guide to HALF Page Ads

This will probably sound like I'm insulting your intelligence, but a half page ad is simply an advert for a sponsor Paysite, an AVS site, one of your paysites, or something else that will make you money. They were originally custom made ads which were used by adult webmasters to increase their sales and were a great compliment to home-grown text links, banners and full page ads. These days I see some sponsors are getting in on the act and producing pre-made ones for us too. Simply put, it's an ad that takes up around half of the screen - so they're very hard to miss and making your own half page ads can make you a HECK of a lot of money.

Start with a simple table

Even if you're new to HTML or if you're using some kind of editor like Dreamweaver or Frontpage, it shouldn't be to tricky to start working on your own half-page-ads. The basic formula that I would say I use the most is a table with two halves. On one half (usually the left) is a graphic such as an ad from my sponsor, or a pic, or a screen grab and on the other half of the table goes my sales pitch. This will usually take the form of a mix of plain text and text which also takes Joe Surfer off to a sponsor (if I've done my job well!!!) Here's an example of a basic half page ad:

http://www.bare-foot-hooker.com/test3.html

Some important notes on the actual TABLE...

• Use a table with 2 halves.
• Experiment with the border (try 0 - 10!)
• Set the background color to something that is eye catching.
• Use a CELLPADDING of 5 - 15
• Set the table width to an absolute size - width=700 for example.
• Align the table to the CENTER of the page.
• Test in different resolutions.

What to write?

Well, the text part is equally as important as any of the text links on your site. Remember that the image on the other side is usually gonna take a few seconds to load so it's important to be talking to them early on with the accompanying text. There's a lot you can do here... You can ask them a question (as I have in the example above), you can simply list the features that this site / product offers, you can write a little story and then tell them to click 'MORE' to find out how it ends, or you can talk about one of the girls from the Paysite that they'll 'meet' when they join. The possibilities are endless. Start with the tour, take notes, and let your imagination RUN WILD!

Screen grabs...

Using screen grabs of the first page (or an attractive page) of your sponsor's tour is often a GREAT way to get the surfer interested in what you're selling. It will let them see at a glance if that site is for them and will also lead to sending very qualified and interested traffic that will have a far better chance of making you a sale. Check out this example which I've just made:

http://www.topniche.com/newbie-booster/resources/half-page/index.html

All I did was go to the first page of my Paysite and press the 'Print Screen' button on my keyboard. I then pasted this into a graphics program, shrunk it to 50% and saved it as a jpg. Next, I slapped it into a table on the page and wrote some text on the right hand side of that table. Boom! I've now made an ad that my surfer's won't see anywhere else on the web. Remember that freshness counts for a lot - ESPECIALLY when you're working with TGPs or TGP2 traffic - where there might be some other webmasters trying ot sell the same sponsors.

Bullet points

One of the things I use a LOT in table ads are built in ASCII bullet points. To get these (as I have in the example above) you put the cursor on your html page where you want the thing to appear and hold the ALT key while you press 0149. I love these little things - they make a page stand out and don't forget that we've all been kinda conditioned to pay more attention to these things. Bullet points usually make short points and show readers where they need to take notice. They're a great, fast way to tell the surfer the key benefits that they'll get on YOUR sponsor's site.

Other ideas

By now you're probably starting to see the benefit in these simple half-page ads. You could play with the layout - try 3 table cells instead of two. Experiment with different fonts and sizes. Try long text lines and short ones - which send the most traffic? Experiment with different foreground and background colors and see if you can make that ad burn out of the page. Take a step back from the monitor - does it still work from the other side of the room? If it does - it's gonna work wonders for your sales! Try adding a table cell above ad below - how does that look? Try adding an animated gif - will that make more sales?

This little article is only really a basic intro to table ads, but use them well - they'll make you a lot of money!!!

TOM ^"^

Enter TOM'S NEWBIE BOOSTER

">

---