Banner Links for Wild About Britain

nature rambler · #1 (**permalink**) 07-10-2006, 04:49 PM

I run a poetry website, and it is a lot easier than this one to find your way around and no broken links either. That said I am enjoying Wild About Britain, friendly and helpful members, but where do I find a Banner Link to place on my site for you, feet through the doorway is of benefit to all.

Earth Hart · #2 (**permalink**) 07-10-2006, 04:53 PM

What's the poetry site address?

nature rambler · #3 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 09:03 AM

Am I allowed to post it? In for a penny.... ENTER

nature rambler · #4 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 09:04 AM

Ha that's clever!

eeyore · #5 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 09:14 AM

Hi Nature rambler - your best bet would be to send a pm to StuartDH our site administrator as i am sure he will have what you need.

Boddie · #6 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nature rambler

I run a poetry website, and it is a lot easier than this one to find your way around and no broken links either.

This site does have about a million times more content than yours though.

Owl-Light · #7 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeyore

Hi Nature rambler - your best bet would be to send a pm to StuartDH our site administrator as i am sure he will have what you need.

Yeah PM Stu. I know we have at least two banners available because I found them myself once, but just can't seem to remember how to locate them now. D'oh!

eeyore · #8 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 10:33 AM

banner links are here http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/connect

littleT · #9 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 10:52 AM

How do I put a banner add up?
I have already put a link in one of the threads.
But I would like to add a banner to give a direct link.

Boddie · #10 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 11:01 AM

what is the banner ad for?

eeyore · #11 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 11:06 AM

the idea is that you put the picture/ banner up for people to click on rather than having a text link - the method of doing this varies but normally it is just a bit of html, you would load the picture up to your web portal/editor and make a note of its number then on your page you would write (url "http//w w w.wildaboutbritain.co.uk" (picture xxxxx)) , I have spaced out the www to stop it becoming a weblink here so you need to put the www in as normal n your editor.

Also if you are using a wysiwyg editor then the procedure is probably different , refer to your user manual.

Owl-Light · #12 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeyore

banner links are here http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/connect

Ah well spotted.

Yeah its just an image you use on your own web page like any other clickable image link really, but its the sites own official one.

For how to do it this might help.

Boddie · #13 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeyore

the idea is that you put the picture/ banner up for people to click on rather than having a text link - the method of doing this varies but normally it is just a bit of html, you would load the picture up to your web portal/editor and make a note of its number then on your page you would write (url "http//w w w.wildaboutbritain.co.uk" (picture xxxxx)) , I have spaced out the www to stop it becoming a weblink here so you need to put the www in as normal n your editor.

Also if you are using a wysiwyg editor then the procedure is probably different , refer to your user manual.

Sorry, my question was to LittleT

I knew what a banner ad was for

eeyore · #14 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boddie

Sorry, my question was to LittleT

I knew what a banner ad was for

sorry , I know you know what it is

, I thought you were asking so that it would be explained for everyone, ooops

nature rambler · #15 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 01:00 PM

Thank you eeyore, just what I wanted.

Boddie · #16 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eeyore

sorry , I know you know what it is

, I thought you were asking so that it would be explained for everyone, ooops

Me - Devils advocate?

You've noticed at last

littleT · #17 (**permalink**) 08-10-2006, 03:39 PM

The banner add would be a link to Wildaboutbritain on my website.

I'll just wait till Hubby-Glen has 5 minutes to add it. I'm sure it won't be a two minute thing for him - internet guy - I'm still learning the basics. Learnt how to add forums this week. Might tackle this under supervision as I don't want to break the site.

lewisa · #18 (**permalink**) 12-10-2006, 09:31 AM

If people are using banners to link to WAB its worth mentioning that poeple should ensure to define ALT text and TITLE text within the IMG tag for the banner on their pages.

Otherwise Google and other search engines will not place a high as a value on the backlink when it re-indexs the page with the link on.

Taking it one step further, rather than the text just being 'Wild About Britain', it will be far more powerful if the ALT and TITLE text used is a collection of terms in understandable English that people are likely to search for within Google. For example, 'UK and British wildlife site with forums on bird watching, photography, plus many more envoironmental and ecological issues'.

Using ALT text 'Wild About Britain' will be of limited benefit as the search term 'Wild About Britain' already lists the WAB site in 1st place on all major engines.

Also, people without prior knowledge of the site are not likely to search for 'Wild About Britain', but they are likely to search for generic terms such as 'British wildlife', 'UK Birdwatching Forum' etc.

It's also a requirement of accessibility legislation and will help blind people to understand what the image is referring to when the page is being spoken to them.

Owl-Light · #19 (**permalink**) 12-10-2006, 11:50 AM

Good point lewisa and duly noted.

nature rambler · #20 (**permalink**) 14-10-2006, 08:18 PM

I am sure most of my members on poetry2share only want a link if they want anything at all.The link is there for my members benefit, and as a thanks to a couple of Wild About Britain members who allowed us to use two images. In its simplest form it is a paste and copy banner with a hyperlink to Wild About Britain and as such TAG, ALT, Google trawlers, crawlers or whatever are irrelevant and do no service to others who may want to paste just a simple link to the Wild About Britain site.

eeyore · #21 (**permalink**) 16-10-2006, 07:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nature rambler

....as such TAG, ALT, Google trawlers, crawlers or whatever are irrelevant and do no service to others who may want to paste just a simple link to the Wild About Britain site.

I think the point lewisa was making was that by bulking up your alt text you can increase the google hit rate for WAB which is of great benefit to the site as a whole

lewisa · #22 (**permalink**) 18-10-2006, 10:41 PM

Thanks eeyore, on the nail with that one.

@nature rambler. I think you may have misunderstood the intention of my post and gone on the defensive. Im sorry if thats the case, the post is inteded as help for anybody wanting to add a banner, it wasnt aimed just at yourself, and the advice is very sound.

I will try to provide a mathematical answer to help explain the issue. Using data based on Google Adwords traffic estimates for the month of Septmeber 2006, there will be an estimated 25,000 searches on google.co.uk for the term 'wildlife' during the month of October 2006.

Of those 25,000 searches, somewhere between 20-40% of the searhces will result in a hit for the site listed 1st in the organic google results(the main body of results, excluding any sponsered links), this equates to 5000-10000 hits per month.

For a single backlink to provide equalivient benefit to having the 1st place on google for search term 'wildlife' the page where the link is located will need to be getting about 100,000 to 200,000 unique hits per month - this is assuming a generous click-through rate of 5% on the banner.

So while simply providing a banner link will be of benefit to your users, there is additional benefit to be gained by including the alt text and therefore improving page ranking in the search engines, this benefit is for the entire internet population, not just those who visit a particular site, and it is without cost.

Tormentil · #23 (**permalink**) 19-10-2006, 07:06 AM

I think you're missing the main point of the "alt" attribute in HTML. The alternate text assists users without graphic display terminals, users whose browsers don't support forms, visually impaired users, those who use speech synthesizers, those who have configured their graphical user agents not to display images.

Here's a good article on the use of "alt" and search engines. How Important is ALT Text In Search Engine Optimization

lewisa · #24 (**permalink**) 19-10-2006, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tormentil

I think you're missing the main point of the "alt" attribute in HTML.......

That article is referring to the use of alt text for images not used as a link for the benefit of the local site.

This discussion is regarding the use of alt text for images used as a link for the benefit of the remote site.

These are two very different things.

Besides, in keeping with the article, the suggested phrase in my 1st post -

"UK and British wildlife site with forums on bird watching, photography, plus many more envoironmental and ecological issues"...

...is a suitable synopsis for the image and target link, without introducing uneccessary keyword spamming and staying well within the scope of WCAG guidelines.

eeyore · #25 (**permalink**) 19-10-2006, 04:47 PM

Bang on lewis , it is perfectly possible to "manipulate" the ALT text to increase your search hit rate without compromising its original purpose, and I would urge anyone putting links in to WAB to do so for the reasons you have outlined above.