Carolyn Hasenfratz Design Newsletter

Volume 1 Number 5

Welcome to the fifth issue of the Carolyn Hasenfratz Design email newsletter.

Bookmark and Share

Contents:



I Have Entered the Blogosphere

My employer, Webinar Resources, has begun a new blog. We're using Compendium Blogware, which among other features, allows us each to have our own individual blogs. Blog posts from the individual blogs are also posted on the main Webinar Resources blog. My individual blog is here - Carolyn Hasenfratz's Blog. I'll be writing about techniques and strategies for web site owners to improve their web sites, increase visitors, generate more leads, and use a web site as a tool for marketing over multiple channels. I hope you come by and visit!



Does Banner Advertising Still Work?

One of my own personal web sites, Carolyn's Stamp Store, was built with the open source software package osCommerce Online Merchant. It includes among it's many features the ability to show banners on your e-commerce site and a banner manager tool to show you how the banner is performing. I've had the same banner on my site for a long time. I made some money off of it early on, but it's been awhile since I've had any conversions - in this context a conversion is a click that results in a sale.

Traffic on my site is up - so why are conversions from the banner down? Common sense would tell me that the banner is stale, I need to change it more often. Since a three-month period ended recently and it's a convenient time to look statistics, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the statistics for the banner and see if they back up my initial thinking or lead me in another direction. Here is a table showing what I found out:


2007
Jan-Mar
2007
Apr-Jun
2007
Jul-Sep
2007
Oct-Dec
2008
Jan-Mar
Avg. number of views per month 12,645 21,650 29,591 21,222 25,730
Avg. number of clicks per month 137 169 172 120 72
Click-through rate 1.08% 0.78% 0.58% 0.57% 0.28%

Conclusion: I should indeed expect better results in the future if I change the banner. The orginal banner was supplied by istockphoto.com, where I make available some of my photos as stock images. Looking at the available banner images on their site, I decided to add a banner to a side column that is geared toward photographers and designers, and redesign the one I'm currently using in the footer that is geared toward the photo buyer, since there is not a new one available on the site.

Here is the old banner:
istockphoto

Here is the new banner:
istockphoto

In a future issue of this newsletter, after some time has gone by, we'll find out if changing the banner made the click-through rate go up!



Petroglyph Card Rubber Stamping Project Featured Craft Project: Petroglyph Card

In this Petroglyph Card project, you'll learn how to make a stand-up card with a mini-booklet inside for writing messages. Free template available for download. Go to: Rubber Stamped Petroglyph Card Tutorial.



Until next time,

Carolyn Hasenfratz



Links to former newsletter issues:

If you would like to add yourself to the list to receive future issues of this newsletter, please fill out the short form below. Thank you!

Name:
Email:
Carolyn Hasenfratz Design Newsletter

   Copyright © 2008 Carolyn Hasenfratz
Carolyn Hasenfratz Design Newsletter