Website Banners: How to Make One

Website banners can be used for different purposes, to promote sales, drive attention to sign up for a newsletter, invite people to participate in an event, and much more. You will see them in the header, footer, or on the side of the web pages. 

In all cases, it's essential to create an attractive design that is going to catch the attention of your target audience. The content is very important as well, you need to insert a call to action that is convincing, to achieve the banner's goal. 

But, how to make a banner? It's easier than you may think, and you are going to find several tools online to help you with that, which don't even require being an expert on design, or coding. 

5 Steps to Make a Website Banner

1. Define the Goal of Your Banner

The first step to start creating your website banner is to set what is going to be its purpose. For example, do you want to use it to launch a new product, promote your newsletter, or give a coupon discount to your ecommerce? 

Once you know what the banner is going to be about, it becomes easier to set who your target audience is, develop an effective content strategy, and choose the design. Besides, you can set the key performance indicators (KPIs) more accurately.

For instance, if the website banner goal is to conquer more subscriptions to your newsletter, one important KPI is the number of people who filled up the sign-up form. If the objective is to drive traffic to one of your blog articles, the number of clicks is crucial to evaluate the website banner performance.  

2. Know Your Target Audience

Who do you want to reach with your banner? What's the profile of your target audience? It's important to research their characteristics and behavior to comprehend the type of design that is more appealing to them, the tone of speech to use, and how to make an effective call to action. 

If you are already developing marketing strategies to promote your brand and have a base of customers, probably you already have an idea of what your customer pain points are. The banner has to address their demands, and offer a reason to follow the action that you are suggesting.  

3. Create an Effective Call to Action

"Sign up", "Buy now", "Download now", and "Check it out" are all examples of calls to action (CTAs). Usually, they are short phrases in imperative, with a clear direction of what to do, in order to avoid confusing the reader about the next step you wish them to make.

Knowing the purpose of the website banner you are creating makes the whole difference here. After all, how are you going to know which is the proper CTA, if you don't have clear in your mind what should be the action encouraged by the banner? 

To make the CTA stand out, you can use some design strategies, such as writing it in a different color, and font type, in a bigger size, and putting it in a button.  

4. Develop the Design

Source: Slider vetor criado por starline - br.freepik.com

It's time to put the plan into practice and make an incredible website banner. If you have more experience with design, you can use software like Photoshop and Illustrator, which gives you the freedom to use your creativity and develop every detail of the banner.

But, if you aren't a design professional don't worry, you can use online tools that provide pre-built banner templates. They also allow you to customize the piece by changing the color palette, adding your brand's logo, inserting text, images, and videos, using an intuitive editor, with a drag-and-drop feature.

Most of these online design solutions count on a library of images, graphic elements, and typos, which you can enjoy to personalize your website banner. Be careful, though, not to add too many elements, which can diverge the focus from the main message of the banner. Keep in mind that the design must be in sync with your brand's visual identity and highlight the CTA.

5. Review and Publish It

Before developing your website banner, review the details to make sure everything is correct, such as the text, colors, image resolution, and the text. After it, analyze what's the best place to insert the banner on the page. You can use tools like heatmaps, which show the areas where the readers pay more attention to a page, to help you decide. 

4  Platforms to Find Banner Templates

1. Canva

At Canva, you are going to find hundreds of website banner templates separated into multiple categories such as fashion, holiday, real estate, wedding, and sport. You can also refine the search according to the format of the banner, landscape, or portrait, and the style, like minimalist, fun, or corporate. 

Canva counts on an easy-to-use editor to fully customize the template of your choice and create a unique website banner. It allows you to add graphic elements, stickers, images, videos, frames, charts, and much more.  

2. Envato Placeit

Placeit offers a big diversity of website banner templates, and you can use the platform to customize it. You just need to select the one you prefer, then edit it by changing the colors, inserting images, and text, for instance, then, you can select the format you wish to download the banner. It's also possible to find templates for creating Youtube, LinkedIn, and Twitch banners.

3. Fotor

Fotos provides you with an easy-to-use banner maker where you will find pre-built templates in different formats, horizontal, vertical, and leaderboard. After selecting the format you are going to use, browse on the galley to choose the design you prefer, according to your needs, then go to the editor to customize it. If you have any doubt you will also encounter tutorials to guide you through the creation process. 

4. Desygner

Desygner also gives you several website banner templates to select from in different formats. The platform design editor is very intuitive, all you have to do is click on "use", adobe the template you have chosen, then customize it. You can upload your images or enjoy its image library, change the fonts, and colors, and insert other elements too. 

Create a High-Performance Website Banner

Now that you have seen how easy it can be to create a website banner, what about putting your hands into practice? Remember to plan well, and to analyze the results while the banner is on. If you see that the return isn't the expected, make changes and test different versions of the website banner.