Have you noticed that your banner ads rarely get clicked on? Banner ads used to be a very effective method of advertising, but the web has become bloated with banner after banner. As a result they're largely ignored today.

But did you know there is a simple and effective way to get people to click on your banners?

The click-through-rates of text links is roughly 4 times that of banner ads. Text links tend to give a prospective customer more useful information about the link and less hype. And with a text link you avoid the headaches that you get when staring at flashing banners.

Of course the main problem with text links is that most banner exchange programs and sites that sell advertising use banners. So to advertise on most sites you have to have a standard 468 x 60 pixel banner to use in your ad campaigns.

This poses a dilemma for advertisers but there is a simple solution: Make your banners look like text links!

The process of creating banners of this type is a very simple one, but there are several steps involved:

1 - Create a regular text link in HTML. You can use any background color that you wish, but do keep in mind that a white back-ground will blend in with most web sites and your banner will appear more like a regular text link.

Now preview the link in your HTML editor or your web browser.

2 - When the link looks exactly the way you want it to look, simply press the "Print Screen" button on your keyboard. This copies the contents of the screen (including your text link) to the Windows clipboard.

3 - Open up the Windows "Paint" program. You'll find it under "Accessories" on the "Start menu".

4 - Click "Edit" and then click "Paste".

5 - You'll now see the screen shot that you made with the "Print Screen" key. Save this as a JPEG image:

On the "File" menu, click "Save As". Type a name for the new image in the "File Name" box. In the "Save As Type" drop-down box, select JPEG. Now click "Save". You now a JPEG image of the screen shot that you took with the text link in it.

6 - Open the image in your favorite photo editor (I use MGI PhotoSuite). Carefully crop the image around the text link until it measures exactly 468 x 60 pixels. If you need other banner sizes (buttons or skyscrapers for instance), simply crop your image to the size needed.

You now have a banner ad that looks like a text link! Use this for your ads and banner exchange campaigns and enjoy a much higher click-through-rate than you would receive with traditional banners!