aff banners / branding or plain text links on homepage ?

[scrawnybob]

hi

Just need a bit of advice on aff banners / branding or plain text links on homepage and thoughts experiences

I've just taken off my flashing banners from the homepage for poker sites (I had 5 down righthand side above the fold) as I just felt they were a bit too flashing and maybe first impressions were that I was just another banner farm

I know my aff managers for those sites will probably say - I should keep them up

but what are peoples thoughts / experiences ??

at the moment I just have text links but have thought about putting static branding of the poker sites linked to the reviews

is this a good compromise ? or are links still the best for actual click throughs and signups ?

cheers in advance for any pointers

scrawnybob

[SunPoker.com]

I think you are going to get a varied response on this one. We typically think that a text link embedded with some relevant copy we are reading is one of the best converters, but this may not always be the case.

I can tell you many slots sites for instance do a nice job of converting customers with banners, because they envoke excitement and generally the slots customers are looking to have fun.

With poker sites, I think the right banner at the right location at the right time can do a good job of converting, but just throwing some banners up in random locations would not be as effective as strategically placed banners and text links.

What I would do if I were you is to test text links for a couple weeks, then banners, then a mix of both and play around with that mix until you get your optimal conversion rate. Your site is always going to be a work in progress until you find that BEST set up that yields you the most signups.

Best Regards,

Mark

[scrawnybob]

hi mark

cheers for the feedback - pretty much what Im rather unscientifically trying

had cut down to 5 banners and now trying just text links

but am planning to try small logo ish branding with the links in a bit

thanks for the input - guess I'm working on the right track

cheers scrawnybob

[marketraisecorp]

hey

Text links are always good if internal...but if they are external then they should be reciprocal.

Regards,
marketraise