How to create engaging banners for your online ecommerce store for free

by Mahrukh 7min read
How to create the best Banner images, and what impact they have to draw customer attention, and more– Read more to find out

In the rapid world of today, it's not too hard to get visual affirmation before buying a product, it's quite literally an unsaid requirement considering all the amounts of visuals available.  With that said the competition for attention is even greater, with amazing presentations, the ideal product, the better website and of course the best banner.

 As competition is crazy one can't just put in a captivating visual with a hint of witty words and call it a day, it takes more technique, effort and understanding to determine what tactic is needed and when. 

Here are a few brief points that'll help you create the perfect ecommerce banner:

But firstly, What Is An E-commerce Banner?

Like any banner, an e-commerce banner is an image or a poster explicitly designed to advertise a store. This banner is found on the top of an online storefront, header or page. It’s the first thing potential consumers see when they visit an ecommerce store, and it’s meant to grab their attention with enticing colours, pictures, CTAs and much more. 

There's no rulebook for ecommerce website banners, but you may find many types, such as static, animated, pictorial and much more. These banners can sometimes be promotional banners that may redirect you to another page. It may sound like an easy task to just create a banner and use it, but it's not. It takes a lot of hard work and strategy to curate the perfect e-commerce banner design. Read along to learn more about it:

What is an ecommerce website's banner function for the virtual store?

The primary function of ecommerce banners for the virtual store is to pass an open message to consumers who access the site. They can be used for:

  • Communicating

  • Promote

  • Attract organic clicks

  • Grab the consumer's attention

Forge Web Design  states, ‘When it comes to promoting your business's online presence, there's no better starting point than a professional, neat, and easy-to-navigate web design.” 

Similarly, the same goes with ecommerce website banners; the easier, clearer and more attractive they are, the more conversions you get. Here are a few suggestions to help you ace a website banner that fits the requirement. 

Choose The Right Banner Size

When we talk about how to make shop banners, size does not play a considerable role, contrary to popular practices promoting bigger-sized banners. It really isn't the case. For selecting a banner for your ecommerce platform, it is essential to calculate the size ratio according to your requirements and purpose. It is vital to segment your audience and create visuals according to it, as a person browsing through their mobile should get the same experience they would get with their laptops at the exact resolution. This is why to ensure your product web banner looks excellent to every website visitor, you must choose one that is the appropriate size.

A helpful example for this case would be Google Display Network, which offers marketers various banner sizes to choose from, promising different performance statistics.

-Here are a few eCommerce banner image sizes: 

A wise decision could be to choose one of these eCommerce banner image sizes and optimise the visuals and copy for your size.

Choose a Colour Scheme

A running ecommerce store requires a theme and a set palette representing your go-to primary colours. In most cases, the selected colours used in a banner are the same as the ones used for the layout of the rest of the store. This uniformity promotes a visually appealing effect. However, themes are also important, not as much as appealing colours. Using a colour theme similar to your products or services is often a good idea, such as shades of pink for feminine products or blue for a digital agency.

Author Steve Krug says, “If there's one thing you learn by working on many different websites, it's that almost any design idea--no matter how appallingly bad--can be made usable in the right circumstances, with enough effort.”

If you plan to create a promotional banner for a special occasion, choose a theme or colour scheme that resonates with the people you want to reach out to and the event in specific. Based on the colour theory, bright and vibrant colours are recommended, but one must be moderate with their usage as they might compete with the appearance of the products you want the audience to focus on.

As tempting as using a palette full of exciting colours may seem for your ecommerce store, it’s best to select two or three colours that will catch the eye of people browsing your banner. For best results, try to match the standard colours in your product with the corresponding colours in your banner’s theme. This can be as simple as choosing purple for clothes for a fashion brand or black for a tech shop. 

Using catchy copy gets you to places. 

Apart from your appealing theme and compelling tones, you also need a powerful yet straightforward creative copy that is enticing enough for people to click on the banner. Some copy/caption is interesting enough that a customer will be inclined to click on it. The hack is to keep your copy short, to the point, and simple, as the more words you add, the more your copy becomes wordy and less enjoyable. 

For example, If you're advertising for a mango juice brand, your copy can go like ‘ The pure essence of fresh mangoes’ Simple and to the point explaining precisely what one can expect from the product.

A banner doesn't have room to fit in much stuff; you must fit your entire brand message or copy in a small rectangular header. So when writing, make sure that the copy is concise, catches readers' attention and conveys a lot of information with well-chosen word selection. A popular approach amongst copywriters is the 3Cs approach, which basically is Compelling, Clear and Concise messaging to communicate with customers. A good tip can be to use CTAs, which invite the customer to click on the eCommerce banner to take the intended action.

Don’t Forget to Include a Clear CTA. 

Finally, what's a good banner if it does not prominently feature an essential CTA button? And as Cameron moll states  ‘What separates design from art is that design is meant to be... functional.” A CTA button is vital as it not only navigates your user to the desired page but if that banner is an ad, it increases the CTR for your banner ad. Work on making the design function on its own, the trick to placing CTA buttons is to either put them on the lower right side in a highlighting tone that complements the overall ad

Read below if you're wondering what CTAs you should include in an e-commerce banner design.

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Lead with powerful visuals on your Ecommerce Banner

The best thing to invest in for your ecommerce banner is impressive visuals. Do not compromise on image quality when designing your online store banner, as this is the first thing your customers lay eyes at when they open your ecommerce store.

Some points to keep in mind when creating the visuals for your banner for an ecommerce website

  • Take a clear picture of the product/person without compromising quality.

  • Make sure to get a well-suiting angle to the object without misleading the size.

  • Pair your image with complementing text colours, as using a mismatched text tone will make your banner disproportionate.

  • Your overall colour selection for the banner, image, text and font colour must complement each other, as it would otherwise give a messy look.

  • Remember to optimise your image for size, ad type, banner type, etc., in coordination with the selected platform. For instance, if the general layout for your ecommerce website builder is green, avoid using that for your banner or website layout, as you want your creativity not to blend in but stand out.

  • Lastly, incorporate images of happy people, babies, beautiful sceneries, and what gives your viewers a relaxing and soothing effect.

  • Another frowned-upon popular practice that works most of the time is to use pictures of women instead of men to attract a male audience.

Sprinkle some keywords to be seen!

Incorporating SEO in your ecommerce website's banner is like using a magnet that pulls people towards you. But how? SEO is a standard marketing practice that helps your website appear on search results when people look for keywords related to your products and services. This leads to more people clicking on your banner from search engines and promises you higher chances of getting a decent conversion rate.

To ensure your banner appears in the relevant search results, use high-quality, relevant keywords as text for your store banner. Remember that these should be the keywords people would type when searching for your products and services. 

How to create free online banners

See some of the tools below that can help you create free banners for your stores and ads. 

  • Canva

  • ViewCreate

  • Creatopy

  • Adobe Creative Cloud Express

  • Photopea

We hope these suggestions helped you understand how to create a perfect banner for your ecommerce store. Play with themes and customisable banner features to create a banner that speaks for itself. Log in now on Webx Ecommerce, a unique ecommerce store builder to help establish your online brand identity.


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