17. To Place an Advertisement on the Website

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Introduction

This article applies to websites that have the advertisement functions.

Advertisements can be placed at several positions on your web pages. You can also decide to place an advertisement on the pages of a specific category or categories.

The above picture shows all the possible positions for advertisements on a homepage that uses a 3 columns interface. These positions are available in all pages of your website.

Each position can display more than one advertisement. Ads can be displayed next to one another, horizontally or vertically, depending on the width of that position.

Ads can share the same position in the timesharing mode. In this mode, each ad will in turn appear for a few seconds.

Ads at the same position can also be displayed in the crawling or rolling mode (i.e.: the ads will move horizontally or vertically within the same position).

Since there are many display positions and many display modes, there are a few things you need to know before you start to place advertisements on the website.

 

A. Display positions. Display position is the deciding factor for the size of an advertisement.

When managing advertisements in the Control Panel, you select a display position by clicking the area in a table which resembles your webpage. In this example, the position on top of the right column is selected shown with orange background. It means the ad will be displayed at the top position of the right column. You can only select one position for each advertisement.

In this table, there are 2 positions marked in purple rectangles. These are the top and bottom positions in the detail page of an article.

Notes: The width of the left and right columns may be adjusted in the System Tools but you should avoid changing these widths. It should be done by an expert and should only be adjusted before you place the very first ads on the website.

Depending on the display position, the sizes of advertisements in a 3 column interface are as follow.

• If the ad is as wide as the web page, the width of the image should be 998 pixels or less. The height of the image is up to you.

• If the ad is placed on the left column, the width of the image should be 210 pixels or less.

• If the ad is placed on the left column, the width of the image should be 235 pixels or less.

• If the ad is placed on the center column, the width of the image should be 543 pixels or less.

• IIf you plan to use the 2 small positions in the center column (in a variation of the 3 columns interface), the width of the image should be 268 pixels or less.

• NOTE: If you plan use the topmost positions of the web page, the total width of the advertisements (including the horizontal space between them) should be 998 pixels or less.

• NOTE: The 2 positions above and under the top menu can be used for several small advertisements. The total width of the advertisements (including the horizontal spaces among them) should be 998 pixels or less.
  
  
  

B. Display Type. You’ve already known that you can choose a display type for the ads at a position. The display types are explained briefly as follow. You will explore these display types in details in the next article.

• Horizontal Sequence.

This display type is suitable for a wide position. With this display type, you can place many advertisements, one after another, in a row. The ads should be of the same height.

• Vertical Sequence.

This display type is suitable for a narrow position. With this display type, you can place many advertisements, one after another, in a column. The ads should be of the same width.

• Horizontal marquee (i.e.: crawling).

With this display type, the ads will be crawling from the right to the left, one after another. You can place as many ads as you want at this position, but the ads should be of the same height.

• Vertical marquee (i.e.: rolling).

This style only works if there are 3 or more ads at the same position. With this display type, the ads will be rolling up, one after another. You can place as many ads as you want at this position, but the ads should be of the same width.

• Random Timeshare.

With this display type, the ads will share the same place; each ad will appear for few seconds. You can place as many ads as you want at this position, but the ads should be of the same size.

 

Placing an advertisement on the website

To place an advertisement on the website, you need to do these general tasks:

• Prepare the advertisement image. The image file format should be JPG or GIF.

• Add a new advertisement record. Upload the ad image and fill in the necessary data such as: the category (or categories) this ad will appear in, web address of the advertiser, start date, end date, display type and display position.

In this example, you will be placing an advertisement at the top position of the right column on the home page of the English site. Suppose you have already had the ad image. The image is 235 pixels wide and 80 pixels high.

A. Login the Control Panel as usual.

B. Go to Content Manager, then select “Advertisement” in the drop down list.

C. Select the appropriate language site. Click the box near the upper left corner and select "English Site" if “English Site” is not already shown there.

D. A list of existing advertisements in the English site will appear.

E. Click “Record Edit” near upper right corner. A blank record will appear.

F. Fill in these boxes.

1. Title. Fill in a title for this advertisement. This data will not be displayed on the website. Enter a title that will help you recognize this advertisement. Example: “Seafood Bay – right column – 6 months”. This box is required. If you forget to fill in this box, you will get an error message when you click the “Add” button.

2. Ordinal. Leave it as is. This number is used to change the order of this ad in relation to the other ads at the same position. An ad with a small number will be displayed nearer to the top (or the left) than the others. The default number is 100.

3. Active. It is checked, as default. It means the ad will appear on the website. Leave it as is. If you uncheck this box, the ad will stop appearing.

4. Advertisement Content. Insert the ad image into this box. You will also need to add the link from the image to the advertiser’s website address.

Here’s how to do it:

• Click the mouse anywhere in the box.

• Click the “Insert/edit Image” icon. A small screen will appear.

• Click the icon at the end of the “Image URL” box. You will see the file area in the web server. Since this file is related to advertisements, you will be uploading it into the “Advertise” folder.

• Double click “Advertise” on the left column to open this folder.

• Click the “Upload” button at the top right corner. The “Upload” screen will appear.

• Click the “Add” button. You will see the files in your computer.

• Click on the file you want to upload. Then click “Open”. You are back to the “Upload” screen.

• Click the “Upload” button. The file will be transferred to the server. At completion, the message box “All Files have been uploaded” will appear.

• Click “OK”.

• Then click the "Close this window" button.

• You will be asked to confirm. Click the “Yes” button.

• You will be back to the file area in the web server and you will see the filename in the “Advertise” folder.

• Click the filename. A small image of this file will be shown at the lower left corner.

• Click the “Insert” button at lower right corner.

• You will be back to the “Insert/edit Image” screen. This time, the “Image URL” box is filled with the path to the ad image file.

• Fill in the “Image Description” box with name of the advertiser. This information will be used by search engines to find a match.

• Leave the “Alignment” box as is.

• “Vertical Space” is the space above and under this ad. Enter 1 in here so it will not touch the next ads in this position. This vertical space is needed when you choose the Display type as “Vertical Sequence” or “Vertical Marquee”.

• “Horizontal Space” is the space on the sides of this advertisement. Leave it as 0. This horizontal space is needed when you choose the Display type as “Horizontal Sequence” or “Horizontal Marquee”.

• Click the “Insert” button.

The advertisement image will now appear in the “Advertisement Content” box.

You are not done with this box yet! You still need to insert the link to the advertiser’s website here.

5. Insert the link from this image to the advertiser’s website address.

• Click on the advertisement image. An outline around the image with eight small squares will appear which means the image is selected.

• Click the “Insert/edit Link” icon. This icon has the picture of an unbroken chain.

• A small screen will appear. Type the address of the advertiser’s website in the “Link URL” box. The address must contain the “http://” part.

• Click the box on the same line with “Target” then select “Open link in a new window”. If you select this option, the advertiser’s website will be opened in a new tab (or a new window) when a viewer clicks on the image. He can return to your website by clicking the previous tab.

• Leave the “Title” and “Class” boxes as they are.

• Click the "Insert" button.
  

6. Category. . Check the boxes corresponding to the categories, or web pages, that you want this ad to appear. In this example, check the box on the same line with “Homepage”.

NOTE: If you want to check all the boxes, click the “Check all” button at the bottom of the list. If you want to uncheck all the boxes, click the “Uncheck all” button.

7. Never Expires. Check this box if you wan this ad to appear permanently. In this case, ignore the two boxes underneath.

8. Advertise from Date. Fill a start date here if you don’t want the ad to appear from today. The default start date is today.

9. Advertise to Date. Fill the end date here. This ad will stop displaying on this date. If you forgot to select an end date, this ad will still appear for one week because the default end date is one week from today.

10. (Advertisement Type) Display Type. In this example you will select “Vertical Sequence” as the Display type. Click the small circle on the same line with “Vertical Sequence”.

11. Display Position. In the Display Position section, find the section named “Right Column” then click the area named “Top”. You’ve just selected the position for this ad.

The advertisement record will look similar to this after you have filled in the necessary boxes.

G. Click the "Add" button at the top or bottom of the screen. The message “Data added successfully!” will appear near the upper left corner.

H. Go to your website to check if the advertisement has been added. You need to refresh the web browser to update the web page. You will also need to click on the ad image to see if you can go to the advertiser’s website. Until then, you can be sure that you have completed the task.

If you don’t see the advertisement, you will need to go back to the advertisement record and check every data. The common causes are:

• You forgot to select a display position. Or, you may have selected one position while checking another position.
• You forgot to select a category. Or, you may have selected one category while checking another category.
• You forgot to select a category. Or, you may have selected one category while checking another category.
• You may have placed an advertisement in one language site while checking another language site.

You have finished placing an advertisement on the website.