Blog Buttons: How to Create a Grab My Banner Box

Creating a button or banner is a great way to advertise your blog. You can use it on other blog sidebars, entrecard, and some blog directories. A standard button is 125 by 125 pixels in size. There are a variety of other sizes you may want to have on hand depending on the advertising you’ll be doing. The best part is that it’s very easy to make and essential to building a great blog. It’s not as difficult as learning online conversion or as advanced as dealing with website testing. Just follow these simple instructions and it will be ready for your audience to grab and share.

Banner Sizes

Full Banner – 468 x 60 pixels
Vertical Banner – 120 x 240 or 125 x 240 pixels
Button 1 – 120 x 90 pixels
Button 2 – 120 x 60 pixels
Square Button – 125 x 125 pixels

I’m often asked, “how do I create a grab my button box?”. This requires a little bit of knowledge about html. But if you haven’t picked up that HTML for Dummies book, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.

What you Need

A blog or website
a banner (like seen in my sidebar)
an image hosting account (like photobucket or your own server)

Create the Code

It doesn’t really matter if you are using blogger or wordpress, you just need to follow these simple steps.

Upload your banner to your photo sharing account
Copy the URL (link) of that image and paste it in notepad for later use
Add a new HTML widget to your blog
Copy and Paste the following code to your widget

Vertical:

<table border=”0″ width=”100%”>
<tr>
<td align=”center”><img src=”IMAGE URL” alt=”" /><br/>
Copy and Paste Code</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align=”center”><textarea cols=”13″ rows=”9″><a href=”BLOG URL” target=”_blank”><img src=”IMAGE URL” border=”0″></a></textarea></td>
</tr>
</table>

Horizontal (like mine):

<table border=”0″ width=”100%”>
<tr>
<td align=”center”><img src=”IMAGE URL” alt=”" /><br/>
Copy and Paste Code
</td>
<td align=”center”><textarea cols=”13″ rows=”9″><a href=”BLOG URL” target=”_blank”><img src=”IMAGE URL” border=”0″></a></textarea></td>
</tr>
</table>

Insert your image link and blog link where it says IMAGE URL and BLOG URL
Save your widget and you’re done!

Share it with Blogs

My top recommendation is to list your banner with MomDot.com Free Mom Blog Listings
Another great place is Entrecard, you can trade ad space with thousands of blogs with a free credit system
Or stop by some of your favorite blogs and ask to trade banners with them