Desert Classified Ads Advanced Tutorial

Part III: Creating the Display Ad for Business Directory Listings

1. A sample Business Directory Ad can look like this in the Teaser View, with an image of your product or service displayed to draw buyer's attention (in this sample ad, we're using an image of a beautiful travertine tile floor for the tile business that's advertising):
   
   

   
   

   With its expanded view (the entire ad) looking like this, including your logo inside the text portion of your ad, along with marketing information, images, etc.:
   
   

   
   

   You could also place your logo in the Teaser Ad Display, so that instead of an image of your product or services in the Teaser View, your logo would display. It is simply a matter of determining where you want your logo to be seen - in the Teaser View, the "full" display view, or both.

   The primary difference between placing a "regular" classified ad or a "Display Ad" classified is the use of an image - usually a logo, but this is not required - inside the text of the ad. Only Business Display Ads may use this image feature, in addition to the regular image upload option. Learning to use this feature takes a few more minutes, but it is not hard to learn, and once learned, is very easy to use to create your own display ads, which you can then edit and change as your needs dictate - for example, to publish weekly specials or sales. So, now we'll demonstrate how to use the image linking feature inside the text WYSIWYG editor, and how to master positioning your image or logo.

2. The first thing you'll need to create a display ad is an image (whether this is your logo or a special picture you want to use inside the ad) that has been uploaded to an image-storage or sharing website, like Google's Picasa, FLICKR, Photobucket, Shutterfly or Webshots, just to name a few, or any other website-based image sharing platform. If you're not familiar with image-saving or image-sharing websites, you can find a list of them here on Wikipedia. For the puposes of this Tutorial, we're going to use Webshots to demonstrate how to find the image URL, which you will need to link to the image for your Display Ad.

3. We've selected a random image from Webshots for this tutorial. The image looks like this:
   
   

4. The image, above, is hosted on this page . (If you click that link, it will open in a new page; simply close that page to return to this tutorial.)

5. Now that you've seen the image and the Webshots page, we'll leave that for a moment and turn to the WYSIWYG editor. If you have completed the Basic Ad Creation Tutorial, you'll be familiar with the WYSIWYG editor. Using that editor to upload an image inside of the text that comprises the body of the ad is how you create a "Business Display Ad." You may remember that the WYSIWYG editor looks like this:
   
   
   

6. For this tutorial, we are only interested in learning how to use the image linking and positioning feature. Everything else that is used in our Sample Business Display Ad is demonstrated in the Basic Ad Creation Tutorial. The image linking and positioning feature is accessed through this tool:
   
   

7. When you click on that image tool, what you'll see is this:
   
   
   
   This is the Image Properties Box. This is where you will type (or cut and paste) the URL of the image you want to use, and position it. Do you see that "preview" box in the lower-right-hand corner of the Image Properties Box? This is the "secret sauce" that will allow you to create your display ad with confidence!

8. First, let's get the correct URL (or image link) from the image that we randomly selected at Webshots, above. If you go to the Webshots page at this url: http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2265899200077997123uTGZJt , what you'll see on the right-hand side of the page will look approximately like this:
   
   
   
   Now, let's see how to use that link!

9. Click HERE to watch our video (approximately 4 minutes 30 seconds) showing you exactly how to place your image into your Long Description text box. This link will open in a new page; simply close it when you are done to return to this tutorial.

10. You can use logos saved as jpegs, gifs, or png files in the Image/Edit tool - as we did in our sample ad, above, for World Wide Stone. Another alternative for savvy business owners is to use the "Add 10 images" enhanced feature option (as shown in our Advanced Tutorial) and upload your logo image using that method. If you chose to upload your logo, using the "Add 10 images" option, make sure that you upload it as the first image (in the ten upload boxes) so that it will show up in the ad preview page in your Ad Teaser View.

11. Lastly, a quick "Advanced Users' Tip" for Business Display Ad Customers: using tables. You can use tables inside your display ad text to assist you in creating an attractive matrix to display items for sale and pricing. We've created a quick example, below:
    
    
    
    To use this feature, simply place your cursor where you want the table located within the Long Description Text box, click the "table" tool, and indicate how many rows and columns you wish to use. You can add rows or columns later if you've miscalculated. Just like using the Image tool, you can change the number of rows or columns, or the caption, by clicking the table, and then right-clicking, which will give you a drop-down menu of options. To edit the text inside the table, simply place your cursor inside the item you wish to edit and delete what you don't want, type what you do want (the sizes of the cells expand automatically as you enter content, so you don't have to worry over the sizes of the grid). It's as simple as that! This feature is extremely handy for business owners who want to utilize an ongoing ad, but change the contents of their ad periodically, to reflect pricing changes, sales, or other events.





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This concludes the Display Ad Creation Tutorial. If you have questions, or if you would prefer to have Desert Classified Ads create your Business Display Ad for you, please email us by clicking HERE. We hope you have found the tutorials useful; if not, please email us with suggestions or comments, we appreciate any and all feedback. Thank you for your patronage.




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