It's been said that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, but, how much is a word worth?
A little over 2 years ago a young college kid named Alex Tew launched a pixel page, http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/, and within 4 month he sold all his pixels and earned $1,000,000.
The minimum price to buy space on Alex's page was $100 and the advertiser was promised their pixels would be online until August 26, 2010.
Now if you take a look at the milliondollarhomepage your eyes may want to pop out because it's full of crowded colors, images, links, etc. In fact, many would consider it a web designers worst nightmare.
But...
By the time that page had sold all it's pixels it had a Google page rank of 7. And now, more than 2 years later, it still has a page rank of 6.
About a year after Alex's pixel page, Joel Comm's launched his 500 Words word cloud page. It was similar to the pixel page however, since search engines can't see picture, he offered to sell words, something search engines can see.
The base price for Joel's word cloud page was $100 although the average cost was usually closer to $200. Like the pixel page, this page was to last at least 5 years and it sold out quickly (within a month).
After Joel had set up his site he started to sell the software that created it and comments like these started to be seen on forums:
"These word cloud pages will NEVER replace PPC ads or affiliate banner ads". "How DARE Joel sell this script for so much money." (it IS a bit spendy at around $800, with two knockoff scripts out now under $200). "These pages are scams." "Advertisers beware - You won't get any traffic." "Google will ban these pages."
Well, it's been over 2 years for Alex's site and over a year for Joel's site and guess what? They are both still there and they both still have a decent page rank!
Now I didn't get in on either of these 2 pages so I can't tell you how much direct traffic you can get from advertising on them. What I can tell you is 1 of the real added benefits from having a link on either of them.
All those who made the 5 year investment of $100 or more now have a 1-way link to their site on a page with a very good page rank. If they spent $200 dollars to get a bigger, bolder or more colorful link that averages out to about $3.33 a month.
But because not all pixel and word cloud pages are created equally, here are
7 things you should consider before you rush out and start buying links
- What is the theme of the page? The best traffic will come from a page with a specific target audience.
- How is the page rank for the page? A page with a good page rank will be worth more.
- How many links are being offered. If they are offering more than 100 links then the search engines will treat them like a link farm and they won't do to well.
- What types of links are allowed? If they offer adult sites, do you want your link on the same page?
- How does the page owner intend to get traffic to this page, especially after they've sold all the pixels or words?
- Does the site offer content, a blog or a contest? These things will help in getting new traffic to the site and page.
- Is the word cloud or pixel page visible on more than 1 page or site? The more the better for getting click-thrus.
So how much is a word worth?
On a page that has a good page rank and gets some good targeted traffic, a word can be worth a lot more than you have to pay.
To Your Success,
Susan
P.S. If you don't have the budget to buy a word on a word cloud page then don't. You're always welcome to get a free word with all the trimmings on our FriendsWhoCare word cloud.
Tags: word cloud, tag cloud, pixel ad
|