Re-visiting an old idea of the once popular pixel page and discussing if the format can be used in today’s search engine optimisation environment.
The internet is full of new and innovative ways to market a website online and the phenomenon of the pixel page became something of a craze in the mid 2000s. We first started to see this marketing idea in 2005 when a British business student, Alex Tew created a web page where advertisers could buy blocks of space for $1 per pixel. He had managed to sell all 1 million pixels by the end of 2006 with the help of quite some media interest and the page can still be viewed to this day. As you can imagine this success sparked a wave of similar pages employing the same script and was an interesting way of marketing a site for a time.
The types of advertisers that used these pages where varied but the aim was to get an ad block on them, regardless of the size with a hyperlink back to your site. You might think why would an advert measuring just 10x10 pixels – the minimum size could be seen as useful but it was the fact you had a link on a highly ranked page with many visitors that made advertising sense.
So in this way although the idea itself was very simple it satisfied the needs of almost all websites and that are of needing visitors and an increase in search engine positions and rankings. Just a single named back link on a page such as this would give a new site a boost in it position needed to get the business off and rolling. Unfortunately this technique for SEO is not as effective these days with search mainly determined by content rather than keywords.
These kinds of websites are still found today although it is hard to see if any are successful enough to make money. It would be because they are essentially copying from an original idea and no longer seen as original – a trap you have to be careful not to land in with any business venture. The mechanics of this style of SEO resource is still quite interesting and providing quality back links is a useful service for a website, especially if it has just been published. So saying this it is fair to say there is still a market for this kind of online service. So how can these sites be brought up to date with current search engine trends? Well you can’t just have to many out-bound links from any page anymore or just have content consisting of just hyperlinks as your site will be branded a link farm and be severely penalised for it. So limit the links on a page to no more than 50! – This is good for publishers as they are not lost in a sea of links and keeps the page useful for SEO. For websites who it is there job to list links, such as web directories already (with the exception of a few badly managed ones!) use this rule. Relevant and interesting content, information that visitors want to read about other sites products and services is a must so you should give users the chance to talk about themselves, also many people have business social connections that should also included. A secondary info page in addition to a link would be the answer to this requirement.
So to sum up what I have said a pixel style online marketing site can still be a good idea, all that is needed to make one that advertisers will actually use is to make it as useful from a content point of view as possible. Also invent a new format as to satisfy the need to be original and not just seen as just another pixel page.
The WALLS Directory is a new and innovative approach to the web directory industry incorporating a creative use of visual marketing and bespoke search engine friendly information display. Comprising of an online directory in the familiar format together with 8 digital “walls” that can be graffited and where users posters can be placed. Manual production ensures complete human moderation and the quality you would expect from a modern web directory.
For more info please visit www.wallsdirectory.com, Web Directory
