Last year it was Pixel Ads, this year it seems it will be Word Clouds, the latest, greatest, can’t fail marketing technique designed to advance the websites we manage or promote. Except, so it seems, these perfectly valid and useful techniques become so quickly devalued that the users whose business should benefit most are left with crumbs in return at best. When Alex Tew came up with milliondollarhomepage.com last year and vaulted off his small corner of the internet and into the spotlight of the traditional media, could any one begrudge his success and earnings? After all, he had come up with a truly original [well, close enough] idea that broke new ground in terms of internet promotion. So what happened? We saw all manner of copycat sites springing up, ten-dollar-this, 5-cent-that, all bright & shiny under new domains and promising massive visitor numbers. Yet less than a year later who would possibly consider buying some pixels from one of these sites? In the overwhelming majority of cases, nothing has been done to develop the sites further to either encourage visitors or increase the standing of the site with search engines [which would increase the value of the incoming link to the advertisers website]. Instead, the people responsible have long since moved on to marketing the next fad, more glistening domains. Realistically, the only people to have benefited are the top level marketeers who quickly developed versions of the software necessary to create pixel ad sites and sold on the packages to the second & third level marketeers.
Now we are at the beginning of the word cloud / tag phenomenon, the big guns were out early convincing their peers, associates and affiliates [do I not like that word] to purchase links in their clouds, followed shortly by the opportunity to purchase the software itself at oh so beneficial prices for the early birds. Soon, the sky will be filled, yet not much nourishing rain will be falling on the plains of client sites below because those clouds need seeding and let’s face it, not too many cloudbuilders are interested in hanging around long enough to carry out the work required.
Is PromotingLondon.com going to be different? In 3 words, I hope so. It has been set up to not only host the word cloud site on the front page but as the nexus to provide a developing resource for promotional ideas and products primarily for the benefit my existing clients’ websites and businesses. The aim is medium to long term benefit, adding content and visibility, building popularity and pagerank as we go.
Regards for now, Delb
alex tew copycat internet promotion marketing milliondollarhomepage.com pagerank pixel ads promotional tag traditional media word clouds