Million Dollar Homepage : $1 Pixels Advertising Idea

A unique concept to make make $1 million dollars by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each!

Alex Tew started the Million Dollar Homepage to pay for his degree studies and avoid student loan and debt. So he set up this page divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (with 1,000,000 pixels in total) where each pixels costs $1. You can buy pixels available in 100-pixel ‘blocks’ (each measuring 10×10 pixels) which means a minimum investment of $100 (Buying one pixel would be too small to see).

You can buy as many pixels as you like and then display an image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased and can have the image click through to your own website. The homepage will not change and he guarantees to keep the site online for at least 5 years. You cannot change the image or link once you have submitted them. Check the FAQ for a full overview.

But why would you buy pixels? – it is a form of advertising on a site which is getting very popular by the day though links like this very post you are reading and your site can get some serious traffic – just see this clicks report. Moreover, there are no recurring costs of advertising and if you manage a good ad placement and clickthrough rate (CTR), the advertising deal might well be worth it.

Some tips and tricks to get a better click through rate on the Million Dollar Homepage -

Buy Early – Because the popular slots will get filled soon and you might just end up in the middle of a big array of pixels of varying ads. But if you have a pixel space in mind and want to see how its neighbourhood ads are comming up, that is also a good idea (till someone grabs that ad space). Anyway there is plenty of space available.

Buy Big – If you can afford it, the more pixels you buy, the bigger your ad and the more it will stand out and get you more clicks and traffic.

Get a Good location – If you are planning for a small 100 pixel block, you will have better chances of getting it seen at the border, corners (top left is corners are best), top row etc. where you can get around without scrolling. At present a lot of space in the centre is empty, this is good to use now as all advertisers will use ads sorrounded by empty space and they will stand out – so you can catch some early traffic. As the space fills up, only those ads which are larger will stand out in the centres.

Make A Good Ad – If you ad / image / logo is not catchy enough, even 500 pixels will not get a click, while a small 100 pixel optimised ad might get a better clickthrough.

What other tips do you suggest? The project is just starting and he has aleady sold over 5000 pixels. Success will depend on the traffic this million dollar page maintains once the hype is over. Are you still hesitating to buy some pixels!