Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I recently added a new feature to my blog (www.rohailrizvi.com) to help raise funding for my first project. As my blog notes, I need to come up with $500 in 15 days so I decided to sell pixels. Do you guys think this is a creative way to approach this? Has anyone ever had success before doing the same thing on their personal website?

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www.rohailrizvi.com (My personal website)

www.campingcook.com (My online store)

www.mesosource.blogspot.com (My Adsense venture)

Maybe I am grumpy today. I don`t mean this post to sound negative, but maybe it does... As a small biz owner, I would say $7 a pixel is pretty expensive. First, if it weren’t for this mention, I would not have known of your site/blog. If I wanted an inch by one inch (similar size to a postage stamp) ad it seems the cost is quite high. If I am understand clearly, there are 72 pixels in an inch. 72 x $7 is … well, too expensive for me. But maybe I don’t understand how this actually works.

On your informational page you wrote… “Considering this blog is reaching brand new all-time highs in terms of hits, you can’t go wrong with promoting your project here. With the recent inclusion of this blog to the Mind Petals network, the hits are going through the roof! [and] Although this open to any sort of website, and certainly does not have to be entrepreneurial in nature or business-related, ultimately I will filter out any sites I deem inappropriate.”

…I am sorry but I do not have confidence the audience I would reach are interested in what I offer. Maybe I could spend my ad dollars better somewhere else.

The concept is good, but if I were to do the same thing (after all, I have a website) you would think I could make some extra cash also. But really, my site traffic doesn’t exceed 1000 hits a month. Maybe yours does, but I (the advertiser) have no way of knowing.


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

Hey Vincent,

Thanks for your comment. I always appreciate constructive criticism.

First off, I probably should have made this more clear, but my site is charging $7 for each square, as opposed to an actual pixel. So you could get a fairly large advertisement block on my site for a very decent amount. Say you wanted four squares- that`s $28 for a permanent ad that spans a good 1 inch by 1 inch.

You mentioned that the price for each pixel is quite high at $7. However, compared to several other sites such as nevblog.com (who charges $50 per pixel), I think my pixels are priced appropriately. Also, I have much larger pixels on mine, which makes the $7 for each one even more valuable.

I can`t say I have the same traffic as nevblog.com, although my hits have been pretty decent. It`s now the 14th of June and I have 659 pageloads so far this month with 427 unique hits and my numbers keep rising every month. I would be more than happy to provide the graphs illustrating these figures.

Perhaps you`re right that your particular ad dollars could be spent better elsewhere. Although, I can honestly say my site reaches a wide variety of people, young and old, business and non-business related. Plus you would be helping out a young entrepreneur in his first entrepreneurial endeavor


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www.rohailrizvi.com (My personal website)

www.campingcook.com (My online store)

www.mesosource.blogspot.com (My Adsense venture)

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

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www.rohailrizvi.com (My personal website)

www.campingcook.com (My online store)

www.mesosource.blogspot.com (My Adsense venture)

I understand better now. thank you.

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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words

Presenting advertising stats is a good way to justify expenditures on the part of businesses.  I recommend pumping existing capital into more marketing for your blog as well as presenting concrete numbers and a solid plan for how you`ll help a potential business client.

Being that thorough for a pixel ad will differentiate you from your "competitors" and shows a business you`re serious about working with them.  A little preparation goes a long way.


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"Forget inspirational quotes to keep you going. If by doing what you do, you get an hour every day to relax, be with the ones you love in comfort without doing wrong, then it is all worth it." -Anon.

Thanks, David, that makes a lot of sense. I`ll be sure to do that.

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www.rohailrizvi.com (My personal website)

www.campingcook.com (My online store)

www.mesosource.blogspot.com (My Adsense venture)

I actually read a story in the Wall Street Journal (6 or 7 months ago) about a guy that had alot of success selling pixels on his site. Actually, the Chairman of the Board of the company that I just left was the CEO of a company called Intermix (owned MySpace.com and sold it to Fox for $500 million), and he is actually buying companies (read webpages) that do nothing but advertise. I think his plan is to build unique content around those pages at some point.

The original million dollar home page - where this idea took root.

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chuck fuller

What a mess. I don`t think I would visit more than once. Why once... just to say... yeah, I have seen it.

Thanks Chuck. Because of you, I have seen it.


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Vincent Wilcox (a.k.a. KRAKR)
Drummer
My band: Letters Make Words