As a marketer, I know that traditional pixel advertising is well… very ugly to look at.  It’s no secret that when the original pixel advertising site grossed over US $1,000,000.00 there would be plenty of copycats, however these copycats not only copied the winning formula, but also the most unattractive qualities including the clutter, lack of design and being visually unappealing to viewers.

Since then many webmasters have tried to tinker with the formula to come up with a concept that is both visually appealing to viewers and able to deliver an extremely high return of investment for advertisers. While surfing, I found a pixel ad site that finally delivers a clean, smooth design and the concept is “world changing”.

Buyanation.com is not your typical pixel ad website.  On first view, there is absolutely no clutter, just a large map of the world.  Buyanation.com has a very interesting concept.  Instead of selling pixel ads in generic blocks scattered throughout the site, advertisers can purchase pixels ads in the shape of countries on a map.  Ever wanted to own Canada, now is your chance, Russia, Australia, Italy and even the US are up for sale.  For advertisers, the prices vary depending on three criteria; area (pixels), desirability of the country and location on the world map.  For instance, even though Russia takes up the most land mass in the world, it is still not as much as the US, due to its desirability rating.

One great thing is that this concept is well thought out.  As a marketer, I am always thinking about making sure I am in front of as many eyeballs as possible, for smaller countries such as Switzerland, Panama, or even the Czech Republic, how do these advertisers get noticed.  I am happy to inform my fellow marketers that BuyaNation.com has an ingenious feature built into the site; it is called “View a Continent”.  Visitors to the site can choose to view the site in many ways, either as a world map, by clicking on the specific country or viewing the site in continental regions.  No matter how small your country may be in land mass BuyaNation.com does a great job in showcasing it.  In addition to just showing you the ads, BuyaNation.com also allows advertiser to include a profile.

For advertisers not familiar with the benefits of Pixel ad sites, they have been around for about 2 years and for those in the know, these sites are a great investment for many reasons.  First off, pixel ad sites usually receive lots of traffic.  Not only will the webmaster work hard to promote the site, but so will the hundreds of other webmasters that own pixels on the site as well.  Secondly, you get to choose your advertisement.  For instance with BuyaNation.com’s profile feature, you can communicate more effectively to those that view your ad.  While traditional websites only allow a text ad or an ad that must meet strict specifications, pixel ad sites are very accommodating to advertisers.

Another great reason that pixel ad sites should not be missed is the fantastic return on investment.  Advertisers can get a lot of bang for their buck, because pixel ad sites stay up for 5 years or more.  Whether you spend $20 or a couple hundred dollars for an ad, you don’t have to worry that it will be removed in a month’s time.  Most Pixel ad sites stay for at least 60 times that amount.

For those advertisers that are constantly looking for a winning concept, BuyaNation.com delivers the World.

You can visit BuyaNation.com at the following URL:  http://www.buyanation.com

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Another week as passed, and what a week!

The adStrategist Network is living some weird days as traffic from Google Images is rocketing, and I mean it.

Did you ever check your logs for Google (Images) as a main source of traffic? Well, I knew that every now and then this would happen with some sites, but what I didn’t know is that it could happen with 4 or 5 sites at once and more, multiplying the traffic by 5!

The image above shows the traffic details for one of those sites (URL undisclaimed…). You’ll be able to notice that after November the 3rd my traffic got a steady increase that is still lasting. A few images that I have posted at my sites got very high ranks at Google images search engine and I’m getting huge traffic from it.

Ok, but what are my conclusions to this? Would this be a result of the new Google Image Labeler program?

Here’s what I think and have to suggest to you:

• People love images. A site without any images is sad and poor.
• Search engines love images. Sooner or later you’ll get noticed and competition there is much lower.
• Always name your images properly, forget about rgsa66s5.jpg, as this is completly useless. Name your images the best you can, avoid spaces in the name, use “-” between words.
• Describe your images if you’re using wordpress or any other CMS that allows it.
• Watch your server logs closely and learn from it. Where is the traffic come from? Where is it heading to?

Bare in mind that this type of traffic converts poorly, so if you expect a large increase in your ads revenue just forget about it. You may double or so, but not much more.

I’ll keep you informed when this traffic jump ends (I hope it never ends. )

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