Business Bricks

Paul Lock says:
I try not to fret too much about home pages because they’re often not the entry point to my site or my clients’ sites. I’m always amazed at how many clients’ Terms and Conditions pages are their highest rankers in the search engines and how they usually fail to direct visitors somewhere useful. Off course, they shouldn’t be the highest rankers - it’s just that they have more content than most pages, thanks to our learned friends. I digress. From a usability perspective, a good home page is one that makes it easy to find the useful stuff. From a marketing perspective, it’s one that makes you want to act.
by Paul Lock on 3 Oct

Vicky Stevens says:
This is a bit of a bizarre coincidence as we were just talking about this site today. Yes, your first reaction is ‘why didn’t I think of that’ but your second reaction when you look at the page is ‘eeeek’! Apparently those who have advertised on this site claim to have had a great increase in sales, website visitors and so on so it must be doing something for them. However, it won’t be much longer before all those adverts merge into one multi-coloured blob and no one will be bothered to visit any of their sites because the page is just too much hard work. As you say Matt, that’s the problem with many homepages. I guess this is a nifty gimmick which has made Alex enough money to help him through uni (a lot more lucrative than waitressing when I was a poor student) but it can’t have any future in web design or web advertising for one major reason - Accessibility!
by Vicky Stevens on 3 Oct

Rachel Collinson says:
I’m quite intrigued by the different approaches the ’sponsors’ have to making you want to click on things. I think I will probably learn quite a lot from these techniques, but hopefully, in the process, not turning my site into an incredible eyesore. Matt is right, though, about the struggle for pixels. It’s the bane of a designer’s life, this endless arguing over a multiplicity of logos / navigation options on a home page. I often hear it described in a horrible term ’screen real estate.’ And the Million Dollar Homepage makes me remember why it’s a horrible term. Still, that doesn’t make me any less jealous of Alex’s success…
by Rachel Collinson on 3 Oct

James Saunders says:
All I have to say is that if the owner of the site makes his million dollars - great!! However, I see the Million Page Home Page being of little use to anyone that can see past the gimmick. Yes, it will get exposure (in much the same way that the bloke that was setting his ex-wife’s wedding dress on Ebay by modeling it got exposure), but I really don’t it see it serving any real purpose for either advertisers or visitors wanting to find sites to do business with. In a nutshell, it’s a flash in a pan we’ll have forgotten in 2 weeks time. Until then, intrigued visitors may click the links to see what cheap/free/spammy products are being sold and Alex will make enough money (and gain enough notoriety) to get him through Uni.
by James Saunders on 3 Oct

William Lee says:
It’s a great idea for the website owner, there’s no doubt about that, but I think one of the biggest benefits of being an advertiser here is having the chance to capture some of the vast amount of media attention the website is receiving. Sure it’s a mess now and it’ll probably just get messier, but for those advertisers who have as much ingenuity as Alex, they’ll be looking to come up with a use for their pixels that sets them apart from the competition just like in the non-milliondollarhomepage world. The homepage is being critiqued from many angles, but as far as I can see (and not just in a visual context) the concept is a huge success. For its owner, it’s fulfilling its intended mission quite nicely and who knows what kind of benefit advertisers will get in terms of link popularity given that some of the most popular websites on the Web (according to the likes of Google, Yahoo and MSN) are linking directly to it. Interesting to watch advertisers trying to keep ‘above the fold’ apart from those who are very much deliberately trying to avoid it to be where there competition isn’t!
by William Lee on 3 Oct

Rachael Wyatt says:
I agree that the million dollar home page will eventually become an overwhelming mush which will send visitors running for cover. Perhaps we shouldn’t be auctioning pixels but time - we want to keep content fresh and appealing and tempt visitors further into websites. A couple of strategically placed ‘teaser boxes’ on a home page which reflect the latest updated information (or special offer) but doesn’t detract from the pages core function, serves the purpose of each department/product getting a ‘time limited’ bite of the cherry. It also encourages contributors to develop well thought out content without overwhelming the visitor. Of course this needs to be carefully and sensitively managed or you simply end up with a free for all like the Ecademy Home Page. Before you can get anywhere near the features and benefits of joining (which must be a site objective) you have to wade through random social posts by members. So the benefit of being able to build a network ‘virtually’ is lost in the background noise. And yes, I am a member…..
by Rachael Wyatt on 3 Oct

student james says:
William hit the nail on the head. The idea of this site is not really to do anything except raise money for the owner. Who really cares what it looks like because that was NOT the objective. The guy spun his twist about need to raise cash for uni to cover his fees and the media lapped it up. The lesson in this is how to get a really unique story in the press — not about how a home page works.
by student james on 4 Oct