Here’s something clever that happened last week. Someone took a topical news story, a one page website and a simple concept and earned themselves 50,000 web hits an hour.
It all started when Tottenham footballer Gareth Bale completed his protracted move to Real Madrid. The transfer cost the Madristas a speculated 100million of your European Euros and Bale signed a six-year contract where he will earn the modest sum of £300,000 per week.
The same day as the Welshman’s move to Spain the ‘What Bale Earns’ website appeared. On a simple one page scrolling format it offers a running total of Bale’s earnings at Madrid and a timeline suggesting what Bale can afford to buy as his contract progresses.
To put this into context Mr Bale had, just 10 seconds after joining Real, earned £5.60, which the website suggested was enough for a foot-long Subway lunch.
Yep, that’s 56p per second.
The site has subsequently racked up massive daily hits on the back of social media sharing and links from websites, RSS feeds and message boards across the world.
Whether you like football or simply detest the amount modern footballers earn, the content of this website is genius for the following reasons:
- A highly topical and relevant subject matter
- A source of perpetual content/reader interest (Alas, Mr Bale will keep on earning)
- Hugely sharable (7.7k likes on Facebook at the time of writing, 2.100+ Tweets)
- Interactive – offering readers the opportunity to contribute through e-mail and social media
- Visual simplicity and usability – straight and to the point, easy to navigate.
Whatever accolades Bale enjoys during his lucrative spell in the Spanish capital, the brains behind the ‘What Bale Earns’ website have already struck Content Marketing gold this week. Bravo.