How To Build A Local SEO Empire

226 replies
I see so many people starting up in the business, and I want to give you a hand so that you can build this business up for the long-term. I don’t really believe in the whole WSO thing, so much BS there, and natural skepticism. I make a good deal of money off of my offline business so it’s not really necessary.

What I’m not going to discuss is “How to get clients”. I’ll leave that to others out there. This is about what to do once you have some clients, how to take the few clients you get and translate that into building an SEO empire.

What do I mean by Empire? Well, I was first introduced to the concept over at ø Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics ø, and this post in particular. Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics » SEO Empire - Part 1

You want to think long-term with every client you take. “How can I take this client, provide great value, and keep them long-term as well as making it easier to get, retain and provide service for my next client? “ I want to build an empire so that my work becomes easier not harder.

See, this is what most people do, they get a client, and they think “What’s the easiest way I can provide value to my clients?” So, I’ll SEO them and they’ll love me and they’ll want to pay me forever. And they may, they just may. But what if you could be SURE, like REALLY SURE?


So what I find most smaller SEO companies and even the large ones do almost exclusively like above. They get a client, let's say a plumber and then they build a lot of links coming in like "tacoma plumber". And while that's effective, what happens when you get your next client, and they are a plumber in seattle, don't you have to start from scratch again? Or even an electrician in tacoma? What if there were a way to make all of this faster, better, and longer lasting? Although let me be honest, it's a lot more work at the beginning so if you're scared of work, please stop reading now.

We’re talking about building a pyramid type structure for longer lasting results.



So, let’s take a hypothetical client. Let’s say our client is a plumber in Tacoma, WA. What I want to do is build a base of sites that I own and control that link to my client. I’m kind of a control freak. I like to have control. So my client’s site might be bobsplumbing.com. So, I want to take some of the fees I’m getting from him, and build up around 25 sites that I own and control. 25 sites at $16 a piece for 2 years registration is $400. So, I better be getting at least $400/month from my client. So my setup will look like this now.



Now, there are pluses and minuses to this setup. Here are some of the perks:

• I control the anchor text, I can make deep links, I can alter them as I see fit and as needed.
• If the client decides she no longer wants to honor their contract I am welcome to remove the links.
• I can play a little more loosy goosy with automated/borderline techniques with these sites without risking my clients “money” site.
• It’s a lot harder for my competition to figure out what I’m doing because I’m “masking” a lot of my work by never directly linking to the “money” site except by properties I own and control. It’s fun to get emails and phone calls from competing SEO companies trying to knock off my client by getting a link from Marcos’ bad ass plumbing expo site. Ain’t happening my friend.
• The real point of this is for future clients, we’ll get into how that works later.

Here are some of the problems:

• It’s a lot harder to rank the original site. Let’s say I can rank Bob’s site with 100 good incoming links, I might need 400-1,000 sites to my 25 sites that then point to Bob’s site to get the same results.
• It’s expensive. You have to buy, build and maintain 25 sites.
• It’s time consuming, you have to actually look ahead.



What we’re doing is building internet real estate on our clients dime. I might get a client who is willing to pay me $1,000 a month to do SEO for his real estate company. I only need about $50 a month to outsource enough work to get it done. However, what if I spent $500 of that to build up my empire what could I really get done?

So, you’re probably asking, what type of sites am I building and what are they like? So, let’s keep working on the premise of Bob’s site. Let’s brainstorm, what types of sites we can build to help Bob. Here are some ideas, I’m not sure if any of these sites are available just throwing ideas out there.

• Tacomacontractors.com- How about a site that profiles contractors. I could pick three at random with no outgoing links on them, and then a rich profile for Bob on the site.
• BestPlumbersTacoma.com- Same as above.
• HowToFixThingsInTacoma.com- What about a site that I pull a few articles from Ezine articles on fixing things around the house. Meanwhile I have a blogroll link to Bob’s site on every page.
• CoolThingsToDoInTacoma.com- Grab a few of the most popular things going on in Tacoma post them as blog posts, Bob’s link is in blogroll or on footer.
• TacomasPrivateSchools.com- Just a short list of the private schools in Tacoma.
• WashingtonStatePlumbers.com- A directory of plumbers in Washington, footer link to Bob.
• GreenPlumbers.com- A listing of plumbers that specialize in green techniques. Profile page of bob.
• DoItYourselfPlumbingtips.com- A list of plumbing tips from eHow. Footer,side link to Bob.

See what you have to realize is that the sites don’t have to be exactly related to Bob or what Bob does, they can be “close enough”. So a site about anything to do with Tacoma that mentions Bob helps out with the relevancy to Tacoma of Bob’s Tacoma plumbing service. As well a Plumbing site is “in the neighborhood” as well. You’re keeping stuff relevant and close to who Bob is, what he does, and where he is. And there’s no reason why can’t build a page that is VERY relevant to Bob’s business .

I’ll use a mixture of different linking types on the sites I own. Some of them he will be in the blogroll, others we’ll have a blog post/page that describes Bob’s service, others he will be in a footer or sidebar link. Some we may have all three.


Now that we have our sites setup, they probably aren’t doing that much help with Bob’s site yet. So we have to build links to our base sites. This is what it will look like.



You can use about anything to get links to your base sites. That’s your three level pyramid. You might use any or all of the following:
• Directory Listings
• Blog Comments
• Guest Blog Posts
• Article Distribution
• Forum Links
• Forum Profiles
• RSS Feeds



For those of you even more adventurous, you can also add a 4th layer, actually another layer below the 2nd layer of your 25 base sites. I usually buy another 50-100 .info domains and go a little crazy with those. Auto blogs, spun sites, whatever. Then I’ll do xrumer blasts and other black hat things to get those sites ranking, and I’ll link those sites mainly to my base sites so that they can’t possibly have any negative effects on my money sites.

Now, I know it will take quite a bit of money and time to properly SEO the 25 base sites. But it’s really not that bad. Trying to find a PR5 or above site that will directly link to Bob’s plumbing and is RELATED to either Tacoma or Plumbing is very, very difficult. But getting a PR5 site to link to CoolThingsToDoTacoma.com article about a big marathon isn’t nearly as hard.

And this is the really cool thing about it, because you own the property you can do really cool things like build link bait for something completely unrelated to a plumber in Tacoma, and then mold the PR of the site to flow to the page that DOES relate to both plumbing and Tacoma with a link to Bob’s site. Cool, huh? You mold PR flow from pages by using things like javascript links and the like. It’s complicated stuff, but you’re going to want to figure out eventually. Ignore the Matt Cutts doom and gloom about how Page Rank Sculpting doesn’t work anymore. It still does, and should continue to do so.

Ok, so hopefully we’re all caught up. We have a clients site, 5-25 base sites built, and 1,000’s of links going to our base sites. Right? Right. Now what? Now is where the fun begins.

Because we’ve built such a good base of sites for our clients site, we can do all kinds of fun things. First off we can get more money from our current client. We can offer either of the following:

• A second website like BestTacomaPlumber.com that we build and rank.
• A second website in a surrounding area NeighboringCityPlumber.com



And now we’re making money from the building of a website $1,000-3,000, plus an additional 50-75% of the monthly charge. And of course if you’ve been paying attention it should be REALLY EASY to rank a second website. As simple as building it and adding new links/blog posts to your 25 base sites. It’s almost like free money really.


Now a second reason we’ve built that base up is because it now becomes easier to take on a second client. Let’s ask Bob if he can recommend an electrician to us. Now chances are if we got an electrician client we wouldn’t need to build as large of a base of sites, and could possibly rank with just the sites we already have. But, go ahead and build another 5-10 with the emphasis on Electricians. You’ve cut down on your work load tremendously for the next site.


Every time you build up a base site, you’re building up your internet real estate. This real estate becomes more valuable as time goes by. Now you could use this to keep your clients hostage. I don’t really believe in that. If they abide by their contract, I’ll maintain their links. I usually get a monthly retainer fee to keep them that more than covers hosting, domain name fees. Between $95-295/mo.


As you build your network of base sites, you’ll end up with thousands to tens of thousands of pages indexed. It becomes MUCH easier to rank all of your next clients. You should always be thinking what piece can I add to the puzzle to get a broader base. Let’s say I take on a plumber in Miami. I might use my links in Tacoma first while I build up my Miami base sites, and then eventually pull the links from the Tacoma sites.


It will be much easier to get citations for your Google Places listings because you OWN the citation sources. So, let’s say I get a client for Seattle Used Cars. I can find 50 blogs in my network to build a citation to their listing. They count pretty well too as long as you’re careful of mirroring the listing of the Places listing exactly in your blog post.


I can also use my network to help index any new links I produce to a client. Let’s say I build a link to Seattle Used Cars on a static html site, I can fool around with trying to get it linked by pinging it, or I can just use a blog post to point to the site, use the RSS feed to get the link indexed.


You can start selling links on your network of sites. If you’ve got hundreds of sites, and many of them will end up PR2-4, you can start getting between $50-100 a month for your sites, which will quickly add up(I don’t do this generally).



Here’s another cool thing you can do once you have your empire setup. Let’s say you want to get a new client. Want to know an easy way to get one?


Find a client who is spending big money already, on yellow page ads, billboards, whatever but that is not showing up well in the searches. Send them a Fedex package to the owner, with a short note inside. I would take a picture of the first page of the Google Rankings. I would write in Red Sharpie, there are 10,000 people a month who look for you here. Check this on Friday, I’m about to change that for you. Marcos 888-888-8888.


Then create some easily changeable links on your network(blogroll works nicely). If you’ve built it right, and you have hundreds of base sites, you can brute force their site right to the top in 24 hours or less. Now you take another picture of their site at the top of the page, and fax it to them. I circle their site in sharpie, and say this: “To Don: Hope you like the look of this better. Call me 888-888-8888 Marcos”


At least 50% of them will call, and you can get most of them as clients. I would explain what I did was a temporary thing, but I can make it a permanent thing for the low cost of $1-2k a month. Of course your costs will be very minimal as you have the base set up already. Maybe get an outsourcer to add a handful of sites for you.


Alternatively it becomes very easy for you to rent sites or sell leads. And if you’re really looking progressively you can do licensing or joint ventures with further clients. I have a few niches where we handle everything from the marketing to appointment setting for a percentage of revenue.


Well, I hope some of you have gotten some ideas and inspiration from this. I’ll be travelling extensively over the next few weeks so I may or may not be able to get to every question on this post so be patient with me. I've laid it all out on the table exactly how to build an empire that will pay you for years to come.

To your success.

Marcos
#build #empire #local #seo
  • Profile picture of the author daveman
    Hi Marcos,

    This is a pretty cool business plan, I will have to put it into practice as I'm just moving into offering web marketing services to small offline business clients.

    Thanks

    For sharing

    Dave
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  • Profile picture of the author Blue IXXI
    Inspiring post Marcos. Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author Creativegirl
      Wow! Thank you for such an indepth overview. I've been building a network of sites for my own main biz, but hadn't thought about it like that for clients.
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    • Profile picture of the author janfav
      I really love your blog its very amazing and interesting although i find the S.E.O. being a little bit technical for me to understand. I love the concept of s.e.o. but the process of creating an authority site is quite technical but also profitable. I like the concept of aiming for contol in the internet.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lazy
    Fantastic post. Thanks for the contribution. I've thought about doing something similar. Your method provides a long term solution.
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    WARRIORS ONLY: Get up to 100,000 verified high PR backlinks as soon as tomorrow! RAVE REVIEWS!

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  • Profile picture of the author redcell1
    dude you need to put that in a .pdf for me because I was lost half way through lol. I need to take notes
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    Just here to see the shenanigans.

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    • Profile picture of the author WildGale
      This is why I read every bloody thing Marcos writes on this forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnhoefer
    That was excellent. Makes the client dependant on your continued services. If they take off, you can offer it to the next guy in their niche. Brilliant.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kirahster
    Hi Marcos, Great post! I have to say I always enjoy reading your posts on here and they are always jam packed with quality information.

    I just have a question about where you place the link.

    Do you place the link in a blog post or do you place it in the footer or elsewhere?
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  • Profile picture of the author cma01
    Marcos,

    That's a great post and way to build a business. You are just working for wages when you do SEO straight to a client's site.

    Sometimes it doesn't even take that many sites to get someone to rank. I have an authority site for my community and I've situations where all it took was one keyword link from an article to pull them to the top three in the SERP's.
    Signature
    "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
    ~ Plato
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  • Profile picture of the author True Solution
    The Pyramid is simply how all business's run - and its also a perfect organisation method. Good on you for posting up some useful information, this certainly explained some very basics, I urge people to learn about business structure and business processing when they become Online Money Makers, business is business, and its the best thing you could ever seriously decided to master if you want to make money.

    Blueprinting a Complex Pyramid System is where all the fun's at - if you want to talk about this one at all, drop me a PM on this account,

    Hakim

    True Solutions
    Hakim
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  • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
    Nice post Marcos! Thank you for your contribution to this board.

    Recently, I was just researching a "criminal law" website that was very similar in nature to what you describe in your post. I've been familiar with this method for many years, but always thought it would take too much time to really build up the empire... :-)

    I may just reconsider...

    My only problem is whether you need to use fresh dedicated IPs for your sites... possibly each from different hosting companies?

    Thomas
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    • Profile picture of the author cchipster
      Realist post I've spent time reading on here yet. Must be because he's from the Northwest! Yaaa buddy! Born and raised!
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      No signature, I'm sure you will be ok.
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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        @daveman, Blue, Creativegirl, Lazy, JohnHoefer, Hakim- You're welcome, glad you enjoyed it.

        @redcell1- I'm notorious for rambling, and going deep thinking everyone knows what I know. Sorry- I'm too old and crotchety to change now.

        @Kirahster- I talk about where I put the links a few times in the post. Depends really. But, I do it all. I personally like footer links, blogroll links in the sidebar, and blog posts. I've even been known to do blog comments on my own posts as backlinks.

        Sometimes it doesn't even take that many sites to get someone to rank. I have an authority site for my community and I've situations where all it took was one keyword link from an article to pull them to the top three in the SERP's.
        Agreed, when you have some authority, you can rock your clients with just a link or two, it's amazing. If you'd read my other posts however you'll know that I tend to blast my clients sites with Bazookas. Everyone else finds a keyword or two to rank for. I like to do deep links and rank deep pages so that I can get multiple SERP listings. I'll also do subdomains so that I can rank them too. I've gotten one website with 9 of the 10 listings on the front page by doing that. That's the type of service I give to my clients. And I generally do that across a broad spectrum of keywords. I usually rank a minimum of 10 keywords, but it's on average around 25, and I've worked on upwards of 300 for a single client. That's why I need a large network, as I want to push multiple pages/subdomains/keywords. Of course if you sculpt Page Rank and internal linking you can do it internally rather than externally.

        @SirThomas- "My only problem is whether you need to use fresh dedicated IPs for your sites... possibly each from different hosting companies?"

        As far as I'm concerned at least for Local SEO it's a myth. I've done experiments. I've gotten an entire 10-box using all sites on the same server. I've also built upwards of 30 sites in a niche and completely dominated the first 40 searches for a niche. I don't even bother to hide my identity for domain registration, I want potential clients to contact me.

        Now with that said, I still use hosting on four different accounts. And I do have multiple LLC's and Trusts that own domain names. You can always use SEO hosting. I use a service called C Class IP Hosting | SEO Hosting. It's not bad for $20 a month, I wouldn't put a money site on it though. So if you want to bother you can, my experience is that I believe less than half of what Matt Cutts says. Let all the other sheep believe his crap, he's a talking piece for Google and he tells you what Google wants you to hear. With that said, it doesn't mean that Google couldn't strip your empire at any moment, they are for all intents and purposes an unregulated monopoly in our business.

        @cchipster- SouthEast my friend, sorry. I'll keep it real though.

        Here's a twist of how you can do it, which I sometimes do. Let's say I'm doing a personal injury attorney in Tacoma, and I want to build a network of sites to build his site up. I'm charging the PI guy $1k a month to SEO his site, how could I double that income and still do his work properly while building my network.

        I might look around the surrounding communities looking for cities/towns 50-100k in population. Now I'm not familiar with the Washington area, but how about Olympia and Yakima they are both around 50k in population. It would take almost no work at all to build a site that could rank for personal injury attorneys in those cities. And I plug a footer link on those sites to my clients site. Now, I go out and rent those sites for $200-500 a month. I can usually get a 3-5 year lease agreement from the attorneys. And then you can do fun things like sell the lease, or sell partial payments. There are investors that will pay between 80-90% of face of these contracts.

        Another advanced concept you should consider is that YOU don't have to own these sites, base sites, rental sites whatever. What's to stop you from owning the website in your children's trust fund, your Roth IRA or your PITA Mother-In-Laws name that wants to borrow money every other month(ask me how I know this...).

        Sorry if I got too technical and deep, I like to do creative stuff.

        Hope this helps,

        Marcos
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        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

        Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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        • Profile picture of the author TE2
          Marcos,

          Great post but I want to re-emphasize that building an SEO Empire is "allot of work" and it is ongoing (although it does get easier once the base sites are in place).

          Two points that you might want to expand on:
          1. The amount of content required on the base layer. I came across that article about a year ago and I believe the goal was to get 1 million pages indexed. Correct me if I am remembering wrong.
          2. That you get a great amount of protection for your money site(s) because if a base site is sandboxed, de-indexed, etc.., your money site is safe because it plays by the rules.
          Regards,

          John
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          • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
            Originally Posted by TE2 View Post

            Great post but I want to re-emphasize that building an SEO Empire is "allot of work" and it is ongoing (although it does get easier once the base sites are in place).

            Two points that you might want to expand on:
            1. The amount of content required on the base layer. I came across that article about a year ago and I believe the goal was to get 1 million pages indexed. Correct me if I am remembering
            2. That you get a great amount of protection for your money site(s) because if a base site is sandboxed, de-indexed, etc.., your money site is safe because it plays by the rules.
            Regards,

            John
            Yes Eli did mention getting a million pages indexed. And that was my goal for a long time. But you have to understand Eli was playing in markets like CPA offers for Blockbuster, gambling and things like that. It's a heck of a lot harder to push a site about Poker Stars than it is to push a site about Kansas City BBQ Restaurant.

            I don't think a million pages is necessary really. Although it sure couldn't hurt. So if you're going to go visit Eli's site, keep in mind the game he is playing is a magnitude or ten of difficulty higher than what we're doing.

            The work aspect should definitely be considered. If I were to take a Tacoma Plumber and I had to do all the work myself I could probably SEO them with around 3-4 hours of work myself and $100 of outsourced labor. If I have to buy 25 sites, build 25 sites, and then SEO 25 sites the work will be much greater. Let's say 5 hours a site to build(I know my templates like the back of my hand) or around $10-20 to have built in the Philippines. And then the SEO per site is really an outsourcing thing, not an hourly thing. So, I'd probably spend around $50 per site in SEO. So my total investment would be 125 hours, and around $2k in costs(roughly). So, the investment and time and capital is extensive. But, in the long term it will be much more effective.

            However, I only have to do this 1-2 times for Plumber sites, and then by that time I'm set to rank any plumber in the country with very little work. It becomes easy to control the market for Plumbers nationwide(now that Kern has given up )

            And yes the protection thing is a pretty big deal really. I dally in gray areas of SEO. I use Scrapebox, and SE-Nuke and Spun articles, and autoblogs, Xrumer blasts, etc. I could go for days about how to generate 20k, 40k links to your base site in hours. It's important to have that stuff a few levels removed from your money sites.

            For all of that though, I've found through trial and error, even trying the black hattest things I could think of hasn't been enough to get a money site banned. I still prefer the protection though.

            To be honest with me it's less about the protection, than it is about control. If you're in control you always get paid, when you cede control you put your livelihood at risk. I don't like to do things once for a quick pay check. My wife gets so frustrated by me because every time I see something cool to do I think how could I make a system out of that? I prefer to do things once, and get paid forever. That's the real basis of my "system", do the work the right way so that a base $5k client contract can turn into a $500k over time.

            Thanks for playing, was fun.

            Marcos
            Signature
            We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

            Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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            • Profile picture of the author TE2
              Marcos,

              That's what I was talking about - great response to clarify and educate others who read this thread.

              And, your point about the scale of which this needs to be done for local being a lot less pages is good.

              Same as we see for Local SEO vs. traditional SEO, it takes a lot less for local to get results.

              Thanks for making the point and sharing.

              Regards,

              John
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            • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
              Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

              The work aspect should definitely be considered. If I were to take a Tacoma Plumber and I had to do all the work myself I could probably SEO them with around 3-4 hours of work myself and $100 of outsourced labor. If I have to buy 25 sites, build 25 sites, and then SEO 25 sites the work will be much greater. Let's say 5 hours a site to build(I know my templates like the back of my hand) or around $10-20 to have built in the Philippines. And then the SEO per site is really an outsourcing thing, not an hourly thing. So, I'd probably spend around $50 per site in SEO. So my total investment would be 125 hours, and around $2k in costs(roughly). So, the investment and time and capital is extensive. But, in the long term it will be much more effective.

              However, I only have to do this 1-2 times for Plumber sites, and then by that time I'm set to rank any plumber in the country with very little work. It becomes easy to control the market for Plumbers nationwide(now that Kern has given up )

              Marcos

              Marcos, perhaps you've already mentioned this, but I will ask anyways. :-)

              After you built your first two networks, let's say 40 sites together, in order to start ranking the third plumber in a different market, you'd be placing links to their site on your existing network...

              How many links would you place on each network site without damaging link strength?

              In other words, if you want rank 10 plumbers in 10 different cities nationwide, you might need 100-200 sites? or some of them would have 3-5 links pointing to any plumber sites?


              Thomas
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        • Profile picture of the author anthonyjames
          Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

          Another advanced concept you should consider is that YOU don't have to own these sites, base sites, rental sites whatever. What's to stop you from owning the website in your children's trust fund, your Roth IRA or your PITA Mother-In-Laws name that wants to borrow money every other month(ask me how I know this...).

          Sorry if I got too technical and deep, I like to do creative stuff.

          Hope this helps,

          Marcos
          Wow Marcus, can you pm me about this as I'd love to discuss it further with you?

          AJ
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        • Profile picture of the author AdelineRF
          Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

          @cchipster- SouthEast my friend, sorry. I'll keep it real though.

          Here's a twist of how you can do it, which I sometimes do. Let's say I'm doing a personal injury attorney in Tacoma, and I want to build a network of sites to build his site up. I'm charging the PI guy $1k a month to SEO his site, how could I double that income and still do his work properly while building my network.

          I might look around the surrounding communities looking for cities/towns 50-100k in population. Now I'm not familiar with the Washington area, but how about Olympia and Yakima they are both around 50k in population. It would take almost no work at all to build a site that could rank for personal injury attorneys in those cities. And I plug a footer link on those sites to my clients site. Now, I go out and rent those sites for $200-500 a month. I can usually get a 3-5 year lease agreement from the attorneys. And then you can do fun things like sell the lease, or sell partial payments. There are investors that will pay between 80-90% of face of these contracts.

          Another advanced concept you should consider is that YOU don't have to own these sites, base sites, rental sites whatever. What's to stop you from owning the website in your children's trust fund, your Roth IRA or your PITA Mother-In-Laws name that wants to borrow money every other month(ask me how I know this...).

          Sorry if I got too technical and deep, I like to do creative stuff.

          Hope this helps,

          Marcos

          50-100K in population... i assume this is the ideal city size .. will it still work well for a bigger city between 1 to 5 million?
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  • Profile picture of the author bigalan6622
    Yet another great thread on the WF. I think this should be added to http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...2-13-10-a.html
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  • Profile picture of the author sconlinemarketing
    I need to be clear on one thing. Does your clients sites need to be on a different host than the 25-50 backlinking sites? Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author PabloVTB
    Nice business plan. I'm diving into offering local SEO services myself, think this is a great opportunity in my country. Regards
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      @bigalan662- Thank you sir. Problem is I didn't title my post make $32Million dollars in one week with a Local SEO Empire. Isn't that what it takes here?

      @sconlinemarketing- I'll refer to what I said above:

      @SirThomas- "My only problem is whether you need to use fresh dedicated IPs for your sites... possibly each from different hosting companies?"

      As far as I'm concerned at least for Local SEO it's a myth. I've done experiments. I've gotten an entire 10-box using all sites on the same server. I've also built upwards of 30 sites in a niche and completely dominated the first 40 searches for a niche. I don't even bother to hide my identity for domain registration, I want potential clients to contact me.

      Now with that said, I still use hosting on four different accounts. And I do have multiple LLC's and Trusts that own domain names. You can always use SEO hosting. I use a service called C Class IP Hosting | SEO Hosting. It's not bad for $20 a month, I wouldn't put a money site on it though. So if you want to bother you can, my experience is that I believe less than half of what Matt Cutts says. Let all the other sheep believe his crap, he's a talking piece for Google and he tells you what Google wants you to hear. With that said, it doesn't mean that Google couldn't strip your empire at any moment, they are for all intents and purposes an unregulated monopoly in our business.

      Marcos
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanjm
    Brilliant thread. Thanks for your contribution. Like someone else already mentioned, I saw an attorney's site that was ranking #1 using a small-scale version of this pyramid. I wouldn't be surprised if it only takes a blast of profile links, commenting, and then maybe 10-20 homepage links to get a local site near the top.
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  • Profile picture of the author mindykoch
    Brilliant strategy. I love the idea of using my client's money to pay for those sites. I can see that I haven't been thinking BIG enough.
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  • Excellent strategy. I like the illustrations.

    I've started building a pyramid like that myself. I like to control the links and I'm tired of other links getting dropped.

    To speed up the process of creating these sites, I got WPTwin. It's pretty handy to use if you want to clone a good WP site. Very quickly, it'll be set up with all the plugins, and options. Then you just change the template (if you want to) and modify content.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sukhdeepak
      Very inspirational post. Local SEO empire is not very much beneficial.
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  • Profile picture of the author bryce84
    Great post, I recently got into offline and this could save LOT of time in the future.
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  • Profile picture of the author joshimo
    Marcos,

    Are you hosting these sites in several different places or are they all in the same data center? Surely they're not on the same server are they? And if you're hosting several different places, doesn't that drive the cost far beyond the $400 mark? I love the idea that you presented, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the logistics of making it work with out playing in google's sandbox with all of these sites if they catch on.

    Thanks for sharing!
    Joshua
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Let me put it this way.

      I have two offline businesses. I just keep buying domain names for fun and testing to see what happens with my different techniques. I don't hide registration info at NameCheap. I have one host gator account where they are all hosted.

      I have 7 websites for one biz and 8 for the other. I have around 40 supporting sites for both sites. And then I have an additional 30 or so sites supporting the 40 supporting sites(mostly auto blogs).

      All registered publicly, all hosted on same shared hosting. All of them completely dominating the first page on google, two different niches. Most of them ONLY have links coming from sites I own and maintain. They still dominate the rankings. In this most recent PR update, some of them got to PR4.

      I think it doesn't really matter too much. My 2nd level sites are sites that provide value in the marketplace. Yes, they also happen to link to my sites strategically. But, there would be no reason for Google to penalyze me for them. I'm bringing value. On one of my secondary sites I'm up to around 1,000 Unique Visitors per day. It's rocking and rolling.

      That's the key, bring value to the marketplace with your secondary sites and you have no reason to fear the axe of Google. If it happens to bring "value" to your money sites, well I can't see that Google is going to penalyze you for that. Think outside the box. How can I help my site while still bringing value?

      Make sense?

      And finally I'll requote again my original answer from before.

      @SirThomas- "My only problem is whether you need to use fresh dedicated IPs for your sites... possibly each from different hosting companies?"

      As far as I'm concerned at least for Local SEO it's a myth. I've done experiments. I've gotten an entire 10-box using all sites on the same server. I've also built upwards of 30 sites in a niche and completely dominated the first 40 searches for a niche. I don't even bother to hide my identity for domain registration, I want potential clients to contact me.

      Now with that said, I still use hosting on four different accounts. And I do have multiple LLC's and Trusts that own domain names. You can always use SEO hosting. I use a service called C Class IP Hosting | SEO Hosting. It's not bad for $20 a month, I wouldn't put a money site on it though. So if you want to bother you can, my experience is that I believe less than half of what Matt Cutts says. Let all the other sheep believe his crap, he's a talking piece for Google and he tells you what Google wants you to hear. With that said, it doesn't mean that Google couldn't strip your empire at any moment, they are for all intents and purposes an unregulated monopoly in our business.
      Marcos
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      • Profile picture of the author GCooper
        Thanks for sharing so much helpful information Marcos.

        -G
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      • Profile picture of the author joshimo
        You ROCK!! Thanks for the added info! You've opened my eyes, I've been "tip-toeing" around google more than I've needed to.
        Thanks!
        Joshua


        Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

        Let me put it this way.

        I have two offline businesses. I just keep buying domain names for fun and testing to see what happens with my different techniques. I don't hide registration info at NameCheap. I have one host gator account where they are all hosted.

        I have 7 websites for one biz and 8 for the other. I have around 40 supporting sites for both sites. And then I have an additional 30 or so sites supporting the 40 supporting sites(mostly auto blogs).

        All registered publicly, all hosted on same shared hosting. All of them completely dominating the first page on google, two different niches. Most of them ONLY have links coming from sites I own and maintain. They still dominate the rankings. In this most recent PR update, some of them got to PR4.

        I think it doesn't really matter too much. My 2nd level sites are sites that provide value in the marketplace. Yes, they also happen to link to my sites strategically. But, there would be no reason for Google to penalyze me for them. I'm bringing value. On one of my secondary sites I'm up to around 1,000 Unique Visitors per day. It's rocking and rolling.

        That's the key, bring value to the marketplace with your secondary sites and you have no reason to fear the axe of Google. If it happens to bring "value" to your money sites, well I can't see that Google is going to penalyze you for that. Think outside the box. How can I help my site while still bringing value?

        Make sense?

        And finally I'll requote again my original answer from before.



        Marcos
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        • Profile picture of the author Rush
          This was definitely a great post. What if instead of creating say, 25 new websites about plumbing for your plumber client, you created 25 of your own article directory sites, so every time you want to build links for a new client, you can just post 25 unique articles (about plumbing in this example) to your 25 article directories, and then build links to those 25 article pages in exactly the same way you would build links to the 25 websites about plumbing.

          The pros would be that you would save on domain costs because you wouldn't need to create new websites when you get a client that's outside the scope of your empire. You also wouldn't have to worry about the age issue of building new sites, which means you could probably see ranking benefits faster in the long run.

          Can you guys help me think of the cons of going about it in this way?
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          • Profile picture of the author Claude Whitacre
            Originally Posted by Rush View Post

            This was definitely a great post. What if instead of creating say, 25 new websites about plumbing for your plumber client, you created 25 of your own article directory sites, so every time you want to build links for a new client, you can just post 25 unique articles (about plumbing in this example) to your 25 article directories, and then build links to those 25 article pages in exactly the same way you would build links to the 25 websites about plumbing.

            The pros would be that you would save on domain costs because you wouldn't need to create new websites when you get a client that's outside the scope of your empire. You also wouldn't have to worry about the age issue of building new sites, which means you could probably see ranking benefits faster in the long run.

            Can you guys help me think of the cons of going about it in this way?
            I have 20 article directories. I've done what you are suggesting. It works far better with websites than article sites. Unless your article site has a URL like "Best Plumbing Articles", or "Plumbing Facts For Cleveland Plumbing Customers"...that sort of thing.

            Then the title tag would have to be about plumbing. The H1 tag would be about plumbing. All the articles would need to be about plumbing...or Cleveland..or flowers.

            But the power comes from relevence and related keywords and URLs.

            Using generic article sites to link articles? I did it, and it's not as effective as the method Marcos explains.

            Anyway, I do have a few article sites that are topic specific. But they have no real adventage over Wordpress sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author carry12
    Hello Friends..........

    Great Tips.Thanks for sharing such wonderful information with all of us.Keep sharing more tips in the future.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author homeworkin
    Great explanation. This stuff flat-out works. I have used a similar plan to dominate for some nice national key words. Where some of my competitors are spending BIG bucks (including double page magazine ads) to bring in traffic, I am using a pyramid similar to yours to rank for key words that bring in the traffic. Where they are spending $9-10 per click, I am buying the key word domain and ranking it for "free."

    Yes, it is work up front, but if you build one site a day while watching TV - you'll have 30 sites by the end of a month. Spend the next 2-3 months building out links and tiered sites, and you'll take over your niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author tentimes
    Great post! lots of useful info!
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  • Profile picture of the author traceface
    What a gift! Thank you so much for this information!
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  • Profile picture of the author tjbooker
    Thanks a lot for the great blueprint, finally someone who laid it all out there saying you have to spend a little to make a little.

    TJ
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  • Profile picture of the author ityim
    Thanks for share . I appreciate this.
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    • Profile picture of the author Christina10
      Hey your post is incredible... Your depictions are really too good.. And its really the truth that to build a seo empire, you need loads & loads of quality links...!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Anna Howard
    What else just go on preforming SEO in a so called natural way and things them selves will turn out to be such that you are able to create an empire of SEO.......
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  • Profile picture of the author Always-A-Warrior
    Great job Marcos! I like your way of thinking.
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  • Profile picture of the author 147Ideas
    It's a great strategy and it absolutely works.

    We've been doing it for a while. We use a simple model whereby we have 'target' sites and 'feeder' sites.

    The feeder sites are all generally related to the subject of the 'target' (or client/money) site.

    We perform all the hardcore SEO to the feeders. Then we just gently leverage the feeder sites to produce the results for the 'target' site.

    I'm also very keen on the idea of ownership of the network. Once you've put the groundwork in, you can achieve ongoing results very quickly.

    In a slight twist on the model, sometimes a client will come along in a niche which we don't have a ready made network. So we put together a proposal whereby we'll let the client know exactly what our method is. The proposal would look like this

    1. We register 10 keyword relevant domains (to the client's niche)
    2. We spend the first 8 weeks building, populating, SEO'ing these.
    3. The client is - for the duration of our contract - leasing the feeder sites.
    4. Once the feeder sites are established, we leverage them to drive the client's 'target' site up the search engine.
    5. If at any time the client wishes to acquire the network (feeder) sites, we agree a set fee at the start of the process.
    6. If the client has no desire to acquire the feeders, we begin to use them for other client's in a similar but non competing niche.

    Win/win.

    The client gets a visual real-time experience that shows them that their SEO power lies within the feeder sites so all of a sudden it has a very real value to them.
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  • Profile picture of the author michael scott
    It seems that in the end, you would get sitewide/footer links in return for the hard work which is brilliant.
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  • Profile picture of the author rohnsmith
    This is very good post. I have read it whole with lot of interest. Thanks for sharing your experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author Praney Behl
    Guys,

    I have started a thread, and looking for participants, invitations close in 48 hours.

    The link to the thread is : Local SEO Automation

    I wonder if anyone will be interested.

    Thanks,

    Praney
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  • Profile picture of the author Derek Salfen
    This post got me excited about local SEO... so much to learn!
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  • Profile picture of the author KaterSD
    How does one actually go about implementing something like this.

    from what i understand is

    1. Buy 5-10 domains related to the niche
    2. Build websites on each domain
    3. SEO the 10 websites
    4. Use your 5-10 websites to Link to the clients/money site.


    My question is what goes on the sites that you build ? how much content? does it need a lot of content? does it matter if they are html static sites, or wp blogs?
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    • Profile picture of the author HassanAjmal
      Originally Posted by vApor View Post


      My question is what goes on the sites that you build ? how much content? does it need a lot of content? does it matter if they are html static sites, or wp blogs?
      I'd like to know this as well.
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      • Profile picture of the author georgem1234
        That's a long and detailed post. I really took time to read that, that's really excellent post, I learned something new today. Thanks for sharing this.
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      • Profile picture of the author Patrick Warren
        This is great. I've been thinking about this type of thing lately. Building your own asset and virtual real estate builds your online influence and gives you something to walk away with if an offline client terminates your contract.
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      • Profile picture of the author lindamartin88
        Hey Marcos, You have shared a great piece of information. I'm sure you have helped many others like myself, who are new to business!
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      • Profile picture of the author 1234nasir
        I think almost nobody have extra time to give concentration on this deep and lengthy post. Try to visualize your ideas in a short and meaningful vision.
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      • Profile picture of the author aminwasu
        Great Post! It is the best plan to dominate the local market!
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      • Profile picture of the author squaster
        Great post. You really pointed what SEO is about and the thinking of your own SEO empire is very good, especially for your further client.

        Great job again!
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      • Profile picture of the author rickmor
        This is freaking genius.

        I love the fedex envelope method.
        I love the firewalled effect of implementing black hat stuff on your own websites.

        question, does it take 25 sites to start the empire, or can I be a little less aggressive like with 10 or 15 to start?
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      • Profile picture of the author RayFinckle
        Never thought of this before, thanks for the share!
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      • Profile picture of the author worsin
        I know this is an old thread but im going to revive it anyway

        I have a few questions for you.

        How often do you get a base site zapped by Google?

        How do you get around the various ways Google can detect your link farm?

        I have found that Google can detect link farms through the following methods

        1. WHOIS info on base sites
        2. Technology Used - If every site uses same exact template and technology such as wordpress - "acme template" it throws up a red flag.
        3. IP Address - i already saw how you cover this issue and know ways to cover it
        4. Registration date - Since Google is a Domain Registrar i've been told to never register any of the domains for my network on the same day and the further apart the dates are the better.
        5. Linking Patterns - 25 sites all link to client site 1 and same 25 sites all link to client site 2 Google can detect this pattern and zap whole network including the client site. I read an article the other day where JCPennies got penalized for using a link farm. SEE LINK: Google Penalizes JC Penny for Using Link Farms

        Obviously all of these things can be covered by simply using SEO host, watching registration dates, varying the technology used and randomizing the linking strategy but...now being 2013 with the newest Google Algorithms how is this holding up for you?
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  • Profile picture of the author sconlinemarketing
    I am going to put this into practice for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author Achillies
    Hey,

    I posted this before but I think it is most applicable to this offline section and specifically linked to this great post. I wondered had anyone had any success with cloning sites or is this a no, no?

    I was thinking that I would set it up as follows:

    a) Main Money Site
    b) (Original) Wordpress Squeeze Page with blog
    c) Clone of B but with a unique specific domains multiplied by X.no
    d) Link X.no different blogs to main money site
    e) Autoblog content onto all the clones
    f) Carry out usual link building to the clones (Articles, Backlinking, Directories etc) to ensure they are high in SE's

    Goal: Lead generate from my local offline niche (opt-in's and response web form's) whilst also having both the clones and my main money site rank top in Google.


    Questions:

    1. Is this plan realistic and sustainable?
    2. When auto-blogging, would I have to drip feed different content or is it ok to drip feed the same content on each clone?

    Any other thoughts or suggestions?
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  • Profile picture of the author PromoAds
    love this post, thanks for sharing
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    • Profile picture of the author misc92
      Thanks for sharing your technique.

      After your post I plan to offer a similar method for local hotels. Just a couple of questions. According to the post each of your pyramids consists of atleast 100 sites.

      - You said you use your pyramid to market similar niches in nearby cities. Has any client expressed problems with this?
      - Before your SEO empire started. Did you cold-call clients offering SEO services?? What was your experience / sales pitch like.
      I ask because SEO here is inexistant and I have a a huge opportunity of getting the market for myself. Only thing is that business may not be sympathetic to the idea of paying the extra money apart from the domain/hosting.
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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        First off, I apologize for not getting back to this post. I only frequent this board every few weeks or so. I'm not a daily reader. So I apologize if you were waiting on my reply.

        @147Ideas-"If at any time the client wishes to acquire the network (feeder) sites, we agree a set fee at the start of the process."

        I never, ever, ever sell my network. The point is, I'm building the network for MY purposes on the clients dime. The value is in the network, don't ever forget it.

        @vApor- "My question is what goes on the sites that you build ? how much content? does it need a lot of content? does it matter if they are html static sites, or wp blogs?"

        I've answered it a few times above. It's really irrelevant what types of sites they are, you can experiment with all kinds of sites. I have static HTML sites, I have HUGE database sites, I have WP blogs, I have WP Static sites, I have Directory Sites, classified sites..... Basically I have played with all different types of sites. The key is I want them to be a little different from each other. I wouldn't have lets say only WP Blogs pointing to my clients site. I like to vary it quite a bit. Get creative, have fun.


        @misc92- "- You said you use your pyramid to market similar niches in nearby cities. Has any client expressed problems with this?
        - Before your SEO empire started. Did you cold-call clients offering SEO services?? What was your experience / sales pitch like."

        If I have a plumber in Cleveland, and I rank a plumbing site in Cinncinatti who are they to have a problem with it, unless they want to pay my fees in the other city as well. I have just a handful of clients with regular SEO contracts, I prefer lead gen and site rentals.

        I've pretty much tried it all in marketing to potential clients. My ideal is marketing to centers of influence. And I subscribe to the Dream 100 of Chet Holmes. I hit that hard.

        Marcos
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        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

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  • Profile picture of the author Matrixguru
    Marcos
    I like your style Rock N Roll man but did you have to tell everyone how to do it?
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by Matrixguru View Post

      Marcos
      I like your style Rock N Roll man but did you have to tell everyone how to do it?
      I'd be knocked out of my La-Z-Boy if more than 3 people chose to follow what I said. But if I get three that's better than none at all. It's a little too much like work, and not enough like let me press this button and instantly be a millionaire. People tend to prefer mental stimulation than actual workable plans.

      I know, I know. I'm a cynic.

      M
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      • Profile picture of the author WildGale
        For people just getting started, the poor man's approach is using Web 2.0 properties. They are taking a beating now but they still work as you build your empire.
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        • Profile picture of the author WildGale
          Hey Marcus. I don't know if you take requests for future posts, but I would love to see your analysis of selling ad space on local sites versus selling leads since it sounds like you do both.

          I have a group of local sites that are about to get to #1 (I set them up and turned to an online project and two months later I'm pretty pleased). In any case, I planned to set up a lead capture system much like you discuss in another thread (the disconnected phone number thread), but increasingly I'm leaning toward a straight rental of ad space -- exclusive ad space for a relevant local business. It's a lot more simple though probably less money than selling leads, however, my thought is that I should keep it simple now as I "build my empire," then perhaps in six months or so, convert the higher traffic sites into lead generation sites and sell leads. By then I'll have at least one client in that niche who appreciates the value of ranking well in Google.

          Amanda
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          • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
            Originally Posted by WildGale View Post

            Hey Marcus. I don't know if you take requests for future posts, but I would love to see your analysis of selling ad space on local sites versus selling leads since it sounds like you do both.

            I have a group of local sites that are about to get to #1 (I set them up and turned to an online project and two months later I'm pretty pleased). In any case, I planned to set up a lead capture system much like you discuss in another thread (the disconnected phone number thread), but increasingly I'm leaning toward a straight rental of ad space -- exclusive ad space for a relevant local business. It's a lot more simple though probably less money than selling leads, however, my thought is that I should keep it simple now as I "build my empire," then perhaps in six months or so, convert the higher traffic sites into lead generation sites and sell leads. By then I'll have at least one client in that niche who appreciates the value of ranking well in Google.

            Amanda
            It's rather simple, it's based on traffic. If I can generate 10 calls or more a week I lead gen it, if I'm generating less, I rent it. More or less.

            Large cities I lead-gen. Smaller cities I rent. Although you have some anomolies, like Pittsburgh, I think everyone thinks about football all the time and never gets on the internet. I never had any luck in Pittsburgh with my B&M biz, or in my local marketing endeavors.

            HTH
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            • Profile picture of the author WildGale
              Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

              Large cities I lead-gen. Smaller cities I rent. Although you have some anomolies, like Pittsburgh, I think everyone thinks about football all the time and never gets on the internet. I never had any luck in Pittsburgh with my B&M biz, or in my local marketing endeavors.
              Thanks Marcus, that does help.

              What's the smallest city you tend to hit? I have a number of plumbing sites ready to rent, the largest city is 150K, with two smaller distinct cities in the same county. I'm going to hit up one company for all three. I've got some other sites in larger cities but they are going to take longer to rank.
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              • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
                Originally Posted by WildGale View Post

                Thanks Marcus, that does help.

                What's the smallest city you tend to hit? I have a number of plumbing sites ready to rent, the largest city is 150K, with two smaller distinct cities in the same county. I'm going to hit up one company for all three. I've got some other sites in larger cities but they are going to take longer to rank.
                It's Marcos actually. <just kidding>

                I love how they changed a very dark colored hat to bluefart. Pretty funny actually.

                It's all about the numbers for me. Take a look at the traffic you're getting. I assume a 5% conversion ratio, so that if I get around 50 or so UV's a day it will probably be good enough to lead gen. It's not a hard and fast rule, figure out what makes sense in your situation. The numbers change per classification of clientele. Give your clients options. I usually give them an option, buy it in full for anywhere from $5-30k, lease it on a five year lease for $x/mo or pay per lead at $x/per lead.

                Plus in some niches you can't get people to answer their phones for whatever reason, it's like they want people to track them down, tackle them and force them to take their money. In those instances it's better to lease than lead gen, as you'll have too high a churn ratio.

                HTH,

                Marcos
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        • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
          Originally Posted by WildGale View Post

          For people just getting started, the poor man's approach is using Web 2.0 properties. They are taking a beating now but they still work as you build your empire.
          I believe in the first post I talked about using Web 2.0 properties in the first or second layer of the pyramid. Yeah, you can't host them all. I probably have a few thousand Web 2.0 properties in different niches. I can spam the heck out of them with Blackhat type stuff. Make sense?
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          Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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          • Profile picture of the author WildGale
            Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

            I believe in the first post I talked about using Web 2.0 properties in the first or second layer of the pyramid. Yeah, you can't host them all. I probably have a few thousand Web 2.0 properties in different niches. I can spam the heck out of them with BlueFart type stuff. Make sense?
            Sorry. It's been so long since I read the OP.
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  • Profile picture of the author HaydenR
    Hmmm.. I've always outsourced my SEO services but this looks like a good idea.. thanks for the share..
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  • Profile picture of the author hallpart
    nice sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author Rocketguy
    I would love to hear the benefits of doing it this way over just doing 301 redirects for clients. Both ways you own the links, but I would think that a 301 redirect would give you more link juice and rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
      Originally Posted by Rocketguy View Post

      I would love to hear the benefits of doing it this way over just doing 301 redirects for clients. Both ways you own the links, but I would think that a 301 redirect would give you more link juice and rankings.
      Marcos mentioned using his network sites for linking to more than one site,
      like when he starts with a new client prior to building a new network.
      Having a 301 redirect would make this plan impossible.

      Thomas
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by Rocketguy View Post

      I would love to hear the benefits of doing it this way over just doing 301 redirects for clients. Both ways you own the links, but I would think that a 301 redirect would give you more link juice and rankings.
      The thing is your Base sites are where the money is. If you do your job right you can make these base sites PR3-5, and be able to throw a lot of weight around. Why would I want to 301 redirect something that I can build to be a valuable asset?

      You're building base sites for the long term. Plus you can sculpt the way you push up your main site better with keyword rich linking vs a 301 redirect. For instance I have a client who because of a lawsuit cannot legally place a certain trademark term on his website. Yet we built incoming links with that anchor text and even though it's nowhere to be found on his website he ranks right at second position for his "prohibited phrase" to the never ending annoyance of his competitor who sued him. Some of these sites can also become money makers in their own right. I usually slap adsense ads or something so that they at least pay their own rent(part of hosting plus domain registration). Some of them in their own right bring in a few hundred a month. Can't do that with a 301 redirect.

      Make sense?
      Signature
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  • Profile picture of the author netstarmobile
    Let me start by saying, what a great thread. I have a few local SEO clients and have been doing it the wrong way. You're right, it's better to have control over the links coming in to the money site. In my experience the clients cancel the service once they get a top five Google ranking. They think they don't need you anymore. Your approach provides a strong measure of security for your business.
    I have a couple of quick questions. What type of software or plug-in are you using for the auto blogging? How often are you posting to these blogs?
    You said:

    "It will be much easier to get citations for your Google Places listings because you OWN the citation sources. So, let’s say I get a client for Seattle Used Cars. I can find 50 blogs in my network to build a citation to their listing. They count pretty well too as long as you’re careful of mirroring the listing of the Places listing exactly in your blog post"

    Could you please expand on this. I'm not sure I understand completely what you mean. Are you referring to your client's Places listing or are you creating multiple Google Places listings?
    The concept requires lot of work, but I agree that it will payoff in the long run.
    Thanks for an excellent thread.
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    • Profile picture of the author TJ Kazunga
      Originally Posted by netstarmobile View Post

      ...You're right, it's better to have control over the links coming in to the money site. In my experience the clients cancel the service once they get a top five Google ranking. They think they don't need you anymore. Your approach provides a strong measure of security for your business.
      I don't agree with this sentiment as I feel it is unethical (though to be fair it depends what was agreed in the contract). By the way, just to be clear, I'm not attacking you or saying you're unethical okay?

      I mean, the whole point of a company hiring you is to improve their rankings. If they get better rankings and then decide to cancel, why take away the backlinks that got them there in the first place? They have already paid for the service after all and in a sense those backlinks "belong" to them.

      I suppose the only way this could work is to make it very clear that they're only renting the backlinks, and if they cancel they will lose their rankings. Almost like a text link broker really.

      Apart from the ethical stand point, I would urge anyone contemplating such a move to be very clear where they stand legally as you could be opening up yourself a large can of worms otherwise.

      I find that clients tend not to cancel once you're getting them results, I mean, why would they? Perhaps they're ranking for inappropriate keywords so aren't seeing an expected return, in which case better keyword analysis might be needed.

      Regarding the original OP's approach, it is something that many people do but it strikes me as an unnecessarily complicated way to rank "local" websites, which is quite straightforward really. This is a strategy I would contemplate for national lead gen sites and the like.

      Interesting post - thanks for the share.
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      • Profile picture of the author misc92
        Originally Posted by TJ Kazunga View Post

        .................
        I suppose the only way this could work is to make it very clear that they're only renting the backlinks, and if they cancel they will lose their rankings. Almost like a text link broker really.
        This question is for OP, you or anyone who feels they can answer.

        Who writes the contracts you guys use?

        I feel Ill need a very good contract before jumping Offline to avoid legal problems, however since no one has done SEM/SEO in my country I doubt local lawyers will understand most of the terms and technicalities.
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  • Profile picture of the author Transcripts
    Thank you, Marcos. I've been considering doing a local thing, nothing this large scale though, and with a much more limited scope of benefit (namely me :-). This post has really been helpful.
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  • Profile picture of the author sconlinemarketing
    The links to your clients sites are using link real estate on your sites. They are using link juice and space on your sites. If they stop paying, that is space that can be used by a new paying client. I am about to pick up a client who last year paid 2500 for links to keep him on the top page for his keyword. He doesn't have the 2500 this year and they said he will lose his rank if he doesn't pay. He is coming with me, also understanding that his links will disappear if he stops paying his monthly payment.

    When you set up a system like this, it is about control. If you feel bad about removing links, then this is probably not for you.

    If you set it up and never remove unpaying clients links, you would run out of room to put paying clients links, and you would have to start over.
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    • Profile picture of the author TJ Kazunga
      Originally Posted by sconlinemarketing View Post

      The links to your clients sites are using link real estate on your sites. They are using link juice and space on your sites. If they stop paying, that is space that can be used by a new paying client. I am about to pick up a client who last year paid 2500 for links to keep him on the top page for his keyword. He doesn't have the 2500 this year and they said he will lose his rank if he doesn't pay. He is coming with me, also understanding that his links will disappear if he stops paying his monthly payment.

      When you set up a system like this, it is about control. If you feel bad about removing links, then this is probably not for you.
      .
      Well, that's the point. It has to be made clear that links will be removed in the event they stop paying. I wasn't sure that the point was being made so clear in this thread...

      I still feel that this method is unnecessarily complicated to rank local websites,purely from a cost benefit perspective. I mean, the amount of time to build the network and get it ranking well, you could have ranked 10 client websites!
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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        Originally Posted by TJ Kazunga View Post

        Well, that's the point. It has to be made clear that links will be removed in the event they stop paying. I wasn't sure that the point was being made so clear in this thread...

        I still feel that this method is unnecessarily complicated to rank local websites,purely from a cost benefit perspective. I mean, the amount of time to build the network and get it ranking well, you could have ranked 10 client websites!
        Agreed if you're only planning on doing 1 or 2 clients. But for those of us with 50-100-200.... This method is invaluable.

        And you say for a cost benefit analysis it doesn't make sense to do this well let's analyze that for a few minutes. I'll try to be conservative here.

        If I have a client's website that I wish to rank, and I do straight SEO on it. I would venture to say in an average competitive field like a house painter in a city over a million(the only cities I work in) I would probably spend around $500 to rank it. I would buy directory links, buy a bunch of articles, do press releases, create some Web 2.0 sites, etc. And I would completely dominate most of the keyword phrases(I'm good ).

        If I charge $5k to that client to rank them for these phrases then we're looking at a 1000% ROI. Make sense?

        Now let's look at how I do it my way.

        I find a client who wants to pay me $5k to rank their website. Well I'm going to spend about $1,500 of that money building up an SEO empire to rank their site. So my ROI drops to 333%. The client sees no difference in their ranking they are still rocking so they are happy.

        But now let's say my client is a Indianapolis painter. During the process of my ranking his site I also build sites in nearby cities that get the same ranks I built with my Indianapolis guy. Let's say Muncie, Anderson, Lafayette, Fort Wayne, and South Bend. That's 5 additional sites. Well these are smaller cities. So it takes nothing to rank those sites.

        So, I can do a few things. I'm going to be super conservative here, after all Painters aren't usually flush with cash.

        I'm probably going to rent these sites. Do you think it's inconceivable that I can get a painter in Muncie to pay me $100 a month to rent the #1 site for house painters in Muncie, plus maybe $300 as a setup fee? So now I have them rented at $500/month. And my total income for the year is now the original $5k plus $6k monthly and $1,500 setup fees. So I'm at $12,500. And my ROI still isn't quite what I would have gotten with the original investment, but by bank account doesn't really care about ROI. Instead of $4,500 in the bank I now have $11k in the bank and that doesn't stink.

        But let's not leave it there shall we. If I live in Indy I'm probably going to ask the painter, I want you to write me a letter of recommendation that I can show to the AC/Plumbing/Roofing/Remodeling guys. And now I'm going to go get some more clients in kind of "sister" industries.

        Now when I do that, it's actually going to be easier for me to rank the next site. Let's say it's an AC guy. I can probably use my network and rank the guy with no money out of pocket, just throw some links there. Maybe buy some directory entries for $10-20. And he's ranking in days not weeks or months.

        Make sense? Now the cost of it is $10-20 and an hour or two and I've got an almost infinite ROI.

        But more than likely I'm probably going to continue to build out my network although I won't need as much, maybe $200-300, and now I'm going to build my AC sites in the surrounding cities as well. And the numbers keep growing.

        And can you imagine the quality of the referrals you get from the guy you rank in 3 days as opposed to 6 months?

        Plus what I've said before many people struggle to get new clients right? Just do a five step process.

        1. Find who has the full page ads in yellow pages who isn't ranking.
        2. Call to find out who the decision maker is on marketing.
        3. Send a fedex introducing yourself. My name is Marcos, I know you don't rank for Indianapolis air conditioning on Google. I also know you get tons of calls asking for money if they help you rank. I'm going to rank your website for the phrase Indianapolis Air Conditioning within 3 days, while currently you sit at #76. I'll call you in 3 days.
        4. Throw your links at it, you'll rank in a day.
        5. Walk in, get a check.

        And what you'll find is you can rank almost anything once your network is really built up. It's pretty amazing really. What you'll find is a generic network that you've built up will be enough to rank 9 of 10 local websites on it's on. It's only the difficult niches like attorneys, real estate, dentists, etc that you'll have to put a little more work into.

        The thing is if you live in Indy or wherever it is that you live doesn't it make sense to have a network built up where you can rank almost anything in that city? And eventually where you'll find the real money is when you can build lead gen sites right in the big city and you can start bringing mega bucks in. Just one good lead gen site in the right niche can be an $100k a year earner.

        So while it seems like it takes a lot more work it does at first but after a while it takes MUCH less. So that's where the cost benefit really pays off. You have to start from scratch every time you get a new client. I have to do almost nothing just collect checks.

        Make sense?

        So short term yes cost benefit is on your side. So if I'm looking how much money am I going to have in my pocket in the next six months you're going to win. In the ten year plan though where you had $4,500. I've collected over $66k, and more than likely I've probably parlayed it into $200-300-500k or more. And I've made my job SOOOOO much easier for any other jobs I have to do in that city or any other.

        Overkill? Yes! Profitable? Hell Yes!

        Marcos
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        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

        Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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        • Profile picture of the author paulie888
          Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post


          1. Find who has the full page ads in yellow pages who isn't ranking.
          2. Call to find out who the decision maker is on marketing.
          3. Send a fedex introducing yourself. My name is Marcos, I know you don't rank for Indianapolis air conditioning on Google. I also know you get tons of calls asking for money if they help you rank. I'm going to rank your website for the phrase Indianapolis Air Conditioning within 3 days, while currently you sit at #76. I'll call you in 3 days.
          4. Throw your links at it, you'll rank in a day.
          5. Walk in, get a check.

          And what you'll find is you can rank almost anything once your network is really built up. It's pretty amazing really. What you'll find is a generic network that you've built up will be enough to rank 9 of 10 local websites on it's on. It's only the difficult niches like attorneys, real estate, dentists, etc that you'll have to put a little more work into.
          Thanks for sharing how you build up an empire of local sites, Marcos. This is a great way to totally dominate your market and make your sites virtually immune to being outranked by competitors, who won't take the time and effort to implement your "overkill" approach!

          By the way, is there any way to find out who has full page ads in Yellow Pages, without having to refer to the physical phone book? How do you go about doing this when you're not targeting your local or neighboring cities, whose phone books are relatively easy to obtain?

          Paul
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          • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
            Originally Posted by paulie888 View Post

            Thanks for sharing how you build up an empire of local sites, Marcos. This is a great way to totally dominate your market and make your sites virtually immune to being outranked by competitors, who won't take the time and effort to implement your "overkill" approach!

            By the way, is there any way to find out who has full page ads in Yellow Pages, without having to refer to the physical phone book? How do you go about doing this when you're not targeting your local or neighboring cities, whose phone books are relatively easy to obtain?

            Paul
            Just use Craigslist or Fiverr. You can find someone in the city who you can get to give you the names and phone numbers of every full page ad in 3-4 sections for $5-10.

            Alternatively you can buy phone books and have them shipped to you. I have the phone books from the top 25 cities in US. One of my staff did it so I have no idea how it got done or how much it cost.

            HTH,

            Marcos
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            We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

            Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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        • Profile picture of the author mwoolerymedia
          I was wondering if this method still applies here in March of 2012?
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  • Profile picture of the author TJ Kazunga
    You make some good points but the math is rather selective I think

    Indeed, putting it your way you end up ahead, but let's look at the math from a different perspective, and as you say, lets be conservative.

    I charge my client $5K to rank, great. I think we both agree that we could do that for a medium city in 2-3 months (again, being conservative).

    My experience is that clients don't cancel, (unless you do a poor job upselling) but are at that stage ripe for further business.

    So, lets say at the end of 3 months the client is
    upsold to a $500 "maintenance" package (again, these figures are on the very low end. It's usually more depending if its SEO maintenance, PPC management, email marketing, whatever).

    Over 9 months that is $4,500K. Which makes just under $10K in bank, less costs of course (and what if they were on a $700 or $1,000 monthly fee?).

    Not quite at your hypothetical figure but then I don't have to manage hundreds of domains, websites, sales people to rent out the websites etc, which of course all add up to some hefty costs as well.

    There are different ways to skin a cat and at the end of the day it's all good but I still believe that your method is unnecessary for local
    SEO. That's not to say it's not valuable to build up a "virtual" local real estate "empire" but still not sure the cost benefit arguments stack up in your favour that strongly.

    Cheers
    TJ
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by TJ Kazunga View Post

      You make some good points but the math is rather selective I think

      Indeed, putting it your way you end up ahead, but let's look at the math from a different perspective, and as you say, lets be conservative.

      I charge my client $5K to rank, great. I think we both agree that we could do that for a medium city in 2-3 months (again, being conservative).

      My experience is that clients don't cancel, (unless you do a poor job upselling) but are at that stage ripe for further business.

      So, lets say at the end of 3 months the client is
      upsold to a $500 "maintenance" package (again, these figures are on the very low end. It's usually more depending if its SEO maintenance, PPC management, email marketing, whatever).

      Over 9 months that is $4,500K. Which makes just under $10K in bank, less costs of course (and what if they were on a $700 or $1,000 monthly fee?).

      Not quite at your hypothetical figure but then I don't have to manage hundreds of domains, websites, sales people to rent out the websites etc, which of course all add up to some hefty costs as well.

      There are different ways to skin a cat and at the end of the day it's all good but I still believe that your method is unnecessary for local
      SEO. That's not to say it's not valuable to build up a "virtual" local real estate "empire" but still not sure the cost benefit arguments stack up in your favour that strongly.

      Cheers
      TJ
      TJ,

      The manner of the links has nothing to do with the backend really. What is to say you can't get that maintenance fee from my SEO Empire client? So your extra "found money" of $500 a month really should be on both sides of the equation to be fair.

      And guess what with the empire model you don't have 1 client to upsell, you have 6(or more). So again it kind of trounces your idea my friend. Ok, so if I rent the site, I can upsell to PPC quite easily, a mobile site, QR Code marketing, whatever. Also what you'll find is that as you meet people who aren't initially interested in the website you'll find many of them end up as your clients as long as you're not doing competing things for them.

      It's kind of beyond the realm of this conversation to get in the cost benefit analysis of lead-gen vs rentals vs straight SEO. But straight SEO clients by far is the loser in that analysis. If you understood the power of leverage when you own and control the leads we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

      P.S.- PM if you want to know what you can truly make doing lead-gen. I don't really like to brag much.

      The saying is true, the true SEO experts don't do SEO for anyone but their own sites.

      Marcos
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      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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      • Profile picture of the author webjedi
        Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

        The saying is true, the true SEO experts don't do SEO for anyone but their own sites.

        Marcos
        And that my friend is called a Gem. Thank you.

        WJ
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        • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
          But Marcos I do have a question that is kind of off topic, I'm starting to put together my own Local SEO Empire that you described in a thread awhile back, after some of the updates that Google has done since that thread you posted does it still make sense and is it still as effective as before?
          I had this question in an WSO I did for my sister. So, post-panda update does this still work.

          Yes absolutely, actually it's more important than ever. I have had some sites that were wiped out in the rankings and others that have prospered. To be honest it's so hard to tell what in the heck Panda does because when you have thousands of sites it's very difficult to figure out why one is demolished while another prospers.

          I've had pretty good luck with some really crappy database driven sites I created years ago. They are ranking for all kinds of crazy things these days. Go to ø Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics ø if you're wondering what I mean by a database site.

          We're currently spending a ton of money building links to my core sites. I'm starting to get some of my older sites to PR5 and PR6 now and are showing up as authority sites which makes it very easy for me to do 3 way link exchanges for domains that I own.

          This is the way that works. There are always SEO companies out there that are looking for links. If I have a PR5 site it's very easy to get the links I want. I can trade a link on my site for a link on almost anyone's site. It makes it very easy to get things to happen. For instance I have a PR5 Foreclosure help blog where I have over 20,000 incoming links to the site, some b1ackhat and some white hat. Now if I were going to build a mortgage site in Cleveland for instance, it's very easy to trade a link on my PR5 website for any mortgage brokers website to link to my new mortgage site in Cleveland. It's better for me to go out and get links from 50 other mortgage sites across the country than just having one PR5 link from my own site.

          Make sense?

          So yeah, building your own Local SEO Farm is still really, really helpful.

          Marcos
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          We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

          Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author TJ Kazunga
    By the way, one thing I like about your network is the idea that you can rank websites quickly but how does that compare to sending high PR links (the same thing in effect no - bar a few differences but still)?

    Also, another question, how many client websites do you find one network can support before the outgoing links get too "diluted" and you have to build a new network?
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    • Profile picture of the author teaball
      Originally Posted by TJ Kazunga View Post

      By the way, one thing I like about your network is the idea that you can rank websites quickly but how does that compare to sending high PR links (the same thing in effect no - bar a few differences but still)?

      Also, another question, how many client websites do you find one network can support before the outgoing links get too "diluted" and you have to build a new network?
      TJ,
      I have read your previous posts (and also have followed the entire thread for a long time). The one thing you will come to realize sooner or later (as most offline SEO'ers will) ... it is this: SEO activities, page ranking for gurgle maps/places, local seo for customers IS a control issue. When you mentioned your dislike of Marcos' methods to controlling the customer's site ranking by controling the backlinks, etc., well, that presumed that you control how the customer ranks and they had paid for it, so they deserved to keep it.

      === Please understand, I'm not bashing you or your method. I'm talking "internet reality" with you. OKAY? =====

      The fact is you don't control whatever you are doing for that client. You have ceded control to gurgle and other SE's. You are following their guidelines. Ok, but it's their plan and their control.

      So, that's point #1. You are not in control!! You just think you are.

      Point #2 - Assume you have some plumber clients in London. Assume that I can do the same thing Marcos can (and I can, and, I have been building optimized network of sites since 2004). I pick 7 plumbers for the first tier sites (Marcos calls them his base sites), and in 3 days, I dominate GP and the GM places. In 10 days, my 7 plumbers are dominating much of the first three pages of the organic SERP. In 30 days, your plumbers can't be found.

      What do you do? How do you reply to your clients' questions about "why am i paying you all this money... blah blah..." Do you blame gurgle? Do you promise to have them back up in 30 days?

      Now that's what will be happening to all of the local SEO's who follow your general strategy. Customers will vanish. Maybe that begins to happen in 6 months or 1 year or 2 years ... but it is inevitable.

      Now, let's look at your earlier statement about "the customer paid for the ranking ... they should keep it."

      They bought a service, not a product. That is, they bought gasoline/petrol. They didn't buy the car!! Yes, you need both to have a functional vehicle. They already have a car(website) that isn't or can't go anywhere without your service(gasoline).

      My Point #3 is that this a SERVICE !!! That service must be re-filled at regular intervals, and, if you are really good at it, then my example with 7 plumbers above won't even phase your client's listing.

      Look at it this way, I have relevant long tail KW rankings on first page of gurgle for domains that don't have even a home page ... it's not even a website. If you go there, it returns hostgators error page! LOL

      They still get 300-400 hits per month. Now that's my proof of how important seo is when done correctly in a huge way.

      One of the first lessons I learned about the internet business, about 10 years ago, is to go massively huge as fast as you can ... and then scale even bigger from that point forward. That is analogous to the difference between how the first Gulf war was fought against Iraq's Saddam and the 2nd one 12 years later. The first was over and done in days by using massive array of forces in size, weapons and technologies. The 2nd was a display of the falacy of putting cost over victory. The latter has cost tons more and was less effective. John Major got it ... and likely got it from Maggie, too. Go big. Go massive and go for permanent victory. Unfortunately Bush #41 didn't get that last part. We ended up fighting the 2nd war unnecessarily. Stupid, imho.

      So, my opinion is for you to sell the customer the high grade SEO gasoline, because that is what comes out of the massive network you have built. Then you can easily dominate SERP for as long as you want.

      Cheers mate.

      TB

      By the way, your question above, "how does that compare to sending high PR links", is mooted by the fact that the 1st tier sites are becoming and do become high PR sites. So too, are the 2nd tier sites.

      I know you are getting this now, aren't you? Thought so.
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  • Profile picture of the author reboot38
    Best post I've read yet. I've been on the fence for months regarding local seo and lead gen sites. I think I just found the motivation to move forward. Btw, I'm from indy...you too? If so, I'll have to find another city to exploit - there may be too much competition here

    If you were ever to write a post covering the many ways to get clients - I'd be all ears

    Thanks!!
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanjm
    This is a brilliant way to go about it. Coming into this as a successful affiliate marketer, I can easily rank a client's site in a local city for almost any niche, but this method makes it so that I have permanent virtual real estate with almost limitless potential.

    Plus, I would say that this method would make it 100x easier to get new business versus trying to sell someone on that $5k SEO service. It's more like handing them money and asking if they'd like to keep it. Plus, that whole psychological "loss aversion" thing kicks in where people hate to lose what they already have. That's much easier to sell than trying to convince someone to take a risk on something they don't understand.

    Also thanks for the tip on city size selection. We kinda screwed up our first 6 sites because we purchased a WSO that explained the rent-a-site method but said "go after any niche, rank #1 and jump local easily!" Bad idea. We went after the goldmine industries in medium/large cities for the first 4, which were a bitch to rank 1st page....terrible analysis before we started. Then the next 2 we decided to go after niches we could take #1 with no effort....but those cities had populations of like 50-75,000. No traffic. So finally with the newest 2 we went after populations of around 150,000+ and in moderately competitive niches. Those are coming along nicely and should be ready to sell in a couple of weeks.
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  • Profile picture of the author J R Salem
    Marcos,

    I'd like to do this rather than what I currently do. However, I have always outsourced the creation of sites or used sitebuilders.

    If I wanted to outsource this entire process, from creating the money sites, to creating the feeder sites, to creating the network that feeds the feeders, and get the money sites ranked....what would be your suggestion?

    I know I could learn how over a few months, but I am doing well and would rather outsource and pay an organization or individual to build this network for me.

    Is this possible, and if so.....how?
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by Jeremy S View Post

      Marcos,

      I'd like to do this rather than what I currently do. However, I have always outsourced the creation of sites or used sitebuilders.

      If I wanted to outsource this entire process, from creating the money sites, to creating the feeder sites, to creating the network that feeds the feeders, and get the money sites ranked....what would be your suggestion?

      I know I could learn how over a few months, but I am doing well and would rather outsource and pay an organization or individual to build this network for me.

      Is this possible, and if so.....how?
      You're probably not going to like my answer but I'm going to give it to you anyway.

      If you're serious about this business, you can't be hampered by anything. You have to know how to do it all. Not that in the end you'll be doing it all, but it's better if you know what has to happen to get things done. When I hire someone I know how much time it should take so I don't get taken advantage of.

      It doesn't take months to learn how to do this. It will take a weekend if you really try. Wordpress is free, you can get all kinds of themes free, you can get some of the best plugins free.

      What you'll find is your time commitment becomes much smaller as you get better at building your network. I can personally build 20 sites into my network in around 3-4 hours. Buy the domains, set up the hosting accounts, move over a backupbuddy instance, edit them. Throw some content in and go.

      Don't make the excuse of it takes too long to learn how to build your own sites. It really doesn't. Get on Lynda.com and watch some videos it's not really all that hard at all.

      Just do it man, in a week you'll be a pro and selling sites on Flippa.

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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      • Profile picture of the author J R Salem
        Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

        You're probably not going to like my answer but I'm going to give it to you anyway.

        If you're serious about this business, you can't be hampered by anything. You have to know how to do it all. Not that in the end you'll be doing it all, but it's better if you know what has to happen to get things done. When I hire someone I know how much time it should take so I don't get taken advantage of.

        It doesn't take months to learn how to do this. It will take a weekend if you really try. Wordpress is free, you can get all kinds of themes free, you can get some of the best plugins free.

        What you'll find is your time commitment becomes much smaller as you get better at building your network. I can personally build 20 sites into my network in around 3-4 hours. Buy the domains, set up the hosting accounts, move over a backupbuddy instance, edit them. Throw some content in and go.

        Don't make the excuse of it takes too long to learn how to build your own sites. It really doesn't. Get on Lynda.com and watch some videos it's not really all that hard at all.

        Just do it man, in a week you'll be a pro and selling sites on Flippa.

        Marcos
        I love honest feedback!

        My only concern is that I devote roughly 9 hours a day to my current business model. That's why I considered outsourcing. But I guess taking an extra hour or two a day wouldnt hurt!

        I'm going to go step by step through your initial post. That is the most thorough, organized one you have...correct?
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        • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
          Originally Posted by Jeremy S View Post

          I love honest feedback!

          My only concern is that I devote roughly 9 hours a day to my current business model. That's why I considered outsourcing. But I guess taking an extra hour or two a day wouldnt hurt!

          I'm going to go step by step through your initial post. That is the most thorough, organized one you have...correct?
          If I were you I wouldn't try to do it in an hour or two a day. The drop off is too great in the knowledge from where you leave off and pick up on the next day. I'd literally spend a weekend or two days building websites. That immersion would be what would get you to the next level.

          And yeah the first post is pivotal. Although I'd like to think there are a few nuggets here and there in my responses to questions.

          Marcos
          Signature
          We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

          Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author jamepirc
    Hi there Marcos,

    You're business plan seems like an effective one. Thus, I will try this strategy of yours as I will apply this with my business career.

    Thanks for sharing,

    Jame
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  • Profile picture of the author Caper224
    Great info, definitely going to add it as a new wrinkle to my clients campaigns
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  • Profile picture of the author volaer
    These SEO link models are really great... Very helpful indeed. Been applying them for a while and they are very effective.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarketingZen
      Excellent post this, thanks Marcos.
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  • Profile picture of the author alexfoxymoron
    I like to say this blog is really very interesting upon SEO topics, and also very informative one.

    Thanks..! Alex
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  • Profile picture of the author anthonyjames
    Is this something similar to link wheels?

    AJ
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  • Profile picture of the author stuartpeterson
    It should be like this. It's a lot harder to rank the original site. Let's say I can rank Bob's site with 100 good incoming links, I might need 400-1,000 sites to my 25 sites that then point to Bob's site to get the same results. This is the main thing for it.
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  • Profile picture of the author mattfraser
    Hello Marcos,

    This is a great strategy, thanks for sharing. I personally think that everyone should control their online real estate as a client could easily get you to do all the work and then say "See Ya Later"

    That being said, one thing that I would add is creating a website such as atlantalocalbusinesshub.com and adding your listings to that site as well and use it to get new prospects.

    Again, thanks for sharing.

    Matt
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  • Profile picture of the author anthonyjames
    Is it easy to get the client to buy more from you if you give them a cheap web site?

    AJ
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  • Profile picture of the author Shanti10
    Brilliant, brilliant thread, thank you for your time Marcos.

    Just one question; these base sites you build, did I read that you get automated content?, isnt that a no go now with google?, will they not penalise you for that?

    Thanks in anticipation.
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  • Profile picture of the author RandyRandola
    Nicely done and laid out.

    I do this for each client (not to your extent) and have been toying with my own citation sources for a few months now.

    This spurs me on to get it done.
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  • Profile picture of the author bdavisx
    So I'm curious, for the first ring of "non-money" sites, do you use paid links and other paid SEO to get them ranked -- I'm not talking about the .info sites, I understand that you can use some iffy techniques with those. But what about the sites that you own and control and point to your client's sites. What do you do to get them ranked -- totally squeaky clean stuff or some automated iffy things?
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  • Profile picture of the author tapont71
    I just recently have gotten into offline marketing and gotta say..this is by far one of the best breakdowns of explaining SEO plan. I will be working on this definitely.

    Thanks for the valuable information.
    Signature

    We are the top painting company in Jacksonville Florida. Come check us out and see how we can help with your painting needs.

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  • Profile picture of the author oldboy2000
    Thanks Marcos,
    You are to the point and very realistic. I've tried some of what you cover and it works very well for me.
    Thanks again.
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  • This is one of my favorite threads. It really does work...even with just 1 SITE! In my local area, I've got a "general" domain built...it still have no PR, but it gives an instant link to sites, and with low comp niches, I'm #1 ranking just from an index and link from my 1 site. Now, I just need to build another 10 sites for my immediate region, and I'm off to the races!
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  • Profile picture of the author Gourmet Gifts
    Yeah, it can be such an unrewarding policy.

    Just getting noticed a few times is often good enough.

    Isn't it?
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  • Profile picture of the author joinmyclub
    Great post sir Marcos, I will surely try this plan of yours. Very unique plan system.
    Signature
    Watch latest online movies for FREE!
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  • Profile picture of the author J R Salem
    Marcos, could this product be used for your business model? Seems you could crank out the sites all in a day!

    http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-software.html

    Please let me know. Thnx.
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Shanti10- Just one question; these base sites you build, did I read that you get automated content?, isnt that a no go now with google?, will they not penalise you for that?

      I haven't seen it yet, although I suppose it's possible. I worry more about what I see and less about what Mr Cutts tells people.

      So I'm curious, for the first ring of "non-money" sites, do you use paid links and other paid SEO to get them ranked -- I'm not talking about the .info sites, I understand that you can use some iffy techniques with those. But what about the sites that you own and control and point to your client's sites. What do you do to get them ranked -- totally squeaky clean stuff or some automated iffy things?

      There isn't much I do that isn't automated, when you're in the hundreds of sites you own and maintain, hand crafting links and content just isn't possible or even feasible. I don't have an issue however with well crafted spun content using article marketing robot and the like.

      Mrdvd-1. What kind of content can we add? For example: WP Robot, or UAW

      2. How many links at max in the blogroll?

      3. What kind of inbound links? Can we have any, like xrumor and thinks like that?

      1. Whatever doesn't matter as long as you can get it indexed and keep it indexed.
      2. No idea, I have as little as 2-3 and as many as 20.
      3. Spam away, worse that can happen is you get a few banned. Unlikely but it could happen. I have autoblogs with 1 Million profile links to it that got to PR5 and that Google uses up 2GB of bandwidth a month indexing me.

      Jeremy SMarcos, could this product be used for your business model? Seems you could crank out the sites all in a day!

      ONLY 2 Left - OFFER CLOSING - Create Monetized Niche Affiliate Sites In Minutes! (Software)

      I like variety in my sites, certainly can't hurt.
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author jmorris18
    Some Great Info - Thanks..
    Signature

    Jason Morris

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  • Profile picture of the author savita241
    Hey MRomeo09,
    pretty cool post, we really got lot of knowledge... thanks to sharing.
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  • Profile picture of the author nazee
    hey thanx for this dtailed discribtion it shows your home work.i inspired.
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  • Profile picture of the author vfactor
    First I would say very nice and practical method and possible to implement it and I know it works well.
    Thanks for sharing
    Vijay
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    • Profile picture of the author pirondi
      Marcos what kind of content you use on your buffer sites ?

      Auto blogs or unique content ?
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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        Originally Posted by pirondi View Post

        Marcos what kind of content you use on your buffer sites ?

        Auto blogs or unique content ?
        A little of both really. I'd say about a third of them are autoblogs. The rest are all different kinds of sites. I have directory sites, regular blogs, static html sites, article directories, database sites(look at Blue Hat SEO for more info on this). I'll do about anything that can get indexed. I do use unique content on some sites in an attempt to create link bait.

        However, it gets very expensive to build hundreds of sites with unique content. So you're forced to use generated data. I sometimes do a little of both, i.e. pre-write blog posts that get posted alongside autoblog content.

        For instance yesterday we set up 5 new sites. With 3 months of content scheduled to post once a week, and once a week it will post an autoblog post. So it's a mixture of both. In six months we'll have 50 posts or so and should be able to hit PR 2-3 with any luck.

        However, there seems to be a HUGE preoccupation with what I do with my sites. It's really irrelevant. You can do whatever you want. The name of the game is building sites that will assist you in your battle with the SERP's. Content is content is content. Anything goes, it doesn't even have to be 100% related. I have sites that are all about Lindsey Lohan, yet I don't sell anything Lindsey Lohan.

        My entire point of this original post is that you should control your links, so filter all links to client properties through properties you own. You don't want your properties to outrank your clients properties, just to help in ranking what you do want ranked.

        Marcos
        Signature
        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

        Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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        • Profile picture of the author SirThomas
          Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

          In six months we'll have 50 posts or so and should be able to hit PR 2-3 with any luck.

          Marcos
          Marcos, do you have any specific formula to get your blog to PR2-3 with only 50 posts? Could you expand on this, please? Give some pointers...


          Thomas
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          • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
            Originally Posted by SirThomas View Post

            Marcos, do you have any specific formula to get your blog to PR2-3 with only 50 posts? Could you expand on this, please? Give some pointers...


            Thomas
            They all do in six months to a year without a whole lot of effort. Every now and again I'll blast it with something less than white, but that's about it. If you're building a fairly large site and get a few dozen to hundred links in, you'll hit PR2-3 without doing anything earth shattering. I think PR 2-3 is pretty easy to get. PR5-6 now that's a whole different ball game altogether.

            Marcos
            Signature
            We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

            Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author dtaylor
    Great post and ideas.

    Local is generally fairly easy to rank for, especially if you can start with a fresh website and do seo from the ground up. Quite often I can own every search term within just a short period of time.

    It is an interesting idea to actually OWN the primary link sites.....it creates an extra, unspoken level of dependence.

    Thanks,
    DTaylor
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  • Profile picture of the author sconlinemarketing
    What software do you use for your scheduled auto posts? Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author bridgells
    Wonderful post. Thank you.

    Only today I was saying I didn't feel I was thinking big enough...I'm not sure I understand it wholly but I always knew I didn't have a proper, concrete grasp on link building so I see this as the next part of my SEO education.

    If you lived in the UK I'd send you some very delicious home-made fudge as a very big thank you.

    Bridget
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Thanks Marcos for your reply. It's still very early days for my SEO empire but hopefully a year from now (maybe even as little as 6-8 months) I can have a respectable Local SEO empire.

    For now my monetization strategy is to use pay per call CPA since I was getting incredibly frustrated and impatient trying to convince local businesses they needed me.

    It's kind of off to a slow start but I intend to scale it up using your Local SEO empire blueprint outlined here.

    Thanks so much for this thread because without it I wouldn't be having the small success (hopefully it will be a big success) I'm currently having.
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    And while I have you on here (I notice you're not on here alot) because I'm in the beginning stages of my pyramid, how would the pyramid look when I'm trying to rank a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on money site in completely different industries but maybe in the city and/or same industry but different cities?

    The picture in the OP was extremely helpful in getting me to understand how the link pyramid works but now I'm a little bit confused/lost as to how ranking another money site would work when it's either going to be in a different city or a different industry?
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      And while I have you on here (I notice you're not on here alot) because I'm in the beginning stages of my pyramid, how would the pyramid look when I'm trying to rank a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on money site in completely different industries but maybe in the city and/or same industry but different cities?

      The picture in the OP was extremely helpful in getting me to understand how the link pyramid works but now I'm a little bit confused/lost as to how ranking another money site would work when it's either going to be in a different city or a different industry?
      Ok, so let's say you have a Miami Plumber and now you want to get a Miami Carpet Cleaner ranked. I'd link directly from the plumbing site to the carpet cleaning. Generally I'll create a very keyword rich blog post that will have 3-4 links to my carpet cleaning site. Then I'll create a bunch of links to that post, usually very low quality profile links, or scrapebox links. Make sense?

      And then because I built a second level below the Miami Plumber I might own sites that are directories of Miami businesses, those would obviously get the links to the Carpet Cleaning sites.

      I can do three way link exchanges. I can link from my PR3 Miami Plumbing site to 4-5 other plumbers in other markets in exchange for a page I build that goes to my carpet cleaning site.

      I'll also expand my 2nd and 3rd tier to encompass things closer to my carpet cleaning site. So I might create a site called CarpetCleaningTips.com(not really). And build that up, and use that as a link magnet as well as linking back to my carpet cleaning site.

      Does that make sense? I'm busted after 7 hours of client meetings.

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author jpete
    Great post Marcos
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Thanks Marcos for your response. I know for now I need to worry about ranking the first site I have for the 25+ keywords I'm going after.

    Will probably take me a few months to rank for some of the keywords I'm going after (hopefully all of them) but I just want to know what my next steps should be ahead of time for the next sites I rank for multiple keywords.

    Again thank you for the clarification and the great information Marcos.
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Marcos,

    Would you ever link base sites together?

    For example, linking base sites for the Miami plumber to base sites for the Miami carpet cleaner?

    Or linking your Miami plumber base sites to each other and linking your Miami carpet cleaner base sites to each other...would you do that or is that not a good idea?

    I know you're probably exhausted from your meetings and all the questions you get on a continuous basis so I don't expect a response right away...

    And again, thanks Marcos.
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      Marcos,

      Would you ever link base sites together?

      For example, linking base sites for the Miami plumber to base sites for the Miami carpet cleaner?

      Or linking your Miami plumber base sites to each other and linking your Miami carpet cleaner base sites to each other...would you do that or is that not a good idea?

      I know you're probably exhausted from your meetings and all the questions you get on a continuous basis so I don't expect a response right away...

      And again, thanks Marcos.
      I've always thought people worried about their outgoing links too much. I don't make it a pattern to link across all my sites. But yeah I can link between my money sites. I don't really have a formula for when I do or don't.

      Mostly if you build your pyramid up right you won't have to.

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author DNChamp
    bookmarked for future read
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  • Profile picture of the author link82
    Really good stuff here. Sounds like a lot of work but even if taken slowly, could be quite beneficial within the year or two.

    I was already thinking of doing that for the local community here but now it just makes sense. Lots of control this way.
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    Quietly Selling Powerful Links. Just a handful on clean domains, PM me for inquiry :D
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    And Marcos I'll try to make this my last question.

    From your own experience/educated opinion, about how long/what time frame would it take just starting out to rank one 1-page money site (lead capture page with some content) for 25+ keyword phrases that are not very competitive (on a scale of 1 to 10 these keywords are about a 4) if I have 11 base sites and I eventually get about 300-500 low to medium quality backlinks to those base sites?

    I'm already on the first page of Google for 1 keyword phrase and page 2 for about 3 or 4 other keyword phrases after only starting my link pyramid for about 1 week (granted the money site I created back in July and it was already ranking on the first page for 1 keyword phrase already).
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      And Marcos I'll try to make this my last question.

      From your own experience/educated opinion, about how long/what time frame would it take just starting out to rank one 1-page money site (lead capture page with some content) for 25+ keyword phrases that are not very competitive (on a scale of 1 to 10 these keywords are about a 4) if I have 11 base sites and I eventually get about 300-500 low to medium quality backlinks to those base sites?

      I'm already on the first page of Google for 1 keyword phrase and page 2 for about 3 or 4 other keyword phrases after only starting my link pyramid for about 1 week (granted the money site I created back in July and it was already ranking on the first page for 1 keyword phrase already).

      So far for the month of October I've captured 12 leads at $10 per lead but I want to rank for the other keyword phrases to possibly increase the number of leads I get per month.

      And I'll try to make this my last question about building my Local SEO empire.
      It's really hard to say.

      First off I don't like 1 page sites. I think Google hates them as well. If I were you. I'd build keyword specific pages, and run all links to your internal links. You can hide the navigation from users in all different kinds of ways so that it looks still like a one page site.

      So for instance if I was ranking Ocala Roofing. I might have a pages like: http://www.ocalaroofing.com/commercialroofingocala/
      http://www.ocalaroofing.com/roofingcontractorocala/
      http://www.ocalaroofing.com/roofingrepairsocala/

      Now all of your links don't go to your homepage but instead go to your internal pages. It allows you to get double listings, etc. It's all around better. And they you sculpt the on-page SEO so that they are getting exactly modeled data to Google for exactly your keywords.

      Just keep building, make sure you have analytics in place so you can see which pages are converting. All I can tell you is it takes as long as it takes. I usually do overkill on my sites so that it kills it. That's what I'd recommend. Keep in mind, these sites can be used to link to your next site as well.

      Also make sure you're doing A/B testing for conversions. Remember it's not just about traffic but also making sure your site converts to a lead as well. You can oftentimes double your leads just by spending time with conversions. Does video work, and does it matter where it is? Do browsers respond better to a face of a female vs a male, a family vs a business man, etc.

      HTH,

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author markvin2205
    When creating links to my other sites (not the client site), lets say the site is called HowToFixThingsInTacoma, when i do the backlinks, is the anchor text How to Fix THings in Tacoma, OR just Plumbing Tacoma?
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by markvin2205 View Post

      When creating links to my other sites (not the client site), lets say the site is called HowToFixThingsInTacoma, when i do the backlinks, is the anchor text How to Fix THings in Tacoma, OR just Plumbing Tacoma?
      Backlinks TO HowToFixThingsInTacoma can be whatever. It's kind of irrelevant. Thematically I suppose I'd prefer to have them be somewhat relevant. But it really doesn't matter. And of course when you link to your money site you're going to be using your keyword rich anchor phrases.
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author Daedalus
    Great read.

    However, I am interested in a few things:

    1. How are your bottom pages doing considering the Panda update? Has it devalued your juice? Any PR losses? I sure expect that level to go down like a house of cards.

    2. What is the diminishing return on the juice if you add a 4th level to the pyramid for absolute junk links?

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
    I want to comment on this threat, I took action IMMEDIATELY after I read this post for the first time, here are some of the tools I have been using:

    a) To add content to my sites I have used a plug in from Unique Article Wizard, this plug in sends you as many articles you want for any keyword or category you want.

    b) They have another plug in that helps you to send you articles to blogs on the blogger platform, but here you will receive just 5 articles per day maximum (I will recommend you not to put adsense on these articles, because every time I have put adsense, it has attracted so much heat from Google and they have finishing banning these sites)

    c) I was having problems indexing several pages at the same time, the best way I have found to get index faster are: creating an RSS feed from the site and sent it to RSSfeed directories and use twitter to tweet my new posts.

    d) The service I use to "automate" the tweets is HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard for Teams using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin

    This strategy works like gold, thanks for the post MRomeo09, I am buying your WSO right now and even it is far away from my "WSO confort zone" I know you have delivered wold for free, I can not wait to see what you deliver when we pay.

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author EugeneA
    Solid outline, and really informative. Well done.
    Signature

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  • Profile picture of the author FidelityNat
    I have read everything, from the beginning to the end. And I have realised that this is the scheme like the most SEO people work in my country. They all have networks of sites. We just call them satellites.
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  • Profile picture of the author MrSDPromo
    Wow, great info!
    Signature
    Jake Widmer
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    • Profile picture of the author Bojacked
      Great info Marcos. I'm just trying to get my head around SEO and your post really gave me a good start into learning what I need to improve in many areas. I think as long as you build your pyramid of sites with mid level sites that are providing a real value for your industry or niche then regardless of what slaps gurgle passes down you can be assured you will be okay.

      A big thanks for taking the time to share this with the warriors. It has helped me a lot already and sort of changed my focus a little. It makes sense to start building real estate and resources that provide value for surfers in different industries. Granted, it's not another "Press this shiny button and watch your bank account go through the roof!" plan and I think that's what makes it valuable.

      Can you share your biggest hiccup along this path with us? I think that would be valuable to hear about a speed bump you conquered along the way.

      Cheers to your continued success.
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  • Profile picture of the author ediakosmisi
    Interesting.
    Thanks for sharing
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  • Profile picture of the author ballanrk
    Forgive me if I overlooked this but does anyone have some suggestions as to what would be an ideal main website to encompass all the incoming links as the last layer before the clients website?

    For example:

    All your layered websites, posts, articles, etc backlinking through the layers to your MAIN WEBSITE as the last layer before your clients website. For instance Atlanta business dot com(made up) linking to your clients website and your other links coming into the Atlanta business dot com.

    I'm trying to come up with a website that makes since and can grow. Kind of like a business directory, about the city, What to do, etc type website that holds the key so to speak to the clients websites. That way you can hit the backlinking sites with different SEO techniques while having a viable MAIN WEBSITE that may work as advertisment or whatever to make money on.

    Thanks for any suggestions
    Signature
    POP the Champagne cork I can PM now!

    Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it......


    -Henry David Thoreau
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  • Profile picture of the author l33tp4n3g3
    I have a group of local sites that are about to get to #1 (I set them up and turned to an online project and two months later I'm pretty pleased). In any case, I planned to set up a lead capture system much like you discuss in another thread (the disconnected phone number thread), but increasingly I'm leaning toward a straight rental of ad space -- exclusive ad space for a relevant local business. It's a lot more simple though probably less money than selling leads, however, my thought is that I should keep it simple now as I "build my empire," then perhaps in six months or so, convert the higher traffic sites into lead generation sites and sell leads. By then I'll have at least one client in that niche who appreciates the value of ranking well in Google.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dana Haenner
      I am working on a similar setup and line of thinking...ad space etc..would love to chat pm or discuss here I have 50 geo targeted high transaction value local URLs most have wp on them..directory plugins on many and having the rest setup, aging , build page depth then seo.......thoughts? Strategies?
      Great thread!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author markcamp
    Great post
    thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
    Sorry to bother you again Marcos but I have another question for you and it's still about outbound links from the base sites to the money site.

    Might be kind of a dumb question but I'd rather it be clarified now then know that I either made a mistake or could've made things easier on myself from the very beginning.

    Don't know how to word this question without providing an example.

    Let's say I have a 1-page base site that's linking to my 1-page money site, and the way I'm linking from that base site to the money site is through a blogroll on the base site.

    I wouldn't be able to have more than 1 anchor text link in the blogroll from that base site to the money site since the base site is only 1 page and the money site is 1 page correct?

    Only 1 anchor text link would be counted right? Because having 2 or more anchor text links in the blogroll from that 1-page base site to the 1-page money site wouldn't count since all the links from the blogroll would be linking to the same exact page?

    And if you ever decide to do another WSO I would love it if you'd do a WSO that goes into more detail about building this 'Local SEO Empire' that you describe in this thread; I'd pay $27+ for that information .
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart S
    From what I;ve seen though, will you need to host your sites on different IP's as hosting multiple sites on the same host and linking to the same site isn't as valuable?
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  • Profile picture of the author dms321
    This is a cool post. My summary is the following:
    - Build sites with your local town keyword in the domain name. Diversify them in terms of relating to different niches as well as some general topic sites.
    - Rank them with your client's money.
    - Use them to get more money from the current client and get more new clients.

    Obvious advantage is that they are your sites. And with time and more and more links to them they increase their rankings. Great. Then indeed you can sell links from these sites. I guess it does require much work, but you can use client's money to outsource it. Of course, some advanced techniques are mentioned (like xrumer). You can use them without building your sites. So the extra step requiring time and effort is building those sites. But the advantage is tremendous.

    Great post. But for those who don't use advanced techniques, it would probably be difficult to rank you site quickly. But in any case - awesome.
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  • Profile picture of the author mcdc2000
    Romeo,

    If you want to build network of your site as you mentioned on this thread.

    What kind of server do you use? Dedi, VPS, different C-Class host, or different reseller hosting.

    A lot of people using different c-class ip hosting services but seems like there is no reliable hosting company actually deliver c-class host.

    How do you recommend it.
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by ballanrk View Post

      Forgive me if I overlooked this but does anyone have some suggestions as to what would be an ideal main website to encompass all the incoming links as the last layer before the clients website?

      For example:

      All your layered websites, posts, articles, etc backlinking through the layers to your MAIN WEBSITE as the last layer before your clients website. For instance Atlanta business dot com(made up) linking to your clients website and your other links coming into the Atlanta business dot com.

      I'm trying to come up with a website that makes since and can grow. Kind of like a business directory, about the city, What to do, etc type website that holds the key so to speak to the clients websites. That way you can hit the backlinking sites with different SEO techniques while having a viable MAIN WEBSITE that may work as advertisment or whatever to make money on.

      Thanks for any suggestions
      Whatever you can think of for the last level. If I'm working on a bunch of plumbing sites, I might have a Plumbing tips website or a DIY plumbing website. If I'm working on a bunch of different sites in Tacoma for instance, then I'll do some Tacoma sites, like a best places to see in Tacoma site, or a business guide for Tacoma. Make sense?

      Originally Posted by Bojacked View Post

      Great info Marcos. I'm just trying to get my head around SEO and your post really gave me a good start into learning what I need to improve in many areas. I think as long as you build your pyramid of sites with mid level sites that are providing a real value for your industry or niche then regardless of what slaps gurgle passes down you can be assured you will be okay.

      A big thanks for taking the time to share this with the warriors. It has helped me a lot already and sort of changed my focus a little. It makes sense to start building real estate and resources that provide value for surfers in different industries. Granted, it's not another "Press this shiny button and watch your bank account go through the roof!" plan and I think that's what makes it valuable.

      Can you share your biggest hiccup along this path with us? I think that would be valuable to hear about a speed bump you conquered along the way.

      Cheers to your continued success.
      I have some funny ones. I had 50 domains that were registered at namecheap that expired and I didn't notice for a few months. Almost all of them were bought out from under me, they were generally PR2-4 sites sadly.

      On occasion Google will put you into the no mans land. I had a PR5 site that got deindexed and took me 3 months to build back up. Just kept building quality links.

      Honestly, your biggest issue is getting started, just do something, do anything to build up your network, it will take off on it's own.

      Originally Posted by brittlesnc View Post

      Sorry to bother you again Marcos but I have another question for you and it's still about outbound links from the base sites to the money site.

      Might be kind of a dumb question but I'd rather it be clarified now then know that I either made a mistake or could've made things easier on myself from the very beginning.

      Don't know how to word this question without providing an example.

      Let's say I have a 1-page base site that's linking to my 1-page money site, and the way I'm linking from that base site to the money site is through a blogroll on the base site.

      I wouldn't be able to have more than 1 anchor text link in the blogroll from that base site to the money site since the base site is only 1 page and the money site is 1 page correct?

      Only 1 anchor text link would be counted right? Because having 2 or more anchor text links in the blogroll from that 1-page base site to the 1-page money site wouldn't count since all the links from the blogroll would be linking to the same exact page?

      And if you ever decide to do another WSO I would love it if you'd do a WSO that goes into more detail about building this 'Local SEO Empire' that you describe in this thread; I'd pay $27+ for that information .
      Yeah, I wouldn't generally do more than one link in the blogroll or the footer or whatever to your money site. However, for final links to the money site, I'm a big fan of in context, in the middle of relevant content link to the money site, it's 10x more useful than a blogroll link. I usually use footer, blogroll links somewhere higher up in my pyramid.

      HTH

      Originally Posted by JacksonRiddle View Post

      From what I;ve seen though, will you need to host your sites on different IP's as hosting multiple sites on the same host and linking to the same site isn't as valuable?
      Originally Posted by mcdc2000 View Post

      Romeo,

      If you want to build network of your site as you mentioned on this thread.

      What kind of server do you use? Dedi, VPS, different C-Class host, or different reseller hosting.

      A lot of people using different c-class ip hosting services but seems like there is no reliable hosting company actually deliver c-class host.

      How do you recommend it.
      I kind of dealt with this on the first page, I suggest you read that and let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks

      Sorry for taking so long to respond everyone, didn't notice the replies.

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author BarbaraP
    Great action tips and "what works" on how to set up SEO and get pages ranked for local search in niches. Thanks Romeo!
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  • Profile picture of the author tigerbait
    Hey Marcos,

    This is awesome info bro! I bought your rental site wso and it's fantastic. Have been trying to figure out what market and the best way to go about things, and that lead me here, and now I have even mo' questions than I have answers.

    Currently, I have 1 dental client, and 3 "base" sites related to dentists and 6 "base" sites that are not related to dentist. The non related sites are domains that I already owned, and set them up as test feeder/base sites several months ago.

    All of the sites are WP blogs.
    All of the sites have LPN (landing page ninja) installed
    All of the sites have a plugin that combines with LPN that helps get near instant local rankings
    All sites have core conversion plugin installed.

    My question is this:

    Since the summer (before my dental client), I've just been testing stuff.

    Well, the 6 non-related base/feeder sites currently rank in the top 7 spots on the first page of google for eye exam in city (from my tests).

    Currently I have the core conversions set up on all the sites pointing toward a page I created (unbeknownst to him) for an eye doctor I know. (the page is really ugly. It's basically a page hosting a print ad I found for him that scanned onto my computer).

    The sites are all fitness/fat loss/sports related.

    How in the hell would I go about monetizing this without having to buy up 10-15 eye doctor domains and trying to knock off my own pages?

    I mean, I own 5-7 listings for eye exam in nearly all the surrounding cities as well, but all the pages that are ranked are my fitness/sports related urls - although core conversions allows me to point the pages anywhere I want.

    This wasn't intentional, I just went overboard in my testing not thinking it would be so effective in taking over the google.

    ???

    Thanks,

    T

    P.S. The eye doctor is probably getting a good bit of business with his ugly ad on my site, but I don't know how or what to do to get some $$ from him. I do know that he's currently paying yp.com $120-150+/per month for one of those fancy listings on their pages that's probably not doing diddly squat for him
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  • Profile picture of the author tigerbait
    Also... one of the same fitness/sports domain names has a page listed anywhere from #4 to #9 for random variations of a dental keyword in brooklyn new york... which, uh, is a huge market to concentrate on, but since it's a sports url, I feel kinda weird trying to approach anyone about it.

    ???

    T
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  • Profile picture of the author danielkanuck
    I'm not a pro when it comes to SEO but this post is certainly a course in and of itself. Don't take it down no time soon. In fact, i'm going to bookmark this page. Thanks for the info.
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    • Profile picture of the author Scottish
      Marcos, this is excellent advice, thanks.

      I have a question. Got a potential client I left my card in passing regarding SEO, however he hasn't contacted me yet. Your screenshots in an envelope idea really struck a chord with me. Spending money to get a term ranked (he is a building supplier with multiple branches, so huge SEO scope) as an example of ability sounds like a great idea. Obviously, it's a risk paying for decent SEO to rank the term quickly, only for him to turn round and say he's not interested - but I don't mind that.
      My question is how best to spend the money your willing to invest in the 1 keyword you're trying to impress them with?

      Thanks again.
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      • Profile picture of the author tigerbait
        Originally Posted by Scottish View Post

        Marcos, this is excellent advice, thanks.

        I have a question. Got a potential client I left my card in passing regarding SEO, however he hasn't contacted me yet. Your screenshots in an envelope idea really struck a chord with me. Spending money to get a term ranked (he is a building supplier with multiple branches, so huge SEO scope) as an example of ability sounds like a great idea. Obviously, it's a risk paying for decent SEO to rank the term quickly, only for him to turn round and say he's not interested - but I don't mind that.

        My question is how best to spend the money your willing to invest in the 1 keyword you're trying to impress them with?

        Thanks again.
        Hey Scottish,

        I believe what Marcos is referring to is being able to use his 25 base sites (once they're built up), load up links from the network to the potential client, and brute force them to the top of the serps. So there is no investment other than building up your base sites and adding links.

        Then he contacts them the 2nd time with: "hey check this out, you're #1, and right now it's temporary, but I can make it permanent."

        If the guy isn't interested, the you just pull his links from your base network, and the guy's rankings fall off the map.

        Not sure I would spend money to get someone else's website ranked unless you're just bored.

        T
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  • Thank you! I was just recently thinking of doing something like this for my own business so I can get traffic. My idea was just one simple directory site that sent traffic to my site and a few of my friends sites. You took it a step further and made a nice business plan out of it. The coolest thing is that you are building your empire on other people's dime while still giving them what they want. Sweet!
    Signature

    Charles Riggs

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  • Profile picture of the author tigerbait
    If you want your mind blown, go read that blog post that Marcos linked to in the OP. I believe the posts are made and strategies are for large global niches, but if just a little bit of it was implemented on local sites, you could easily own the first 4 pages of google. If you can figure out what the hell the guy is talking about. When he says advanced, he's not kidding. AT ALL. Never seen anything like it in my life, but it makes total sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alson
    great post thanks , but why not take up a share with their business as well?
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  • Profile picture of the author friendlytf
    That is a nice and quality information
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    • Profile picture of the author mrbanks
      What a great resource, I have read through the entire thread and see that there are a lot of people that are afraid to pull the trigger. My advise to those are to ... pull the trigger. Seriously most of you are over thinking the concept here.

      I believe the concept is just building a mass empire. Use different techniques on different sites and just build. If you get started and just start building you will soon see the effects Marcos is talking about.

      If you need to take the safe route just to dive in, here is my suggestion:

      • Get you a domain related to a local niche
      • Hire someone to write about 10 unique posts from iWriter : Article Writing Service | Get Content For Your Website, Cheap! ( I use them often because you can download the articles in both regular and spin ready and cost as little as $2).
      • Set up a wp blog and set your posts to scheduled posts over 5 or more weeks.
      • buy a couple of links on PR1 sites and then buy a cheap backlink service
      You may be in to this site for about $50 total. But remember this would be just a learning or "breaking the ice" website.


      Once you finally get going you will learn how it is done. Sure it may cost you a little more to get started, but you will be started and hopefully less nervous about it.


      If anything, once it get's some PR you can sell some backlinks on it to recoup your funds.


      Like I said, great post. Many of us have used this to great success and most, myself included were afraid to pull the trigger. But once we did it was well worth it.
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      • Profile picture of the author lockseo
        nice thread finally dealing with some local seo strategy and build private network
        i planing on applying some one my site
        thanks again Markos
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        • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
          Originally Posted by Scottish View Post

          Marcos, this is excellent advice, thanks.

          I have a question. Got a potential client I left my card in passing regarding SEO, however he hasn't contacted me yet. Your screenshots in an envelope idea really struck a chord with me. Spending money to get a term ranked (he is a building supplier with multiple branches, so huge SEO scope) as an example of ability sounds like a great idea. Obviously, it's a risk paying for decent SEO to rank the term quickly, only for him to turn round and say he's not interested - but I don't mind that.
          My question is how best to spend the money your willing to invest in the 1 keyword you're trying to impress them with?

          Thanks again.
          As someone alluded to, you're not really spending money. You're building up your network of sites so that when you want to you can totally manipulate the search engines on your own terms. In most low to medium difficulty industries I can rank someone in 24 hours by introducing their links on my network. I've got some blogs that Google lives on, so I can usually get a page ranked in about 10 minutes and all of the backlinks ranked as well. This blog tends to have Google use up around 200MB of bandwidth a month just indexing the site.

          Originally Posted by tigerbait View Post

          Hey Marcos,

          This is awesome info bro! I bought your rental site wso and it's fantastic. Have been trying to figure out what market and the best way to go about things, and that lead me here, and now I have even mo' questions than I have answers.

          Currently, I have 1 dental client, and 3 "base" sites related to dentists and 6 "base" sites that are not related to dentist. The non related sites are domains that I already owned, and set them up as test feeder/base sites several months ago.

          All of the sites are WP blogs.
          All of the sites have LPN (landing page ninja) installed
          All of the sites have a plugin that combines with LPN that helps get near instant local rankings
          All sites have core conversion plugin installed.

          My question is this:

          Since the summer (before my dental client), I've just been testing stuff.

          Well, the 6 non-related base/feeder sites currently rank in the top 7 spots on the first page of google for eye exam in city (from my tests).

          Currently I have the core conversions set up on all the sites pointing toward a page I created (unbeknownst to him) for an eye doctor I know. (the page is really ugly. It's basically a page hosting a print ad I found for him that scanned onto my computer).

          The sites are all fitness/fat loss/sports related.

          How in the hell would I go about monetizing this without having to buy up 10-15 eye doctor domains and trying to knock off my own pages?

          I mean, I own 5-7 listings for eye exam in nearly all the surrounding cities as well, but all the pages that are ranked are my fitness/sports related urls - although core conversions allows me to point the pages anywhere I want.

          This wasn't intentional, I just went overboard in my testing not thinking it would be so effective in taking over the google.

          ???

          Thanks,

          T

          P.S. The eye doctor is probably getting a good bit of business with his ugly ad on my site, but I don't know how or what to do to get some $$ from him. I do know that he's currently paying yp.com $120-150+/per month for one of those fancy listings on their pages that's probably not doing diddly squat for him
          Lead Gen brother. Or site rental, either one is exactly what you need. Have him create a coupon code so that he knows it comes from you. You have a good problem, sorry I didn't see your post earlier. Find a way to talk to all of the eye doctors in town, someone wants to pay you a lot of money for this work you've done. Good job!

          Originally Posted by tigerbait View Post

          If you want your mind blown, go read that blog post that Marcos linked to in the OP. I believe the posts are made and strategies are for large global niches, but if just a little bit of it was implemented on local sites, you could easily own the first 4 pages of google. If you can figure out what the hell the guy is talking about. When he says advanced, he's not kidding. AT ALL. Never seen anything like it in my life, but it makes total sense.
          Yeah Eli is a brilliant guy. It's sad he doesn't post much anymore. I used to be a member of his paid service, and would talk to him quite a bit. He's freaking smart. I agree with what he said, you need to know a programming language in and out. When you can do some php/mysql/.net you can do some REALLY cool things when you get access to databases. I've created exclusive randomization, seo things that are just killer. And no I ain't sharing.

          I can't recommend the Head First series enough. I use it for my staff who is learning programming. Head First PHP, you can find on Half.com and other places for under $20.

          Originally Posted by mrbanks View Post

          What a great resource, I have read through the entire thread and see that there are a lot of people that are afraid to pull the trigger. My advise to those are to ... pull the trigger. Seriously most of you are over thinking the concept here.

          I believe the concept is just building a mass empire. Use different techniques on different sites and just build. If you get started and just start building you will soon see the effects Marcos is talking about.

          If you need to take the safe route just to dive in, here is my suggestion:

          • Get you a domain related to a local niche
          • Hire someone to write about 10 unique posts from iWriter : Article Writing Service | Get Content For Your Website, Cheap! ( I use them often because you can download the articles in both regular and spin ready and cost as little as $2).
          • Set up a wp blog and set your posts to scheduled posts over 5 or more weeks.
          • buy a couple of links on PR1 sites and then buy a cheap backlink service
          You may be in to this site for about $50 total. But remember this would be just a learning or "breaking the ice" website.


          Once you finally get going you will learn how it is done. Sure it may cost you a little more to get started, but you will be started and hopefully less nervous about it.


          If anything, once it get's some PR you can sell some backlinks on it to recoup your funds.


          Like I said, great post. Many of us have used this to great success and most, myself included were afraid to pull the trigger. But once we did it was well worth it.
          Yeah, you got it. It's really not as big of a deal as people are making it.

          Essentially off page SEO is Site A links to Site B. That's it right?

          With the way I recommend you do it, get Site A to point to Site C(that you control) and then point to Site B that is the client or your money site. What that allows you to do is control the link juice. So that if you pour enough link juice at a site you control so that it can point to SeattlePlumber.com and get it to #1. Then most likely without any additional work you can also get TacomaPlumber.com to rank. It's just a more effective way of link building. Yes it takes more time and costs more money, but the benefits are so worth it.

          I'll be out of the country until the new year so I probably won't see this thread to reply to it. Happy Christmas and Merry New Year all.

          Marcos
          Signature
          We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

          Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author bit twiddler
    Hi Macros,
    KUDOS!
    I have implemented this outline for 6 Real Estate Clients over the past 18 months and I can attest that not only does this work, it works powerfully. As well, this outline can easily be augmented in many ways as to accommodate many other businesses. I have successfully implemented several variations of this outline for a couple of pizza shops with multiple locations, a couple of dentists, a chiropractor, and two restaurants.

    Anyone wanting to up their game offline will do well to study this outline until it is imprinted in your grey matter forever. Make no mistake, this works great!

    Thanks Macros for a solid contribution.
    T J
    Signature
    T J Tutor
    T J Tutor, LLC
    Syracuse, NY 13224
    USA
    315-569-7523
    tj@tjtutor.com
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by rickmor View Post

      This is freaking genius.

      I love the fedex envelope method.
      I love the firewalled effect of implementing black hat stuff on your own websites.

      question, does it take 25 sites to start the empire, or can I be a little less aggressive like with 10 or 15 to start?
      You really can do it with as few as 1 if you really had to. You can do subdomains and just hit a bunch of subdomains. In a low competition niche it's not difficult to do.

      Chances are I might end up finally doing a WSO for this. I get more PM's about this post than anything else I've done.

      Originally Posted by bit twiddler View Post

      Hi Macros,
      KUDOS!
      I have implemented this outline for 6 Real Estate Clients over the past 18 months and I can attest that not only does this work, it works powerfully. As well, this outline can easily be augmented in many ways as to accommodate many other businesses. I have successfully implemented several variations of this outline for a couple of pizza shops with multiple locations, a couple of dentists, a chiropractor, and two restaurants.

      Anyone wanting to up their game offline will do well to study this outline until it is imprinted in your grey matter forever. Make no mistake, this works great!

      Thanks Macros for a solid contribution.
      T J
      Yes it surely does work. It works like gangbusters if you have the fortitude to stick with it.

      It's just playing Chess while everyone else is playing tic-tac-toe. Thinking three moves ahead is usually the best solution.
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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      • Profile picture of the author brittlesnc
        Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post


        Chances are I might end up finally doing a WSO for this. I get more PM's about this post than anything else I've done.

        Yes it surely does work. It works like gangbusters if you have the fortitude to stick with it.

        It's just playing Chess while everyone else is playing tic-tac-toe. Thinking three moves ahead is usually the best solution.
        I'll be on the lookout for when you do a WSO about building a local SEO empire...I would most definitely buy it .
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  • Profile picture of the author Magento developer
    Great job dude! clean and clear explanation.
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    • Profile picture of the author rickmor
      So what is the most cost effective method of implementing this? Right now Im looking at 5 domains, reg at godaddy = $50 per year. I can do a free one page webpage at godaddy for no extra charge, but it is very limited in design. So, a wordpress blog is free, but domain mapping/masking is 12.00 a month per domain. That can get a little expensive real quick. Suggestions?
      Signature

      no agenda

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      • Profile picture of the author bit twiddler
        Originally Posted by rickmor View Post

        So what is the most cost effective method of implementing this? Right now Im looking at 5 domains, reg at godaddy = $50 per year. I can do a free one page webpage at godaddy for no extra charge, but it is very limited in design. So, a wordpress blog is free, but domain mapping/masking is 12.00 a month per domain. That can get a little expensive real quick. Suggestions?

        Hi rickmor,
        I have read so many posted replies to threads, like this one, where some of the Warrior's make a remark like yours. I am not extending any disrespect here, we all need to be respectful of our budgets. However, when one reads about an outlined business model like this one, you do have to expect to put a little in before you take anything out. In fact, the OP made a point of telling how to pyramid the expenses from one client to the next. Clients, as you stack them, actually finance this business model.

        When we try out adwords ads, split test them, analyze and adjust them, we spend hundreds (or more) getting them just right before we kick in a bigger budget. When working out CPA models, I spend more the first two weeks than I make. In fact, I just finished building a new offline marketing platform that cost me several thousand in development before I made a dime. The point is that with a real replication model like this OP's, you will have to come out of pocket for the little stuff up front. Domains, hosting, development, and especially outsourcing as you scale up. If you are worried about shelling out a couple of hundred dollars and a fair amount of time in the beginning, then this model isn't for you. It isn't a "Click Me and Get Rich Overnight" model. This is a real, truly accurate, structured model to do long term and sustainable business. This is a professional outline of how to have a real business that you can can count on for many years to come. When properly implemented, if only with 8 or 10 clients at the end of the year, you could have a sustainable $100k a year easily. My Realtor clients pay me $2k to $3k a month on this model. My Pizza Shops pay me $750 to $1k a month for this. I have medical professionals that pay over $2k a month.

        Just to sum it up once more:
        1. You have to spend a few hundred if you want it up and running quickly.
        2. once up and runnning, your new clients finance the expense of tending the garden and making it bigger and stronger.
        3. Your clients will powerfully dominate their niche.
        4. Because you own the layer(s), you are in control and can turn the power over to a different client anytime you must.
        5. This can be adopted to most any offline and many online niches.
        6. Just imagine what happens to your income when you start to add on, or offer up, the additional services for some of these clients. Stuff like the mobile thing with QR, SMS, proximity marketing, etc.

        I retired from Real Estate, as an Agent, as of Jan 1 2012 because this model works so well. I have been implementing my own versions of this model for the past 2 years. This model pays me more than I could ever hope to make as a top Agent in my area, and it has the potential to rise to a $1M a year business over the next couple of years. The best thing of all, I now work less than 30 hours a week. That will change, because I am driven and I want some truly BIG Success to come back to the forum and share.

        Here's the end of my little diatribe, "don't sweat the little s**t!" Put this to work immediately if you are serious about being an offline consultant. You don't need to worry about saturation, scams, knock-offs, etc. Put it to work today, come back here in a few months and report. I guarantee you will report great success!

        T J
        Signature
        T J Tutor
        T J Tutor, LLC
        Syracuse, NY 13224
        USA
        315-569-7523
        tj@tjtutor.com
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        • Profile picture of the author rickmor
          Originally Posted by bit twiddler View Post

          Hi rickmor,
          I have read so many posted replies to threads, like this one, where some of the Warrior's make a remark like yours. I am not extending any disrespect here, we all need to be respectful of our budgets. However, when one reads about an outlined business model like this one, you do have to expect to put a little in before you take anything out. In fact, the OP made a point of telling how to pyramid the expenses from one client to the next. Clients, as you stack them, actually finance this business model.

          When we try out adwords ads, split test them, analyze and adjust them, we spend hundreds (or more) getting them just right before we kick in a bigger budget. When working out CPA models, I spend more the first two weeks than I make. In fact, I just finished building a new offline marketing platform that cost me several thousand in development before I made a dime. The point is that with a real replication model like this OP's, you will have to come out of pocket for the little stuff up front. Domains, hosting, development, and especially outsourcing as you scale up. If you are worried about shelling out a couple of hundred dollars and a fair amount of time in the beginning, then this model isn't for you. It isn't a "Click Me and Get Rich Overnight" model. This is a real, truly accurate, structured model to do long term and sustainable business. This is a professional outline of how to have a real business that you can can count on for many years to come. When properly implemented, if only with 8 or 10 clients at the end of the year, you could have a sustainable $100k a year easily. My Realtor clients pay me $2k to $3k a month on this model. My Pizza Shops pay me $750 to $1k a month for this. I have medical professionals that pay over $2k a month.

          Just to sum it up once more:
          1. You have to spend a few hundred if you want it up and running quickly.
          2. once up and runnning, your new clients finance the expense of tending the garden and making it bigger and stronger.
          3. Your clients will powerfully dominate their niche.
          4. Because you own the layer(s), you are in control and can turn the power over to a different client anytime you must.
          5. This can be adopted to most any offline and many online niches.
          6. Just imagine what happens to your income when you start to add on, or offer up, the additional services for some of these clients. Stuff like the mobile thing with QR, SMS, proximity marketing, etc.

          I retired from Real Estate, as an Agent, as of Jan 1 2012 because this model works so well. I have been implementing my own versions of this model for the past 2 years. This model pays me more than I could ever hope to make as a top Agent in my area, and it has the potential to rise to a $1M a year business over the next couple of years. The best thing of all, I now work less than 30 hours a week. That will change, because I am driven and I want some truly BIG Success to come back to the forum and share.

          Here's the end of my little diatribe, "don't sweat the little s**t!" Put this to work immediately if you are serious about being an offline consultant. You don't need to worry about saturation, scams, knock-offs, etc. Put it to work today, come back here in a few months and report. I guarantee you will report great success!

          T J
          Bit, all good information indeed and i completely understand the concept of re-investing the clients money to build the infrastructure and i am not concerned about the money. However, as with anything, as you start to build a foundation, you want to be sure that the building blocks you are using are:

          1. Going to do the job
          2. Will be COST EFFECTIVE for long term growth regardless who's money it is that is being used.

          So, I know my initial question may have come across as if I was trying to PO-BOY this thing, but that is not what I had intended. Really what I need to know is; does a wordpress blog work good for this type of thing and is the $12 to $15 a month per blog for domain masking the best way to go?
          Signature

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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        Originally Posted by rickmor View Post

        So what is the most cost effective method of implementing this? Right now Im looking at 5 domains, reg at godaddy = $50 per year. I can do a free one page webpage at godaddy for no extra charge, but it is very limited in design. So, a wordpress blog is free, but domain mapping/masking is 12.00 a month per domain. That can get a little expensive real quick. Suggestions?
        The whole premise is that it isn't your dime. The premise is that you have a client and you actually spend all of the money that they give you monthly to build up your own network. If they are paying you $300 a month, what can you do with $300 every month? Think it through. If you are paid to get a dentist to #1 what is the most effective way of achieving that with NO money out of your pocket while maximizing revenue from your client? How can you take the $2-3k of value from a new client contract and get it to pay you $2k a month at the end of the contract?

        That's the bare essence of my post.

        Marcos
        Signature
        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

        Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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        • Profile picture of the author rickmor
          Originally Posted by MRomeo09 View Post

          The whole premise is that it isn't your dime. The premise is that you have a client and you actually spend all of the money that they give you monthly to build up your own network. If they are paying you $300 a month, what can you do with $300 every month? Think it through. If you are paid to get a dentist to #1 what is the most effective way of achieving that with NO money out of your pocket while maximizing revenue from your client? How can you take the $2-3k of value from a new client contract and get it to pay you $2k a month at the end of the contract?

          That's the bare essence of my post.

          Marcos
          Marcos, It makes total sense to me. I recently acquired a local SEO client and i am using the money to build the infrastructure you described. i purchased 5 domains and i am going to start working on them first. so it sounds like the wordpress blog is probably the best way to go on the domains. Is there anything specific on theses initial domains or is it just standard SEO processes to get them to start ranking?
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  • Profile picture of the author link82
    I would buy marco's wso in a heart beat. Liked the rental one but this is what I want to learn about inside out
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    Quietly Selling Powerful Links. Just a handful on clean domains, PM me for inquiry :D
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  • Profile picture of the author ayhaah
    I believe, this info is gold!

    Thanks
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    HIGH PR DO FOLLOW BLOG COMMENTING
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    • Profile picture of the author busterkman
      I have some aged domains that I keep hanging onto, thinking that some day, I'm gonna come up with something to do with them...

      well, looks like they are going to be the base to my internet empire!

      Thanks for the insight/inspiration to get things started.

      I'll be looking for local business' to start considering building empires for them soon, too.
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      • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
        Just wanted to let you guys know I finally released my Local SEO Empire as an WSO. You can find it here:

        http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...any-niche.html

        I also have a short video on the bottom of the WSO where I teach you how to build websites really quickly and cheaply.

        Enjoy,

        Marcos
        Signature
        We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

        Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author toxix
    Marketing to local businesses have always been a good strategy.
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  • Profile picture of the author nownzen
    Marcos,

    Great job and exposition, the illustrations and graphs are most helpful. Though not a newbie, not a very active "warrior" but glad I came upon your thread, but I still found enough to make me re-think my link-wheel, er, pyramid, structure. Best of continued luck and success in 2012 and shall look forward to more informative posts from you!!!
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    Fantastic share. I just landed a new client today, 1k per month, and I will definitely be putting this into action. It also adds a lot more value. When I told the client what I'd be doing, she was thrilled.
    Signature
    G+ LOCAL SETUP ___and____ Custom WordPress - Genesis Child Themes (see portfolio here)

    SCHEMA.ORG + GEOTAGGING + KML + PUBLISHERSHIP + so much more...
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  • Profile picture of the author mrelk159
    very detailed guide, thank you for the tips
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    Hi Marcus, I have spent most of this afternoon going through all of the posts and I thank you for your clarity.

    You have explained much and have avoided link wheel concepts, for a reason ... ??

    This is counter to much of what you have written but I am wondering if you could advise anyway ...

    I live in Australia and sell dog supplies online, because I am a dog walker. I have two money sites and don't recruit clients, hence I cant bankroll my network of sub sites very well. This means that I have been gathering a few free web 2.0 properties but they are all blog in nature.

    I can see that you diversify your network sites for a natural google view but I cant see how I can easily build up database sites etc. Also I generate all of the content myself (dues to funds) which makes it difficult to expand to a very large network of sites pointing to my money sites ... manually putting that content on the blogs takes long enough, then manually linking to each web 2.0 property is real slave time.

    So for a person who is just trying to do their own sites, ie not an IM or into affiliate marketing ... is there any 'cut down' way that I could really make use of all that you have said? Or more directly, how could I better harness my small network of 25 sites (free blogs) to better increase the rank of my money sites?

    Is it just a matter of 'bite the bullet' and buy automated link software? My work is amazingly manually intensive and its taken five months to get to rank five for my money sites key term. I may find that there is no money in my niche and have to start looking elsewhere anyway. At the moment I just put a couple of links in each blog post on the social site properties as they dont have footers etc ...

    So yes, I am a novice but very ready to listen to any further amazing advice you can give. Thank you for all of the time you have taken so far in this highly prized thread!
    Signature

    just a dog guy.

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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by Bruce99 View Post

      Hi Marcus, I have spent most of this afternoon going through all of the posts and I thank you for your clarity.

      You have explained much and have avoided link wheel concepts, for a reason ... ??

      This is counter to much of what you have written but I am wondering if you could advise anyway ...

      I live in Australia and sell dog supplies online, because I am a dog walker. I have two money sites and don't recruit clients, hence I cant bankroll my network of sub sites very well. This means that I have been gathering a few free web 2.0 properties but they are all blog in nature.

      I can see that you diversify your network sites for a natural google view but I cant see how I can easily build up database sites etc. Also I generate all of the content myself (dues to funds) which makes it difficult to expand to a very large network of sites pointing to my money sites ... manually putting that content on the blogs takes long enough, then manually linking to each web 2.0 property is real slave time.

      So for a person who is just trying to do their own sites, ie not an IM or into affiliate marketing ... is there any 'cut down' way that I could really make use of all that you have said? Or more directly, how could I better harness my small network of 25 sites (free blogs) to better increase the rank of my money sites?

      Is it just a matter of 'bite the bullet' and buy automated link software? My work is amazingly manually intensive and its taken five months to get to rank five for my money sites key term. I may find that there is no money in my niche and have to start looking elsewhere anyway. At the moment I just put a couple of links in each blog post on the social site properties as they dont have footers etc ...

      So yes, I am a novice but very ready to listen to any further amazing advice you can give. Thank you for all of the time you have taken so far in this highly prized thread!
      I'd probably spend money/time trying to get my core properties more weight. I'd probably not build as much information on the core properties and try to build links to them instead to get them to carry more weight in and of themselves. You can do that through things like buying link packages, BMR posts, linkvana, AMR, etc.

      In this business you have two main resources, time and money. It's up to you which one you use, but you're going to have to use one of them.

      My advice would be focus on getting links to your properties not making your properties any bigger if I understand the nature of your dilemma well enough.

      If money were an issue I'd probably just do AMR(Article Marketing Robot) with a DeathByCaptcha subscription. It's probably the cheapest most effective way to build incoming links en masse.

      We'll talk about that in depth for at least one session in my course(2 hours +/-)

      HTH,

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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    • Profile picture of the author MRomeo09
      Originally Posted by Bruce99 View Post

      Hi Marcus, I have spent most of this afternoon going through all of the posts and I thank you for your clarity.

      You have explained much and have avoided link wheel concepts, for a reason ... ??

      This is counter to much of what you have written but I am wondering if you could advise anyway ...
      Whoops missed this part. I don't really do link wheels I'm more into link pyramids, where all of the power flows upwards. Although it's really kind of a link Diamond. Crappy, tons of sites on bottom. Big Power in the middle and then lonely money site at the top.

      I don't purposefully link all of my sites to each other as it seems to me that creates footprint sites I don't wish to leave. If you do your job right what it looks like is you have a site that some very powerful sites reference which makes you look good in Google's eyes.

      Marcos
      Signature
      We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up ... discovering we have the strength to stare it down. - Eleanor Roosevelt

      Your opinion of yourself becomes your reality. If you have all these doubts, then no one will believe in you and everything will go wrong. If you think the opposite, the opposite will happen. It’s that simple.-Curtis Jackson- 50 Cent
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  • Profile picture of the author albertthomas
    Great post.Thanks for posting this information.
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  • Profile picture of the author Charan
    That's a great post and this is the good way to build your business. you can makes the client dependent on your continued services. let me share with you what i believe to be the ultimate SEO strategy.
    1) Increase your PR.
    2) Get thousands even millions of pages indexed in the search engines.

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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    Hi Marcos.

    I have been trawling back and forth over your comments for the last six months. And if half of what you say is achievable on my small scale, then like in the movie Ground Hog Day, I would say that you may not be THE god, but you may be close to ‘an’ seo god.

    Like many of the comments you have written, it’s a matter of diving in, and this is what i did with my small network late last year. Since reading your posts i have had to look up so many ‘tool terms’ which is great for learning. I am thinking I should diversify a little in the subject matter of my base sites to include city centric ones. I get that you think more links in preference to content for me is important. But i guess I still need to put up a post at least once a week for Google to remain interested in ranking the sites. And there are tools to rank certain types of free sites, in particular wordpress sites. Then I can delve more deeply into the murky world of buying links from automated blog comment systems?

    More questions for us newbs: Do you see any value in diversifying the type of web 2 properties such as wordpress, squidoo, blogger etc? I see that most people only mention wordpress over and over. Is this because its easiest to automate on? I thought that diversity of URL was still important on these free sites? I will also have to learn how to diversify beyond blogs (database etc) and diversify from posting to my money site at the end of each blog article. Not sure if every web 2 allows footers and blog rolls.

    Is there a programming trick to quickly automating you changing the URLs (for a new client) in the footers, blog-rolls etc on your base sites? Is it in one of the online courses you mentioned?

    And a real newb questions is about placing Google adwords on your sites. I hear people do this to cover domain and hosting costs, but wont this dilute the link juice of each site?

    I am ranked four for my main money site, and getting very few click throughs, but I imagine if i can get to rank two or one that I should start generating some real sales. Apologies if these questions are covered in your courses .. but this pro bono could really aid us dog walkers of the world! Cheers Bruce
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    just a dog guy.

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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    a ps on link wheels.

    Originally I thought that they were snake oils saleman tools. Then I kept reading so many posts about how they really worked, but that you could not just have a simple ring with all sites joined to each other sequentially, AS well as pointing to your money site, that this would leave the dreaded footprint.

    Then many people came up with secret variations on the geometry. The whole point was creating a closed loop system where link juice is not leaked, and that somehow magically by having a ring, each time the robots pass over, they increase the power of each site, more than if they were not linked together and instead each web 2 just pointing soley to the money site.

    My variation is that I have two rings or more, each lower ring pointing to a site in its own ring as well as one site above it in the next ring. The ring closest to the money sites all link daisy chain to another site in front of it, PLUS each member of the ring points to my two money sites.

    Your model just has many sites (bought or traded links) pointing to a second layer of website you own (often web 2) then these web 2 sites pointing to one of your 25 or so base sites, which then point up to your money sites. You dont create any sideways links for concern over footprints?

    Do you think what I am doing can have a negative impact on my money sites, or at least less than if i had 25 sites just individually pointing to my money sites you you do?
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  • Profile picture of the author charliesianipar
    Thanks for sharing this great posting. It's very useful for SEO tricks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bruce99
    One more for the road ..

    this concerns the question of site suffixes, locations and google rankings.

    I know that it is said that google takes into account the suffix (dot com versus dot com dot au in Australia) as well as where a site is hosted (USA v Australia)

    But this is mostly important if I am wanting to get the sites ranked high right? But PR should be more to do with links pointing to a site than if it will rank (ie a high PR site that is dot com may show in USA with a dot com suffix, but not in Australia where dot com dot au sites should rank higher).

    My question is about buying sites for sending juice to my money sites. it turns out that dot com sites are much cheaper in general than dot com au, and that you can host several dot coms on one hosting account, but in Australia you have one site per host. Thus even if I wanted to buy twenty sites, going the dot com au and hosting in australia is quite expensive.

    As I am after the link juice rather than where the sites rank in Australia, I am supposing that it doesnt matter what suffice or hosting location I choose and so I should choose the much cheaper US option.

    Do you agree?
    Signature

    just a dog guy.

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  • Profile picture of the author Larkrise
    Wow - bumped into your thread at just the right time. I am in the process of building my own blog network (.info) and plan to use Senuke to run campaigns and get links into those. They then become the main link source for anchor text to my money sites/client sites

    I was just mulling over what to call them and reading your post has really helped that. I'm also building a new site for a client and plan to use them as a case study for a membership I'm working on.

    I've always used a pyramid system to build links and its really worked well. I'm working on more than one IM model atm as I started in product creation (coaching is my former career), segwayed to offline clients (personal referrals) and have some affiliate sites.

    So building a blog network became very important as a way to control links and so on and is definately a long term plan. Managing those is going to be less difficult now that lovely IMers keep coming up with fab ways to do that more easily.

    I think I'll stick with my original thought to have blog networks that suit the niche eg Health, Service Providers, Retail etc

    Right oh, off to find suitable hosting for my networks and looking into a dedicated server/vps

    Cheer Marcos, will defo look out for your threads from now on
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  • when setting up these sites do you have to worry about things such as Keywords, EMD etc?
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  • Profile picture of the author rohiteshwar
    I like your business strategy, its cool and profitable........
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    • Profile picture of the author zigzag10
      Hi Marcos,

      Thanks for your great post, I have it bookmarked, read it several times since its first posting, and have been taking action on it recently. Two questions for you:

      1. Instead of initially buying 10-25 domains, or to even enhance the pyramid with your 10-25 domains. Can you use .wordpress and .blogpsot sites/ i.e. instead of buying/creating a number of sites like TacomaPlumber.com domain, can I just create sites like WordPress.com Does buying a domain have that much more authority and rank with google and the other search engines? Is it definietly neccesary to buy the domains for the base if you just need them to point to the money site?

      2. I have bought, 10 domains for a pyramid base for a local realtor that I am doing work for. I have begun adding a few keyword rich articles, doing the on site seo, and will use senuke for backlinks. I will do this for all 10. once i have them optimized, does it matter where I place the link for the local realtor on the base sites? how often do i have to update the base websites?

      Thanks for inspiring me to take action!
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  • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
    Marcos:

    I started working on my local network since you first posted this threat, so as you can imagine some of my sites have gotten to PR 3 and more than 2k pages indexed, but today I woke up and it seems that at least a couple of them have been de indexed from Google, has anybody experience this?

    What can I do to get my sites re indexed?

    Or should I simply leave them die?
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  • Profile picture of the author sash024
    Appreciate the time and effort you put in writing this masterpiece.

    Cheers...
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  • Profile picture of the author Yawg Dawg
    Great post with fantastic concept. When you do links to the sites do you do linkwheels or link pyramids with manual edu wiki and .gov links on the first tier with anchor text?
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  • Profile picture of the author lennyk1313
    Great ideas, but a little bit of work. Something to really explore.
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  • Profile picture of the author martyJames
    Great post - i too am wondering about if this will still apply after googles recent spout of de-indexing. I guess as long as the linkbuilding has not been via bmr/aln and the likes it should still work fine??
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  • Profile picture of the author adrixe
    Great thread. THanks for all the info you shared here. I would love to do this. but doesnt have the money yet to invest.. hopefully down the road..
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  • Profile picture of the author Justin Lavoie
    unfortunatly black hat techniques are not good anymore, so blasting your websites with tons of links will hurt you more than ever before.

    In my case I build quality links and articles and I really dont need much to get my stuff ranked fast. I manually build some links to my offline businesses and a couple links to the second layer websites. I connect everything together and see what happen. Most of the time my businesses sites rank on page 1 fast enough...and some second layer sites too
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  • Profile picture of the author PhilaPM
    Marcos is your WSO still available?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    Today, I would avoid blasting the other sites created. Instead, I would build them out with their own Facebook pages, G+ pages, YouTube channels, etc. I would build them all up with different content, videos, etc. being careful to keep things real. Just make sure you have a good sitemap and submit the site to Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.

    Getting indexed is easy if you do those things.

    This is a great post, and worth seriously exploring if you want to create your own assets online.

    This would fit so nicely in with the rent-a-site model. I would tackle my city first, then province / state-wide and then nationally.
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  • Profile picture of the author VinayJain
    I read this & I am very appreciate to you. Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Mach1Marketing
    Very good thread. This is worth more than most WSO's!
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  • Profile picture of the author WEBGEEK
    Great ideas man. Im gonna have a serious thinking about it
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  • Profile picture of the author BreakingRetail
    Thanks a lot for this report!

    though I cannot stop my self from thinking if this is still a viable form of SEO these days post Penguin (September 20/2012 to be exact)

    Thanks again!

    Cheers
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    "Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value."Albert Einstein

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  • Profile picture of the author shifat
    great post MRomeo09,has some valuable info to get some long term local clients.
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  • Profile picture of the author kasei
    Hey Marcos, thank you for sharing. This really looks good.
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  • Profile picture of the author kbreezy
    Inspiring post. How would you go about outsourcing? do you use VA? if you could tell me more about your outsourcing methods that be great?
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    • Profile picture of the author watsonovedades
      Thanks for that share Marcos.how much do you earn monthly for doing this?

      cheers
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  • Profile picture of the author MySEOfootprint
    Very inspiring and informative plan! This is a great model to market a business online! Thanks for the great tips!
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  • Hello there!
    This is such a wonderful information. Thank you for sharing your strategy to all of us here. I especially like how you explained everything using graphics. It made everything easier to understand. And using clients' money to pay for those sites is an awesome strategy. Great job!
    Regards
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