Phonenumbers on Rent Sites

I use phone.com. That way you can change the forwarding number anytime you want.

Forward the number from say, phone.com to a "potential client's" number. Check the call logs after a week or so to see how many calls were forwarded. Call the company and inform them of the amount of calls they recieved via your site. See if they're interested in using your site..... if not, move to the next prospect. Inform THEM about the calls that the "other guy" got.

I just call up a potential "renter" of the site. Tell them who I am and what I do. Explain to them that I am doing a marketing test in their area for their niche and ask if they would like to take all the phone calls it generates while I am performing the test.

This is much better than forwarding calls to someone that does not know they are getting them for two reasons.

1. They may be in a particular industry that requires certain disclosures such as a contractors number etc. Without the particular disclosures both you and the person you are forwarding calls to could get in trouble.

2. There may be info on there about services they do not provide or anything else that could piss off a consumer as well as the person that you are forwarding the calls to. It could lead to mass confusion on both ends. So instead of getting a welcoming "Wow! Your the guy that has been making my phone ring!" you could get "So! Your the SOB that has been causing me all kinds of problems! Come on down to my shop....I'd like to have a personal chat with out back behind the building."

Personally I would be a tad upset if someone was just sending me calls and me not knowing what was contained in the advertising/marketing pieces.

Doing it the way I mentioned makes it a lot easier to sell to that person when it comes time as they know what you were doing from the beginning. You are able to send them progress reports through out the process i.e. ranking reports or call reports. Even contact them through out to get their input on things they like, don't like, would like to see etc. In other words you are creating a relationship with them as you build up / rank the site / start generating leads and calls.

Plus you can find out if there are certain requirements as far as disclosures in that niche or things you can and can not say or things you can not claim or advertise. It saves you a ton of time up front from needing to go back and change a bunch of things for the site to be "compliant" if need be.

I know this from personal experience. The first site I did was in the contractor niche. A blind site in no contractor info was needed. Or so I thought. A call from the state straightened me out real quick.