Failing at Site Rentals? Maybe this will help...

by 196 replies
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I am posting this after reading several people have questions or complaints about site rentals, and also as a response to some people who have been giving Dan's system in his WSO thread a hard time, although I did not first learn this business from Dan. (this is not a pitch or review for Dan's wso or selling anything). If you wish to hear how I made it my current $6500 usd a month in 3 months read on, if you just want the advice skip past My Story and down to number 1.

My Story-

First let me start by telling you I am indeed making very good money in short order with site rentals, or as I like to say lead generation. As for prior experience I have loads of it in sales over the years, but zero IM, SEO, or website design experience before January 2012.

I stumbled onto this 'rent a site' idea mid-January 2012 after seeing some crazy overpriced webinar on it, something tsunami, I forget exact name (they wanted $997). I began to do research as the concept seemed very valid, and I do enjoy talking with business owners.

I gathered a lot up from various places including what I learned from the overpriced sales webinar, learned as much as I could about SEO (the real time sink), bought a bunch of domains after picking a niche, I chose a service business, started an LLC, opened a merchant account, and a virtual phone number account. *GO*

I then started pumping out sites, surely a lot faster than I should have and in the end learned a lot from it (such as can't have dupe content etc, I had zero programming experience) and then re tweaked the ones I had first put up to fix that. Initially I was targeting some of the lower searched keywords in order to get ranked easier, but it did not take long for me to say to myself "Umm I am not getting any calls here, no way can I feel right about leasing a site that is not getting at least 15-20 calls a month".

So I decided I had learned more about SEO by end of February and gave a go at adding the primary more competitive keywords for my niche in each city. So instead of getting a piece of 30-50 searches a month from the less competitive keywords, the keywords I was after combined were closer to 2k+ searches a month. I started to see decent results, .

That is when I stumbled onto Dan's WSO a few months ago, bought it and instead of relying on every step Dan walks you through (and he does a great job btw) I picked out the nice tidbits to add to what I had already learned on my own, including the one piece of education I felt made the WSO worth it, the ping.fm, pixelpipe, online classified ad parts (and now onlywire, hello.txt and others I use also, plus I place adds all over the place for my clients). You should use all the information you can find from all sources and put it all together, find what works for you. For me it was the webinar, forum postings here and elsewhere, Dan's wso, as well as a few pm's to people on this forum, MRomeo09 & EmmaPowell.

I do prefer to set up a site, and get calls in a selected niche/city prior to trying to market the site, but I know some people do well with finding the client first, I just prefer it this way.

Let me stop myself before I get side tracked here I could ramble all day... End result Now is this...

I currently have 72 sites live, 50+ on 1st page of all engines, and have 22 live clients at $197-397 a month (I have been creeping up the price, depending on call count). I sign up on average 1-2 new clients a week and here is the key... I Wait until I have a Minimum 12 calls in one month for (service)(city).com BEFORE I try and sell it.

So if you care to hear, my main advice is this ( I'm no expert btw)...

1- If you are lazy, or not willing to put in a lot of work both in site development, and ongoing in client acquisition (telemarketing whatever)... and go find something else to do, this business does not run itself. You get what you put into it!

2- OWN the phone number.
Set up a phone dot com, ring central, something. Use a local instead of a toll free for the area you are targeting. This way you can generate calls before you sell it and if the client leaves you, just re-rent it.

3-
Do not try to target just one keyword and get #1, #1 is nice for a rarely searched term, but trust me #1-7 for 20 WELL searched harder keywords will bring more organic traffic and that's what you need after all, .

4- Do not focus so much on the website with the client, focus on the calls. Let them hear some voice mails of the calls, even give them a lead or two for free. Proof is in the pudding, this simply closes deals for me, end of story. DO NOT LIE, if you are not getting calls yet PLEASE do everyone a favor and do not try to sell it yet.

5- Deliver some value here, do not put up total crap websites, but they do not need to be 2000 page authority 'gems' either. Just put up ORIGINAL CONTENT on each one, and , balance things out, have good structure.

6- Advertise the Service (not so much the website) along with your owned virtual telephone number (I like Phone dot com). This helps generate CALLS directly and takes away some of the reliance on Google, which lets face it, could change the entire game in one day if they wanted to, and have proven they love to change algorithms.

Also after the site is rented, Continue to advertise every month, spend 10-15% of the money you are getting from the client to increase the service/number expose via ad's everywhere. It's worth the effort, you will retain clients.

7- Build Relationships. Do not just treat your customers as a number, or a site. Build a long term lasting relationship with them, you will maintain very long term clients this way. Every one of my clients has my cell, and I would be happy to answer it. If something goes wrong with a site, tell them about it do not wait for them to tell you. Explain in English what you plan to do to fix it, don't panic. People buy YOU not a website, trust me on that.

8- Diversify. Do not put all of your eggs in one basket, especially when a large part of why this business works is the organic search engine traffic. Do not dabble in 14 other things when you are starting this, but once you have it rolling, use your head man. Get into something new, one at a time until you have it down, that is different not dependent on Google so heavily. That way if one ay everything changes you still have a paycheck.

9-
... Rome was not built in a day. I had to tell myself this and am glad I did, take it easy and do it Right the first time. The site rental/lead gen business is not some get rich quick scheme, it is a genuine business. Funny thing is, if you do it slow and proper, within a year the you will be seeing very good money *Recurring*.


There is likely more but this is what came off the top of my head, and the post is already too long *Sorry* lol. I hope this helps some of you that either may have doubted the model, or perhaps you are trying it without success. Treat this like a get rich quick tactic, and you will fail miserably, then come here to complain on warrior forum that it does not work Treat this like a real business, and you very likely will be rewarded with great success.

Do not take any shortcuts!

Good luck!
Chris


#offline marketing #"lead generation" #"site rentals" #failing #rentals
  • Thanks for sharing Chris! The way I understand it, you are renting the sites. Do you ever sell the leads individually?
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    • In actuality yes I am renting the sites, but to the client, half of them do not even know the url, to them they are buying minimum 15-20 calls from me a month, that's what their entire decision was based on. Those calls go up after I rent it because I push the site harder after it is leased (ad's etc.).

      As for the leads, no I prefer the flat rate method, but I provide a call tracking report monthly to the client, as well as using the *whisper* feature. So when they get the call they hear 'Web call' or something similar to know ongoing it's from me.

      As I get more comfortable with certain factors, like confidence in the call count, a better understanding of the average ticket of the service company etc, I have been increasing the price to newer clients.

      Chris
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  • Hello Chris,


    I am curious do you stay in one niche and drill down and dominate various keywords or are you in various niches?

    thomas
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    • Initially yes I stayed with one niche for the first 30 of the 70ish sites, but I then ventured off into a few others, with some higher tickets to mix it up. All of my sites are a mix of 5 niches currently. I have 4 niches rented so far, as the 5th I just started.

      I do drill down a bit into one to get an idea of competition and how difficult it might be to rank, as well as a reasonable expectation for average monthly calls. After that I have found nearly identical results from city to city in terms of ranking. Some cities certainly do get better response though for certain niches. Once the calls are adequate, frankly I do not care about being number 1 in multiple keywords at all as long as the calls come in, I just keep doing what I need to do to keep it ranked, lease it and move on to building more.

      Chris
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  • Are you getting listed on Google Places or only targeting organic?
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    • Everything is either organic, or direct calls from various ad's currently. I have not messed with Google places yet, but I do have several cities where I am outranking places or most of them.

      I have been doing a little research though on Places, and have been thinking about doing an add on type thing for existing clients. I do not want to get someone rocking on places and somehow lose the customer which then might outrank me, but will likely get around to dabbling in Places.

      Remember I am still an IM newbie so I know diddly squat, but I do know sales . I bought a WSO or two on places buried somewhere, I might get around to learning it. Currently I have a goal of getting to roughly $20k a month recurring before I venture off into new branches, which should not be too long. The telemarketing is the part that keeps it slow, I am good at it but I hate it lol.

      Chris
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  • What type of ads are your running - classifieds in the paper? where are most of the calls coming from - ads or the web?
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    • Online classifieds mainly at first, and social sites. However once the site is leased I actually do spend 10-15% of the monthly fee I am collecting to offline advertise the number also in as many mediums as is viable for that 10-15%. Unfortunately I have no way to know which medium is getting the most call since I need them to all go directly to the client through the one virtual number, but I would assume organic is at least 50%.

      I want clients for years not months, even if everything at the search engines change.

      Chris
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  • Great thread here - I actually set up a site last year that I planned to rent out in the mortgage biz - never could though. I may make some changes to it and see if I can make it a lead gen site instead. I am thinking of setting up a places page for it as well. I git Dr Dans WSO also - great!
    Also - how are yo using hello.txt? I use pixlpipe and the other one form Dr Dan but never the other 2 you mention.
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    • Leads are so much easier to sell than websites. The one thing I can honestly say after many telemarketing calls is these people are getting hounded by 'SEO' and 'Website' calls. Just saying SEO, Website, or Google will likely get you a disgruntled hangup. However, you break the ice talking Customer calls, and sometimes even giving them a free customer right then and see how different the conversation goes.

      I can't give you any Places insight yet, never got around to learning it but I am sure to soon. Hello.txt, onlywire, they are all the same thing really with little twists, they all send to a multitude of social networks at once, just google them and learn about it. *educate yourself* all the info is out there. With Pixelpipe actively deleting accounts the see as nothing but Ad or SEO accounts, it helps to use as much as possible. Pixel is the overall best in my eyes though.

      Get it done brother, refocus your efforts, change that mortgage site to a lead gen and get that puppy leased this month... Act don't think.

      Chris
  • In a post I made on another thread I said I didn't know why people doing the "lead gen site" model (something I've considered doing before but left it for now) didn't seem to talk much about incorporating into the pricing an advertising budget for the actual site. Relying purely on seo doesn't make sense to me for this type of site. After all, the whole point of the site is to be a showcase...so the more views the more it's worth. I'd be doing PPC, FB ads, offline ads - whatever made sense.

    Great to see you incorporating the actual purpose of the sites into your actual model.
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    • Thanks Aussieguy, I could not agree more. Get relevant traffic to the Number, not just the site. Trust me owners do not give a crap where they are ranked, they just want the business... So give them what they want by pushing your service from every imaginable direction. Also spend some of your earnings from the client on paid ad methods to boost it even more. Make them a a long term VERY happy client.

      Chris
  • What a great post Chris

    For a newbie you are killing it. Goes to show what can be done when you put your mind to it.

    Do you write all the content yourself or outsource it?

    Why a local number and not a free call number?

    You mentioned you have 22 live clients and 72 sites how many of the sites are rented out of the 50 on page 1?

    I like your ethics in only wanting to rent them when they are producing real results - above 15 calls per month.

    We look forward to picking your brain and learning more.

    Tom
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    • Thanks for the compliment Tom, it has been a lot of work but is paying off.

      Yes I write all of my own content, and it becomes easier once you have done a few sites on one niche to do more on the same niche. However, I think outsourcing the content is a great idea with a good writer, and I actually may end up mixing that in the future. Right now though I like to be 100% in tune and in charge of every decision I make meticulously for the first huge batch. I will likely focus on more outsourcing down the road though, once I am extremely comfortable with my exact blueprint start to finish ya know.

      My first two sites had 800 numbers, but I started thinking as a customer. I dunno I felt a toll free number seemed more 'distant' to some of these cites. I mean many of these cities do not even dial area codes when they call people in town, they like 7 digit numbers it feels more 'Real person' and local to them. So then I passed the question toll-free or local to MRomeo here on warrior forum and he said in his testing local did better also. 'Nuff said, so I changed the two toll free's to local and never looked back, always local now.

      All of my rented sites are on page one for several keywords in the niche at various ranks with all engines.

      Chris
  • I love that you've figured out "the mindset" that you need to approach these business owners with. Everyone needs to stop talking about the "Service" and start talking about the "Results".... Ultimately, business owners want customers! Talk their language and you will be successful. Glad you got this down! Great post!
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    • Great post Chris and well done to you.

      How are you laying out these sites? Are they typical lead capture sites?

      What do you say when your calling to sell the ongoing leads?

      Do your classified point back to the site and I presume you have the lease number in there anyway?

      Appreciate your thoughts.

      Lee
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    • Thank you for the compliment. It's sales 101 really... Find a need/demand/want then fill it, and then . Recipe for long term clients right there.

      I do not even mention Google, or ranking in my sales calls, I focus the entire contact around, I have these customers calling... Want them?

      I would not say I have it 'down' as I am constantly improving what I do, but certainly seems the right direction eh?

      Thanks again.

      Chris
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  • Chris,

    How do you provide content on the sites about the niche when you dont know the specifics of what a company does or how they do it if you arent already working with them?

    This is my problem it feels the site is unfinished because I am waiting for info from the company who will eventually take it.

    I would appreciate your take on this as its stopping me moving forward.

    Thank you

    Lee
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    • I create the site covering ALL aspects of the niche business in a very general way, so I get calls for every specific need in that niche. This way the site is 100% operational before a client match is found. However, once I lease the site/calls, I then tweak the site and accompanying ad's to be more specifically in line with what the client does and does not like to do within that niche. So after they pop their credit card in the recurring billing they are asked in detail about their business. I also to snag some content from their site when able too, but never list their company name on my site or ad's.

      Chris
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  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • I sort of skimmed through the replies, read the OP's post. I do something very similar and with same results. Stuff works.

    I would strongly advise against setting up a bunch of "fake" google places listings, when google catches up to you (much like panda/penguin caught up to most) , your whole business model will fold.

    Rather, UPSELL THE CLIENT TO GOOGLE PLACES AND OPTIMIZE IT FOR THEM.

    You have already built rapport with a client, as they are getting calls:

    "Hey, just checking in, I noticed you got 25 calls last month, I know a way we can ramp this up even more, and you can have TWO spots on the first page.." - upsell.

    Most clients will ask you what else you know how to do anyways and say they want "this" or "that"


    Stop trying to build a "business" with "fake" google places listings, jesus.

    Ryan
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    • I do not want to do anything fake google places or not, so I totally agree with you Ryan. Like I also said earlier, I was thinking it could be a fantastic upgrade offer once my client is with me for 3 months or so. I want to be sure they are staying though before I get their places going.

      I do need to spend some time to self educate on places still, but I love it as an upsell idea to established clients.

      Chris
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  • Hey Chris - could you post a link (or send me an IM) to Dan's WSO about this stuff?

    Much appreciated.
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  • Phenomenal post by a warrior who has NAILED IT!!!!

    No BS! Straight shooter, this is how it is

    The best thing about offline and lead gen is once you start to make money for your offline client they gladly purchase upsells from you.

    As Ryan mentioned upsells are very important as is diversification of traffic sources - organic, classifieds, GP, Video are all important

    Great work!!!!!!

    Emma
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    • Thank you Emma, and thanks for the skype chat a few months back answering some of my questions.

      Chris
    • Emma, with the service you provide to your clients are you using any types of insurance? (professional indemnity insurance, public liability insurance)
  • Wow great post my only bone to pick is your not charging enough!
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    • Completely agree. Early on it was a confidence thing, I felt I would ease into this and start increasing rates after I had some sales under my belt, and I have. I have several signed at $397/mo now, and on some of the new niches I am working with have higher ticket type sales than the first few, I see those going to the 500-1000$ per month territory. I firmly believe your pricing needs built from the average tickets of the industry, not the same for every niche.

      So I feel ya Electronik, and have already been working on better maximizing profits, thanks for the feedback.

      Chris
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  • what kind of SEO you doing it to get into page 1? Just SB and ping it?
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    • This is what I'm working on now as well, what helps it rank and what doesnt.
    • First, thanks for starting this thread, Chris. I've been going over and over this model in my head and bought a few WSO's, but somehow you hit something in my brain that opened my eyes to some of the ways it could work. The WSO's that I've bought all stress "easy" ways to hit page one of google, or to do things to get an address and essentially get a fake Google Places listing. You brought out that one could and should do other forms of marketing too, from adwords to other traditional offline methods. I don't know, it just put the whole package together for me, so thanks for that.

      Now, my question. How do you know who to throw the leads to at first? How do you go about picking a company, especially in cities that you don't know anything about? Are bigger, seemingly more established companies better than the little guys? How do you make that call as to who to trust with your leads? You seem like a stand-up guy who wants to take care of these people, so I thought you might have some advice on this. You don't want to hand leads over to shysters.

      Thanks,
      Mike
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  • Chris,

    Do you setup your site in a similar manner like the example sites in Dan's WSO, but just add more unique content on the homepage?

    Are your sites simply1 page that (plus like privacy, TOS, contact us pages) that talks in general about that niche and different aspects of it and why you should hire "City niche" for your next service. Nothing specific about any specific company or business in the content correct?
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    • Not really like he shows it no, as I had already designed many of my sites before ever seeing his WSO. However, the general idea is the same, strong call to action shown very prominent high & large on the page (telephone number, contact form), followed by content on the niche, a video made just for that niche/location, and more content below that more specific to services offered for that city (along with some picture.)

      My sites are mostly one page 800-1200 word type setups, with non-indexed ToS, privacy, contact pages etc. Although I must say in the near future I plan to start building authority cites in certain cities that have immense value to people looking for free information on a topic, then off branch multiple service backlinks to some of the sites I have built in those cites, to help further rely less on search engines for the traffic.

      As to the question about initial SEO, all my sites are currently Wordpress with a premium theme development package (my favorite is Thesis), along with either All in One SEO, or Platinum SEO plug in. I do not keyword stuff, if something reads funky to me then it surely will for others, that being said I do go for getting as many variations of my keywords in the copy that reads natural, then optimize the plug-in, the title tags, descriptions, and any picture tags etc. Once that is done I ping it all over the place, this is usually enough to rank it semi-decent for the niche alone.

      After a few weeks later (do not backlink your a$$ off from day 1) slowly I begin a series of about 15 steps over a 2-3 month period that I continually refine encompassing backlinking from multiple types of sources (I love Fiverr for this, but be very careful how you choose your providers there, and dear God mix the types up and do not go for too many too fast). I also do specific manual backlinking to the same industry the niche deals with (I have my wife do the research on this one obviously this takes a lot of time).

      Also I will do rather continual classified type advertising in about 20 sources of course with proper anchors, which I then blast through PingFM, PixelPipe, HelloTXT, Onlywire, and more. Recently have been starting to do some 2.0 stuff like Squidoo, but have a lot to learn still. I am no expert in this area, but I was a total 100% newb in January, so you have to start somewhere right?



      I wont share exactly which ones I do when and how often etc, as I believe that is something personal to me that each person needs to learn on their own and improve upon, I will say PLEASE take it slow and don't over SEO or get too aggressive backlinking too fast etc, if you do you are just asking to be put in the penalty box. Also be sure to heavily diversify all the methods and sources in all of your off site seo, the more the better, and spread them out over time. (Again this is just personal experience, I am still to this day an SEO newb, there are many far better people to ask about SEO on this forum, please chime in on this if that is you.)

      Chris
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  • Hi there, you're rocking it, congratulations!

    I'm still a newbie, got only 1 client but I'll get better! Tell me, I'm very interested in this phone redirecting feature, and tracking the redirected calls - this intrigued me!

    Could you please elaborate on this? What service do you use? Can I use it if I live outside the USA? How do your clients know the calls come from you?

    Thanks so much,
    Zannix
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    • Zannix,

      Call fire has an international number, some Aussie's I am helping in my skype group uses them. So when you say "outside the USA" - I can say they work in Australia. Call them, they have great customer service. International number listed on the site.

      Ry
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    • Thank you for the compliment Zannix, you know what they say right? Go Big or Go Home! Don't half do something ya know, so I am All in!

      Personally I have taken a look at Callfire (good one maybe your best bet for International), Ring Central, and Phone dot com. Not sure if the last two do international or not, and I see Ryanmckinney is saying Callfire may be best for Aussie, he may be right. In the US though I ended up going with Phone dot com myself, and frankly could not be happier.

      Initially I have it going to a voicemail for that niche's site. Once a few calls come in I actually call businesses in that town WITHOUT pitching them, and just give out FREE leads, which also makes me feel better as I do not think it is right to let customer calls go un-answered, feels deceptive to do it any other way to me. This obviously gets these businesses a bit fired up wondering how/why am I giving this business to them for free. Once the calls have increased on the site and I am ready to actually pitch the companies and find a permanent home for the calls, who do you think I first approach? I end up with a pretty good closing ratio on those people I gave leads to, not always though if not no harm done I just move on and sell it pretty quickly.

      Omce the site is sold/leased I then just point the number to the client's number of choice. One very important and Powerful feature of any phone forwarding Zannix is to the ability to silently announce or whisper a message before the call goes through so the client knows the call came from you, be SURE to use this it will keep your clients very happy. If you do unfortunately lose a client you can then just forward the number back to your voicemail, sell it to another and point it to them.

      One thing about that loss of client thing by the way. Do not tell people they will get 50 calls a month if you know damn well it will only be 10. Really? I have heard a lot of these business owners telling me people have done that to them, and they are rather refreshed when I am feeding them NO BS telling them 15 calls a month for instance.



      Chris
  • Ha Ha... Ryan, your modesty cracks me up, but it is very nice! Folks, don't be fooled... he speaks like just a reader of this string but McKinney is a real pro here. He knows exactly how this is done and is selling one of the absolute best WSO's on this subject. (Ryan, you need to add that link to your signature, so people can really check that out.) I got to talking to him in another thread and he was kind enough to send me a preview copy before he ever sold it. It really was pretty incredible!!! I have heard from a friend or someone that he has actually put out a new one but I don't know what it is so I can't actually speak about that one yet. Put the link in your signature Ryan so I can buy one for sure. After the first one I think I would buy anything you put out. He is a very thorough teacher... and breaks everything down to the simple. I MUST SAY WHEN IT COMES TO THIS TOPIC... RYAN IS THE CONSUMATE PRO!!!
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    • Kind words , thanks ..

      I don't use the sub forum to promote , just try to help but people will never listen to free advice , there is no value in it , its free. But pay for something , oh yah let me do it now !

      I am just a reader on the post

      My second one launched a week ago , part 2 , closes today actually , only way you can find it would be to view my recent posts.

      Ry
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  • Hey Cbizweb,

    Keep up the good work.

    Related to the actual strategy, I personally own such a site and all that I can say is that you'll never get what you expected, and believe me, this is a great thing. For example, I was targeting a small local keyphrase consisting of 4 keywords with an exact match domain. I tried to rank well for the keyphrase and I did actually but I was not actually receiving that much of traffic as I was getting from broad keywords. An interesting thing is that once you target a small keyword, you'll then get searches from other keywords which you have never been thinking of. And, instead of getting lots of untargetted traffic, you'll get specific searches from people who are in need of a product or service. So, do your best at optimising the site, put some content, make it look nice and simple, have clear CTA points, include some offers, etc.

    Marcel
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    • This likely has a lot to do with decent content on your site, it's amazing the traffic you can get with good content as the search engines really do a good job of sending you traffic based off that content for some rather unpredictable keyword combos such as "where can I find a cheap reliable (enter niche) in Denver". I mean who is going to optimize for something like that .

      So I agree with everything you just said and I constantly look for ways to improve my sites to be cleaner and always remember the old 'K.I.S.S.' principle in sales. (keep it simple stupid for those who don't know it)

      Chris
  • I received this question via PM and thought the answer should be added to the thread.

    My pleasure, I remember wishing someone had shared something similar when I first started, then saw people bitching on Dan's thread so honestly got sorta of angry at those lazy people. That was my mindset when I posted it lol.

    Clearly your not lazy, I took a look at your site building WSO in your sig they look pretty decent, you will do well.

    To your question though, I failed on the first round a bit as I was afraid to compete with the top exact search terms. So lets say the top term in a niche kicked out 500 searched a month, the term I went for and subsequently got the EMD for was the 110 a month searched one. While this does work to get you ranked better for that term, I found the traffic was lower than expected.

    Then I optimized the site a bit for the more competitive keywords and was amazed how easily I moved up on those better terms. So that's when I decided you should not be afraid of going against the other guys for the top terms as long as it is a local search, and you can learn a lot from Market Samurai on the top 10 ahead of time to see if you could easily overtake them or not.

    End result, I like to rank for every highly searched term in the niche. However, I use market Samurai SEO sections to take a deep look into the the sites onto the first page Prior to domain name shopping. I will essentially try to put together the highest searched term with the easiest competition, path of least resistance stuff. Then I will go figure out an exact match domain around that decided term .com, .net, or .org.

    I do not think you need to go setting up more EMD's for that client of yours, simply optimize the site you already have for the other keywords, do a little backlinking on some of the other anchor text, and you may just surprise yourself how well you can rank for terms that are not in your EMD.

    There is nothing really private in here except for your niche and I will delete that, so I am going to share this PM in the thread if that is ok as I think it can help others.

    On a side note what is the average ticket/profit margin for your niche there, knowing that will help you a great deal in figuring out what a goal amount of calls should be.

    Chris
    • [1] reply
    • Hey Chris,

      I think I derailed you from my own questions by my opening statements of my first post. If you don't want to answer these questions or don't have a strategy, just let me know, but I was wondering:

      How do you determine what businesses to give your free leads at first to?

      Do bigger companies or smaller companies seem to appreciate them more (appreciation being shown by later buying them from you)?

      How do you know who to trust to take care of your leads and not just scam people?

      Thanks, and I appreciate your time and sharing of your experiences,
      Mike
      • [1] reply
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  • Awesome thread, very insightful.

    Was wondering how detailed are the captured leads? Is it mild interest or are the forms thorough enough to tell the Company what the visitor is interested in?

    Trying to understand the quality of leads required with this model.

    JT
    • [1] reply
    • The captured leads are usually hot and ready for business, as the entire site is a call to action basically. Sure there are some tire kickers quote shopping etc., but most are ready to buy whatever the service is. However, most of the people that are truly ready to buy just call the number instead of typing the contact form.

      Chris
  • Hi Chris,

    Here's another question I thought of:

    What is your call to action?

    Since you aren't promoting a particular company's "brand", what are you promoting aside from, let's say "roofing"?

    Do you offer a discount if they call NOW? If so, I guess you would have to get that approved first? Or do you maybe offer an educational product ala Joe Polish and his consumer guides if they call or sign up on an email list?

    Just wondering what the hook is. It is great to get a site ranked, and to put it in front of people in classifieds and such, but what makes people call your ad over the others out there? People usually call based on some promise of a better price, better service, maybe a niche in an industry that they need, a better experience, better guarantee, etc. What types of things do you use?

    Thanks again,
    Mike
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • Great quesion. I'd like to know some info on this as well.


    • Hey Mike and MrTrance,

      Sorry for the delayed response, I do not get to check in here every day, as I do more than just IM, busy days indeed.

      It really depends on the service the site is covering, but I usually look at other sites in the niche & city I am building a presence in to see what the top businesses in the area are pushing. In some cities it might be all about affordable pricing, in others it might be exceptional service, but it does seem to vary from town to town. I do tend to offer new customer discounts based on what I know of the average ticket or a % discount etc. if the customer mentions the site when they call, and other things I am experimenting with which I don't want to share right now.

      I have tried both with and without free guides etc, and to be honest my phone rings more without the guides, but I think that may be because of the niches I cover, I think customers finding my sites looking for the types of service niches I work with would have zero interest in a guide, they just want their issue addressed. More expensive more involved niches, like real estate or something might benefit more by something like that, but not my service niches.

      I make these sites look like an actual business website which once leased it will be, and once leased I even put some of the actual businesses photo's etc. on the site, but never mention the company name or logo etc. Once leased I do indeed tweak the content of the site to perfectly fit whatever the company leasing it does or does not do, including discounts.

      That is on the websites themselves, on the ad's I do offer ad type discounts that you might see in any publication in your community to try and stand out a bit, but I do not go crazy with it. All of which I clear with the buyer once I have the site leased so there are no surprises when they answer the phone. I really try to fit right in with the types of advertising competitors might do in that field/city. It seems to be working, as my clients are happy with the calls they are receiving.

      Hope that helps.

      Chris
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • "Also I will do rather continual classified type advertising in about 20 sources of course with proper anchors, "

    how do you post continual for each site in 20+ classified sites since you have close to 100 sites?
    • [1] reply
    • I only do the large amount of classifieds on sites once they are leased. Prior to that I just do a couple basic ones, just enough to get the phone ringing and help with the ranking.

      I now have 28 leased sites, and after I lease each one I spend a few hours doing just that. Tweaking the site to fit the company that leased it more perfectly, and advertising the hell out of it, some paid ad's.

      No way would I go crazy advertising every site I am working on, the calls alone would drive me insane. I do just enough to help with initial exposure pre-lease, maybe 2-3 ad's. Then the site sits until my backlinking hits it and the ranking starts getting the phone to ring, which varies from weeks to months. I try to keep 15-20 sites completely sell ready ahead of me so I always have something to sell when I get in the mood to call businesses (let's face it that's the sucky part, telemarketing ).

      Chris
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Thank you Chris for answering some of my questions. I was wondering do you target keywords with high competition in google adwords with low search results (100- 1,000) or do you stick with med to low competition keywords?
  • can you give us an example of a script you use?
  • Hello. I am looking to target high-end niches where a business owner can easily quote someone >$20 000. Then, I would want them to pay me 10-15 % of the actual sale. Do you guys consider something like this? I plan simply to get a Callfire number and record the calls so that I will have full control of what is going. Thoughts?
    • [2] replies
    • I still having trouble trying to pick a business to target. I have been stuck for 3 days. I don't know what I'm suppose to be looking for lol. I think I found a niche, the competition is low, but some the domains are a little older (some local and some national) and some only have a few backlink but others have about 500 and up. So, I don't know if I should target this group or not.

      Any help would be great!
    • Interesting idea. Maybe you could try this approach then report the results to the rest of us.
  • You said your sites are mostly one page setup..how do you target 10-20 KWs then?

    organic rank brings most calls?

    I built 7 sites last week..got own phone no. unique one page content and youtube video for each sites...
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  • can you give us an idea of the sales process you use?


    thanks
  • Chris

    I have dabbled with site rentals before but i havent done enough to make it work.
    I work hard, trouble is Ive just been distracted by other stuff and not being obsessed with one stategy.

    I have till september to bring in $2500 a month recurring income or go get a real job.
    That i do not want to do. I want to create a better life for myself and my family and I believe IM and site rentals will give me the best chance of doing that.

    When I've done rental sites before I have only focused on one kw, bought the EMD and then had little traffic, so I can understand your earlier experiences. Some of those single kw's I was targeting only had 250 exact match searches per month.

    I really want to be able to make this work and bring in $2500 pm by september and want to make sure that I give myself the best chance of succeeding.

    I'm just looking for a little direction to help me.

    My dilemma is picking a niche that has high ticket transactions and that has enough searches.
    Deciding on how many sites I should do to get the required amount.
    How to structure my pages (this always confuses me!)
    What monthly search vol should be my target

    I am doing this full time at the moment so I can put in at least 10 hours a day.

    Appreciate your comments...

    Lee

    Have a great day
    Matt
    UK
  • Great post. This has cleared up a lot of issues I had trouble comprehending when it came to leasing a site.

    I do have a couple of questions though.

    When doing kw research for a local term, how do you structure your kw research?
    Let's take plumbers for example. Does your kw research have the city in the search term when trying to determine an EMD for that particular niche? For example, if you were researching the kw phrase "plumbers", do you include the city or area in your kw research? Example: "plumbers in (specific city)".

    Once again, thanks for the post.
  • Have you find your site rankings slip with Googles new changes?
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Chris hows things going?

      Have you managed to achieve your targets?

      Would be interesting to get an update from you.

      Could do with a little inspiration!

      Matt Lee
  • interesting story !!!
    • [1] reply
    • I'd like to know how Chris is doing
      • [1] reply
  • Great post! I will read it again later...
  • so whats other traffics sources are you using for lead gen? You said only 20% is from Google organic..can you share?

    also why do you use several phone # on one client? tracking which source works best?
    • [1] reply
    • I answered the sources a bit in the last response. As for the multiple numbers it's so I can track the response from each of those sources, cut what does not work and accelerate on what does. I use Phone dot com for my numbers, it's stupid cheap per number.

      -Chris
  • Hi Chris,
    Great thread. Your earlier postings inspired me to this business model, so thanks a lot for that!

    A question -do you telemarket after your site gets to page one of google for local searches or is it OK to market if its not made it there yet (as you seem to have confidence in other forms of traffic that can generate leads)?

    Also, I have a site that is ranked #3, page one for several local kws, but gets very few calls. I don't feel comfortable renting it out yet and probably need to diversify out of organic seo as well so as to bump up the call volume.

    Do you wait to get a certain number of leads from organic searches before renting out a site?

    Thanks, David
    • [2] replies
    • Chris,

      Could we get your feedback on this?
      • [1] reply
    • David,

      Great questions.

      When I very first started I thought ranking was everything, but what does ranking really mean to the Hvac guy, or the electrician, the roofer, the painter, locksmith, or plumber... zilch. All they care about is that phone ringing & their cost per call/lead. Now the other side of things is you know you need fairly ok rankings to get the calls, but that does not always need to come from the most obvious keywords. Just get yourself ranked well enough for even some of the mediocre keywords and the phone will start ringing. Also, it's a bit odd... I have some sites ranking # 14 bringing in more calls than sites ranked #4, I still cannot figure it out honestly.

      Anyway back to your question, I do not care where it is ranked, I telemarket & sell the leads for that niche/city once it has been receiving 3 consecutive weeks of calls, even if it's just a 3-4 calls a week. That's 12-15 leads a month, what I personally consider the minimum level of acceptable monthly performance for a client for the flat fee I charge them, but I can close a client on 12-15 calls a month no sweat in every service niche I have tried so far. Now once I sell the 'Lead Gen', of course I will add whatever additional lead sources I see fit for that site/city to get the calls to that over-delivery stage. Do not promise high numbers for your clients, it makes it far easier for you to let them down. On the other hand if you confidently sell a client on lower numbers, say 20 calls a month, and you give them 40-50, how likely you think that customer stays with you? Under promise - over-deliver, enjoy life!

      Remember, these companies are being let down daily by overpaying versus results with places like YP, Service Magic, BBB, Yelp, Adwords, [ insert every other company here ]. You come along & offer them something more personal, for less, and deliver more than the others by far = long term client.

      Also David, earlier notice I said "once I sell the 'Lead Gen'", and I did NOT say once I sell or lease the 'WebSite'. I keep the website in the background, I am selling these people leads, not a ranking. If you focus on the lead gen the ranks for certain keywords never become an issue with them. Just be sure your sites have strong calls to action and you rank well for at lease a few of the medium searched phrases for your local niche and the customers will call. Sell your Lead gen with confidence then spend a % of profits on helping it along (classifieds, video's, ppc, backpage, craigslist, whatever really). Do not rely entirely on ANY one entity such as SEO etc, you want 'Multiple lead funnels.' Therefore I would 'Not' sell a client yet if just relying on classifieds/ppc etc, I'd wait until the site got some calls on it's own first, or take a look why it is not already.

      Hope this helps...
      -Chris
  • great info
  • excellent thread and sharing...thanks for all your efforts . continued good fortune to you
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • hadn't heard of chargify - that may be a better solution than what I use and have been recommending (whmcs) for people who don't have hosting as part of their service offerings. I'll be going through their site more carefully today - thanks for the link!
  • In the original post you mentioned "Dan's WSO" I was just wondering which one that was. Currently gleaning this thread.........
    • [3] replies
    • Thanks for answering my question.

      But I was also wondering, how to you pick your profitable niches to go into? (Of course you do not have to give the ones you are in now.) Do you have niche and search criteria? Also, do you work in different states besides your own?

      thanks,
      Marc
      • [1] reply
    • Dr. Dan's WSO is closed, but you can still buy a program about site rental by Jack Mize. Dan learned the technique from Jack Mize.
    • Dr.Dan's Wso is called Google Love 2.0 I have to say it's very good stuff. I'm a client of theirs and the info is so step by step with pics/video etc it really makes it easy to follow along. Just search in Wso google love 2.0
  • This is a great thread. Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everyone.

    It seems the OP, Chris, was already at a pretty advanced level when he started bringing in his own really clever and ethical twists to offline leasing.

    Which course would you suggest to give one a really good grounding in offline leasing so that one can start to bring in one's own spin? Is the Google Love 2.0 course mentioned in this thread still good? I've gone through the Google Love 2.0 thread, and it seems opinion is mostly good, but a little mixed here and there. It also seems, from that thread, that the course focuses on pretty easy to rank terms, whereas Chris seems to be aiming for loftier keyword targets. Someone in the thread mentioned that the course maybe didn't take into account Penguin and Panda (though I'm not sure about that). That said, would Google Love 2.0 be a good place to start, even a year after its release, or are there other offline leasing courses that you guys might also recommend?

    Thanks, Chris, if you're still in this thread, and thanks, guys.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • You the man, Chris. Thanks.
  • Chris,

    Wow, really impressive... I'm going to take this to heart and check into this method. Thanks for the info.

    Jan

    • [1] reply
  • Hey Chris,
    This is an awesome thread, and I've spent quite a bit of time last night thoroughly reading through each post.

    I'm a bit surprised though, that no one mentioned, or asked about the contract that you have with your client renting the website.

    How are you handling that? I assume that you say something about 'no transfer of ownership' and the contract duration.

    Would you take a moment and tell us some details of how you are handling that?

    Tom
    • [1] reply
    • I actually do not have a contract, I simply overdeliver every month and nobody ever cancels, but I do pre-charge for the month. I may change that eventually though just because I think having a contract makes the portfolio 'sellable' at some point. However, I must say it makes closing the deal a breeze without a contract. I do ask people for at least 3 months to gain full traction wise, if they truly wanted to they could cancel after 30 days notice.

      I would not do no contract though unless you are certain you are delivering results, that is the key for sure.
  • Don't know if anybody could share the best WP template you all have used?
  • I use Weaver II its free, its clean and simple to (re)design, you can also download it true the wordpress backend
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks YGM, nice share.

      I've seen a good many of your posts in this area, too, and you seem to be giving it a good go.

      Thanks for all the good tips regarding site-rental/lead gen.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I wanted to add a little bit more to this awesome thread. The one aspect or approach that I truly appreciated about this business model is that there no promises, no selling 'blue sky', no hype. It's limited to the 'rubber-meets-the-road'. And as long as you are keeping your commitments, you'll have a client sending you money forever....

    One contribution that I wanted to make to the thread. The OP stated that he waited until his sales funnels were consistently kicking out 25-50 leads per month before he began the monthly billing process. Up until then, he would pass the incoming leads around to different firms and cultivate the relationship that way.

    I do it a bit differently. Almost simultaneously with building a new sales funnel in a new city, I solicit inquiries from interested clients for my sales funnel. I explain what's happening and that it may take 2-4 months to consistently generate sales leads every month, and that I don't begin the monthly billing until then.

    However....in the meantime, this funnel is kicking out sales leads, however sporadic, and instead of spending valuable time (of mine) looking for a place to send them, I establish a working relationship with a new client by collecting a non-refundable deposit (half of a regular monthly fee). This puts me in the position of tweaking the funnel to the client's unique sales requirements right at the very beginning of the process, and eliminates calling somebody to give away free leads before I get the thing up and running. I do explain, that after the deposit, there are no other fees until the system is at cruising altitude.

    Just an interesting side story....about 2 months ago, I had multiple people interested in one of my sales funnels that I was building for a specific city. I ended up with a bidding war on my hands.

    So, just a bit of a wrinkle to the OP's original business model that make things a bit more efficient for me.

    Tom
    • [ 5 ] Thanks
    • [3] replies
    • Hi Tom,

      Great share.

      And nice position to have a bidding war for your work - must have bumped-up your premium a nice bit.

      Good stuff.
    • Great idea Talltom, I have thought about doing that before but never tried it, maybe I will give that a test run.

      Thanks for sharing.
      -Chris
      • [1] reply
    • What would you say is cruising altitude? How many leads per month?

      Thanks, Jeff
      • [1] reply
  • This is a WSO! Thanks Chris for giving away all of this valuable information. Another person would have sold it! Much appreciated!
    • [1] reply
    • My pleasure, I hope this thread has helped some of you reach your goals as it has mine. =)
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Can someone explain to me, when setting up a rental site, let's say it's for a plumbing business, are you building it with generic plumbing articles you're writing to get it ranked? Then, once you rent it, are you just keeping those generic articles there to maintain the rank, but adding the contact info for the new business owner?
    • [1] reply
    • yes. do all of your work in the generic mode ...you never know what may happen and you want to maintain control.

      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Great post....I know the "leasing websites" thing is pretty hot right now...I never really understood the whole concept...as I just sold the leads...but this concept

    is a winner, but Google is so shaky to me (that's why I never really pursued it) but I understand the need to follow up with other advertising methods....
  • Excellent info in these posts, thanks all!

    Z
    • [1] reply
    • Can you give us some insight as to what lead funnels you are using other than search? Do you do any paid lead gen - PPC, media buys, Facebook ads?

      Thanks You
  • Chris check your PM,
    Thanks,

    Jeff
  • Hey Chris great post! I'm wondering if you could give us an update. Would love to hear your progress!
    • [1] reply
    • Yes I am still doing this full time, it's been just about 2 years now, and things have gone extremely well. A lot has changed over the year though on how I generate leads since staying ranked in Google has become more of a headache in the last year, I now do a mix of various ppc, classifieds, craigslist etc in addition to the search engines to make up the difference.

      Honestly my biggest challenge over the last 6 months or so has just been the scaling part, as I had started spending so much time managing client's and campaigns that I had very little time to sell new clients and grow.

      So I spent the last couple months of 2013 establishing additional outsourced helper relationships to help make growing again a possibility. My goal in 2014 is to double my client base, and I am just a week or so away from kicking off the next big sales push for new clients.

      You just need to roll with the punches and always look for ways to change and tweak what you are doing to make the client's phones ring.

      Happy 2014 and may All your dreams become reality!

      -Chris

      ps. Wow too many PM's - Seems I've not logged on enough here sorry, been too busy. I had multiple pages of private messages, answered a few but guys most of what was asked was already answered somewhere in this thread, I'll try to get to some others later. Have a great year folks!
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • which classified sites are you using? I need to bring leads to my client site - I am doing PPC, SEO..but can use extra leads for sure..
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  • Great Thread.

    Is anyone able to share an example site rental contract that I could edit and use?
    • [1] reply
  • Been really good tarpontim, I have pretty much doubled my clients this year and it's business as usual. Also to the some private questions earlier, I only seek new clients via telemarketing, I don't even attempt any other method.

    Over the last few months though I have definitely been shifting gears and changing my stance of signing a higher 'quantity' of recurring flat rate clients, to signing less, but higher 'quality' clients on recurring + commission structures (higher ticket niches).

    My flat rate recurring base is very solid but I was finding myself working much more than I would like on mundane tasks, and managing outsourcers to keep everything moving smoothly, and that workload was doing nothing but increasing as I added 'more' clients.

    So while I work hard to maintain all of my existing clients, I am now focusing more on making much more profit for the same or even less time worked, greatly increasing my profit per client, without working me to the nub. Frankly I am not sure how many more clients I could have handled before needing to put in SO many hours a week, that can lead to boredom and unhappiness.

    Anyone here reach that point? Just curious how you have handled it, I am much happier now that I slowed the pace of the new flat fee/monthly lower ticket client push and focused more on quality/higher ticket flat/monthly+commission setups I push now (in the pricier niches).

    In case anyone new to this is wondering though, Yes this industry is still very alive and kicking, and it's never too late to get started. You just want to go out of your way to make sure your lead generation model does not lean 100% on just once source for leads in case changes (think Google's zoo), never put all your eggs into one basket.

    Till next time =)

    -Chris
    • [2] replies
    • That makes a lot of sense. It took you awhile to find out what the money markets were and then awhile longer to set it up where you can charge enough to run it, make great money and still have time for a life.

      I haven't reached that point in offine lead generation, but I certainly have in offline physical product sales. My deal is that I have a great relationship with most of my customers. Many have done business with me for the better part of two decades. The problem is that the industry I'm in has experienced major changes since the recession and the value of each customer has greatly deteriorated. This industry is one where you can clearly see the gap widening between the large companies and the little guys.

      Personally, I'm burned out. Put a fork in me. I'm just about done. I've just picked up a few things ( Dr. Dan's new software, an offline template, etc) and some solid lessons on how to get started. My helper is finishing a project this week and next week I'm having her go full speed ahead into building local sites.

      I'm also putting in a couple hours per day setting up PPC ads, testing offers and building lists. I used to love doing that and did well for quite awhile. Other than the Google slap on my Adwords account, I have no idea why I ever stopped doing it completely.

      I'll keep working my business part-time until my other ventures equal or overtake my current income and I can leave the industry debt free. I like to have it to fall back on - just in case. I definitely want to keep my credit and reputation intact.

      Honestly, since I've made this decision I'm almost at peace. The constant stress was really beginning to suck. I'm kicking this burden to the curb and starting over again.

      Thanks for the sound advice, Chris. I'll definitely be taking it to heart and putting it to use!

      Joe
    • Hey Chris,

      Thanks for the thread, it helped me out a lot. Would love to hear an update from you on how you are doing. I had a few questions:

      1) What theme do you use with Wordpress to build your websites? I have heard the genesis framework + a child theme is one of the best, and most optimized SEO routes to go out of the box. What do you think? I do not want to try any thing else incase the code is not properly optimized.

      2) What images do you use for the general niche sites? doesn't the duplicate content hurt your rankings if you find images from google?

      3)what tool do you use to check competitors backlinks .. (after testing a few it seems that ahrefs.com is the most accurate, but it is very expensive at $75/month)

      Thanks a lot again, and hope all is well in your business.

      Kevin
  • Joe. .life is good. Do what you in joy doing..doesnt matter about your present situation..go with your flow of happiness. .regardless. hate to read that you are done..cause you're not done. ..you're here..do what makes you happy..the other stuff will come..my experience anyway.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks, Bob. I'm not "done" in the sense that I'm not going to work online and offline projects anymore. I'm just done working hard on something that I don't enjoy as much anymore and comes with a certain degree of stress because of the inventory I have to pay for regularly.

      It makes much more sense to start a business that has zero inventory obligations, build and rent sites to customers that I only have to sell to ONE time and collect a monthly residual from each customer that I can rely on rather than my current sporadic, unreliable sales.

      Make sense? :-)
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Hi, Chris.

    Do you have any examples of your sites or a 'step by step' instructional to offer?

    Thanks!
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Chris, What kind of products do you sell ?
      • [1] reply
  • Thanks so much for sharing this.

    Just wondering if you use any type of software to maintain/post all the free adverts?

    I could imagine this would be really time consuming without it.

    Thanks in advance.
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  • I am renting out 2 of my niche website right now month to month paid viapaypal for $400. Renting websites is smart because you continue to own the property while it generates money for you.
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  • Is site rental still a viable business model in 2015.?

    I only ask because with all the Google updates etc, I'm thinking it might not be as easy to rank websites like it used to be.?
    • [1] reply
    • I have read many of your comments prior to this about SEO and the like. I think you mentioned you lost 4 sites to "Panda"? The reality is this.. I have never "lost" a site unless I intended to. Yes, I will develop sites with the intent purpose of seeing where the line of listed and sandbox is. Once I hit sandbox I do try and reverse that.. and if I way over crossed the line.. I let the domain fall away.

      Sites today I think are far EASIER to rank. But that comes with a caveat. I pretty much know what true white hat development is. I pay better than close attention to the SEO world not to see what is trending today.. but what is being said about trends of tomorrow.

      In the world of "Google SEO" you really need to look at the Florida update ( November 2003 ) and all of the things that were "corrected" then are the same today ( the more things change the more they stay the same ) PANDA is really an extension of Florida. PENGUIN is really an extension of Florida. Payday, Pirate, Phantom 2 ALL have their roots and established definitions beginning with the Florida update.

      I am in no way directing the next comment AT you ( zoro ) but I think getting smacked with any of these updates is stupid. The fact that all of this is well documented and there is no question what Google is looking for. There is just this tendency to cut corners, to bend the rules only slightly, to try and beat the system... and time and again it is proven the system will win.

      If there ever was any of this that I could be guilty of it is right here: Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: An update on doorway pages Doorway pages. I am a big fan.. well let me rephrase that.. I WAS a big fan. I have spent the last what 3 months or so going through and cleaning up as best I could. A tool I use to identify these pages within my sits structure is dynomapper.com ( a visual link tree )

      What you are basically looking for is what Google has deemed "Islands" of pages that point to one page. say lander 1 through 10 and the all point to topic 2 page, and they are not crossed linked from anywhere else on the site.

      But back on topic... Ranking in general unless you are shooting for the moon and going for the term "Xbox One" or something is not that hard. Are there tricks in all of this? sure there is. I think the best thing that could be read about and understood in this process is how to control "Juice".

      You don't need PBN's to be successful. you really in most cases don't need all that much back linking. I use a 90% ( no follow ) to 10% ( do follow ) strategy. ( I am sure I will catch flack here ) its understanding how to get and control juice. how to make it flow where you want it. how to make it work for you.

      ALL SEO strategies are based on content. So reading up on Content Marketing. Reading up on Pillar Content. Reading up on Corner Stone Content. Understanding how to pick target keywords within your niche or market. How to use social media with your content to develop that 10% do follow back linking ( and NO I am not suggesting that the social media linking is the backlink, its what others do with linking to your content away from social media sources )

      It is a STRATEGY.. there does need to be a game plan.. there does have to be a bit of structure in what you do. Reading the above topics will start pointing you in the right direction.
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Perhaps generating real targeted traffic via Paid Ads through Adwords and Facebook might be the way to attack this, ensuring the website generates inquiries and phone calls, so long as there is still a reasonable ROI.
    This would be apart from some On Page SEO and minimal Off Page SEO.
    • [1] reply
    • Most people I know that are following this ( site rental ) model start with solid on page SEO. You can go and find posts by MRomeo09 try this: http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ml#post9344219 where he discusses the math end of using a PPC model in doing this.

      There are obvious factors that have to be looked at ( as he lays out in that post ) to determine if a PPC model is actually usable in any given situation.

      Personally I like the SEO path. Aside from the time it takes to develop the right content to get the right traffic there is no expense in the traffic. No expense means greater profit in the end.

      I am going to make a suggestion here. #1 I absolutely love your ambition. #2 I love how you follow through. #3 I love that deep seated desire you have. The thing that needs to stop is the bounce. - I did this and that didn't work.. how bout this.. that didn't work.. how bought that.. that didn't work either. Its not that you are chasing shiny things.. its that you have not developed a system that works for you yet.

      And don't for 2 seconds think that is a bad thing.. because you keep at it, you keep trying.

      The suggestion... why not develop a site for yourself. An affiliate site or anything. Learn how to develop SEO traffic to your site. ( you can literally start the flow of traffic to just about any site in DAYS if you know what you are doing ) If the offer has the room learn how to develop PPC to your offer. Stop the impact of those around you, and learn the skills to succeed. Once you do these things once. you can repeat those efforts time and again for the benefit of others. But until you can do it for yourself, you need to minimize the wake around you.

      I would be more than happy to help you in this process. ( you know that ) its really not as hard as it sounds. There are 12 year olds out there crushing it, and so can you!
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  • To the OP, I see you started this thread in 2012. Since the many google updates, have you changed your method of operation at all? Local seo must have been much easier 3 years ago.. are the websites you built in 2012 still generating leads from organic search themselves or are you relying heavily on alternate lead sources?

    Great thread, great inspiration. Thanks
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    • Bumping this question, would really like an answer
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  • Just came across this.. Didn't realize it was from 2012. Great post. Going through the replies now.
  • I understand this business model and how it works.Am not sure if you are doing everything manually but collecting data and charging clients according to their rates can be tedious.I have just built a system for a client which automatically receive calls, forward it and keep record of pricing.In the end admin only need to select client and duration to send bill.He is using Twilio which have some great features including call whisper.
  • This is by far one of the best lead gen threads I've come across. A huge thank you Chris and everyone else who has contributed - very inspiring and has given me that extra motivation.

    How are you getting on with it now? Have you hit your $20,000 a month goal?

    Do you use any software to manage your day to day activities? I've only gone through this thread once so may have missed it if you've already mentioned it.

    I created a lead gen site a few weeks ago. One thing I may have possibly done wrong (and I hope you can give me some advice here), is that I registered a domain name that sounds like a company rather than register an EMD (although the domain name has the main keyword in it still). As an example, MrLawyer dot com. I also created a logo and all the text I have on the site refers to the company name Mr Lawyer.

    I have then created inner pages to target the local keywords. For example, Lawyer New York etc. When it comes to sending the leads to the potential client, will this confuse the customer as they would expect to speak to someone from MrLawyer but instead my client answers the phone using his company name?
    • [1] reply
    • Branding a domain is better than EMD now. Google looks at that as being to spammy. Only do one city at time. Too many cities at once, unless the content is completely different is also too spammy. Once it ranks, you can post a graphic with the info of whoever you are renting the site too. That will help eliminate the confusion if any.
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  • Thanks for your response Jack.

    I will most likely create a new thread for my next question but thought I'd ask here first. What is the best Wordpress theme you guys have used for lead gen? I used the following tool to check my current site and it came back with alot of errors and I think this is mainly due to how fancy the site looks. It has alot of banners, featured areas etc.

    varvy.com (it checks to see whether your site follows the Google webmaster guidelines)
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
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    • Hey thanks for the site tip, varvy.com. I did not know about it. I don't think there is one "best" theme. There are a ton of vendors out there selling all sorts. One theme I use a lot is GeneratePress. There is a free version but for $35 you get a tone of premium add-ons. This theme has a lot of support from its designer. One big thing to keep in mind for lead gen is, how does the site look on mobile devices? Over 50% of searches now are done on a mobile device. A lot of those specialty "lead gen" sites don't transfer over well.
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  • Any other option
    besides Twilio and Phone.com for redirecting calls?
    Awesome thread btw!
    • [1] reply
    • Why? What's wrong with them? I use Twilio without incident - actually I just replaced my SIP trunks from another company with them, to integrate my billing.
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  • Billy - your sig links point to invalid threads?
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks, I just posted a couple of JVs today, I guess they haven't been approved yet. $99 for War Room access (so I could post them) wisely spent
  • I have my domain and hosting and ready to build my site with WP.

    Im based in the UK and was wondering what would be the best Call forwarding service to use.

    I looked into Twilio but it seems way above me. Any heads up and advice would be appreciated

    Thanks in advance
  • You could use Callfire. I've used it before and it was easy. Other than that and Twilio I don't know any such services, though maybe Google Voice or Vumber would help.
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  • Just a heads up people on this thread. It has been going on a long time and things have changed. You can still make money at lead gen (I know. I am doing it.) but the process of ranking long term is more difficult now and Google has gotten a lot smarter in sniffing out sites that are not really local. Research and identifying a worthwhile niche is key. I am not saying that you cannot succeed at this, I am just interjecting a little caution here that "rank and rent" is a more ifficult process now than it was 4 years ago when this thread was first started. Like everything in IM do not go into this all starry eyed thinking you are going to get rich overnight.
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  • Re: "Research and identifying a worthwhile niche is key."

    always has been. Just to appear on a local market with the idea to take over never worked,,
    ya maybe in 1998 you could take over a city with a city directory, but soon after it was all
    niche and super niche after that. And these days you have to pick one trendy thing out of a
    sub niche, everything else is already covered multiple times. There goes the neighborhood.
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  • Hello Chris,


    I am curious do you stay in one niche and drill down and dominate various keywords or are you in various niches?

    thomas
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    I am posting this after reading several people have questions or complaints about site rentals, and also as a response to some people who have been giving Dan's system in his WSO thread a hard time, although I did not first learn this business from Dan. (this is not a pitch or review for Dan's wso or selling anything). If you wish to hear how I made it my current $6500 usd a month in 3 months read on, if you just want the advice skip past My Story and down to number 1. My Story-