"Rent-A-Site" concept - Does it still work well?

[itzpaul]

That's crazy it seems like most people aren't doing so well with rentals while some are. I hear great stories about people doing well and I found this one big company that has a ton of rental sites.


I'm working on this and have about 13 rental sites and just need to get them ranked and hopefully I have better luck with finding some renters. I'm probably going to stick with direct mailers.


I'll start off ranking the site and renting it out for about $400-$500/mo depending on the city and traffic and once I get a decent monthly income. I'm going to start testing out other methods such as the commission based or lead based.

 

[dantob]

So are you guys setting up your rental sites with more of a generic content/professional type where it looks like a real business website or do you guys go for more of a real lead gen site similar to this site http://sanjose.discount-plumbers.com/ which I believe is using one of Jack Mizes theme.

 

[itzpaul]

I just created my theme and it's a real simple theme but has a main call to action on the frontpage that almost looks like a 1 frame slideshow. It says "Looking for a great Mechanic?". It then says something like We're a great auto repair shop in Dallas Texas! How can we help you? with a contact form on the right hand side and an arrow pointing to it. I have a guy/girl to whatever niche it is in this case Mechanic. I will change it depending on the niche.

I then have just basic content on the site that is somewhat related with the keywords. With some widget areas here and there on Business Hours, Store Location, Meet Your Mechanic, etc.

I'm then going to rank for all the relevant and high traffic keywords for that specific niche. After, I find a renter. I'm going to figure out what they're exact services are and start catering to their services and also rank for these long-term keywords.

Such as; Brake repair Dallas, Catalytic Converter Dallas Texas, etc etc so these all trickel in some traffic.

I would definitely like to change my call to action feature to a "Enter Your Phone Number and We'll Call You Now!" Type deal. Basically, someone enters their phone number and it will call their phone number as well as my main number. So my phone will ring and it would have been from my website. Still not sure how to do this and been searching if anyone has any ideas or tips for this please let me know.

I would then sign up with facebook, twitter, google+ for Dallas Auto Repair and link my website to it. These will be my properties and I will rank these on the frontpage as well. I'll also be making a youtube video for it and rank that as well. Hopefully, owning 3-6 properties on page 1.

All pages will go to my own tracking number that I will get from Twilio and when I have a renter or new buyer I just change the forwarding #.

I have about 13 of these type of domain names but I have yet to finish ranking them and try to find buyers. That's my strategy but have yet to test it but I think it will work really well. I'm looking at getting a few to rent out for $300-$500/mo. I'm targetting really easy and smaller cities in which I'll be charging $300-$500/mo. For bigger cities, I will either charge per lead or $1k-1.4k/mo or commission.

I should have some results soon. I will probably call these companies before hand and sell on the phone or possibly send a "direct mail package" to their address. I may call, verify, if I can't sell em over the phone. Ask if their address is correct and if they would like me to send them a brochure package in the mail. I'll then send this package to all the 5-15 mechanics in the area.

 

[dantob]

I just created my theme and it's a real simple theme but has a main call to action on the frontpage that almost looks like a 1 frame slideshow. It says "Looking for a great Mechanic?". It then says something like We're a great auto repair shop in Dallas Texas! How can we help you? with a contact form on the right hand side and an arrow pointing to it. I have a guy/girl to whatever niche it is in this case Mechanic. I will change it depending on the niche.

I then have just basic content on the site that is somewhat related with the keywords. With some widget areas here and there on Business Hours, Store Location, Meet Your Mechanic, etc.

I'm then going to rank for all the relevant and high traffic keywords for that specific niche. After, I find a renter. I'm going to figure out what they're exact services are and start catering to their services and also rank for these long-term keywords.

Such as; Brake repair Dallas, Catalytic Converter Dallas Texas, etc etc so these all trickel in some traffic.

I would definitely like to change my call to action feature to a "Enter Your Phone Number and We'll Call You Now!" Type deal. Basically, someone enters their phone number and it will call their phone number as well as my main number. So my phone will ring and it would have been from my website. Still not sure how to do this and been searching if anyone has any ideas or tips for this please let me know.

I would then sign up with facebook, twitter, google+ for Dallas Auto Repair and link my website to it. These will be my properties and I will rank these on the frontpage as well. I'll also be making a youtube video for it and rank that as well. Hopefully, owning 3-6 properties on page 1.

All pages will go to my own tracking number that I will get from Twilio and when I have a renter or new buyer I just change the forwarding #.

I have about 13 of these type of domain names but I have yet to finish ranking them and try to find buyers. That's my strategy but have yet to test it but I think it will work really well. I'm looking at getting a few to rent out for $300-$500/mo. I'm targetting really easy and smaller cities in which I'll be charging $300-$500/mo. For bigger cities, I will either charge per lead or $1k-1.4k/mo or commission.

I should have some results soon. I will probably call these companies before hand and sell on the phone or possibly send a "direct mail package" to their address. I may call, verify, if I can't sell em over the phone. Ask if their address is correct and if they would like me to send them a brochure package in the mail. I'll then send this package to all the 5-15 mechanics in the area.

What I've been reading and seems to be working for others is try to get your site rank for as many long tail keywords as you can (including your main keyword) and have a good CTA on that page with a forwarding phone# to track calls. So at first when you don't have a client yet to rent you can forward number to a generic voice mail that asks the person calling to leave a brief message about what they need done and someone will get back to them asap. It's best to monitor how many calls you do get and for ones that leave a voice mail you can call up the local businesses and give them the lead for free. Once you get an idea of how many calls come in a week or month they you can get a good idea of how much to charge per month.

 

[fuzzy_corleone]

What are some good SEO services (fiverr or bhw) that you guys used to rank your site?

 

[dantob]

I just created my theme and it's a real simple theme but has a main call to action on the frontpage that almost looks like a 1 frame slideshow. It says "Looking for a great Mechanic?". It then says something like We're a great auto repair shop in Dallas Texas! How can we help you? with a contact form on the right hand side and an arrow pointing to it. I have a guy/girl to whatever niche it is in this case Mechanic. I will change it depending on the niche.

I then have just basic content on the site that is somewhat related with the keywords. With some widget areas here and there on Business Hours, Store Location, Meet Your Mechanic, etc.

I'm then going to rank for all the relevant and high traffic keywords for that specific niche. After, I find a renter. I'm going to figure out what they're exact services are and start catering to their services and also rank for these long-term keywords.

Such as; Brake repair Dallas, Catalytic Converter Dallas Texas, etc etc so these all trickel in some traffic.

I would definitely like to change my call to action feature to a "Enter Your Phone Number and We'll Call You Now!" Type deal. Basically, someone enters their phone number and it will call their phone number as well as my main number. So my phone will ring and it would have been from my website. Still not sure how to do this and been searching if anyone has any ideas or tips for this please let me know.

I would then sign up with facebook, twitter, google+ for Dallas Auto Repair and link my website to it. These will be my properties and I will rank these on the frontpage as well. I'll also be making a youtube video for it and rank that as well. Hopefully, owning 3-6 properties on page 1.

All pages will go to my own tracking number that I will get from Twilio and when I have a renter or new buyer I just change the forwarding #.

I have about 13 of these type of domain names but I have yet to finish ranking them and try to find buyers. That's my strategy but have yet to test it but I think it will work really well. I'm looking at getting a few to rent out for $300-$500/mo. I'm targetting really easy and smaller cities in which I'll be charging $300-$500/mo. For bigger cities, I will either charge per lead or $1k-1.4k/mo or commission.

I should have some results soon. I will probably call these companies before hand and sell on the phone or possibly send a "direct mail package" to their address. I may call, verify, if I can't sell em over the phone. Ask if their address is correct and if they would like me to send them a brochure package in the mail. I'll then send this package to all the 5-15 mechanics in the area.

Any update on your progress? Have you got any of your sites ranked and rented out yet?

 

[itzpaul]

@dantob - A few sites have been ranked, but I have yet to rent them out just yet. I should be starting soon, I'm currently getting articles written for all the sites and will start backlinking shortly. I have a total of 17 sites currently and want to get these rented and will start adding more to my list.

I will be cold calling for the most part and letting the local businesses know that I have a website in their niche on page 1 that is receiving traffic.

 

[fuzzy_corleone]

@dantob - A few sites have been ranked, but I have yet to rent them out just yet. I should be starting soon, I'm currently getting articles written for all the sites and will start backlinking shortly. I have a total of 17 sites currently and want to get these rented and will start adding more to my list.

I will be cold calling for the most part and letting the local businesses know that I have a website in their niche on page 1 that is receiving traffic.

What SEO services did you use to get your rent-a-site ranked?

 

[MassMarketer]

I know i know.

Its an old concept. Building a site, rank it with local keywords, and rent it out to local small business.
Does it still works well? I was just doing analyzing some of my competitions and I just found out that one medium-size marketing
company is doing this. They seem to purchased a lot of local EMD and have a lot of sites developed.

Most of them are populated with actual address and contact information (I assume they are rented out sucessfully).

Share your experience. Thank you.

Only one way to find out,
i suppose it will vary from location to location.
i do know a few people banking of this at the moment, but it's very hit and miss

 

[fuzzy_corleone]

Making the site and getting it ranked are the easy parts. The hard part is client acquisition. There are four ways to acquire a client: 1) Emailing them. 2) Cold calling. 3) Direct mail. 4) Cold walking. Obviously cold walking is the most effective and hardest to do. Cold calling only works well when you target a niche where gatekeepers/secretaries are uncommon.

So a dentists, plastic surgeons, eye doctors, etc. will be a bit difficult because of the gatekeeper unless you cold walk, pimp slap the female intern secretary and force your way into the dentist office. Or you can try the James Bond approach and charm your way into the secretary's heart (much easier if she's nerdy looking, overweight, or has a low self-esteem). Sometimes you have to take a grenade (Jersey Shore reference) in order to bank.

 

[blueplue]

Please don't flame me if I ask a stupid question:

Does anyone have a sample of site using local marketing wordpress theme?

I have no clue, what kind of layout to used?

 

[mhatter]

knockoutlocal thanks for the tips. What are you using for yelp and directory addresses? Are you using a UPS mailbox? Are you waiting to get a client that using their address in the directories for your site? Thanks.

 

[Gman799]

 

[dantob]

Hi Guys,

I'm new to this forum, I am currently renting out 12 ranked websites on monthly deals. If you have a website ranked high and its getting traffic or leads you shouldn't have a problem selling it. I mean we all know a website ranked for most local niches will have serious value to someone out there.

So first of all you need to ask yourself are you ranking the right kind of local businesses. I only rank website in high ticket niches, so if the client only gets 1 job a month off the site he will be more than happy as he's made $1k - $50k, One guy got a $2.5 million deal from one of my websites! Not profit but thats how much the deal was worth.

Secondly how are you approaching these prospects, I phone to close for an appointment, if I have a site already ranking I'll phone up with a lead usually.

Here's what I say,

Hi is this xyz company

Prospect: Yes

Hi my name is Gman799 and I wondered if you could help me, I'm a local business owner and I have a website for xyz in xyz. The reason I'm calling is because it is on page 1 of Google and is generating enquiries. I'n not actually a xyz contractor I just created the website and I am looking for a xyz contractor who can handle the work the website is generating.

Would you be able to handle any more work at them moment,

Then based on his answer closw ofr an appointment, don't mention price,

If he asks about price say "it wont cost you anything if it has no value to you" if he says we just sort it out on the phone say Mr customer I would love to explain everything now but there are some important things I need to show you, what day would be best weds or Thurs

Then when you go see him, build rapport and value in what your selling before closing on a price which will be good for you

any questions let me know,

thanks guys

Gman799

Nice job! A few questions for you if you don't mind.

1. Are any of your 12 sites in the professional fields i.e. dentists , lawyers, chiropractors, etc.? If not are you more in to the contractor based type of businesses such as pool builders, kitchen remodel, etc.?

2. How do you setup your sites? WP? Do you just put up content on the homepage that is generic in nature and talk about your keyword such as "city niche" and how to find the best "city niche", etc.? Do you use a tracking# number (to estimate leads before and after renting the site) you forward to a client's number once they are on board?

3. What sort of call to action (CTA) message do you have on these sites that generate calls when people land on the site?

4. Do you incorporate a contact form on the site that people can fill out with their info that then goes to either you (before you rent a site) or to the client after they are renting?

5. Do you charge a flat monthly fee for each client to rent a site? How do you determine what is going to be the monthly fee? Any forumulas you use to come to a figure?

6. What sort of keyword research do you do to find your keywords? Do you pick the one with highest search volume and then get an exact match domain with that and setup your site? Do you use exact match or broad numbers from Google Keyword tool?

7. Do you only rent the site out once you hit #1 spot or if you hit page one and notice that you are getting traffic to it?

8. At first when you have ranked the site, receiving traffic, and you have a forwarding# where do the calls get forwarded? Do you setup a generic voicemail and then use those leads as freebies to contact the businesses that might be interested in getting more of these leads, but at a cost?

I think for me the main issue would be even if you get the organic search traffic to click on your site the part that is critical is how do you get them to pick up the phone and call the number on the site or fill out the contact form? Your CTA will be the most important thing here otherwise you can get traffic all day, but if they don't convert to leads to the client they won't be with you for long.

Sorry for the many questions, but I think the answers will be helpful to many of us here.

 

[knockoutlocal]

I create my own location because most of the people i cater to don't service customers at their location. I posted on another thread about how to get the addresses approved with google. It mainly involves just adding the location through mapmaker.

 

[Techxan]

What I've been reading and seems to be working for others is try to get your site rank for as many long tail keywords as you can (including your main keyword) and have a good CTA on that page with a forwarding phone# to track calls. So at first when you don't have a client yet to rent you can forward number to a generic voice mail that asks the person calling to leave a brief message about what they need done and someone will get back to them asap. It's best to monitor how many calls you do get and for ones that leave a voice mail you can call up the local businesses and give them the lead for free. Once you get an idea of how many calls come in a week or month they you can get a good idea of how much to charge per month.

I use a variation of this. I use a virtual number and actually just point it to a local service provider. As the site ranks, I watch the phone log, when the service provider has received 20 to 25 calls from my site, I call him, explain that I am ranking the site and for now I pointed it at his business. Tell them that in the past month, the people from these phone numbers (give them the list) came to their business from my website, and they were free, but when the site is ready to be leased, I am going to point it to the person who leases it. I give them first shot because no one has complained about the service they have been providing. They will recognize the customers they did business with on the list and realize that you have been sending them customers for free. They will also realize that there is a never ending stream of these customers.

If they do not want to rent the site or buy the lead, point it to another service provider, send them some business, and sooner or later someone will bite. I have had people call me after getting a customer just to ask why my site is sending them customers. I explain that the site is in development and I needed to send the people somewhere, so I picked them. I tell them that until I find a renter it will point to them, and if they want to rent, fine.

This solves the problem of babysitting the early traffic, I just sent it to someone who does the work.

One lady told me this week she is glad she went with me, because she is getting "new customers every week" (her words). She told me to use her as a reference, she will be happy to tell others about me.

 

[dantob]

I use a variation of this. I use a virtual number and actually just point it to a local service provider. As the site ranks, I watch the phone log, when the service provider has received 20 to 25 calls from my site, I call him, explain that I am ranking the site and for now I pointed it at his business. Tell them that in the past month, the people from these phone numbers (give them the list) came to their business from my website, and they were free, but when the site is ready to be leased, I am going to point it to the person who leases it. I give them first shot because no one has complained about the service they have been providing. They will recognize the customers they did business with on the list and realize that you have been sending them customers for free. They will also realize that there is a never ending stream of these customers.

If they do not want to rent the site or buy the lead, point it to another service provider, send them some business, and sooner or later someone will bite. I have had people call me after getting a customer just to ask why my site is sending them customers. I explain that the site is in development and I needed to send the people somewhere, so I picked them. I tell them that until I find a renter it will point to them, and if they want to rent, fine.

This solves the problem of babysitting the early traffic, I just sent it to someone who does the work.

One lady told me this week she is glad she went with me, because she is getting "new customers every week" (her words). She told me to use her as a reference, she will be happy to tell others about me.

How many sites are you currently doing?

Do you have a rough idea of the ratio of search traffic that come to your site and the number of actual calls that get generated per month? So I assume you use that number just on that site so that any calls that you see get's forwarded to the business you are sending to you know came from the site. What sort of traffic are you getting per month to a site and from those how many calls on average? Do you do anything special with your site or CTA to get them to call the number? Any contact forms?

 

[Gman799]

Hi dantob,

Ok heres my answers to your questions,

1, yes they are all contractors, I'm in UK so I just target the construction industry. Mainly because they are easy to talk to and easy to sell to.

2, Yes I rank a wordpress websites add stock images and add generic keyword rich content including all lsi keywords and proper on page seo, also add a kml file for the centre. of the city not sure whether that helps but my sites are ranking. for leads yes I have a few contact forms directed ti my email and I add my number which forwards to my mobile as well as my mobile. When I get people calling I just take there details down and then tell them I'll get my biz partner to call back and arrange an appointment. Then I go calling contractors and use the lead as bait.

3, Nothing special just Call now for a free quote, I get loads of calls with this

4, Yes, when I rent the site out I get the emails going to both of us, as I will text the contractor to let them know to chack there email for a lead as some of these guys don't check there email often enough, the faster you follow up a lead the better chance they have of getting the job

5, No formula and no set price, just go and see the contractor and work out customer value, build value of the website and close for as much as I can.

6, Yes most popular keyword with geo, so "Roofers London" I do towns and also counties (states) and use local pages ***** plugin to cover every town in that area for my local keywords.

7, Rent out or start ringing as soon as I start getting leads, don't forget when the rent you can always join Google engage and get some adwords vouchers and use them for the 1st month if you haven't got the rankings you want initially,

8, Think I answered that above but all leads I charge 10% of the profit, usually the labour profit befre I fill the website with a client.

Ok hope that helps if anyone is n the UK and needs help selling web sites PM me and we can chat,

Cheers,

Gman799

 

[Techxan]

I build a real business website, just as if I am the business person, but I keep the domain name as "city service" or "service city".

This is an example of a site site I did this with: (Built it for roughly $20, sold it for $700. Do the monthly SEO for the new owner now.)

www.hardwoodfloorrerefinishing-houston.com

I just use a simple WordPress site and build a few content pages. Local is easy to rank for, if you hit the on page seo right and register with local business directories.

The traffic coming to the site is very low, 2 to 5 visitors per day. But these are the most targeted customers you will ever find, because they are coming to the site looking for the service. A couple of new customers a week will make any businessman or woman happy.

I do not worry about the traffic or conversions, do the site right and people will come if you are hitting traffic keywords. Just make a website that shows quality work. That is the key, in my opinion. If you bbuild windows, show beautiful windows, especially if you can do before and after pics. People search for "service + before and after" quite a lot. I try to have before and after pictures when it can be done for the clients business. You can't do it for tutoring, you can for remodeling.

If the value of a customer is $2000 and your client gets 1 a week, they will have no complaints. (that's an extra 8 grand per month for him) Every month too, and it will grow over time.

Looking at the call log, I am getting 15-18 inquires per 70 visitors or so but I do not know how many of those became customers.

 

[dantob]

I build a real business website, just as if I am the business person, but I keep the domain name as "city service" or "service city".

This is an example of a site site I did this with: (Built it for roughly $20, sold it for $700. Do the monthly SEO for the new owner now.)

http://www.hardwoodfloorrerefinishing-houston.com

I just use a simple WordPress site and build a few content pages. Local is easy to rank for, if you hit the on page seo right and register with local business directories.

The traffic coming to the site is very low, 2 to 5 visitors per day. But these are the most targeted customers you will ever find, because they are coming to the site looking for the service. A couple of new customers a week will make any businessman or woman happy.

I do not worry about the traffic or conversions, do the site right and people will come if you are hitting traffic keywords. Just make a website that shows quality work. That is the key, in my opinion. If you bbuild windows, show beautiful windows, especially if you can do before and after pics. People search for "service + before and after" quite a lot. I try to have before and after pictures when it can be done for the clients business. You can't do it for tutoring, you can for remodeling.

If the value of a customer is $2000 and your client gets 1 a week, they will have no complaints. (that's an extra 8 grand per month for him) Every month too, and it will grow over time.

Looking at the call log, I am getting 15-18 inquires per 70 visitors or so but I do not know how many of those became customers.

Getting 15-18 leads (or calls) to the business for every 70 visitors is pretty good. That's all we can do for a business is to get them leads and phone ringing..converting them into customers becomes their part at that point.

How did you do your initial keyword research for this site or similar sites?

Do you sell many of the sites that you initially rent out? When you do rent them how much are you charging them per month or do you charge per lead (# of phone calls for that month)?