Local ranked sites for rent question

I already rank for a niche where lifetime value of customer is very high and its targeting a wealthy location. Lets say for the sake of an example I am ranking for beverly hills plastic surgeon. One customer equals thousands of dollars in revenue over time. $500/lead for plastic surgeon is a reasonable price, same goes for a roofing company. You sending 1 client a month could mean $10-20k in business for some types of business. Now ask yourself - as a business owner how much would you pay in referral fees to acquire $10-20k of new business? With 10% being lowest you are looking $1-2k. If you are generous at 20% you are looking $2-4k.

As stated before I would use a detailed lead form. For plastic surgeon you can ask what type of surgery lead would be interested in, are they paying in full (plastic surgery is not covered by insurance) or payment plan, do they want to schedule an appointment, the list goes and on. The more information you can get from a lead the higher you can charge for it. Location, location, location. Leads for Beverly Hills, California are worth more than leads for Compton, California.

Please lets stay on the subject of renting the site and not twisting it into ranking a website or local listings.

Very good information!

But I do have one, albeit minor, disagreement. With the rent-a-site, I think it is a very good idea to have a Google Places set up to - no doubt you're missing out on traffic and potential leads?

Otherwise, top info. there, really puts it into perspective.

I assume that you charge PER lead not per CONVERTED lead, is that correct? Would be hard to have to believe them whether a lead converted or not.
 
Why complicate things for yourself. You sell detailed leads, you are practically giving clients away.

I could setup local listing for this website and have it ring down to VM. If I setup local listings for it than the site will only collect leads, since my local listing number will be listed. Messages left on VM can be returned and more leads can be collected. If you are already enjoying organic + local results you can still rent out to the business.

Different ways to do things and I want to try to approach this with rent option.
 
The only problem is, at least for me, the traffic in these areas is probably not high enough itself. Supplementing with Google Places should see a bit more traffic, and thus value for the client.

I'll be honest, if i could make a website and have that on it's own provide callers for my client, then I wouldn't even give Google Places a second thought :)
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second:

No matter what method the business in question markets it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they are able to directly measure EXACTLY which customers came in SPECIFICALLY from that advert. Yes, they can use dedicated #800 numbers and/or coupon codes on some print material to get an idea, but the fact remains that a LOT of people saw those ads and did not take action, AND just the same, there were those that saw those ads, took action, but were not accounted for in any trackable way.

EXAMPLE: Restaurant grand opening ad in a newspaper with a coupon to track visitors (most prob won't even have this). I go to the restaurant because I remembered the grand opening, but I did not bother to clip the 10% coupon (true story actually).

The ad brought me in, but unless every waiter asks every guest how they heard about the grand opening then they won't know. In this example 100 people may have acted on the advertisment but only 30 clipped the coupon. Now the restaurant owner might think damn, that full page color ad cost me $x and I only made $x back, when in reality he made a lot more off the ad but does not know it was directly related to that ad.

My whole rambleing point at 3am EST in the U.S. is that as long as we are bringing REAL VISITORS to a page that advertises their business in a positive light we are providing value AND potentially many customers...even if they don't enter their email or call the number on the webpage. They may just stop by (in which case we probably need to partner with the biz owner to develop other methods to track where their clientel come from).

Man I gotta go to sleep...way too many typos in this post that I'm not even gonna fix lol.

Cheers!
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second:

No matter what method the business in question markets it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they are able to directly measure EXACTLY which customers came in SPECIFICALLY from that advert. Yes, they can use dedicated #800 numbers and/or coupon codes on some print material to get an idea, but the fact remains that a LOT of people saw those ads and did not take action, AND just the same, there were those that saw those ads, took action, but were not accounted for in any trackable way.

EXAMPLE: Restaurant grand opening ad in a newspaper with a coupon to track visitors (most prob won't even have this). I go to the restaurant because I remembered the grand opening, but I did not bother to clip the 10% coupon (true story actually).

The ad brought me in, but unless every waiter asks every guest how they heard about the grand opening then they won't know. In this example 100 people may have acted on the advertisment but only 30 clipped the coupon. Now the restaurant owner might think damn, that full page color ad cost me $x and I only made $x back, when in reality he made a lot more off the ad but does not know it was directly related to that ad.

My whole rambleing point at 3am EST in the U.S. is that as long as we are bringing REAL VISITORS to a page that advertises their business in a positive light we are providing value AND potentially many customers...even if they don't enter their email or call the number on the webpage. They may just stop by (in which case we probably need to partner with the biz owner to develop other methods to track where their clientel come from).

Man I gotta go to sleep...way too many typos in this post that I'm not even gonna fix lol.

Cheers!

You're comparing oranges to apples. A restaurant isn't dependent on calls the same way, say, a plumber is. When our client is on google, they get a unique tracking number. Even if the potential client doesn't call the first time they see the webpage, when they DO call later down the line the only number they have is the tracking number so it is trackable. Most people that utilize internet marketing campaigns are SERVICES and not something like a restaurant where they can just "stop by". If you think business owners care about "visitors" or "ranks" or "exposure", think again. 99% of the time the only thing they care about is calls/leads.
 
You're comparing oranges to apples. A restaurant isn't dependent on calls the same way, say, a plumber is. When our client is on google, they get a unique tracking number. Even if the potential client doesn't call the first time they see the webpage, when they DO call later down the line the only number they have is the tracking number so it is trackable. Most people that utilize internet marketing campaigns are SERVICES and not something like a restaurant where they can just "stop by". If you think business owners care about "visitors" or "ranks" or "exposure", think again. 99% of the time the only thing they care about is calls/leads.


I am finding that most of the calls for the plumbing shop are cumming for supper long tail key words for strange stuff. It seams like the heavily saturated key words even if you are at the top your loosing out on calls due to name recognition.

would love to pick your brain and maybe swap techniques.

PS i actually am a plumber
 
You are right that there are some long tails getting traffic. And in many local, smaller markets - if you know what those long tails are, you will probably be able to easily rank #1 for them with little to no effort.

You know when you go into Google and start typing "plumber new york" if you don't hit enter and you leave it, Google also shows you a whole lot of other suggestions that people are typing in (they are all longer tail keywords) and you can try to rank for those instead of the main "plumber new york" as it should be easier, and still get a bit of traffic.

For smaller towns/areas though, try rank for the main keyword and also the smaller keywords too :)
 
I'm gonna play devil's advocate for a second:

No matter what method the business in question markets it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY they are able to directly measure EXACTLY which customers came in SPECIFICALLY from that advert. Yes, they can use dedicated #800 numbers and/or coupon codes on some print material to get an idea, but the fact remains that a LOT of people saw those ads and did not take action, AND just the same, there were those that saw those ads, took action, but were not accounted for in any trackable way.

EXAMPLE: Restaurant grand opening ad in a newspaper with a coupon to track visitors (most prob won't even have this). I go to the restaurant because I remembered the grand opening, but I did not bother to clip the 10% coupon (true story actually).

The ad brought me in, but unless every waiter asks every guest how they heard about the grand opening then they won't know. In this example 100 people may have acted on the advertisment but only 30 clipped the coupon. Now the restaurant owner might think damn, that full page color ad cost me $x and I only made $x back, when in reality he made a lot more off the ad but does not know it was directly related to that ad.

My whole rambleing point at 3am EST in the U.S. is that as long as we are bringing REAL VISITORS to a page that advertises their business in a positive light we are providing value AND potentially many customers...even if they don't enter their email or call the number on the webpage. They may just stop by (in which case we probably need to partner with the biz owner to develop other methods to track where their clientel come from).

Man I gotta go to sleep...way too many typos in this post that I'm not even gonna fix lol.

Cheers!

I think you are right, to a degree, but like Mud said, it depends on industry. I think restaurants are one of the few where someone does not need to show interest prior to coming in. With a dentist for example, you can't just rock up and expect to be looked at and most people know this - so they either call, or they don't. But hey, if they save the number in their phone and call at some later date, that is still fine because you can still track the call :)
 
The lead gen pages DO get calls when they are ranked on Google Places.
This is really valuable information to me, thanks!

Could you go into some detail about how you rank your clients above the competition in Google Places?


Please lets stay on the subject of renting the site and not twisting it into ranking a website or local listings.

I apologize. I'm just very interested in Google Places optimization from a reputable poster like, Mudbutt.
 
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This is really valuable information to me, thanks!

Could you go into some detail about how you rank your clients above the competition in Google Places?




I apologize. I'm just very interested in Google Places optimization from a reputable poster like, Mudbutt.

+1 would also like to know how to properly rank for google places these days.
 
from what i know you post a few reviews about your business and get a few back links to it before applying for your place,thats so g will find them when evaluating your listing . you need a local address and phone number the address to have the postcard sent to ,skype is quite good for numbers they usually give you choice of numbers you can rent, look for 1 that looks like its a local code . upload 10 nice pictures that you have already re-named with your keywords , upload 5 videos of people happily having their teeth pulled out by the dentist or the something . when your place goes live get some reviews posted on it . im in the uk so for most local the competition is non existant soit doesnt take much , i cant speak for anywhere else
 
Me too I would like to share about GPlaces listings.

The thing is I just got a site on google about buffets in my city (DarkOne thread) some time ago and seriously, it seems easy at first in your head, but it is harder when you put your site online.

I do not know why the hell this buffet site does not reach 1st page on google does not matter what I try. Competition near zero, neither of the top10 G sites have more than 5 backlinks and they do not have on-site optimization. Nothing. I have a well designed WP site with 3 unique original articles (300 words long) and well on-site seo. Also, 100+ backlinks.

I am on page 2 and did not move any position last 2 months.

So I am gathering some info on G Places listings and how to optimize it. Also I want to create a fake listing. Anyone willing to share some info on this?

Thanks
 
I basically do this for a living.

My strategy is to by a keyword specific domain: plumbingglendale[dot]com

  1. This can help with rankings
  2. It is not a specific business name. Ex: Bobs Plumbing

Then buy a virtual address close to the epi-center of the metro area the are in.

  1. One of Google Places algos is relative location to the city + service query.
  2. Doing this you can receive mail at the address and go through the places verifications
  3. You now have an address for all local listings/directories.

Next get a call tracking line. Attach this to all the listings and directories + heavily promote it on the website.

  1. This is good for keeping track of where they are getting the calls from
  2. Also how many calls they are getting from your service.
Lastly, get that puppy ranked! Run some industry specific adsense ads or affiliate promos to make some extra cash and sell it for 10x what they would charge a clients per month. Ex: pool service = ~ $100 per month. So figure if they are in a metro area, charge them $800-$1000 per month depending on search volume.

Good Luck!
 
Where do you get a virtual address? And you then rent the site to a small local business for 800-1k $ / month?
 
What service do you use for virtual addresses? Regus? Haven't found anything else for Germany, anyone up for recommendations, as Regus seems kinda pricey, just for the verification of the listing.
 
Can someone point me to this Dark One post about renting? I've looked and can't seem to find it.
 
The pay-per-lead idea was fair? Why did you not go ahead with that? :)

If you were planning on charging them $300 per month with an estimated 20 callers, that's $15 per lead. You can have said "sure" and let them pay for leads (which you can track by email or phone) and do it that way. There would be no problem in this case, as you still make the money you originally anticipated.

The only real problem in such a case is that you don't want to do it a pay-per-lead way because you know/think you won't get them any visitors. If this is the case, you are not yet ready to lease it out to anyone, because no one but yourself would be making profit.

I am not saying this is the case, it is just something I want to put out there. We need to help the business owners with measurable business, not just provide them with a site that 'seems' it might generate results. Don't worry, I am learning all of this myself now too - I have several sites ranked at the top of Google, and they get visitors but not many callers.

Having a site at the top of Google itself will net you sh*t all. Unless the site looks good. Unless it is easy to navigate. Unless it has good content. Unless it has an effective, clear & simply CALL TO ACTION - you won't be getting much from it.

That's why now I am working on the conversion rates for my site.

To further you offer, you could introduce Google Places and YouTubes videos all ranked on the first page, along with the website. In this case, you have 3 methods to attract visitors. More visitors with a decent site = more callers. Once you have a decent amount of callers, at least 5/month, you can them offer it to them for a free month to see how it works for them.

Of course, with 5 callers you'd need to SHOW them that they got the callers from you, from your call tracking. If on the other hand you're handing them 20+ callers, I'd say they could probably tell the difference themselves without needing to be shown statistics.

hmm thanks for your response.
no i get about 6 visits/day
get about 5-10 emails that people fill out on the contact us form as there is no phone number mentioned on it.
I tried selling the leads but its not worth my time =/ i rather sell advertising spots with their phone number and contact info advertised and forget about it and move onto another project :P
may be i am lazy :(
I got involved in a lot of projects some of which make more with not much time invested so I decided to focus on those as I already made some from it.

this one I will have to wait till the begining of next season and make one last effort .
 
I'm involved in the offline scene (unfortunately), and what I've seen is 95% of calls I drive to my clients are via their local business listings.

What are local business listings?
I am not familiar with local seo.
 
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