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

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.

 

Yes, I would like to know this as well

 

I went through a couple older theads. A few mentioned it works well but hard trouble finding clients. Some admitted they tapped into the wrong niche etc.

I would love to hear more about this. Thanks

 

It worked for me and still does - until someone checks their rankings and finds out there aren't any anymore after penguin.

I run mine a little differently though. I need to rank for the city name so having a few of these sites with that city name in the domain linking to me is of just as much value as the $$$ from renting the sites.

 

Cant you just re-rank them?
I might be wrong about this and depends on your location; i dont think ranking local keywords is really all that tough? (in comparison to average generic keywords)

 

T I M E - I ain't got any, so unless someone complains, I'll just pretend not to notice. As I said before - it's all about having a link from a domain with my keyword in it for me.

(They were handy though as any money earned wasn't "company" money, but went straight back into my marketing budget.)

 

It is pretty hard finding clients. People just don't seem too interested.

What I've been doing is doing keyword research before and making sure that a niche I target gets a ton of traffic, at least 500 exacts a month. That way the website is definitely worth something.

The hard thing I find is finding businesses that can actually take on more business. The dentists that I've worked with are all so fully booked that they hardly needed my website. So you would need to find someone that is new in their field and in the process of building up a client base.

 

Thanks for your advice.
When I open up my local magazine, I see dozens of dentists, chiropractors and such (you get the idea) placing their ad there.
I assume they are open up for more business (otherwise, they wont spend money on those ads).

Have you tried using that approach instead? If so, whats your experience on this. Thanks again. Appreciated.

 

I have spotted quite a few potential clients like that, but when I contact them they either don't reply or already have someone managing their website for them.
I think the problem is that they've been bombarded with spam and telemarketers for so long that they don't even listen to anything anymore. They also seem scared in a sense that they feel that websites won't really make any difference to their business.

I've had a meeting with a cosmetic dentist before where I found one of her ads around campus. I already had a website that was ranking first and getting a ton of traffic. I told her this but when I mentioned it would cost $300 a month to rent she started becoming hesitant, saying things like "I usually only print a few flyers every now and then, but I guess if this website is more effective it could work well." I even offered a 2 week free trial and sent her an email lead and she still wouldn't bite.

I don't get it man, because it was obvious that she could use more clients. And the waiting room of the practice was filled with all these vintage couches and fancy decorations so I can't imagine she doesn't have a bit of cash to spend. My sales skills are probably my biggest downfall I guess.

 

Hi

if you can not rent the whole site to one business another option could be to sell adspace on the site to various businessees (one adspace to a certain part of the city: north, south etc) or transform it into a lead generation site to sell the leads

Cheers

 

Did you mean ads space or renting whole website?

 

I have 72 dentists that I sell products to so I know what am talking about when I say dentists are hard to deal with

 

I have found it impossible to rent out one my website that is an authority domain 11 years old and I am number 1 with well over 3000 visitors per month. I will not name the niche, however no interest apart from some clown wanting to buy the domain. Another niche authority website of mine in the Jewellery sector could not even get an advertiser to pay £10 per month. One company offered to pay £20 per year and asked for an invoice - he will be waiting a long time.

I have also been targeting advertisers to advertise on 3 other sites giving them a fantastic and unique deal, way better than the competition and still zero interest. Too be honest unless I give it away for free I am finding it hard to see how I can convert into sales. I am finding it very frustrating in that my sites have potential to make several thousand pounds every month and I can even get off first base. I must admit that I have only send mailshots via email and maybe I need a top notch telesales partner in order to make this work.

Will be following the tread.

 

Sorry, but maybe I missed your initial response? I dont see anyone doubting the fact that dentist are hard to sell?

Just curious, out of the scale of 10. how hard have you tried promoting your 'rent-a-site' idea to businesses?
and how attractive is the site? I have seen some really bad old-skool 1980s design on page 1 / Rank #1, and these sites definitely dont impress me much

(please dont take it personal, i just want to get a better understanding of this concept and see how it really works). Thanks in advance!

 

From a business point of view, I get a lot of calls every week. Forget results and actual performance of any web directory, you need a good pitch down and confuse them into thinking they ordered it. Then you tape record your calls implying they ordered it and bang you got residual income until they figure out what is going on and fight you. I got one a few days ago, they call me to verify my free listing address then at the same time they are implying I have a 30 day trial of the premium. And they don't take no for an answer.

 

I've found that creating websites for particular niche, ranking for CTA keywords is the easy part, its CONVERSION rate that is important when selling this concept to a local client base as you have tangable conversions

 

jb007uk, I don't have much experience in this particular model but like others have mentioned in other threads, may be worth offering them at least a limited trial since in your case it's not going too well as in that jewelry niche at least, the pay off should be good once the business realizes how effective it is.

 

My way of telling Raevinn its not his fault, its just a fact dentists are a hard sell.

 

Take a look at this: www.housepaintertauranga.co.nz
Not my site.

 

the method seem pretty solid to still work