What Would You Do?

So I just picked up LocalMarketing.net pretty cheap at an auction. When I first bid on the domain I was going to use it to sell my local SEO, SEM, and Google Maps service. Recently I am just getting tired of doing Local SEO, and Google Maps for clients. Good money, but more money doing it for myself.

So right now, I'm trying to think of other ways to monetize it. I am thinking about creating a blog about Local Online Marketing, but kind of unsure of ways to monetize it besides adsence, and affiliate stuff.

Anyone have some good ideas?

I think if you turn it into a blog that features tips and ideas for business owners to monetize their communities it could bring some traffic. Provide some ideas about how these businesses could get involved with volunteer work, with marketing in a lot better ways to their own community and stop thinking on such a broad base while forgetting about their own local buyers.

Teach them how to think with the mindset of their local consumer and NOT that of someone who sees commercials on a major TV network and expects their community to be filled with 250K a year earners. How to understand their local demographic through doing community surveys. How to host and promote special events to drive brand recognition in their community.

Basically just build it up as a "How good would it feel to be a highly respected business giving back to your own community" type of a resource. You could pitch a ton of offline books through amazon that fit the niche of marketing locally. Put some adsense on there. Pitch some postcard marketing materials like become an affiliate with PostCardMania. I have never used their affiliate program but I have done a lot of mailing through them for local business consulting and it works out amazingly.

Do a press release, probably a paid one to local circulated news papers and news affiliates, once you get a hefty amount of resources on there and have the PR say something in the realm of "giving back to the community is great and we provide the resources to keep revenue, tax dollars, and the citizens in the community buying locally by helping businesses understand their local consumer" blah blah blah... It would basically pitch the idea that you have launched a site that contains resources and ideas on how local businesses can re-connect with local consumers in this technological world and still value a face-to-face transaction and a handshake.

Hopefully some of those ideas help you out.

Great ideas. thanks +Rep given. Ya I think I am going to make it a resource for local businesses. Maybe get some guest writers on there, yada yada. Then once I get some traffic, I will think of some ways to monetize it. Adsence, Amazon, some affiliate stuff, and maybe sell some ads to Local SEO companies.

jstover77 said:

... and maybe sell some ads to Local SEO companies.

Click to expand...

Or - you could white label those services and sell them directly to your visitors. Even with your current offers (local SEM, maps), you stand to make a lot more by soft selling those services then you would with Adsense or Amazon.

I hate to sound to like a WF expert (lol), but presenting something like this as a free resource for local business owners and soft selling on the back end through newsletters and short reports is a proven business model.

Sometimes when I know I have a good domain name and I'm not sure what to do with it then I set up the domain with adsense ie. point the domain to google. Its called "Adsense For Domains" when you are logged into adsense. You let that domain sit there and check out what ads google is putting on your domain. This will often give you a good feel for what google thinks your domain is about based on the keywords in the domain name. You then tailor your website after googles own suggestions