Sorry for the long post, but I need to give some background and context to explain my enthiasm I have been running a webdesign and marketing business for small to medium businesses in for the past three years. I pitch what I do as a marketing solution, not just a website (yeah I know, but it works and I need do differentiate myself from every other web designer). I use my background as a copywriter to come up with a message that is more compelling than their most of their competitors who are generally just listing who they are and what they do. No thought to even the basic first principles of sales copy (features, benefits, USP, CTA etc)... How this relates to seo... Having gotten most web design clients on the first page of Google, my plan is to build sites, for example "Sydney Plumber", get it on the first page of Google organic results, then either sell the domain and website to the highest bidder, or, ideally rent out the site or sell the leads. Probably an idea you have heard before, but I think I am in a position to actually make it work. What finally got me taking this idea seriously is one of my recent clients; before I built his new website, he was paying $1,200 a month to rent site/domain, branded as his. This was in a smaller city of less than 400,000 and with for a business that doesn't make huge a mount of money. But when you consider newspaper ads (I was a sales manager for the local paper for a couple of years before I started this business) can easily cost over $1000 a week and yellow pages upwards of $25k per year (many businesses have several full page ads in different categories), you can start to see why people would pay a fair price for a front page organic listing in google. And downsizing yellow pages is on a lot of minds at the moment. I got this particular client the number one spot for his own domain in a relatively short space of time, so he stopped rented the other site. Whoever owns is has already found someone else to rent it. Whilst I am ok at seo up to a certain point, it is not my speciality, not anymore. What I can do that most can't is pick up the phone, call local businesses cold, book meetings and close deals. While I get a lot more referrals now, I built my business doing this and still used it to grow. But, I can only see so many people in a day, and want to get the best return on my time. So I guess I'm just trying to get some feedback, has anyone tried this? should I work on my own seo skills, or am I better off on focusing on what I do well (getting contacts signed) and partnering with someone that can churn out sites? Planning to just use wordpress with good templates and of course good copy (the few I have seen renting domains all use a cookie cutter skinned cms, very basic design). Even if i did work with someone else, I would want to write the sales copy myself. Compared to competitive online national/international niches, local business search phrases seem like a low hanging fruit. If I can get these results with relatively little effort and out date knowledge I am guessing someone that is good at this could a lot more efficiently and in bigger markets. An article on this subject that got me interested in this a couple of years back: http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/11/04/making-money-with-local-affiliate-programs/ Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
I would suggest a different approach. Build a directory related to a specific niche (ie pest control). It shouldnt look like a directory though, instead it should have lots of content. Then have pages on your site related to your niche for different parts of the country. Once you have an authoritative site that is coming up for many keywords, you can sell listings on the pages for the different locations to local businesses.
depending on the niche it sounds like a decent idea for the niche i target something like this rarely works i have a domain thats ranked pr 3 and at the top and i still have had no bites on it.
Yeah, for the local businesses I have had success with, I have needed very little in the way of back-linking. Thinking about hiring someone to to the SEO side of things if I can't find a partner.
Almost like advanced parking in a way, except you are putting out more up front. so much need to close at the right time to maximize your investment. jdr's directory idea sounds interesting.
I think directories though have been done to death. The reason I get results for small businesses is by being able to differentiate them through the copy. A directory takes this away. Would rather have a good long term relationship with one business... If anyone is interested in partnering with me on this pm me on here. Even if we just try one to start with.