The Rank and Rent Local Lead Generation Method
I've use this method to bring in 7 figures in revenue over a few years and it is by far the best way for someone to get started making money online. Follow this article and rinse and repeat to make more and more money.
1. Research Select Your Niche and Target Market
I've had success in niches that have leads values anywhere from $1-$100 per lead.
The cost of the keeping everything up on our end is probably around $15/month.
So there's a wide range of niches that will work. It's just a matter of analyzing the cost benefit of certain niches.
If you're just getting started and want to see some money come in quickly aim for $300/month rentable site using the sniper method.
The sniper method is to look for google my business map packs in smaller markets where there is only a few people that have even verified a listing. In this instance, you may be able to just build a site, get it verified and you're off to the races. It's nice to use this method when getting started as you can fairly easily find some $300/month clients and get the profit ball rolling. To this day, my team and I will build these types of sites just to continue building out the portfolio.
Next is your mid-difficulty sites. For these you want to be able to provide leads to a niche where you can just rent the site out for $500-$1500. Do the math and make a deal that will go the distance long term. I like to build out a site that get $3000 worth of leads and find an easy to work with partner at $1500. Undercharging for these sites is a great way to avoid headaches and just be able to run credit cards on the 1st of month easy peasy. You own the site and it just gets more valuable over time so use some of the cash to build more assets and don't worry about squeezing money out of one client. The more you charge, the more likely they will be to cancel. The goal here is to connect with a client that will stick with you for the life of the business.
And finally, home run sites are where we're really looking to move the needle. 3-5k a month! This is tough to do and tough to maintain but we have several of these. Look for high value services that need leads and prepare for an SEO battle that'll pay off in a year.
Investigating a Niche
Usually I'll take a look at a list of niches to choose from. I recommend starting your own and collecting ideas from everywhere. Make it a habit! When you're out driving around town take a look at the different types of vehicles out and what business it says they are in on their truck. If you can find something thats high value and a market that hungry for leads you're golden.
Main requirements for a niche:
- has reasonable keyword volume and actual demand.
- customers are likely to just look up a random business and call it off google. (Customized intimate services like renovations can be challenging here as the site has to have a brand and reputation for someone to drop that kind of money.
- Is not aggressively targeted by a bunch of well done SEO sites/
If you've found a niche where there's only 1-2 companies running ads and it's just the kind of thing where the business owners consider themselves "not a teche" and throw their hands up at the thought of trying to anything with a computer then you've aced this part!
To go deeper here analyze a bunch of keywords and make a list of keywords that show a local map pack.
Steer clear of niches with google local home services ads since google will be calling people in that niche to sell them leads directly.
Investigating Niche Competition
It's best to do this step with a google worksheet. We want to look at some target markets and figure out how difficult it will be to outrank the existing sites. We want to paint a picture of this niche for ourselves and get a feel for the critical questions: How much time, effort and money will it take to get this site profitable. Their is an art to this and the more data points we get, the better equipped we'll be to make informed decisions about the direction we go for our rank and rent sites. The one caveat here is analysis paralysis. Follow the 80/20 rule. Anlaize as best you can but keep the ball moving. Spend a few hours on this then move on to starting the build.
The process:
Pull up a google worksheet.
Find the top few keywords for the niche and pick out the top 5 map pack companies. Note down the following for map ranking difficulty:
- Average number of reviews
- How optimized is there google listing (photos good? Does it look professional? Is there google posts happening?)
- Is the niche spammed with keyword stuffed GMB's?
For organic ranking
- Total unique referring domains
- investigate links with ahrefs. Are they using guests posts and pbns? is there an SEO actively building to the sites that we would have to catch up with?
- Total word count of the site. How is the content. Do they have videos and custom images?
2. Build Website and Brand
3. Optimize Website For Ranking with On-Page and Off-Page SEO
4. Monetize Website with Prospecting and Selling.
Before getting into the sales portion of this, you should already have a list of all the companies in that niche in the area. That should include people from craigslist and kijiji. You're going to want to target companies that are doing well but could double or triple revenue with your leads.
So how do you close a deal?
The easiest way to do this is by using the Crack Dealer Method. Let your calls and forms start to build up to the point where you are getting a few each week at least. Cold call a random business person from your list of people in the area you should have a good idea of who would be a good prospect for this.
There's a few things to hit on here in terms of a pitch. Many business owners have bought leads from websites that sell 1 lead to multiple people. The benefit of working with us is that they get that lead exclusively.
Dealing with counter offers. Try to ask for a fair price first but know that they are going to want to move you down whether it's ppl or full site rental. If they are determined to get a better deal, explain to them that convenience is very important for your business model and you'de like to automate payments. Tell the business owner that you'll do the discounted rat if the invoices are paid in full, automatically by credit card on the first of the month. If the CC fails, then the regular rate will apply for that month..(effectively a late fee for inconvenience of chasing money.) Say your leads are delivered automatically so let's set up payments automatically.