Someone in our industry, who shall remain unnamed, is selling access to subdomains on Peruvian .edu domains for the purpose of conducting 3-way links with established industry sites, thereby securing you 1st page Google rankings for any keyword your little heart might find itself desiring.
His business partner somehow convinced the Peruvian government to let him have a few “.edu.pe” domains, and by sending a magical email to all the top-ranking sites in any industry, you can conduct 3-way link deals all day long.
And it’ll only cost you $97 a month.
I would like to provide some simple facts to aid you in your decision as to whether this is a worthy investment…
* You can buy your own – er… I mean convince the Peruvian Gov’t and get your own .EDU.PE domain(s) at http://www.punto.pe
It’ll run you about $49 a year. I know that’s not as sexy as having your own SUBdomain and paying about twice that much monthly, but still… it’s an option.
* Top ranking sites in established markets… don’t need your links.
Just thought I’d throw that out there as a “wild idea” to consider as well. Maybe their magical email circumvents that monumental problem somehow, but I’m just not seeing it…
And, lastly…
* Think about WHY .edu and .gov sites have so much “linkweight”…
It’s because they’re majorly established and have craploads of backlinks themselves. Plus, a lot of gov/edu sites interlink and collaborate with eachother. That’s just the way it works. And it has nothing to do with the domain extension.
Just thought I’d share my opinion on the effectiveness of paying $97/mo. for access to a subdomain on a $49/yer EDU.PE domain, oh – and a magic email.
A major product release (MakoDominator.com), scaling up a major lead generation campaign, combined with touring 7 countries in Europe and hosting more than a dozen guests at our still-being-renovated place… has made for a fairly busy experience the last 60 days.
And that’s the “calm”. Now comes the storm…
(BTW – I’ll be busy as hell orchestrating all of this, so you’d better damn well enjoy it )
Here’s What’s On the Menu for November(ish):
1. Highly-Effective VIDEO Product Reviews You Can Use on Mini-Sites, Conduit Sites, Review Sites, etc.
These aren’t ads or “visual banners”. They’re interactive, straight-talk reviews for some of the hottest selling niche offers on Clickbank. Like the one below:
(Just imagine what that kind of video does for your conversions…)
Well, we’ve got a whole series of vids like that coming in the next few days. Stay tuned.
2. Push-Button PR5 Authority Links from REAL Sites.
How’s it work? Well, “it” doesn’t. People do. It’s essentially group-discount SEO service where the membership shares the workforce, thereby securing AUTHORITY backlinks (as a result of good old fashioned elbow-grease) for minimal cost.
More details to come…
AND
3. Mistakes, Life Lessons & Hindsight…
My first sort of “mindset” mini-course (and the next of the VIP reports series) ships out on about the first week of November or so.
Hopefully it will help some folks avoid some of the galactically-stupid decisions I’ve made over the years, as well as inspire you to simply just “do that which works and screw the rest”.
(And if nothing else, it will provide some more ammunition for the handful of finger-pointers and backseat drivers who seem to have found my blog so that we can all further benefit from the vast treasures of their profound wisdom and experience).
Soon I’ll have another video on the blog that explains this in more detail, but I wanted to get something out there for the “faithful” who are patiently waiting for something to happen with this.
Well, for starters, the Geo-Targeted Directory Builder is called “MAKO Dominator”.
This is the platform and framework that we use to launch massive SEO campaigns into “local” markets – soaking up the “easy” traffic from thousands of highly-targeted keyword variations.
As I’ve mentioned all along, this is designed for those who can feasibly use it, and access will be limited.
For this reason, retail orders will be taken on an approval basis only. After screening each customer, then the system costs $1,995.00.
Why screen customers?
Because I don’t want this to be used for “autoblogging”, MFA sites or PR Generators from the mass internal linking (and thereby selling outbound links). That’s exactly what has happened with the other similar, yet far less capable directory scripts – and it’s never going to happen with MAKO.
Those are built for the push-button BH and blue hat affiliates making chump change with AdSense or shady risk-free trials. MAKO is designed for large-scale, white-hat lead generation campaigns. Big difference in business model.
The retail system launches on September 1st, over at MakoDominator.com (in the midst of construction currently).
However, we are releasing a total of 100 copies to my customers as a pre-launch, which goes live on Aug. 23rd. And those 100 people will only pay $995.
As soon as the 100th order rolls in, we close up the pre-launch, and it’s only available after Sept. 1st for $1,995.00 per license, pending approval. This keeps the tire-kickers out, and the BH crowd won’t bother.
(Pre-launch customers will need to agree to a Non-Disclosure Agreement and a Schedule of Restricted Practices before they can access MAKO).
Now, keep in mind that the last time I did a “100 copy prelaunch” (MSN Loop) it sold out in 4 minutes. It’s hard to say what will happen here with MAKO, but my guess is 100 licenses will go pretty quick…
Two More Things:
1) Why Has It Taken So Long?
Because MAKO Dominator is just one of three services that we’ll be offering. The other (optional) services that we’re just now finalizing are called MAKO Architect and MAKO Infusion.
Architect custom-creates usable, accurate seed databases based on category, size constraints, keyword, etc. Very, very powerful, especially considering what you have to pay for databases over at OdditySoftware.com
Infusion is a one-click content service where you just upload the CSV of any reasonable size, and then submit it to our integrated writer pool (over 500 US writers – we’ve teamed up with Articlez.com to do this), and about a week or so later it’s returned with unique, relevant content in every single row!
So we’ve built the ultimate, long-standing system for serious marketers.
You can easily build seed databases ranging from 500 items to, well outright ridiculous sizes. It’s also a one-click process and it’s hosted by US, so you just submit the job, and it emails you when it’s done. (Anyone who’s tried using an alleged “scrape tool” will be grinning ear to ear based on that setup alone).
Then you can take that seed DB, and press another “button”, and all of a sudden you have hundreds or thousands of “pages” of unique content. This is huge.
Then – the Dominator brings it all together.
That’s why this has been taking a while.
2) The Framework Is Just the Tool – And We Provide a Lot More Than That…
In addition to all of that (Dominator + the Optional & pay-as-you-go Architecht and Infusion services), we will also be doing two things for our customers:
* Webinars Covering Existing, Producing Directory Sites – This is the real thing, dudes. What you’ll be seeing as a customer are producing campaigns that generate the big bucks. These aren’t public “demo” sites. This is the real deal, and it’s why you’ll be signing an NDA.
* Webinars Covering Existing, Current Directory Projects – Again – I’ll take it a step further and actually show you in detail my current projects with MAKO, as well as the accompanying City-Sites and traffic campaigns.
Those two things alone are worth far more than the price tag… for those who understand the value of this.
So there you go.
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The MAKO – The Shark That Constantly Out-Adapts Its Prey
The overriding theme here is that this one’s not for every fish in the ocean.
It’s for the “sharks”. The few, the feared and the powerful.
That’s why a lot of the comments are mixed. You’ve got the experienced guys who are drooling over this, you’ve got the intermediates who see the value but haven’t really seen there own results from similar strategies, and then you’ve got the newbies – most of whom are excited, and some of whom just don’t get it.
And that is totally okay.
( There’s also a small number of experienced marketers (mostly bloggers) who think this is no better than auto-blogging. The question I would ask them though is this: How many of your auto-blogs single-handedly earn 6 figures or more?
To which I would counter – I have directory sites doing just that, right now – single handedly.)
Bottom line: This is going to be a 100% zero pressure launch.
Yes, I do believe that our prelaunch (100 licenses) will move quickly, but there’s plenty of time between now and then to make your decision, and we’re not going to sell all 100 spots in “an hour” or whatever. There will be time, when the time comes.
But it’s not for everyone, and if this all seems a bit “overhead”, my strongest advice to you would be to pass on it – but learn from my 4 Part series recently posted on the blog.
So, with that said – I’ll be putting up the video shortly, and I’ll be following up a bit more in the coming days/weeks as we approach the prelaunch on Aug. 23rd.
Stay tuned – and either get ready to get in, or at least watch the fun…
Take care
-Chris
P.S. There will likely be a shit-storm of “reviews” and speculation on the various marketing forums (which have progressively just been turning into other versions of DigitalPoint, which is no compliment) about MAKO when it goes live.
My advice to you is, as always – consider the source. Yes, of course I am biased. But I also have the proof to back it up.
Most naysayers don’t even have a single producing site, let alone proof. Of anything.
If there’s one post you take from this series and really “digest” – it’s this one.
Because I’m completely exposing the exact process I’ve used - and currently use - to build up traffic networks and processes that are capable of generating enough leads thatyou’ll have trouble finding places to sell them all.
Now, just like the previous post regarding leadflow, this “master plan” is quite exhaustive and rather detailed – and you don’t have to do “everything” to get results. You can take the sum of its parts and apply it to your own strategy, or take bits here and there and sort of retro-fit things so that it adapts to your resources, your budget, and your “style”.
That’s the idea.
The other thing I should be clear about right now is that this is geared towards Entrepreneurs that want to use the web to build a highly leveraged & lucrative operation, aiming at 4+ figures a day in cash-flow.
It’s about building an empire in your vertical. Not just a conduit site or two, or posting a few articles on EzineArticles.
(An empire you can ideally sell for a nice 6 or 7 figure payday… hint.)
For those who “get it”, this is a million dollar business on a silver platter. For those who think this is too complex, or not “simple” enough, or otherwise too much work, well… sorry, but, this is for the big kids.
(And don’t worry, this won’t turn into another rant about the vast disparity in “hard work” when comparing starting up a highly profitable affiliate or lead-gen business with a traditional little retail store down the block).
Well, let’s get started then…
——————————————-
In a Nutshell:
Plainly speaking we are talking about building one or two central authority sites ranging from 300 – 50,000 pages deep (where 99% of the content is database driven) in the vertical, with a “satellite” network of around 100 – 200 city specific mini-sites.
The authority sites are “real” sites. Sites you can slap on a business card and gab about at your local chamber of commerce meeting. (And sites you can confidently promote and not feel like a weiner with a “review site” when it comes time to build legitimate links.)
The city-specific sites are more like online brochures, at most about 4-5 pages deep. The idea is to almost “imitate” the classic Mom & Pop style of local site, with the slight difference being that ours actually CONVERT.
With the authority sites we are aiming for 2,000 – 10,000+ unique visitors a day, and all our traffic is driven with organic SEO (and completely whitehat linkbuilding). We want these sites to last.
With the city-specific sites, we aren’t so much aiming for “traffic” as much as leadflow. We’re looking for an average of 1-3 leads per day per city site – and obviously some cities will drive many leads a day while others will only generate a few a month. (Lead volume also depends on the type of lead/offer).
City-specific sites are promoted with organic SEO (using a mix of white-hat and gray-hat), as well as on Classifieds sites like Craigslist, Kijiji, BackPage, and so on. And there’s a very specific process for doing that, which is covered in detail below.
The end result is a system that generates hundreds of leads per day – ideally selling the majority of them on the spot through a network, a bulk buyer and perhaps a few direct clients. (I’ll let your imagination guide you in terms of what that looks like money-wise… hundreds of leads a day.)
And simultaneously, you’ve also built a “house list” of subscribers as part of your lead generation process (see the leadflow charts from Part 3 for reference). With the non-completers we send out a 7-day “sledgehammer” reminder campaign to get them to complete their form, and following that, the usual backend stuff, which is what the “completers” get from day one.
Now, let’s think about something…
Let’s say you make this your project for 2010 and you really nail it. By the time 2011 rolls around, you’ve got a massive authority site, a fairly good sized list (10,000+) and you’re well on your way with rolling out your city-sites. And let’s say you’re consistently generating 50 financial or insurance leads every day. Not unrealistic.
Question: What do you think a competitive player in that marketplace would pay for that kind of leadflow? (Think: Banks, Insurance Companies, etc.)
Answer: A lot more than 12 month’s revenue. We’re not talking about Adsense sites on Flippa, folks. This is a different realm.
So yes, as you can detect – the end goal (at least in my mind) is to sell your “empire” when you feel you’ve reached capacity and walk away with a big, fat pay-day that you could potentially retire on.
THAT is the business model in a nutshell.
Now let’s get specific, and talk about each segment in detail…
——————————————-
Segment 1: The Authority Site:
As I’ve alluded to several times throughout these posts so far, the authority site is a directory at heart. And since a large part of its traffic draw is dependant on the geo-targeted content, we first of all need to cover content creation, content handling and content publishing.
a) CONTENT
Now, one thing I should make very clear is that even though the directory is really the main focus from a MARKETING perspective when it comes to the authority sites, with my own sites what I do is structure them so that your main page simply lists the directory one section of many – even though all the other “sections” or categories are only a few pages deep.
What this means is that we essentially build a really professional-looking, portal-style content site (about 30 – 50 articles, etc.), and then “add” the directory into it as just another section.
(A good example of this, which I have zero connection with and simply mention as a coincedential observation, is MortgageLoan.com – check out their overall site appearance at the home page level. You wouldn’t think that their “Professional Services” subsection is 10,000+ indexed pages deep. It just seems like an afterthought. Even though it likely accounts for a substantial chunk of their traffic.)
Why “hide” it?
Because the idea is to come across – both to users and spiders – as a site that’s built as a resource. And not a keyword farm – which, believe it or not, is actually a fine line, and one that honestly seems like it’s measured by PERCEPTION.
There’s major authority sites out there in stupidly-competitive markets (like stocks, for instance) where the big SEO players are nothing more than database-driven mashups that scrape RSS feeds and literally serve up zero unique content…
…and yet they get hordes of traffic because likely they were there “first” – and they simply look the part of an authoritative resource. (And not like an auto-blogging app spitting out a datafeed, which is very, very important).
For this reason, personally I do everything I possibly can to avoid looking like a scraper site, or an auto-blogging setup or otherwise anything less than a totally legitimate corporate authority site. This means professional design structure, user-focused navigation and unique content.
Avoid anything remotely “scraper-ish” like the plague. You’ll have a nice 6-month lifespan and then *kaput*, you’re de-indexed (ask me how I know). It’s a hamster wheel.
So what’s the solution – how do you pass the “genuine” filter?
Honestly, up until recently I’d actually just converted my “data” into straight HTML pages, and hired writers to create description snippets for each item. The problem with that method was that it’s limiting. Anything over 500+ pages and you’re looking at a LOT of individual html files to deal with.
And the reason why I didn’t go with one of the “directory builder” applications out there (some of which retrofit to be used with WordPress) is because most of them simply wouldn’t pass as a “real” site. They all have that scraper-style functionality and appearance.
But more importantly, nothing on the market right now is built to handle content the way I needed it to, while at the same time producing a site that looks (and IS) “real”. As in, standing the test of time, generating hordes of traffic for years to come.
So what I did is create my own framework for creating massive, authoritative directories that are built specifically for lead generation and affiliate marketing. It simulates natural growth, the sites build their own backlinks, and just like a Porsche – the whole thing is engineered solely for my own purposes…
…which is pulling down maximum results from any traffic volume.
This took half a year with a local team of skilled programmers. And the end result is absolutely awesome – in the right hands. (More on that later).
My script isn’t the “only” way or anything. But one thing I’ve noticed – and you can verify this for yourself just by doing some of your own SERPS research – is that all of the “real” sites like this that actually hold their positions and maintain a good percentage of their content as indexed in Google use their OWN content management systems to publish their database.
I have yet to find any viable, competing sites using “scraper” directory software or WP plugins in the SERPs in the geo-niches I’ve been targeting and monitoring. They either don’t index well, or they get canned. It has to be done right.
What about Unique Content… at 6 cents a “page”?
Unique content is essential, and there’s just no way around it.
Whether you’re buying or “scraping” your seed database, the only way to truly make it valuable is to add your OWN content (descriptions, etc.). And this is where we enter a whole new realm of content production.
Obviously, if you have a database of 10,000 insurance agents (or whatever), you can’t treat this like an article writing project. It’s a totally different animal – for us.
But not in other industry sectors. In fact, data entry and data processing has a HUGE presence in fields like medicine, law, public sector administration and so on. In fact, I couldn’t believe the amount of bids (and the bid prices!) I’d get on places like Elance, Freelancer.com and so on when I’d post a project requiring descriptions to be entered on each line of a x,xxx size database.
As mentioned, some providers had a flat rate as low as $6 per 100 entries.
Now, obviously – the quality of the content is going to directly correspond with the price. Here’s what I’ve found in terms of “value for money” in the data entry world, as it relates to what I needed accomplished (descriptions entered for local biz listings)….
$0.06 – $0.10 per entry is going to get you “copy/paste” snippets from the URL’s meta-description tag (if there’s a URL associated with the database row), or otherwise stuff that will barely pass as “unique” content. This will somewhat differentiate your content from being “duplicate”, which may be enough in some markets.
$0.10 – $0.30 per entry is going to get you brief, but unique descriptions about a sentence or two in length, along with some quality assurance in regards to the business listing’s address, phone numbers and other basic details.
$0.30 – $0.75 per entry is going to get you basically the same as above, but likely with better use of grammar and a bit more detail.
$0.75 – $1.50 per entry is going to get you fluent-English, short descriptions for each item.
$1.50 – $2.00 per entry is going to get you fluent-English, good-sized descriptions for each item (ideal for stuff you really want to get indexed well, or for databases with around 500 – 2000 entries)
There will be some variation, and those aren’t the Ten Commandments of data entry by any means, but that’s generally what I’ve found myself. (Your experiences will vary).
And from what I’ve dealt with so far, it takes the better part of a month for a database of around 10,000 items to be completed, with descriptions added, by one provider. (So if you can manage multiple people, than you can likely turn over a database in the 10K range in about a week or less).
So that’s how it’s done, folks – that’s how to build an absolutely massive authority site that won’t get pegged as a “thin affiliate” and duly penalized.
(Oh, and the reason why Google penalizes sites it considers to be “thin” database driven platforms is because DB-driven sites with tons of content get huge, huge traffic on the long-tail – which is awesome if you’re not seen as “thin”).
Okay, let’s take a breather from content production for a minute and talk about…
b) TRAFFIC
I think we all know the fundamentals of organic SEO, so I’ll just simply itemize my 3-stage process for rolling out these authority centers using white-hat link building…
Stage 1: Priming with Linkbait - In order to “prime” the authority site for an onslaught of future links, I first of all get some high-quality “foundation” links to begin with.
What I do as I’m creating the front-end content and the directory/database is I’ll simply feature a SINGLE unique function, contest or otherwise something actually interesting in the market directly on the home-page.
(Hint: Contests work great - and it’s easy to get other established sites involved if it’s related to their niche. Just offer something to their visitors in the $100 – $400 range as a prize. That’s a small “price” to pay in terms of the links you can obtain by doing so.)
Another option is to purchase a banner ad on a prominent, related site, but prior to purchasing negotiate a content-publishing deal as part of the ad (where they post an article that you produce, with a live URL in the byline). You’d be surprised how easy it is to request that as part of an advertising deal. (Which is often peanuts, anyway)
Anyway, aim to get 5 or 6 quality links like this while your (future) authority site is a one-page-wonder. It will really help to solidify your authority profile from day one – and your rankings.
Stage 2: Links Via Interaction - Become active as a frequent commenter on established sites/blogs in the niche – and actually contribute and get involved. Not only will this likely land you several opportunities to actually work with the site owners – but the links you can build on QUALITY sites like this are worth 100 “article directory” placements.
It’s the same with forums in the industry and so on. You’d be amazed at how much search engine weight these seem to carry WHEN the involvement is legitimate.
Finally, as your site comes together and the directory goes up – simply ask the other sites (who you might already be “friends” with) to link to you – or provide them with some great content that they can post, and then credit you as the source.
I know this doesn’t sound “groundbreaking”, but between Stages 1 & 2 you’ll have built a REAL link foundation that will be instantly recognizable as legitimate – immediately differentiating you from the thin-affiliates, scrapers and otherwise “small fries” in the market.
And lastly,
Stage 3: The Same Old Crap - Article submissions, directory submissions, more blog comments, press releases, RSS submissions, squidoo, zimbio, hubpages, etc.
You know the drill – and it does work. These types of links basically act as “oil changes” when it comes to SEO. They don’t have the “ranking horsepower” of direct links from quality sites, but they ensure that your rankings “keep running smoothly” by and large, because it gives your linking profile a good, natural spread of exposure.
Optionally, you can consider using LinkVana (or similar services) to add further, decent links in to the mix as well.
About every 6 – 8 months, repeat Stages 2 and 3, and you’ll hold your positions very well in the SERPs.
One thing you may have noticed is that I didn’t mention paying for links directly.
Why?
Simply because that’s a gray-hat move, and as a personal preference, I just simply avoid that with anything I consider an authority property. But for the city sites, it’s a different story…
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Segment 2: The City-Site Network:
Our “brochure” style city sites are an entirely different animal. Think of these sites as the “pawns” in your network that might only generate a lead a day (or a even a week) individually – but in numbers, these pawns can actually be the main source of your leadflow, and the quality of the leads you’ll generate will likely be higher and more relevant.
And remember – Google does give preference to a dedicated domain on a topic in competition with some deeply-buried subpage on a new authority site. So even though your directory (authority site) will be “competing” for the same city-level traffic, your network of pawns will simply be able to easily add more leads into your network, and reach traffic not otherwise tapped.
Now, one thing I should make very clear is that as a personal preference, I do NOT cross-link these sites with eachother, nor do I link back to my main authority site from them.
Each “city-site” is a standalone entity where the only connection to their “mothership” is the offer being touted. That is it. I do it this way simply because the methods we use to promote the city-sites aren’t as squeaky clean as with our authority sites.
(We’re squeaky clean on the legal end – obviously - but our backlinking methods are grayhat.)
Just like I did above with the authority sites – let’s talk about content first…
a) CONTENT
These sites are only 4-5 pages deep, and this is how it breaks down:
Home page - This is the “brochure” style offer, with the lead gen form and maybe 500 words describing the offer, specific to the residents of that city. I like to include a graphic of the city’s skyline to make it relevant and immediately recognizable with the user.
Explanatory Page - This is kind of like the “mission statement” of your site, as well as the outlook of whatever market you’re in as it pertains to that city. For example, if you’re driving real estate leads, you’d talk about the housing market in Boise Idaho (or wherever), mentioning recent news/events related to it on a local level. This will be about 1,000 words, and it will instantly establish your site as something relevant and “real” to the user.
“Recommended Services” Page(s) - Think “conduit method”, but locally, and not in the sense of a review. Choose the top 5 or so related services in your city and profile them. Use about 400 – 500 words to describe each business, and link to their website with a live dofollow link (and provide the contact details & address as well). You can list multiple profiles on one page, or a few per page, or one per page – whatever works best.
So in a sense, it’s a like a miniature scale of your authority directory site, except with 5 really detailed “entries” as opposed to 5,000+ snippets converted into a professional mashup. (And you may want to consider having it look like they’ve paid for a spot, and that other businesses can as well – so it looks like you’re a wannabe local portal…)
Contact/About Us Page - Keep content to a minimum on this page since it will be hard to “re-word” a page like this to be unique if your city site network spans 100+. Just list your site’s email address, and maybe mention that advertising inquiries can be sent to that address as well. (Consider using an image file or javascript to display all or some of your text on your contact page. Same goes for your privacy policy and disclaimer pages as well)
The idea here is to simulate a “local” attempt at making an info-portal. Even though the only “ads” you’ll ever run will be your own, most likely.
As mentioned, the leadgen offer is the primary focus on the home page, and you display your “teaser form” (or at least an ad featuring your leadgen offer) at the top-fold the other pages, except for the Contact, Privacy & Disclaimer pages.
Also, on every page (except contact, privacy, etc.), I install and use an “exit pop” script, which pushes the offer once more to exiting users.
For keyword targeting, it will vary (just use any of the kw tools to find out what’s searched in your city), but aim for a mid to somewhat high-competition keyword for the root domain (home) page.
Speaking of which… let’s talk about…
b) TRAFFIC
Let’s deal with the SEO side for starters.
For the city sites, as I mentioned, I like to go grayhat a bit.
The white-hat component includes using LinkVana (10 – 20 links), article & directory submissions, dofollow blog commenting, maybe a press release or two, and creating web 2.0 “linkwheels” with Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, WordPress.com, etc. I would also recommend plugging in an RSS feed aggregate submitter like Web Traffic Genius.
(By the way, there’s an excellent service out of the Phillipines that can handle all that kind of stuff as a package price that I highly recommend, but don’t really want to share. I’m sure anyone motivated enough can do some digging and discover it for themselves )
As for the gray-hat side?
Buying links directly from other sites on places like the DigitalPoint Link Sales forum (2 or 3 is all it takes). And you might also want to consider using 3WayLinks.net, although I haven’t done that yet with my city sites, namely because I think LinkVana works better anyway.
The idea here is to turn your city-site rollout into a push-button process. Build site, push the button, build site, push the button, etc.
Using this methodology and with an outsource solution in place, you should be able to roll out each “city site” for around $200 – $300 maximum, and probably far less if you trim the process down and only stick to the basics, which would be article/directory submissions and a few paid links – which don’t have to be expensive or from major sites.
(And you can definitely do this on the cheap, by the way – just adapt the linking structure here however you need to in order to fit your budget, etc.)
Aim to roll out about 4 city sites a month. And if you need to, just wait until the authority site is generating the cash to fund all these rollouts so you can scale with your operating capital.
You might be spending a lot of what you generate in profit the first 6 months to a year, but the end result will be a massive network of traffic – and that’s just with SEO.
Now let’s talk about getting HOT leads for less than you ever imagined – and without waiting months for the search engines to do their thing…
Using Classified Ad Sites to Generate HOT Leads for $0.00
You could literally just do this and forget about the SEO side for your city sites altogether and you’d still make a killing. In fact, for many of you, this is probably the best way to fund your offsite SEO (maybe even for your authority site rollout as well).
You remember “Rick the Realtor”?
This is virtually all the guy did to generate his own leads, and it obviously worked pretty well for him.
The process is twofold:
1) Ad Posting, and
2) Relevent Responding
The main sites are Craigslist, Kijiji and BackPage – but don’t forget that a lot of cities have their “own” sort of network that might actually get more usage than CL. For example here in Victoria it’s UsedVictoria.com, which gets a lot more traffic than its corresponding city section on CL.
Many cities have “community” sites like that – so it’s something to look for as you roll out each of your city-site domains.
(And those are the sites where posting and responding is easily done – unlike craigslist, which you have to watch yourself or risk getting banned).
Posting ads is very straightforward – and it’s where the city sites come in REALLY handy. We simply craft a unique ad for every different city and post it up in the relevent category about once per week. There are myriad of services out there to accomodate this on the cheap, by the way. We’re talking $0.50 to $1.00 per ad post, and it’s all done manually.
The ad is short and targeted – and written like a short email.
“If need help consolidating your debt load into one, managable payment – talk to us! You’ll be amazed at how much you can save, and you won’t have to juggle high-interest credit cards anymore just to get through the month.
And since we’re actually using different domains (and ads) for each city – and because the lead generation is actually going to companies that can help these people – it’s completely legit.
In some cities you can generate 10+ leads a day like this, for FREE. That alone can be a full-time income, right there.
Or at the very least – use it to fund your SEO “empire”.
Now let’s talk about responding to ads…
If you haven’t already seen this for yourself – you’ll be amazed. Just open up craigslist in a big city, and go to the “Services” section and take a look at the following categories:
* Financial
* Legal
* Real Estate
Now, even just using your browser’s Edit >> Find feature, search for the word “need”.
You’ll likely see anywhere from 2 – 10 direct requests from people actively seeking services and posting for help. And if their request matches the kind of lead you’re seeking, you can literally contact these people and hook them up with your vendors.
I would use an email like this:
“Hi George
Just responding to your request on Craigslist, re: private business loan for $50K.
I can’t guarantee anything, but I may be able to connect you with a lender that does private deals like this.
I’ll need to send you a simple application to fill out (don’t worry, it’s brief), which basically gives them a financial snapshot of yourself and more information about the loan. And there’s no credit check necessary.
So if you’re interested, please let me know and I’ll send that your way.
Thanks
Bob Brown
BobsCitySite.com”
And when George emails back, just send him to the long-form leadgen section of your site and explain that the lenders will try to work with him if they can.
Yes, this is more involved than just blasting George with a link – but it’s also far more effective, and it’s actually helpful. You just need to make sure that you’re only contacting people that are potentially viable customers for your vendors, to the best of your knowledge.
I’d only recommend recruiting leads like this if you’re selling the lead for $60+ a pop, otherwise it’s not something you can feasibly outsource.
But again – this is what we call “found money” folks. You can easily find 5 – 10 quality leads a day like this yourself, and God knows how many when you start scaling on the outsourcing side. (And again, do the math. 5 leads @ $50 a lead… $250/day)
Now, if you want to seriously get into the recruitment end of things, you’ll probably want to check out some of the “lead finding” solutions out there that can run sitewide searches spanning multiple cities for keywords like “need”.
The one I use is called Leads Alert Pro (but I don’t use their emailing functions – I just use it to locate potential leads).
I know this sounds like a lot to do – but even if you just do a FRACTION of this stuff with your city sites, you are looking at generating some staggering lead-flow and revenue in a very short period of time.
In fact, using your network of city sites in conjunction with the classified sites alone can make you a fortune – just like it does for “Rick”.
And as I’m writing this, I am honestly questioning my judgment on whether I should be releasing all this stuff publicly, and that’s not tongue-in-cheek. Anyone who’s motivated can literally run with this segment right now and start generating leads (and likely a full-time income) within a month.
Hopefully some people actually apply this and make good on it… rather than complain about “how hard it is”. It’s low-hanging fruit, plain and simple.
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Whew!
We’ve covered alot in this series so far.
So that’s what I’ve been up to this past year – and I’ve spent the vast majority of it developing the framework for rolling out the authority sites in particular, since that’s a key factor in turning this into a long-term revenue stream, and a business that can potentially be sold for a 7, or maybe even 8 figure price tag.
Well, this concludes the 4-Part exposition on the “Local Angle” and lead-gen business. And hopefully it’s opened your eyes to a whole new world of profit, traffic sources and possibly even mindset when it comes to this business.
So What’s Next?
Well, you can probably guess what’s “next”.
Hint: It’s a video of this process in action – showcasing my actual framework for doing all of this – and I’ll build a LIVE, 30,000+ page site right in front of you.
A site that will grow “naturally” over time, build its own backlinks as it grows, a site that is completely professional and will stand the test of time…
…and a site built on a platform that only a FEW marketers will ever get to use.
Well, it looks like I surprised a few people with Part 2.
That’s right folks – this isn’t the same, done-to-death “local goldmine” spiel. This here’s some real bona fide treasure huntin’…
…and it doesn’t require you to be a smooth-talking, charismatic power broker, either – which is quite honestly a requirement if you intend to start striking up JV’s in the brick/mortar world by walking “cold” into a business and trying to wheel & deal. (Good luck).
So what we’ve covered so far is the overall business model, and how/why it works.
These next two posts (this one and Part 4) will dig a bit deeper into the actual mechanics of the business model – specifically, right now I’m going to cover:
* How to Collect Leads
* How & Where to Sell Leads
* How to Actually Strike “Local” Deals (Without Having to Convince Moronic Biz Owners why “Leads are Good”, etc.)
* Markets Where Leads are Worth Big, Big Bucks…
To my knowledge, nobody else has ever talked about this in as much detail (outside of a high ticket course/seminar) as this post will for free.
This isn’t the same old “how to build a list” crap. Read carefully, because this is the framework of an industry that makes the “Clickbank Crowd” look like a craft fair…
Let’s Get Started:
a) How to Collect Leads
This part might seem a bit complicated as I get into it, but I assure you it’s all very simple – and you certainly don’t have to apply all this stuff to make your campaign a success.
But I’m going to lay out exactly what I am currently doing/building, so that you can clearly see exactly how we’re operating in these “local” markets…
Unlike typical squeeze page campaigns (Name, Email, sometimes Phone), lead forms are a bit of a process. In the lead-gen business, there’s a constant balancing act going on between conversion and quality.
If your conversions are “amazing” – your lead quality (and therefore value) may be suffering. This is obviously because if you’re over-incentivizing the form submission, or if the marketing message (ie. why they’re submitting the form) is a little misleading or otherwise askew, then the leads collected might not be entirely relevent or truly interested in their alleged request.
Side note: This is why so many CPA offers dry up, expire, shut down without warning, etc. Over-zealous affiliates are generating so many “scrubs” (bad leads that have to be purged and go unpaid) that the advertiser just up and walks. It’s also why the approval process for more and more CPA networks is like trying to apply for Harvard.
So, bottom line – quality has to be the focus of our marketing, even if the conversions are a bit lower. (What you can charge per lead will more than make up for the “lost” conversions).
However, that said, this is our model for generating QUALITY leads (who actually want/need to request something) whilst maximizing CONVERSIONS. And no, this isn’t written in stone, and it doesn’t necessarily apply to every market. (Some markets only need 5 or 6 form fields submitted, which is basically a glorified squeeze page.)
This is more applicable to markets where advertisers want lots of detailed info from the leads – which is where the big $$ is…
Step 1: The PrePop Squeeze
What we do is we “prime” the full form submission process by making it very easy to start for the user. To do this, we basically use a typical squeeze form with 4 or 5 fields, where 2 of those are “Name” & “Email”, along with a few initial qualifiers (which will sometimes act as filters that determine which leadgen campaign to display as the next page).
When the user clicks “Start Request” or “Get Started Now”, 2 things happen simultaneously:
1. The info they just entered is “pre-populated” into the fields of the actual application/request form on the destination page. (Or, this can also be stored by your script if you’re using multi-page form submissions).
2. They’re subscribed to the “Pre-Lead” autoresponder series – which I’ll explain in a moment.
This PrePop squeeze is quite crucial in my opinion because it allows you to build a basic house-list AS you’re driving & selling leads – especially when it comes to increasing legitimate lead conversions, as I’ll explain in the next step.
Step 2: The Full Form Submission
This one’s fairly self explanatory. It’s where John Doe Visitor fills in all his applicable details so he can get a loan, insurance quotes, a quote for that nose job he’s always wanted, etc.
If there’s a lot of fields that need to be filled in, it often makes sense to break up the process into 2 or 3 pages. There’s no “time saving” for the user, but it can feel shorter if they can do it in bite-sized chunks. (A simple A/B split-test will quickly determine which works best, as it varies per offer & market).
But here’s the important part – when John Doe submits the full form and completes the process, he’s simultaneously subscribed to the “Full-Lead” autoresponder series, which then automatically unsubscribes him from the “Pre-Lead” AR series.
Why does this matter?
Well, as I mentioned above, this is a huge conversion tool because it allows you to accurately follow-up with the people who only partially completed the process – which can as much as double your lead flow overall.
Personally, I have my “Pre-Lead” AR series send them a “reminder” every day for a week or so until backing off and commencing the standard type of autoresponder sequences that I’m sure most of us are well acquainted with.
This is an instantly-actionable tactic by the way for anyone currently in the lead-gen space. Implement this and thank me later…
Okay, now let’s move onto what happens after they click “Submit”…
Step 3: Filters
Again, this one isn’t rocket science either, although it takes a brief planning session before you start assembling your campaign.
What we’re doing here is – based on predefined user variables, such as “loan type”, “state”, “smoker over 65″ – or whatever – is determining where these leads will go.
Typically what I’m finding is that I’ll have the majority of my leads feed into a “catch all” type of mass lead buyer in the industry, or a lead network, where some select leads from a certain region – or leads that match a certain profile – are redirected to a direct buyer or JV partner.
You can also choose to store/archive some or all leads to be sold as “old” leads at a later date.
This can be as complicated as you want to make it. You can price your leads based on submission variables (like how much money they need to borrow, what kind of surgery they need, how much tax they owe, etc.), and so on. My suggestion is to keep it simple, and create your form so that your filter can function effectively with as few variables as possible.
And finally, no marketing process would be complete without…
Step 4: Backsells
Not necessarily an “upsell” or an “OTO”, but more of a complimentary thing that directly ties into what they’ve just submitted.
This is done on the “thank you page” after the full form has been submitted, as well as via autoresponder followups for the “Full-Lead” AR series.
For example, most of the big-time mortgage lead campaigns out there will recommend a credit report as a backsell. And for an auto-loan campaign, your backsell would probably be for a car insurance offer.
Not rocket science – but very profitable.
Again, anyone in the leadgen space who’s NOT doing this is downright stupid. (And together with the 2 AR sequences and backsells, someone with an active leadgen campaign can quite easily multiply their profits, right now).
For the sake of simplicity – here’s another one of those “bubble map” diagrams to paint a simple picture of how this all works:
Okay – now on to the juicy stuff…
b) How & Where to Sell Leads
For this section I’m not going to cover recruiting buyers directly, or “how” to sell leads in terms of how to pitch the idea to a business. (I’ll cover that in the last section below).
Instead, we’re gonna focus on actual lead networks, marketplaces and otherwise ways to sell leads that circumvent the CPA networks AND don’t require donning your snakeskin boots + cheesy tie ensemble and soliciting local businesses…
Well, I guess I should start by saying that it’s just as possible to “sell leads” through the mainstream CPA networks using this business model, with 2 major exceptions:
1. CPA networks pull the plug on their (top) offers all the time. And it’s usually just as things start picking up, too. Only the crappiest, non-converting offers seem to “stick” in the networks. (Oh, yeah, unless you wanna promote IQ tests or ringtones where your list is 99% worthless). Bottom line, they’re skittish at best. It’s great if you have a huge “mass market” list or if you’re a PPC wizard.
2. You don’t control the leadflow process. Unless your’e doing major volume or have some pull, the CPA offer will be hosted by the vendor, meaning that you won’t be able to accurately use the AR “reminder” tactic for non-completers, and neither can you backsell after a successful form submission.
Bottom-Line: The advantages of using CPA offers don’t outweigh the drawbacks when it comes to a focused, “replace your job” leadgen campaign. CPA offers make great backsell offers – “gravy” money after you’ve already collected your lead.
So where DO you sell leads?
Basically, the only way to do this “easily” is by going through an “arbitrager” – an agency that either buys in bulk and resells at retail, or a network that brings sellers & buyers together.
Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
And, just like CPA networks, these networks may not be the easiest in the world to join, until you’ve got some traffic and a reputable site. (Which you need anyway, so it’s not really a “loss”).
Most of these networks have their own format in terms of how they want leads, which can be anything from a hosted 5-field iFrame to a customized submission script that simply sends your POST data to their server, while the user never leaves your site.
It depends on a lot of factors – and there’s no set “rule”.
The following is a list of every Lead Network I could dig up. (But as a disclaimer, I’m not even signed up with the majority of these – so I can’t comment on them other than saying “check it out and see for yourself”).
Lead-Selling Networks:
* LeadPile.com
* LeadPoint.com
* QuinStreet.com
* LeadVibe.com
* Reply.com
* LeadBuyer.com
* ServiceMagic.com
* LeadVine.com – more of a classifieds site
* 411LeadGeneration.com
* AdvancedLeadExchange.com
And there’s a few others, but they seemed more geared towards selling leads than buying/brokering. The big ones are LeadPile, LeadPoint, QuinStreet, Reply and ServiceMagic.
Also – each network tends to have its own focus in terms of buyers. For example, LeadPile has a lot of “payday loan” and “auto loan” types of lead buyers, where QuinStreet and LeadPoint have some of the more traditional lead buying categories (mortgage, equity loans, etc.), and ServiceMagic is more of a referral network for local contractors.
These types of networks are where you can – ideally – send the bulk of your leads. If not, then the other option is to find (and work with) an “arbitrager” directly, which won’t be difficult at all once you have some traffic and a house list. Just browse the PPC ads, see who’s being aggressive, and then contact them and ask if they’d like to sample your leads for a month.
Thereafter, work out a price point that works mutually.
So that – in a nutshell – is what you do with your “bulk” and excess leads.
Now, let’s talk about how to sell your leads for top dollar – and we’re talking about 3 figures a lead in some cases…
c) How to Actually Strike “Local” Deals (and Make a Killing)…
Remember “Realtor Rick” from the first post and his $600K/year site?
As a few of the commenters had guessed – correctly – Rick was generating a few leads each day and then passing them to other brokers for an actual cut of the sale commission generated by the transactions (selling and buying) involved in re-location assistance for military personnel.
Now, yes – that’s quite an involved leadgen campaign, and is truly more of a JV. And no, I don’t think that this is “easy” to set up or really all that plausible unless you’re an active part of the industry (or know people that are). At least not if you go about this “traditionally” – sending them a proposal, etc.
But there’s also a lot of money on the table when you set things up directly, or as a “quasi-JV” like Rick did. More management, sure – but way more money.
Anyway, as promised – here’s my twist on it, and so far this has always done the trick when it comes to landing highly-lucrative, direct lead selling arrangements (or JV’s)…
The first thing I need to make very clear is that the only businesses that will work with you – and the only ones YOU want to work with – are those that are:
1. Highly aggressive and active with their own marketing already
2. Very experienced at converting their leads. (Lightning fast follow-up, calling leads within the first 10 minutes, etc.)
3. Already trying to drive their own leads online
Huh?
Doesn’t that seem counter-productive, trying to strike a deal with businesses that already drive their own leads?
Perhaps on the surface, yes. But in reality, this is the IDEAL client, because they actually “get it”. And most often, they’re far from experts when it comes to web conversions, PPC campaigns, testing/tracking and so on. But we’re not looking for a marketing contract, either.
However, where I’m going with this is that businesses that actively drive leads will almost always be looking for ways to increase traffic, increase lead-flow and in general do more and more business. And if you come along with an additional stream of fresh leads – they’ll jump at it.
Especially if…
You Already Have Active Leadflow That You Can Let Them Test-Drive for a Month.
This is the key, folks. It’s the needle in the arm.
Think about it… if you try and approach someone (who already drives their own leads) and say, “Hey I was thinking about building some sites and selling leads – would you be interested?”, they’d probably be vaguely interested at best.
But you confront a “lead-friendly” business with this: “Hey, we’re driving about 20 leads a day in your city with TheBestDamnRealtorinSeattle.com. Looking for a competent place to send them that will actually follow up, etc. You wanna see how it goes for a month and then negotiate something that works for your ROI?”
Hook, line, sinker.
And if you’re asking aggressive businesses, they’ll latch on to it like a coke addiction – because it’s more money for them without the effort (and trial/error) of their own campaigns.
This takes you from “talker” to “player”, and you’ll be in a position of strength. It’s like emailing me and saying that you have an active list of affiliates that you’d like to introduce to my offers, and you’ll push them for free for a month and then we can work out an effective commission rate.
Let’s see… zero work on my end… and more sales… hmmm… Yes. Of course!
Who would say no? Well, maybe some will, but they’re idiots and their competitors will embrace you all the more.
Bottom line, you start making your deals AFTER you have a list. AFTER you have traffic. (This makes other “normal” JV’s about 6000% times easier as well, by the way).
And you don’t need a list size of any real volume (we’re not promoting ebooks, folks). What matters is DAILY volume. Even 5 leads a day or whatever can equate to millions in sales for the right industry, and they will take you seriously if the leads are qualifiable and relevent.
That is how it’s done. Yes, it takes a bit more setup, and you’ll need a bit of traffic - but you’d have to do that anyway, right? (Plus, in the meantime you can always just run your leads through the lead networks, or even CPA programs).
Anyone who’s reading this right now and has had experience selling leads “offline” is enthusiastically nodding their heads right now – because they can instantly recognize this approach as being truly effective.
It’s not a “numbers” game. It’s a leverage game.
Now, let’s talk about the kinds of leads – and markets – where you can potentially pull down a massive 6 figure income from a site generating just a handful of leads a day…
d) Markets Where Leads are Worth Big, Big Bucks
If you’re in this for charity or non-profit reasons, then you can stop reading right now. Because this part deals with the kinds of leads that you can sell for as much as 3 figures a pop, all day long.
And if you’re really motivated or have a good relationship with your buyer, then working out a commission split or perhaps hybrid model (reduced CPA + commish) can generate an absolute killing. Just like Rick’s $600K/year site with under 100 visitors a day.
These are (some of) the markets and industry categories where this is possible:
* Commercial Lending: Where I’m from, most commercial loans START at around $1.5M, and that’s the small end. And it’s not like they’re getting a “deal” when it comes to mortgage rates. There is a lot of money on the table for the lenders, and they often charge massive fees upfront just to get started.
There won’t be much volume, but with the right lead quality you could sell commercial loan leads for $300+ a pop to any lender who’s in the commercial game.
* Private Loans: The most common alternative to a traditional mortgage is a private loan – and since these are short term arrangments in most cases (1 or 2 years), there’s usually a huge difference in interest rate and upfront fees. Most private lenders charge 10%/annum or so and they almost always charge a percentage-based fee up front. (Some mortgage brokers can bank $10,000+ per private loan deal, so that tells you a bit about the kind of value per lead).
Again, not a mass-market offer or anything, but you could charge something similar to the commercial lending category.
* Personal Injury: We’ve all seen the obnoxious lawyer on TV saying “You deserve every penny… blah blah blah”. They’re not spending TV ad money for fun. Those bastards are making some serious coin on every contingency case they push through (which the insurance companies pay for, usually), and most clients are worth 5 FIGURES to them in contingency fees.
These guys will have no problem spending major coin for qualified injury leads – but you’ll have to filter or target regionally.
* Bad Credit Mortgages and/or Secured Loans: You might think that the most valuable mortgage leads are people with a good job and great credit. Bzzzz! Wrong. (Good credit = Good rates = LESS profit to the lender). Mortgages are all secured by the property anyway. When the lender forecloses on a loan gone bust – their losses are minimal (if any). And the difference in rate, and often upfront fees, can mean almost double the profit to the lender for a bad credit mortgage as a “good” one.
The same goes for self-employed leads or unverifiable income leads (people who haven’t filed taxes, etc.) The more “creative” the loan gets – the more money’s on the table. And you can pretty much name your lead price.
* Real Estate (Sellers): This is exactly what “Rick” did – he connected people that wanted to SELL their house with realtors in the area. And if you know the real estate business, then you know that the Realtors making real money are the ones finding sellers – not buyers. It’s all about the listings, because then the listing agent is attached to the property in question, and any incoming MLS sales or split-comm sales from referring agents will result in a sale anyway.
So the more listings an agent has, the more inevitable sales they’ll make (for a lot less work), because the buyers come to THEM. It basically means that if they secure a listing contract with a home-seller lead, it’s a guaranteed sale. And that equates to at least $2,000+ even with splitting commissions. So to really get a realtor’s attention, start driving Home-Seller leads and you’ll have him by the short hairs…
* High-Ticket Construction: Wanna guess how much it costs to have a fancy swimming pool built in your backyard these days? Pretty much you’re looking at high 5-figure to low 6 figures for a “decent” pool. And most of that is labor. The same goes for carriage houses, garage additions, custom homes (obviously), upscale kitchen renos, etc.
This is easily a lead in the $40+ category.
* HNW Investments: High-Net-Worth clients are always the big score for any financial agency. And finding them isn’t necessarily difficult. (Think parrallel markets – hedge fund forums, porsche forums, private schools, etc.) Depending who you work with, some managed funds will pay you a “finder’s fee” equal to a percentage of the new money brought in.
This would be a very low-volume operation, but even 2 or 3 referrals a YEAR could equate to a huge 6 figure income. It would be setup based on contingency, not lead value.
* Industrial Supply: Now this is a market where you’d have to build some inroads, but becoming a supply broker for equipment, materials, resources, etc. via an online platform could lead to some massive, massive income. I grew up in a northern oil town and even the “small” operators in town would throw down 7 figures on equipment, supplies etc. without batting an eye.
There’s no “convincing” when we’re talking industrial supply. It’s just business as usual. This would require a bit of relationship building with at least one or two key people on either the supply end or the “demand” end to act as a go-between. As for “lead value”, well… sky’s the limit.
* High-Ticket Luxury: Much like the HNW Investment crowd, this would be a low-volume “search service” for rich people who want to find their perfect yacht, or private jet, or whatever – and you’d be the guy who’d connect them with the various manufacturers (or other brokers).
Again, only a few leads a month likely, but you could sell real leads for a crap-load of cash. Or better yet, go on contingency and take a small percentage of each referred transaction. (2% of a $18 Million jet… $360K payday. Not a bad deal).
Would take a month or two of setup and “meet/greet” with the right people. But it’s very do-able for the right type of person.
And so on.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg folks – and we haven’t even gotten into parallel market implementation yet – which, in addition to the “local” scaling, is targeting your lead-gen campaigns to each of the market sectors.
For example, think of all the “intersecting” niches where the Commercial/Business Lending offers would apply: Apartment building investors, farming, commercial investors, etc.
And taking it even further – for business loans – hell, you could build a site in basically EVERY category of business regarding how to get financed as a startup [insert business type here].
Anyway…
That should give you a bit to “chew on” while you wait for Part 4, where I’ll talk in detail about how to build a massive network of traffic by “tapping” the local keyword categories.
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Coming Next in Part 4:
* How to (properly) build huge ”local” directories that soak up traffic like a sponge, offer real value to your visitors – and most importantly – that don’t get wiped out by Google’s algorithms.
* How to build huge databases of local listings that contain truly UNIQUE content for as little as $0.06 per row (which is essentially a “page”). And then how to take that data and turn it into a massive directory in as little as 20 minutes.
* How to start driving leads – legitimately – right from day one using classified ad sites like Craigslist, Kijiji, Backpage, GumTree and so on. (This can make you a killing, and nobody does this right).
* Why Google Maps listings are NOT going to “kill your chances of ranking”, as some commenters have suggested , and
* Why your multiple “City-Sites” act as a huge source of highly-qualified traffic (much of which will not originate from Google)…
This is the part where I expose a “twist” on the affiliate marketing model that literally “unlocks” virtually unlimited, low-hanging traffic in every imaginable niche…
…even the hyper-competitive ones.
And contrary to what you may think – this is NOT the “go sell your SEM services to Ma’s Diner” approach. That’s chump-change. Plus, they won’t appreciate a damn thing, anyway – because they don’t understand our business (and likely not their own, either).
And it’s also NOT the “convince/beg local clueless business owners to buy leads from you when most of them barely understand the value of a client base” approach. That’s a painful, uphill battle that you will eventually lose due to the sheer naivity of the business world at large when it comes to metrics, lifetime-client-value and the fundamentals of marketing.
(You could offer the majority of local business owners a literal bar of gold and they’d probably say “not interested”.)
No… what we’re doing is something far easier, simpler – and downright clever.
I’ve been getting a few emails (and the occasional blog comment) telling me to shut my trap. That should tell you something right there.
So without any further buildup – this is what I’ve been up to the last 6+ months, and why I’ve diverted basically all my time & energy into building “LOCAL” empires…
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Regular Affiliate Marketing = 1 Offer in 1 Major Market
REGIONAL Affiliate Marketing = 1 Offer in 276+ Major Markets
Here’s how this works…
Let’s say you want to promote a CPA offer for Auto Loans. That’s wonderful.
So you go and do some keyword research, narrow down your main target, some article topics and plan your 20+ page site (for starters). You focus on mid-tail keywords because you know that, at least in any kind of realistic budget or time frame, there’s no way in hell that you’ll compete with the Fortune 500′s and the bazillion other affiliates in the top-level keyword categories.
So then you build some links and see what happens.
If you’re smart, you’ll have integrated some of the “Conduit” process in order to siphon in some ultra-targeted product-focused traffic by creating profiles on your site for at least 10 or 20 well-known insurance services in the niche.
At the site’s capacity, you’ll probably see maybe 100 – 200 visitors a day and likely a lead or two a day. Not bad, probably enough to cover a car payment each month.
You call it a day and either hold the site or sell it – and then move onto the next niche. Make no mistake – you can earn a very good living doing just this, but over time the sites will fade due to lack of activity (linking) and encroaching, competing sites.
Now let’s take a look at the “LOCAL” strategy for the exact same offer:
You don’t even bother with keyword research (yet), because the first step is to build a directory of EVERY used car & car loan office in your target area (statewide or nationwide), with your leadgen offer as the top-fold offer.
The site is categorized by City (and State if nationwide). Every office/business gets its own listing page – much like Yelp.com, or more relevantly, MortgageLoan.com’s directory area.
This is going to build you a site with targeted, useful content in the neighborhood of anywhere from 100 – 50,000+ pages deep. (Um… longtail, anyone?!!)
It’s kind of like the Conduit Method, times a thousand.
(Oh, and in a short while from now I’ll be explaining how to build absolutely massive directories like this with UNIQUE, NON-SPUN content for as little as $0.06 per page. And I’ll also be showing you how to build a professional directory like this in about 20 minutes. Just thought I’d throw that in there for good measure…)
You’ll market the directory using white-hat SEO, which will be easy to do since it will actually be something of value – not just another affiliate site.
Now – additionally (and optionally) – you can scale this up at the same time and go after the “faster” traffic in the local categories by creating as many as 276+ sites that specifically go after city based keywords for your offer.
Why 276?
Because that’s about how many cities in the US have a population of 100,000 or more.
And you certainly don’t have to create anywhere NEAR that many. But you can, and then some. Even 5 cities will likely keep you busy enough.
These “city sites” are nothing more than a targeted mini-site (with unique content) about 3 – 5 pages deep, where the home page features the leadgen offer front-and-center, and all the other pages have it displayed top-fold.
You use largely automated and formulaic SEO processes to rollout these “mini city sites”, since the competition will largely be next to nothing. For example, “Billings Montana Car Loan” (or whatever) will probably have about 3 viable competitors that might have a clue what they’re doing.
It’s a cakewalk (currently).
So… what kind of results can you expect?
Well, that’s hard to determine. To put it in perspective I have one “local” site that does about $400 a day in revenue and it only has 130 or so pages indexed in Google (and about 200 pages total).
But let’s say that in 6 months time your directory site is rolling over at least 500+ visitors a day (especially if it was nationwide). That’s very plausible.
And let’s say that each of your city-sites is bringing in maybe 15 – 20 visitors a day. And you’ve built “city sites” in 10 different cities, which brings your total traffic to around 650 – 800 visitors a day.
Even if just 1% of your traffic converts into a lead – ONE PERCENT – that is 6 to 8 leads per day. And in that market you could probably find offers paying around $10 – $20 a lead. Let’s say $15. For a lot of people reading this – that’s a full time income. An actual job replacement.
And guess what? If you want to drive 60 leads a day instead of 6… just keep building more “city sites”. In the meantime your directory will become more and more established, better-indexed…
…and your revenues growing week by week.
The beauty of this is that you can SCALE. To virtually any level of traffic you want.
In fact, to make this process a little easier to “see”, I’ve put together a quick visual:
As you can see, I’ve included other traffic sources (above) to market the city sites.
SEO is the only one you “need”. (I only listed PPC & Facebook because it’s definitely viable if you’re comfortable with tracking paid traffic.)
Classified Ad sites are a GOLDMINE of traffic when it comes to promoting specific, city-targeted sites, but it has to be done correctly (and ethically), which I don’t have room to cover in this post. Needless to say, that is a HUGE source of leads and revenue. Just ask “Realtor Rick” from the previous post. (I’ll be covering how to drive traffic effectively from those sites to your City-Sites in a later post).
What this does is it opens up HUNDREDS of “traffic pools” that you can scale into with your existing affiliate campaigns. Now that’s what I call a Lazy Marketer version of “LOCAL” marketing
This isn’t about “partnering up with good ol’ Pete who owns the local bakery”. Nor is it doing “IM” for John the Struggling Roofer.
It’s about TAPPING 276+ additional traffic sources for literally ANY affiliate offer where traffic is easy and rankings are swift.
What I’ve just handed to you is a million-dollar-business on a silver platter.
And I’m not done, either…
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Stay tuned for Parts 3 & 4:
* How to circumvent the CPA bastards (er… I mean networks) and sell leads for WAY more directly
* Who will buy your local leads without batting an eye or requiring “convincing”
* Specific Networks whose SOLE FUNCTION is to broker lead sales
* Using Classified sites (LEGALLY) to generate thousands of leads a month – leads that can be sold
* How to structure your leadflow so that you’re building your own business/list simultaneously
* How to build a 50,000+ page directory site in less than 20 minutes
* How to build UNIQUE content for as little as $0.06 per page. (1000 pages of unique content = $60)
* And more…
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How’s that for “yet another Guru pushing the offline business model, whaaahh….” ?
Far from it. Hopefully this was a pleasant surprise
Looks like my last blog post was in February… yikes!
Well, there’s a few reasons for that. Since I’m a classic procrastinator, the month of April was spent in a stress-filled whirlwind of digging up receipts, “crapping” bricks with a calculator in hand, and day-dreaming about meeting the guy who invented income tax in a dark alley somewhere…
May was spent in Bali, Indonesia – which is nothing short of incredible if you’re contemplating a visit. The most exotic locale I’ve seen yet. And if you’re a big fan of monkeys, you’ll find them in great supply on this little South Asian island. (I thought they were “cute” until one of the little bastards tried to steal my sunglasses).
So that’s where I’ve been lately. But more importantly – and more relevently – the last 6+ months have been the beginning of a monumental SHIFT in terms of what I’m doing these days, and what I’ll be focusing on going forward.
Now before I go any further – I need to make something crystal clear:
Affiliate marketing as I’ve taught it (and done it) still works wonderfully, and the fundamentals will always apply. There is ample opportunity in any profitable market for any motivated person to make a great living by following the basics of marketing 101 – sell what sells, build a list, provide good content, take action. (In fact, it works so well that I just sent the Canadian Government a check for what could have been threeadditional 911 Turbo’s in the garage.)
And for as long as affiliate marketing exists (don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon), that will be the case.
So the last thing that I’m doing here is casting a “doomsday” message about affiliate marketing. I’m not, in any capacity, because it would be completely untrue.
What I am doing though, is providing an educated warning, and - further down the page – exposing a massive, totally and truly untapped “playing field” where even the greenest affiliate marketers can get involved and pull down results like they’re some kind of marketing wizard…
This “playing field” is what I’ll be focusing on with the majority of my resources going forward for the next several years.
Why?
Well, before I get into what “it” is, I need to talk about why ”it” is such a powerful approach. Let’s start with my prediction for affiliate marketing as a whole in the not-too-distant future…
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MY PREDICTION:In 5 Years From Now, Making a Living with Affiliate Marketing Will Basically Require as Much Blood, Sweat & Tears as with a Brick/Mortar Business.
Affiliate Marketing Will Become More & More Regulated, Traffic Will Take More Effort and Every Popular Vertical Will Be Dog-Eat-Dog Competitive.
The process of “making money” with AM will be as simple as it ever was, but the gap between the real money affiliates and the hobby-level income is going to grow wider and wider, due simply to the fact that there’s going to be an ever-growing “supply” (affiliates & vendors) in markets where the demand won’t grow to match it.
You can’t “convince” more people to join a targeted market. For the most part, that’s a constant variable. And in most markets, with each passing day there’s simply more and more “fingers” dipping into the pie.
And the pie in most markets is most likely about the same size as it was a few years ago, except that now there’s 50 fingers in it, and in a few years from now – 500 fingers. Figurative, but you get the picture.
Inevitably, especially as the larger corporations start stepping into the game a bit more, once again it will take “real” capital and a “real” business structure (staff) to compete with the big boys.
Currently, it’s quite possible to be Joe Blow with a blog, a newsletter and a few viral videos (or whatever) and have the same reach as a Fortune 500. But based on the current “barrier-to-entry” effect (or lack of it), every conceivable market is filling up right now with “Joe Blow’s”.
Hell, given the current job market (and the way companies are going these days – with employees working from the net), it’s not going to be long before “blogging to the bank” becomes a somewhat mainstream self-employment career path.
Hence, supply is quickly starting to outpace the demand.
(And let’s not even talk about the quickly-changing PPC environment, the FTC, Google’s endless algorithm changes, etc.)
Bottom line – it ain’t getting any easier. The difficulty for startups and newcomers will increase year by year.
Will it still be possible? Absolutely it will, but it will require stronger marketing to break through the crowd and reach your customers increasingly as time goes on. We’ve even seen this (a growing competition, to the point of outright saturation) in the last 3 years alone.
Niches fill up, rankings dwindle – and only the established businesses survive & thrive long-term. Even now (as I’ve always said), the writing is on the wall if you’re not SCALING your business when the first wave of results roll in. You can’t just put up a few scattered mini-sites here and there and hope to survive.
What this means is that it’s “go big or go home”. In 2010 it’s still early on enough that any Joe Blow can build a big enough web presence, list and brand value to make a great living (and exit/sell the business with one big final windfall) if Joe puts in the time.
But the TIME to get started, and taking things seriously – is NOW.
Once you’re established with a solid web presence, cash reserves and a responsive client base – you’re in a position of strength and leverage, and that position will only fortify over time.
(In fact, even as I’m writing this I’m wondering if “prediction” is the right word to use here. I think “observation” might be a little more accurate, albeit less sensational.)
The gap is widening…
…so make sure you’re on the correct end of it.
Which leads me to the part you’ve all been waiting for – where the “easy” money is right now.
I strongly believe that this is the single largest untapped GOLDMINE for affiliates who are sick of getting eaten alive in saturated markets & stuck on the “Google ranking hamster-wheel”…
…and willing to think a little outside the box.
Because this makes the “Conduit Method” look like a lemon-aid stand in comparison…
So what is “it”?
Well, what “it” effectively does is LEVEL the playing field in every market – no matter how competitive.
It means you can take a ridiculously competitive market (like mortgages, for example), and with this approach – even your entry-level “BUM Marketer” can drive traffic & results with ease.
Read this next part carefully, because if you’re motivated – it can literally make you a fortune…
…but there’s also an expiry date, and you’ll need to get moving on this SOON if you’re gonna cash in.
Get ready to lose some sleep…
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THE BIGGEST “DISCOVERY” OF MY MARKETING CAREER:
The Goldmine in My Own Back Yard (Part 1)
It all started when I met a the owner of a small real estate firm in the coffee room at my office complex.
Let’s call him “Rick the Realtor” out of professional courtesy, since he has no idea I’m blogging about him. Rick and I quickly became “office buddies” because we both like performance cars, we both spent our adolescent years skateboarding, and we could both sense that the other had a solid grip in terms of business savvy, marketing and lead generation.
(It’s rare to find local entrepreneurs who actually “get” lead gen, list building, follow-up, etc.)
So needless to say, I considered Rick to be an interesting guy.
Now, Rick is one of those guys who’s pretty “liberal” when it comes to sharing business results, revenues and so on – but it’s not done in a prideful sense (ie. he doesn’t brag).
Like myself, I think Rick honestly just gets excited by stuff like that because business is like a game to him - or a passion, really – and it’s hard not to talk about. (Especially when you finally meet someone who can relate.)
So one one day Rick knocks on my door and says “Chris, I’ve gotta show you something in my office”. I think at the time he caught me playing The Need for Speed or something, so I couldn’t exactly make an excuse about being too busy to check it out :-)
And am I ever glad I did…
Rick proceeded to pull up a crappy little site in his browser that looked like my dog had designed it. It was simply a submission form on one side of the page, and a small navigation menu at the top. I could see that there were links to a handful of articles as internal linking went – but that was it.
The site was targeted at military personnel who had to be relocated and needed help selling their existing home and buying a new one.
“How much do you think this site makes?”, he asked.
“Uh… I dunno – how much traffic does it get?”.
“Not much. Maybe 50 to 80 visitors a day”.
“Okay… I’ll guess it makes a few grand a month depending on what you’re doing with the leads”
“Try about $600K a year.”
[Me staring blankly, jaw-dropped, in shock]
Rick continued, “Now check this out… recently I’ve also been using the local classified sites to drive leads through our squeeze page, and just by posting this little teaser ad once a day I’m getting more MLS listings (which is where the money is as a realtor) than I am from all my other advertising combined – and I’m spending almost $10K a month on the other stuff…”
“So you’re telling me that your dinky little classified ads – which cost you nothing – are driving more leads than your Adwords campaign, your direct mail campaigns and whatever else it is you do?”
“Absolutely. We did 7 figures in commission this year from those free postings alone.”
Rick proceeded to ask if there was a software program or something to automate the classified posting, and I suggested an outsourced solution instead so as to avoid breaking the site’s TOS or overdoing things.
I walked back to my office, turned off “The Need For Speed”, sat back in my chair, exhaled, swore (out of excitement) – and fought off a slight sensation of nausea.
The numbers were impressive – but that wasn’t what had shocked me.
What shocked me was how completely UNTAPPED the entire lead generation business is on a local level.
The key word there is “LOCAL”.
Think about this folks… we all know that verticals like Mortgages, Life Insurance, Auto Insurance, Education, Weight Loss, Dating and so on are HOT. That’s why there’s so much competition. That’s why there’s people spending $20,000 a day on Adwords pushing financial leadgen offers, etc.
But what about for the city of Victoria, BC (where I live)?
Or the neighbouring city of Nanaimo a few hours north? What about your city?
What about EVERY FREAKIN’ CITY IN THE WORLD with a population of 50,000 or more?
Folks, this is truly the low-hanging fruit of the next 5 years for anyone motivated enough to go after it.
Think about what “Rick” was making with 50ish visitors a day with just ONE local-targeted site. (We won’t even address the 7 figures as a result of real estate sales using just Craigslist to drive leads).
The fact is that anyone with ANY experience as an affiliate can go and rank for “[City Name] Mortgages” (or whatever) in a small-sized city (around 50K – 300K population) and drive leads all day long because the hordes of CJ, Clickbank, LinkShare and WhateverElse affiliates haven’t saturated it yet!
And that’s just the model of going after local traffic and then promoting “generic” offers. There’s a whole new world of possibilities when you start branching out from there and partnering with local businesses, driving leads directly to them. (This, by the way, is exactly what I’ve done).
Think about what your local mortgage lender, yacht broker, real estate broker, care home, commercial lender, pool builder, industrial equipment rep, home builder, corporate attorney – or basically ANY business running big-ticket items – would pay you to bring them more business without them lifting a finger.
(And then think about how much “competition” you’d have on Google for local keyword categories. )
You’re competing with “Mom n’ Pop” websites, snotty designers who can make pretty sites but couldn’t drive traffic to save their life, and people who think that Blogger.com can make them a business website.
Like I said… there’s a goldmine in my own backyard – and in yours.
I didn’t sleep that night.
That was 6 months ago. And alot’s happened since.
Now it’s your turn not to sleep…
Stay tuned for Part 2 (tomorrow), where I go into great detail about what I’ve been doing with the Local campaigns in the past 6 months, as well as how exactly to “tap” the LOCAL markets, what to promote and how to set it all up.
(Keep in mind that you can even use “generic” nationwide CPA offers, even if you’re targeting localized traffic. This isn’t about what to promote as much as it’s about an entirely new and hugely untouched “playing field” of TRAFFIC).
Look for tomorrow’s mailing and blog post – where I expose everything…
Later,
-Chris
P.S. If you want to lose even more sleep, check out LeadPile.com and then think about all the local campaigns you could set up…
From broke musician to super-successful 7 figure internet marketer, Matt Wadsworth has one hell of a story to begin with…
But the real kicker?
He’s blind from birth.
And I’ve just interviewed him in detail – talking about exactly how he started, what he does, what he sells, how he gets things rolling…
…and how he does it all against seemingly impossible odds.
There is nothing for sale or “hinted at” in this interview whatsoever. (It’s hard to have an agenda when you don’t have anything for sale.)
And in fact, this is likely more inspiring and more valuable than anything you’ll see this year - including all the 4-figure price tag product launches that are undoubtedly getting lined up for the spring in our ridiculous market.
So do yourself a favor and listen to Matt’s story. It will blow your mind – as well as remove any possible excuse you have left in terms of getting things done and seeing results.
)
