The other day someone told me to check out Chris Ramsey’s Offline PLR product.  So I wrote Chris and asked him to let me check it out.

I won’t say this product will change your life – - But if you are looking to add some credibility before you ever meet with a client it’s something that’s worth the little bit he charges for it.  It would take me all day to write up the 9 pages that are in the plr report.  If you are doing offline marketing – go for it!

http://www.thesupermarketer.com/offline-plr/

I’m not sure I would concentrate on the “on-line” digital side of things.  I’d print out the 9 page report (obviously rebranded to be showing your website, address, phone) and run around town dropping it off or mailing it to businesses.

Imagine you own a little shop.

Imagine that you have paid big money to be burned in the past with seo.  You are done – even though you know you could use a few more customers a month.

Imagine you get a 9 page report in the mail that isn’t trying to sell you anything.  It just educates you – and someone obviously took the time to print it out, and mail it to you.

Imagine you start imagining about those extra 5 sales per month…………

The store owner doesn’t have time to do what’s needed………..

Make sure you follow up – it’s a sale waiting to happen.

I suggest a brown legal sized envelope with handwritten address.  It will get opened and read!

If you’ve never done it before – you can still say “probably” – here is what we will do:

Number one:  Use keywords in the listing.  Use coupons. Use images……… fill out every damn section of the local business listing with seo in mind.

Increase Citations.  Citations are when another page references their business name, address, etc…  A link is not required (but always nice).  Paid directories, yellow pages, etc.. are the easiest way to get these.  You can also use resource boxes in articles, web 2.0 stuff, etc…

Next step is to throw a few links at the local listing page.

At this point you will see some movement.  Now you have to take a hard look at the ones above you and see what you have to do to compete.

(do them a favor if you see them talking about it in forums and send them here)

You aren’t just building someone’s website, or building links – you are directly affecting their business and if you screw up (contract or not) they will sue you.

1.) Form a LLC to limit your liability.  It’s very affordable to do and for the most part if you are a sole proprietorship the taxes don’t change much and the “reporting” is easier.  You might save some tax money with a s-corp but the amount of paperwork is insane.

If you can’t afford to do so you have no business doing seo for someone else as you don’t have the cash reserves or the experience to do it.

2.) Get liability insurance and get your LLC/Yourself  bonded.

If you can’t afford to do so you have no business doing seo for someone else as you don’t have the cash reserves or the experience to do it.

3.) If you are marketing for them make sure you understand the laws that apply to you.  You can’t send out coupons that make false claims for example.  If you are doing signage the town/city/state will have rules that apply.  Make sure you back up their list.

4.) A contract no matter how good does not protect you from negligence.

5.) Back Ups are your friend.  Make sure you are charging for doing so and then use any solution to make sure you are doing it.  Weekly, monthly, etc….

And most importantly…………

Make sure you have the skills to do the job.  If you have to ask for advice at every step of the way on a forum you aren’t ready.  You will probably screw up…….. and since it’s local seo when you mess with their income/money it may very well come down to a real problem.  Let’s say you mess up the website (that you probably didn’t build) they paid 5k for…. think that’s o.k.? It’s not.  It’s their property and you have just been hired to maintain or improve it.

If you doubt your abilities make some fake websites and get them to rank for the terms you want.  Start collecting leads and mailing to them, go through the whole process you “THINK” you would be doing for a client.  Come back and add new features, make changes to the sites months later and see how they are affected, etc…

Do it to yourself before you do it to someone else’s money.

Concept:  Local SEO proof!

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

LOCAL PORTALS

Local portals take a lot of work.  It’s almost like you are running a newspaper so be warned.  One of the best ways is to get a group of folks who are active in the community and “recruit” them to write for you (either paid or free).  You are going to have to do the grunt work first.

Your job with a local portal is to run something like a newspaper for your town or region.  You are also going to have to promote it — I’ll get into that.

Start off small – keep posting about community events.  If you have kids pass out flyers to parents at their events.  Ask (no beg) for everyone to take your e-mail address and send you info about upcoming things.  Give people like church secretaries an account and show them how to post events.

Keep going.  Keep growing e-mail list

Keep going. Keep growing e-mail list

Keep going. Keep growing e-mail list

After a large enough portion of the community knows about it – leverage it into ad space, ad swaps, etc..

What do you think the local store would pay to tell 500 people about their pizza special?  Could you sell 10 ads and do a one post “ad sheet”?  Could you print out 10000 flyers with said ad sheet and place them in all those businesses?

(hey while you are there – show them the number 1 ranked website you have about their industry – and offer for them to buy it)

The options are limitless if you can get this kind of thing going.  It’s tough to get the momentum though – in my case it helps when you have 4 kids of different age groups and are their coach, their boyscout leader, the girlscout leader, etc…

Plus there are only a few thousand people in my town — I have no clue how to start something like this in a bigger town or city.

Once you get one up and running (even if it’s a “fake”) it’s so easy to plug in ads for your clients and increase the value of any site(s) you make for the area that you shouldn’t pass it up.

Good luck!

Concept:  Local SEO proof!

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

This post is a continuation of Changing Affiliate World – part 1.

No Big Ideas Here – Just some more tips to save money and make it work for you.

1.) Establish Yourself (or fake it till you make it)

You know deep down in your gut you aren’t a seo firm.  So what  Set up a domain name, get a business license, get insurance (don’t put this off if you can avoid it).  Set your site up with google local.  Make sure you rank for something that a client would search for.

2.) Establish your own marketplace.

This can be on your seo site, or even an entirely separate site.  Make it look nice – and you will have a place to put all those sites you don’t sell…. or to just keep churning out sites “made by” your firm.  Sell them on flippa, or wherever.  Or just keep them.  List whatever site you want to sell on the marketplace at really crazy rates — when your customers google it they will think you are giving them the deal of a lifetime.

3.) Get your proposals in order (this is a make or break thing)

There are a ton of “seo proposals” on-line.  I hate them all .  I’ve been using Proposable lately.  Let’s me “SEE” what they are doing with my proposal.  However, you will have the occasional client with out access to the internet for whatever reason.  You’ll have to break out the paper then.

4.) Use contracts.

Never promise that your clients will achieve (or keep)  top x rankings.   Be careful promising exclusivity – ie you can’t keep yourself afloat only doing one restaurant, one contractor, etc…

5.) Don’t over do it.

If you are busy with 5 clients don’t take on 30.  But make sure you have some padding.  I like to keep a bunch of little clients and a few big ones to make sure that if I lose one it isn’t the end of the world.

6.) Set up systems.

When you tackle a new market keep all your content, images, etc… It will help you break into a new market.  There isn’t a reason why you couldn’t sell roofing websites all over the country.  If you are smart you will use tokens and store in databases to really churn out fast sites.  (hmm maybe I’ll let you use my system if you ask nicely)

7.) Where the real money is

The real money isn’t selling the website.  It’s maintaining it. Setting up systems for lead collection, marketing, keeping in touch with their customers, etc…  Don’t forget hosting.  If I sell you a site for $1000 dollars but charge you 29.99 a month to host it – I make 1300 bucks in one year.  If they agree for us to maintain twitter, facebook, etc… it’s another 250 every other month or so.  If they pay us to help with on-line marketing it’s more, to do seo it’s even more…

Get the picture?

8.) Be a pro.

Even if you don’t feel like a pro – you know more then they do.  Don’t assume just because you are a first time “seo firm” that you aren’t good at this.  I work for a number of “seo firms” that don’t know how to do anything.  They hire me to create forms, build systems, and my favorite — install wordpress sites.  They are just salesmen that know links are needed – but not any creative ways to get them. I work for others who are technical wizzes but just now how to do things – not how to rank, or really wow their customers.

9.) Don’t forget video.

I still remember the day I told one of my plumbing contractors that I was going to follow him around for the day and get him to explain what he was doing.  He flipped – then let me talk him into it. I told him I wouldn’t charge him at all if it didn’t work.. in fact I’d only charge him 100 dollars a client.  I put my time and effort where my mouth was…….. and then I:

Broke it down into a dozen how to videos that show him being an expert, clean, professional, and polite with his customers.  Put it up on it’s own site and youtube channel.

He’s driven (and been paid handsomely) hundreds of miles because people were willing to pay HIM more – since they “knew” him from the videos.   After  paying about 1500 dollars he bought the site for 4k (his idea).

10.) If they are local you are the photographer as well.

Go take shots of their office, the people, etc… a good camera is about 200 bucks.   I guarantee that once you do this you won’t just be the “nameless” website guy anymore — in fact everyone in that office will be telling their friends, and other businesses about this amazing web firm they just hired.

11.) Be creative – and be their marketing wiz at the same time.

Just about anything you can do locally gives you an edge and makes your next client easier.  Just prove it – show it – sell it – maintain it.  Then show them how they can increase their customers other ways.  Show them how to collect leads, how to e-mail market, how to go web 2.0, etc…. it’s all more money in your pocket.

I have a local auto repair shop handing out ice cream coupons and the ice cream shop handing out almost free oil changes.  Both are happy as well – both pay for the printing – and both pay me every month to keep their sites up.

Just help them make money and you are the hero.

12.) Get some cards

Last and not least – get business cards.  Set up a referral system, etc… don’t forget to market yourself.

That’s all folks.

I know I didn’t sell you a $997 info product on how to do this.  But I’ve been doing it for years – and it’s a way to support your family if nothing else.  I also find it fun and it’s cool to be the “hero”.  I’ll see if I can’t come up with some ways to make it easier on you if I get some requests.

Concept:  Local SEO proof!

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.    This post is sort of a “wake up” call to anyone attempting to do local seo – so you avoid some of the mistakes in all those local seo products out there.  See this post to see what I’m talking about. Local seo isn’t just an idea – it’s something I do every day!

Local seo is very very easy if you do it right.  There are some assumptions though.

1.) You have a little seed money (doesn’t take much).

2.) You are comfortable on the phone.

3.) You are able to maintain a sense of your own worth and not low ball yourself.

4.) Realize that you aren’t selling your time – you end up selling a commodity that has a value of much more than just what you think a couple hours of your work is worth.

5.) You are either going to concentrate on a small state (like Delaware) or a region or city (like Baltimore Maryland)

Take a look at your local paper.  See who is advertising – we aren’t looking for mega corporations but rather small business that you can see is pumping out ads (and spending a fortune on them).  I just did it and I found 3 gutter repair companies.  (They don’t charge enough to big money – but there are a lot of them)

A quick search tells me that the competition is a joke.

Another quick search tells me that both gutterrepairdelaware.com and delawaregutterrepair.com are both available.

Another quick search gives me the “rates” these guys are charging.

That tells me we aren’t dealing with “BIG” money…. so I know I won’t be selling a site for 5k or anything crazy like that.  I might be better off doing a regional “gutter cleaning” portal and selling space and leads directly.  I’ll get into that in another post in a few days.  For now though let’s just say that I’m going to capture the top few spots and then lease or sell the websites outright.  I’ll spend 100 bucks setting this up (and advertising) so I should be able to sell a ranking website for at least the cost of 5 jobs right?  Ohh – I don’t like working for less than 200 per hour plus some extra for money put out — so let’s make sure we have a back up plan.

It won’t take much to rank.  The words Delaware and Gutter in the url will do it.  Let’s kill a couple birds with one fell stroke though

Step one:  Register Portal (even if you don’t plan to advertise).  Something like Delawaregutterrepaircenter.com.  Use namecheap to get the free whois protection.  Set up wordpress (or even the microtargetniches script).  Break it down into the biggest cities or regions in the area.  In my case I’ll have categories like:  Kent county gutter repair.  Sussex county gutter repair.  New Castle County Gutter repair, newark gutter repair.

In each category type up a single post about gutter repair.  Find horror stories on forums and talk about how to avoid, etc…  Also set up a page saying “quality gutter repair professionals in “category”.  Make sure they have a way to contact you to get listed there.

Step two:  Register pin pointed targetted urls. Like Bestdelawaregutterreapair.com.  No whois – you aren’t hiding you own this.  Make a few posts or pages.  Drop about 50 links with the terms you know you want to rank for.  Make posts with those terms.  Should only take 10 or so pages.

Step three:  Do it for a few more urls as well.  If you can get specific do it – like in this example:  Delawaredownspoutsrepaired.com

Some tips:

Use plugins to hide your fluff.  The main page should be static and can even be a ‘fake’ company.

Place “ad” on the portal.  Selling point right there.

The one you are going to sell (or lease) build a twitter account and a facebook account for.  Build em up a little bit.

Step three:  Build up just enough links to get your sites listed in the top 10.  With local seo terms it’s pretty easy.

Step three and a half:  Build or use one of those “form generation websites” to capture leads.

Step four:  Go to a print and mail on demand website (there are a few of them).  Have them mail a snapshot of the site you want to sell to a few local gutter repair shops with words like:  Ranking number 1 in your area – first to call gets it!

Then negotiate a sale or lease. After you have sold it change the information to be THEIR company.  Get a little more content from them.  (see local seo part 2) Don’t forget video, pictures, etc…

You’ve already built the twitter and facebook pages right?  Charge a monthly fee to maintain them.  Add in a newsletter – charge a fee to maintain.  You get the gist.

Remember as you go through this process that if they called the local print shop, or web services company they have been quoted probably 5k for stuff like this.

You’ve also built in a second income stream (advertising through the gutter repair portal) – promote it and cash in on the folks you haven’t built sites for.  Capture e-mail, addresses, phone, etc… and continue to market to those folks as well.

Now when you do your next “niche” you can link from the portal and any other websites you built to the new niche – and it makes your life even easier.

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.  Today I’m going to post one that I can’t believe I never got around to doing – and be warned, I’m going to be jumping into this with two feet this coming week.  I’m so dang nice though that I’m going to share ALL my notes.  Since my handwritting is horrible I’ll type instead of scanning them in.

Gamers (have fun – make some money)

I’ve got a 10 year old son, and we’ve had a tradition since he was old enough to play a board game.  About once a week (sometimes every day if he is bored) we play a game.  When he was little it was “hi ho cherry ho”, then checkers, then chinese checkers, then chess, then stratego, then risk…. you get the picture.  All those games required him to learn how to think  (i’m still waiting for results).

He’s a little bigger now, and into video games.  So our strategy has moved into the on-line world.  There are a ton of games out there that are multi-player.  I’ve found in playing these games with him that there are huge “networks” inside the games – clans, etc…

Personally I don’t like the on-line games much – you know the ones like World of Warcraft.  I participated with him to stay a part of his life, but was pretty bored and ONLY played when we were on together.

My son then found direct2drive (Affiliate program on LinkShare), and the Steam Client (no affiliate program yet when I looked).  These two places let you buy on-line and download the games.  Unlike buying them where you are going to lose the boxes, etc… it stores a digital record of your purchase.

We’ve experimented a bit and found that there are some games I like on-line.  I enjoy warhammer 2 – basically you get a small “army” and you fight a limited number of others.  You have to have some strategy, etc…

We play for a round or two (about 10 minutes each) every couple days and either go against each other or are on a team.

Now how does any of this stuff turn into money?

Easy.  My son started his own clan for world of warcraft. He told me he needed a website and I set one up for him.  Then he told me he needed a forum and I set one up for him. Then he told me he wanted his own gaming server (expensive)…. and I told him tough.  He would have to pay for that himself.  He hasn’t gotten that server yet BUT in his spare time he has made a small fortune…. having fun.

Here is how he did it.  His “Clan” has to join the same clan on other games.  He tells them the games that the clan is moving into through a handy dandy aweber mailing list (integrated at forum sign up).  Those guys keep buying games from direct2drive with his *well his mothers* affiliate link.

He also displays adsense, adbright, etc…

His earnings are well over 500 for this one month alone… and he has almost a thousand in his “car fund” just from this.  He’s also been buying our games, paying for custom themes for his site, etc..  He’s pretty into the whole thing and is convinced he can be the next gamespot reviewer

He’s your average kid – nothing fancy.  He plays sports, plays outside, we limit his computer time, etc…  He still manages to manage his clan (actually has officers who live in the damn game that he is paying for moderation, recruiting, etc…)  Since he is limited to about 5 hours of computer time during the school week it’s not bad I don’t think.

He had a leg up on most of the people creating clans – ie a Daddy who knows how to milk websites for money. But let’s face it – if you are here at blackhatdigest you have enough smarts to install a forum, create a blog, and write about some silly game.  Treat it like a business and your “hobby” becomes profitable.  The good news is that you aren’t limited to recruiting in one game – your clan can encompass multiple games.  Have multiple people “working” for you for peanuts and never realizing your a commercial operation.

I’m not saying it’s viable – but some serious thought could turn into some serious cash.  Let’s say you can get a core group of about 100 people that will buy whatever game you recommed.  Direct2drive pays 7 percent.  Average game price is 49.99.  If you can sell 100 copies you’ve earned:  $350 bucks.

You could certainly pay for your gaming this way – and it is expensive (especially if you have 2 accounts like we do).  But if you form a community of hard core gamers, you don’t throw crap at them, and treat this as a business that $350 could turn into 10′s of thousands per month.

How?  Expand things…. and use your base to do it.

You are going to have to have landing pages, game tip newsletters, etc… turn this into a real funnel.  Use your clan to help build it up…. tell them profits come back into the clan (give away games (steam lets you give gifts for example)).

You’ve got your clan – a bunch of hard core gamer geeks   Have them make video of their techniques.  Youtube with links back to your landing pages.

Do game reviews — have your clan members write em up and you post them online…. of course there should be an affiliate link there….

You could probably have “in game” contests where people have to pay to enter.  Just thought of this – so not sure if it’s practical or whatever.

Anyway – I guess my point is that even your hobbies can be profitable.  I have to force myself to play the games with my kiddo, because I already spend to much of my time in front of the PC.  If your aren’t working because your gaming — well there you go.

Concept: So Simple anyone can do it!  Super Simple Spare Time Blogging. (up to 5k per day – Really) or We could call it black hat domain flipping that you don’t have to feel guilty about.

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.  They are supposed to be fun or interesting concepts that you can turn into a real business.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.  Today I’m going to post one that I can’t believe I never got around to doing – and be warned, I’m going to be jumping into this with two feet this coming week.  I’m so dang nice though that I’m going to share ALL my notes.  Since my handwritting is horrible I’ll type instead of scanning them in.

One day my wife and I were in a small furniture store near our house.  The guy is a woodworker who buys antiques and other abused furniture and fixes them up and sells them.  He does great work, and probably isn’t ‘rich’.  If you don’t live in our town you probably won’t ever see him or know about him.  In talking with this guy he said he wanted an internet presence – enough that if you searched for his store you could find him easily.  Maybe some day he would start to put his custom work up there, but his real concern was “Social Proof”…. ie he wouldn’t shop somewhere he couldn’t find any info on.

At this point I was swamped with work (I was even upset with my wife for making poke around stores when we didn’t need anything that day), but I told him about my website, and told him I would take care of him if he called me.  I also warned him that I wasn’t cheap and even for a basic website It was going to probably be higher than he wanted to spend.  You see I didn’t care about his business… I was busy.

On the way home my wife said. You should just BUILD his website it would be a nice gesture.  The ensuing fight about why he didn’t give me a table on my way out because it was a nice gesture sort of made me dismiss her idea completely – - because I was right… RIGHT?

Sure, it’s bad business to give away things with out some way to make money off of them.

I wasn’t so sure there wasn’t a way to turn my wife and her “WRONGNESS” into a good way to drum up business when we needed it – so into the idea bin it went.  It came out again a few weeks later when I had the “Solution” to her WRONGNESS……

It would be SO easy to buy “furniturerepairing-doverdelaware.com” (or something like that) and rank in about 5 minutes.  It would only take a few minutes more to throw out some links raving about the quality and service linking back to this site to both rank, and get him just what he wants.   Sure he isn’t a paying customer (yet), but let’s say a week later I walk in and say:

“Joe, my company does SEO for small local businesses and we realize how competitive you have to be with your prices and with your money. I understand that you would be wary about spending any amount of money when you have no idea of the results.

What do you think it would be worth to be in the top ten search engines results for furniture repair, and antique furniture in your area?”

He is going to say some number, that’s when you turn on your salesmanship and haggle higher (if needed) or give him the deal of a lifetime on a site that is ready to go with his needs and rankings, and you can hand him ownership of today (along with a monthly maintenance bill) for two websites.  The one you made already (that you will put links to his NEW site on) and a site that has those keywords and his store name in them. You could also just subdomain it out — then if you have two furniture stores in the area you can service them both.

If you live in a small area it’s easier than you think to rank for local terms – - and the businesses aren’t looking for 10 zillion hits.  They want social proof to be strong enough to get the customer inside their shops.

Open up the classifieds, write down the numbers of the folks selling services in your area.  Start making the sites, get them ranked, and call them up.  If the first electrician doesn’t bite call the next one.  Social proof always wins out — and you have some already (your ranking for what they are selling).

The other thing to remember is that MOST businesses have had someone pitch them a website or SEO services that are in the HUGE money range.  Simple things like a blog install and skinning are sold for over 2 grand offline every single day.

You could easily upsell him with a simple shopping cart, a newsletter (aweber), etc…  Set it all up and spend a few minutes to teach him how to use them and your good.  If you really want to impress him use camtasia to make a video just for him.  Hey joe – this is how you log in and do xyz.  Use those printer cd labels to make sure it has your website and phone number on it…. so he always calls you back.  Since your billing him for maintenence you can upsell him on anything you want wiht a personal note anytime you get a new idea…..

Like — Hey Joe. I just build a portal for woodworkers on the east coast.  I’ve already added you for free, but there are upgrades available where you can show your merchandise. Interested?

Concept: So Simple anyone can do it!  Let’s make some money selling blogs(really). Goal: $100 Per Hour.

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.  Today I’m going to post one that I can’t believe I never got around to doing – and be warned, I’m going to be jumping into this with two feet this coming week.  I’m so dang nice though that I’m going to share ALL my notes.  Since my handwritting is horrible I’ll type instead of scanning them in.

I don’t care how not technical you are – this is something you can do easily as long as you can create a blog.  First things first – you are going to need a couple things.  First thing is hosting – and in this case it doesn’t matter if it’s shared or a VPS.  If you go with a VPS consider setting up WHMCOMPLETE so you can earn from hosting as well (see part 4 for more on WHM Complete).  This takes a little ‘work’ – and of course requires some time to come to fruition… but you can earn in the meantime.  You can automate parts of this – but it’s still going to take work to make that $100 per hour.

First thing you need to do is set up a few blogs (pick your keywords, and start posting good keyword quality posts)

Anyway, this section doesn’t need to be long – you should know how to create a blog and add some good plugins by now.  If not come see me in other98percent.com and I’ll make sure you get access to blogsfortraffic.com so you can learn.  (I’m the admin there).

The important thing is to NOT list these blogs for sale until you have 40 to 100 posts on them.  That sounds scary – but I’ll explain further down how to do it fast.  You should also embedd your links in posts, etc… Don’t overdo it – but your new owner isn’t going to go delete all the existing content when he takes over most likely… so you have free links for life as well.

Once you get a dozen or more blogs up and running (ie ready to sell) it’s time to set up your shopping cart.  There are a ton of free ones out there – oscommerce is nice for example.  Don’t sweat the “look” of your shopping cart so much.  Load up your shopping cart with all your sites.  Be descriptive and actually go into detail on your traffic and income.  At this point you just set these up and you aren’t getting a whole lot of traffic – so let’s do this by the amount of time things took you.

30 minutes to install the blog.

20 minutes to paste in articles from article directories.

10 minutes to add into your shopping cart.

That’s one hour – and we want to make 100 per hour right?  So let’s set the price of the blog at $125.  That’s going to cover your domain, your hour, etc…

(it’s a good idea to do some marketing (link building) of your own at this point. Outsource it and add it into the cost of the website)

If you do any promotion, any content purchasing, etc.. CHARGE FOR IT.  Add it to the price of your blog.  It might not be worth it today from a buyers point of view but in 6 months that’s a whole new ball game.  Wouldn’t you pay more for a site that’s been updated for 6 months, has hundreds of links, traffic, etc…..

Chances are you won’t sell it right away because no one knows about your shopping cart site so any profit your blog makes prior to you selling it is a bonus…

Once you have a dozen or so sites on the topic inside your shopping cart it’s time to make a few bucks and possibly sell some of the sites right away.

Head on over to digital point, WF, sitepoint (any webmaster forum with a marketplace) and say I’ve got 12 blogs on XYZ topic that I’m selling links, posts, and sponsorships on. Please PM me for urls.)

When the folks interested in links contact you let them know that the links are XX per month or XX per permanent link inside a single post.  Also offer to post related content that they provide you.  It’s also a good time to let someone intersted in this topic that the sites are for sale.  Here is a pretty decent example mail:

The following domains in the “xyz” niche are available for both purchase and link sales.  The domains are:

• domain1.com
• domain2.com
• domain3.com
• domain4.com  (etc..)

Since these are newer sites and I may not always own them (I develop sites to sell to others) I want to protect your purchase of links as well. I don’t sell permanent sitewide links.  I do however sell embedded links into the post that will stay there with a new owner.  I can also offer limited time sitewide links, and even blog sponsorships and/or the posting of content you provide.

Prices:

Link embedded in posts: $5 each.

Posting your content (you provide): $10 each.

Site Wide Link:  $30 per month (with the understanding that I will have to cancel your subscription if I sell the site)

I also have several other sites for sale on XYZ topic.  All of them have at least xxx posts and I’ve done some promotion.  You can find all the sites for sale here: myshoppingcartdomain.com

You will sell some.  Here is the tricky part. If you accept paypal you will find that it’s impossible to transfer to your buyer when you get one.  So you are stuck either selling lifetime links embedded in the posts, or time length sitewide links like (3 months for example).

You can scale this up by offering hosting, offering to add content every month (see the link below for powering up wordpress).

You can use custom themes that you sponsor yourself.  A good theme is about 200 bucks, buy the rights to it. Keep it to yourself and just embed your links in the ones you sell.

Personally I would offer to keep it updated using  Power Up WordPress (not quite available at the time of this post – but module 1 will speed things up for you and allow you to scale this up big time).  I created (am creating) Powerup WordPress just for this concept of putting out a mass of blogs on the same topic.  I’ve been doing it for a long time and it works – time for me to step up to the plate and start selling them outright as well.

I’m not sure if this is a “FUN” thing or not.  I actually enjoy setting up networks.  It’s a great feeling when I rule most of the top ten results for a topic.  I rarely sell my networks as they are more profitable for me to keep in the long run – but working for 50 to 200 per hour isn’t bad either.  It’s hard to sell a “NEW” blog for anything over $50 bucks – but once you add in your income from link sales, any affiliate sales, etc… on top of what the blog eventually sells for it’s going to work out well.

(note: I didn’t mention this up there but occasionally you are going to have to  update your shopping cart to reflect the new reality of your blogs.  Using images of your traffic or link sales income is a great way to boost what folks are going to pay.  Make sure you occasionally raise your prices as well – chances are your link sales will be enough to pay the bills and make this worth your time in the long run.  The occasional sale is just icing on the cake).

Concept: Small Amounts Really Add UP FAST!  Let’s make some money selling hosting (really). Goal: $120 per hour.

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.  Today I’m going to post one that I can’t believe I never got around to doing – and be warned, I’m going to be jumping into this with two feet this coming week.  I’m so dang nice though that I’m going to share ALL my notes.  Since my handwritting is horrible I’ll type instead of scanning them in.  I won’t pretend there aren’t a thousand spin offs for this – so there is room for you to do it as well in any capacity.

I read in a forum a few months ago a great idea – but it was flawed in my mind.  A whole lot of money was being left on the table.  The concept was simple. Get people to sign up for Hostgator in exchange for a free website.  The way hostgator works (and some other hosting companies) is that you can give people a free month, or a month for a penny or something.  You then get a crazy commission (60 to 150 dollars).

Sounds pretty simple right?  Put up a blog with a few pages of content that they provide you and you are on your way to earning big bucks right?  Well the flaw in this plan is simple.  Hosting companies have been known to scrub commissions to stay profitable, and of course if they can pay 150 bucks for a penny sale it’s because a hosting customer is worth well more than that over the life of their site.  Figure it will take an hour to set people up…. so that’s 60 to 120 per hour.

In your case you are probably a wealth of knowledge at this point — you are worth MORE than just a hosting company… let’s exploit this.

So here is the “sell em hosting plan”:

What you will need:

• Hosting space (your own – I recommend starting with 2 VPS servers  for this (I’ll explain later why))
• A Website of your own to sell from.
• Minimal Programming Experience.  (you should be able to make a form)
• A little seed money beyond hosting.
• Possibly a phone line.
• A copy of WHMcomplete (consider getting the flash tutorials)
  

It’s important to get all your ducks in a row BEFORE starting this up…. and if your smart you will listen up here.  First things first – you need to set up WHMcomplete on a place you will keep.  A small VPS plan, or even a very stable shared server.  Keep this separate from your hosting clients.  You are going to also need to completely set up WHMcomplete – ie your own hosting company.  It sounds scary, but it’s really not.  If you get the flash tutorials for your clients they can “watch” anything they need to learn.  Make sure you sign up for one of the domain registar reseller services as well (reseller club has no deposit).  Set your prices for domains about 20 to 30 percent higher than the cost and it’s an extra profit stream.

I actually DO this service – it’s not just an idea but something I do every day.  I charge $10 dollars a month for hosting and $19.99 for the domain.  That gives me 20 bucks to set their ‘site’ up – enough to pay for it to be done by someone else.  I go in and add the content they provide myself.  That client is then worth almost $150 per year IF they don’t purchase anything else.

For this service we aren’t going to target “people” – we want small businesses.  Think mom and pop shops, contractors, etc….  you might get people or churches and they are probably only going to end up being your hosting fee – and thats still worth it.

So let’s talk about the information we want from them at sign up so you can set your forms up the right way.  I ask them a series of questions about their business.  I ask them to upload a picture. I guide them through a couple questions that let’s me “HELP” them pick out a domain name.

By the time it’s done I usually know they are a contractor in xyz city, and their name.  So they usually end up with a domain like:  DoverDelawareContractor.com or Charliecontractingdover.com.  I clear this with them in an e-mail…. and they gave me all their content.  I head over to my copy of WHMcomplete and create an account for them. I order their domain and set up their hosting account.

Enter in the content into a blog – pick a theme, etc…  Then I send them a short video on how to add new content themselves, along with the log in info for the blog.  I usually do just enough link building to get them indexed – “real” promotion comes later if they want to pay for it.  (there is an add-on for WHM that would let you include this if you wanted to).

Total time – about 1 hour spent.  I’ve got a lot more information here though.  I’ve got their name, phone number, and address. I’ve also made them happy by giving them a free website that would be a ROYAL headache for them.  Time to make a little more

Postcards offering SEO services, Upgrades, Site Networks, Promotion packs, content services, PPC ads, etc…… you could literally sell them anything.  Heck I’m considering mailing all of them a promotion for quick books with my affiliate link.

Your not done though – if you don’t “Really” want to be a host, you can actually SELL your server filled with clients at any point.  Usually for about a years worth of income.  So let’s say you have 50 clients bringing in 500 a month in hosting fee’s.  You can sell them for 10 to 12 times that amount.   Personally I would keep them….. for about a year.  Then I would sell them.

Other than your server and set up costs this one is pretty affordable (literally about 100 dollars to start up with out any add ons at WHMcomplete).  Very easy to recoup your costs and get profitable.  Advertising in “REAL” newsprint works wonders – and you can even use craigslist and other services.  You could offer free websites to all the businesses in your local chamber of commerce for example.

Concept: People are broke – and small business is to – but they still need to advertise.

The “changing affiliate world” is a series I’m doing in parts to give those going through the 30 day guide some ideas to get something off the ground.  You can see all the posts on the “Changing Affiliate World by looking at the “Changing Affiliate World” Category.

As I noted in part 1 I’m going to be burning through my “idea” folder and just posting them all.  Today I’m going to post one that I can’t believe I never got around to doing – and be warned, I’m going to be jumping into this with two feet this coming week.  I’m so dang nice though that I’m going to share ALL my notes.  Since my handwritting is horrible I’ll type instead of scanning them in.  I won’t pretend there aren’t a thousand spin offs for this – so there is room for you to do it as well in any capacity.

Some background on where this idea came from…….

In my case I was a plumber for about 10 years.  For the last 5 years the hardest I’ve worked is typing (a lot).  I’m getting a little chunky around the middle but don’t really like to work out.  I need a purpose for just about everything I do except play with the kids (which I guess has the effect of making them happy).  I also miss interacting with people face to face.  So I’ve been considering doing some side jobs for folks.  I’ve got a few ways of going about and doing that – most revolve around flyers, small ads, etc…

Boring – I’m a black hat webmaster.  If I want to be rank well for plumbing repairs in my area I can certainly do it.

Lightbulb moment.

Well I’m sure I’m not the only guy out there looking for small jobs. In fact I know about a dozen guys in different trades that all do side jobs.

Why not create a localarea sidejob.com website?

But let’s take it a step further (and we will pretend sidejob.com is actually available for this idea – obviously it’s not).

Get your domain.  Get a host with a LOT of space – baby plans don’t work, but you will be fine with a decent sized hosting plan, or a VPS (liquid web is great – link in the sidebar of this blog).  You are also going to need a phone line and a second server/host  if your going to scale this up a little.

In the root of your site you are going to need a landing page style ad.  Your trying to sell ads to service providers here – cost is up to you.  My initial thoughts are $199 set up fee, and $29.99 per month.  (don’t worry we have a way to make more off of every single person who signs up – we will get to that).  The goal here is not try and sell services to the end client but to get small service providers to sign up for your advertising package.

That should include -

A blog that covers a local keyword or two for them, and the service they provide. Example:  DoverDelawareLandscaper.sidejobs.com  (notice you don’t have to buy them a domain.  Make them provide you with content – or sell them the content.  They don’t need a lot of posts to rank for Landscaper in Dover Delaware for example — they also don’t need a whole lot of links (see the next thing you give them).

A Basic Marketing Plan: Something like 40 inbound links that help get them indexed. Also make sure you get them in Google Local – it’s easy and takes just a few minutes.  They most likely will never know how you got them there – and you can call or e-mail them to let them know they are showing right at the top as soon as it happens.  Might have to be a bit sneaky here since they will have to answer the phone to verify.

If they have tried to get a on-line presence going and called around locally your prices will amaze them – and you probably know as much about SEO (probably more) than most brick and mortar webmasters.

How could you extend this:

• Offer extended plans that cover other surrounding towns and counties.  Charge as you wish.
• Offer to handle thier mailing lists.  Sign them up at aweber with their CC info (not yours) but you manage mailing out the discounts and keeping their customers informed.  If your really feeling froggy you could handle thier print mail, etc…
• Offer “real domains” to them.  Custom graphics, photo’s, video of them working, etc….
• Offer some PPC ad service.  The bids for local keywords aren’t very high – but potentially lucrative for your client.  Personally seems like a lot of work and I don’t enjoy PPC —— I really hate explaining PPC so I would sell them an enhanced marketing plan and use some of those funds to set up PPC with limits and never tell them I’m buying the links.  I’ve NEVER not confused someone who wasn’t a webmaster explaining PPC.
• Change your pricing structure to be more per month with no set up fee.  If they stop paying you, well you have the local term right there ranking already. I’m sure you can find someone else in the area that wants it…. ohh it’s aged, and ranking and you can sell it for more.
• Sell them leads on top of things — all it takes is for you to rank in thier area for their terms. (this is where the phone and additional hosting comes in).
• So how do you get rankings in all these areas?  Personally I’d use the script that’s in Microtargetniches (very lite version in 30 day guide and also included in NSS 2).   It’s set up with all the cities and states in the U.S. and it’s really easy to add in an “AD” for your sidejobs.com site.  Heck get an 800 number for about $10 bucks a month that e-mails you with the messages.  Just forward the details to your clients and ‘bill’ them.  I’m thinking 5 bucks a lead wether it pans out or not.  Sure you are going to need a few more domains, and to promote a few more sites — but it will be worth it.  If you were a landscaper and saw 4 listings for “ads” for a service provider ranking in your town instead of the competition who would you hire?

In case you didn’t realize it that last bullet point is probably the most important.  You hopefully have learned enough by now that you can rank lots of pages very fast (read the 30 day guide if you haven’t).  You should be able to own “landscaper in bumbleville” if you work at it for a few weeks.  Sure you are competing against your clients – but if you use something like the microtargetniches script you can always put up links in the cities in just a few minutes for each of your clients.

Well that’s it – that’s my chicken scratch re-typed and cleaned up a bit.  You can target any service sector – as long as there are “small time” business men doing it.  I’m sure you could do the same things for banks and other corporations, but they are a nightmare to work with and a lot of red tape.  I’d rather work on a handshake and invoice method   You can scale this up pretty fast – and I guarantee with just a few fliers handed to lansdcapers, roofers, carpenters, electricians, etc… you will have your first clients.

I talked to a few of my buddies as I was writing out these notes and they were all interested — even the ones with full time jobs just looking for extra money on the weekends.