Let’s have some fun – and try to do it with no (little)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.

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.