Black Hat SEO Digest

Changing Affiliate World – Part 6 (black hat domain flipping)

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

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?

Cash in on your Competitors’ Work – SpyFu Ad History

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: Changing Affiliate World

Changing Affiliate World – Part 5

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

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).

Cash in on your Competitors’ Work – SpyFu Ad History

Popularity: 10% [?]

Tags: Changing Affiliate World

Changing Affiliate World – Part 3

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

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.

Cash in on your Competitors’ Work – SpyFu Ad History

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tags: black hat digest, Changing Affiliate World