yeah, wordpress MU is good...you should try add this into the mix as well
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The recipe for a $200K per year job
- Thread starter vladi
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I found another small paper like the aforementioned Coffee News called 'Tidbits' located at tidbitsweekly.com
I found this one in the Minneapolis area this week - they got a bunch of advertisers you could market to.
Which actually brings me to another idea I got yesterday whilst waiting for a sandwich at PotBelly Deli:
Ever see those big fishbowls full of business cards on their counters where they offer a free lunch drawing? I bet if you went into some of the local businesses like a deli, sandwich shop, Chinese food, etc you might get them to let you sponsor the fishbowl. Make a deal with them, tell them they'll get a free listing in your business directory if they give you all of the business cards at the end of the week. Heck, even offer to pay for the free lunch prize drawing as well.
Could be a stockpile of good leads to market to.
I found this one in the Minneapolis area this week - they got a bunch of advertisers you could market to.
Which actually brings me to another idea I got yesterday whilst waiting for a sandwich at PotBelly Deli:
Ever see those big fishbowls full of business cards on their counters where they offer a free lunch drawing? I bet if you went into some of the local businesses like a deli, sandwich shop, Chinese food, etc you might get them to let you sponsor the fishbowl. Make a deal with them, tell them they'll get a free listing in your business directory if they give you all of the business cards at the end of the week. Heck, even offer to pay for the free lunch prize drawing as well.
Could be a stockpile of good leads to market to.
I would love to hear some feedback on the format people are using for this idea.
Should I set this up as (example) chinesefooddirectory.com/spokane
or should I go spokanbusinessdirectory/chinesefood
I'm not familiar with how to use MU just yet but my thinking was that with wordpress I could build a site and just set the permalink structure to include the city and the domain would have the niche, but I am wondering what I might not be taking into account.
any feedback?
Should I set this up as (example) chinesefooddirectory.com/spokane
or should I go spokanbusinessdirectory/chinesefood
I'm not familiar with how to use MU just yet but my thinking was that with wordpress I could build a site and just set the permalink structure to include the city and the domain would have the niche, but I am wondering what I might not be taking into account.
any feedback?
You have a better chance with the latter. There are more businesses you can market to if you don't limit yourself to Chinese food only.
Thanks for the feedback. But I was thinking that if I stuck to a niche, i have the whole country to work with, not to mention the pitch would become very streamlined as well as up sells become very easy because I will have become an authority within an industry.
Any flaws in my thinking?
Any flaws in my thinking?
Nope, none at all. The fact that you have thought this through indicates that you will see it through. Do it and find out.
Thanks, getting started now. I have to pick a name that I will help with the optimization and still have some nice potential for branding.
Curious, what you think about how niche.com/city vs. city.com/niche will effect my search engine optimization efforts. any thoughts there?
man, you could start a forum on this topic alone.
cheers!
Curious, what you think about how niche.com/city vs. city.com/niche will effect my search engine optimization efforts. any thoughts there?
man, you could start a forum on this topic alone.
cheers!
found this as an example. Its not as keyword based, the pricepoint is very low, and they dont rank on the home page for anything that I searched for but it is still an approach.
Pizza Delivery | Pizza Restaurants | Pizza Parlors
Pizza Delivery | Pizza Restaurants | Pizza Parlors
You guys who are having problems getting store owners to "get" what it is that you're selling might benefit from this thread:
http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate...ly-convince-local-business-owners-listen.html
It's not that they don't get it, it's that they hear all kinds of sales spiels on a day-to-day basis, for everything from search engine ranking to cleaning supplies for the bathroom. They have a built-in immunity to sales pitches if they've been in business for more than six months and haven't gone bankrupt buying personalised calendars and credit card terminal accessories and putting in an ATM etc. etc. etc.
You have to build a rapport with the business owner to be able to sell him anything. The best way to do it is with a direct but low-key approach. A little background research can't hurt -- remember, this is where he comes every day; ask him about the restaurants on your way out because it's about time for you to grab a bite to eat, then the next time you come back thank him for the recommendation. Get even a single business owner in a widely commercial area to sign on and you're practically guaranteed to get three or four more from within a couple of blocks off of referrals alone, if you have a good rapport with the customer.
Frank
http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate...ly-convince-local-business-owners-listen.html
It's not that they don't get it, it's that they hear all kinds of sales spiels on a day-to-day basis, for everything from search engine ranking to cleaning supplies for the bathroom. They have a built-in immunity to sales pitches if they've been in business for more than six months and haven't gone bankrupt buying personalised calendars and credit card terminal accessories and putting in an ATM etc. etc. etc.
You have to build a rapport with the business owner to be able to sell him anything. The best way to do it is with a direct but low-key approach. A little background research can't hurt -- remember, this is where he comes every day; ask him about the restaurants on your way out because it's about time for you to grab a bite to eat, then the next time you come back thank him for the recommendation. Get even a single business owner in a widely commercial area to sign on and you're practically guaranteed to get three or four more from within a couple of blocks off of referrals alone, if you have a good rapport with the customer.
Frank
Wow! So much information in here that its ridiculous! Thanks to the OP for posting this, as well as kimboslice giving some great tips and experiences.
I'm currently absorbing, processing, and then re-reading this thread many times over. I have alot of ideas right now, but before I get to the meat and bones of the business plan, I just have a quick question about domains.
I envision having a directory service that eventually becomes a well known brand across North America, and something all business owners, across all niches, can relate too. Following this logic, would
cityname.genericdirectoryname.com/chineserestaurant
be a good system to look into? That way, the "genericdirectoryname.com" gets well known and established throughout the web. And whenever I expand to a new city, I just add on another sub-domain.
What do you guys think? Is there any negative SEO implications to this type of strategy? Thanks in advance for any help, I really appreciate it!
I'm currently absorbing, processing, and then re-reading this thread many times over. I have alot of ideas right now, but before I get to the meat and bones of the business plan, I just have a quick question about domains.
I envision having a directory service that eventually becomes a well known brand across North America, and something all business owners, across all niches, can relate too. Following this logic, would
cityname.genericdirectoryname.com/chineserestaurant
be a good system to look into? That way, the "genericdirectoryname.com" gets well known and established throughout the web. And whenever I expand to a new city, I just add on another sub-domain.
What do you guys think? Is there any negative SEO implications to this type of strategy? Thanks in advance for any help, I really appreciate it!
I would think that is a great way to go. How do you set that up though? I am not familiar with how to make it interchangablecityname.directoryname.com. How do you do that?
you can enable and setup subdomains within cpanel but most directory scripts will only work within one directory so you would need multiple scripts, licenses and databases (unless you have a programmer modify the scripts of course).
Yea, I know it might cost me additional capital to get it going, by buying the unlimited version of licenses etc.. but I think it will be worth it to build that brand of the "genericdirectoryname.com". Which will in effect make it easier to expand and advertise to new business owners.
I guess its more of an ambitious approach, but to me, it just seems like the best idea if I'm planning for the future...
I guess its more of an ambitious approach, but to me, it just seems like the best idea if I'm planning for the future...
posted by LotsOfZeros:
Huh ... I did not know that (shows how extensive my directory experience is ...)
Couldn't you shortcut it by just having the cities as supercategories and then the subdomains redirecting to that page? I mean, if the directory flies and is making money, it makes sense to invest $8 in a more relevant domain than city.directory.com/category anyway, just set it to redirect -- with the redirected subdomain being the stopgap measure while you're building & testing.
Frank
Huh ... I did not know that (shows how extensive my directory experience is ...)
Couldn't you shortcut it by just having the cities as supercategories and then the subdomains redirecting to that page? I mean, if the directory flies and is making money, it makes sense to invest $8 in a more relevant domain than city.directory.com/category anyway, just set it to redirect -- with the redirected subdomain being the stopgap measure while you're building & testing.
Frank
I'm not sure about redirecting (as far google and doorway pages, seo, etc) but what I meant was when you install a directory script like Esyndicat, you install it to public_html folder and typically your categories and listings would be something dynamic like site.com/category.php?id=22 and site.com/listing.php?id=345 etc... then you would use mod_rewrite to make it site.com/category/dry-cleaners and site.com/dry-cleaners/epic-cleaning-service respectively.
Since a subdomain appears just like a sub-directory within your public_html folder then it's safe to assume you could do some sort of mod_rewrite of some sort to make it hxxp://dry-cleaners.site.com/epic-cleaning-service
Any Apache mod_rewrite pros here to chime in?
Since a subdomain appears just like a sub-directory within your public_html folder then it's safe to assume you could do some sort of mod_rewrite of some sort to make it hxxp://dry-cleaners.site.com/epic-cleaning-service
Any Apache mod_rewrite pros here to chime in?
This hasn't been touched up on.. payment processors?
What is everyone using to actually collect the payments?
What is everyone using to actually collect the payments?
1. Merchant account - I'm rotating 2 right now. 1 back up.
2. Google checkout - Some folks like it.
3. Fucking Paypal - A lotta folks use it. (I try to push them to the merchant account of course...) Any money deposited into paypal is immediately deposited into the attached bank account that was created only for the purpose of paypal. I also have the paypal debit card so I can goto the ATM and get the cash that way too. For the most part, they suck.
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