The recipe for a $200K per year job

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assi9 said:
Ok, so after conducting a fair amount of RECON on Orange Soda today I've come up with this conclusion :::

My 8 year old son can do this. (Ok, maybe thats a little too far-fetched)

Anyway, this is how it went down.

Orange Soda, in my opinion, has an excellent name, brand, and USP. I believe that this is a very important concept for anyone trying to do this. So put your creative-thinking cap on people and come up with a unique USP-driven name goddamn it.

Their communication is average - I filled out the info last night and a sales rep called me at around 12:00pm today. However, no e-mails sent to me

I posed as a "no-website having painting contractor in [your city here]" looking for ways to generate leads online.

The sales rep asked a few brief questions about my "business" and then it was * on like donkey kong*

Here's a brief transcription :::

Q: Dumb-ass Painting Contractor - So how many searches do you think I could possibly get per month for my business?

A: Sure, let me pull up one of our "specialized tools" to analyze the current searches on those keywords (painting contractor in [yourcityhere]
* few moments later....Looks like there are approximately 200 searches per month for those keywords

Dumb-ass Painting Contractor - Thats wonderful.

=======
Complete fucking bullshit. I was already looking at the results and there was nothing CLOSE to 200 searches
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Q: Me - Do you guarantee placement?
A: Them - No

Q: Me - How long does it take to see results?
A: Them - 4-6 months, sometimes faster

Q: What do your SEO services consist of and how do you plan on getting
me to the top of the SERPS?
A. Submitting to relevant directories, building relevant back-links, meta
tag incorporation, etc There are other companies out there who
practice black-hat strategies ( went on to explain that) but if you go
with a company like that your site will most likely be banned from the
search engines.

Q: Me - What are the costs?
A: Them - For a site like yours, we would charge $100 monthly SEO fee.
However, if you'd like to generate more traffic by targeting
more cities within your state we can do that as well. This will
bring you even more traffic. The costs would then be $300
monthly.

Q: Me - How about PPC?
A: Them - Sure, we'll ass-rape you and take every last penny you got.
We suggest you start with a $300 monthly ad budget. Our
managment fee is 30% of your desired budget, so $90 monthly
+ $100 setup fee.
If your monthly ad budget is over $500, we will only charge
20%, over $1,000, 15%

Q: Me - Is there anyway to track vistors to my page, etc?
A: Them - You can log in at anytime to our dashboard
control panel on our site to view all stats, etc.


Q: Me - Will you design my website?
A: Them - We don't do any design here, but we will provide you with a
basic template for $17 a month which includes hosting.

Q: Me - So you don't provide any custom work?
A: Them - One of our affiliate partners can provide you with this, their
name is Logoworks.


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Ok, so to make this as short as possible, as far as what they can do for you is average. Its average SEO work...nothing special at all. They just have a very decent system in place. They have a marketable product and a system set-up.

Two things I didn't like. After I opted into their system, I wasn't sent a "pre-sell" welcome message. Neither was I sent an e-mail after I spoke with them.

After I told the guy I would think about it and get back to him on Monday...he just said...ok.

Thats not a salesman. I would have said : I certaintly understand not wanting to rush into this, however we are running a promotion for new clients today only. If you sign up today, we will waive the set-up fee,
your first month will be 50% off, and we will give you a free opt-in form
for use on your website. (something like that)

There was a bunch of other questions I could have/should have asked but didnt have too much time
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Awesome man.

If you can't figure out how to put together your plan after reading this

thread, you need to carry your ass on over to DP.
 
Hey !! Just found this post and me and a buddy are going to implement it today, since everyone is so dam helpfull, I am going to post up to the minute update, sales, and traffic status on whats going on with the project. Right now I am contemplating a hacked WP theme, or just regular static pages, whatever will work. I am going to use one domain name, for the whole directory, I believe that is what kimboslice did, then I am gonna have folders for each site, so ... domainname/long-tail-keyword
I then need to do my work and get content on that page, and get it optimized for that key word, and do whatever it takes (some more tips on this would be great!) to get it on the front page for that keyword, then goto bussiness #1, show them results,.. then goto business 2, so on ...

Ill keep you posted on what I come up with tommarow morning.
 
Tip:

Offer a free basic listing and push that business down on the bottom of the page in the most insignificant spot. They'll want to get moved. ;)
 
Another idea is to look through your local coupon books you get in the mail. Find the mom and pop local businesses that advertise, but don't have a website. Then buy the domain for their business. obviously don't do this for big companies and corporate stuff, as you'll get a cease and desist letter to give up the domain, but local family owned restaurants and stuff would be good.
Build out a website for them (or outsource if you like) and then approach them and sell it to them as a complete package. Most of them that don't already have a site, probably don't know a thing about getting one, so if you do it all for them, have the domain, put up the site, and host it, they'd be happy to get a turnkey site for their small business.
Upsell them with maintenance fees, hosting, seo, etc.

Start out by building the site and filling it with lorum ipsum bs text, so they will want to buy the site and have you fill in the content with their menu, about us stuff.

As a Value Added bonus, you can tell them that you own the local restaurant (or whatever niche) directory and when they buy the site from you, they get a featured listing for free (for the first 6 months, then set them up with monthly or yearly subscription)
 
A great way to buy(squat) locally focused domains is to review the new business licenses lists each day.

If you see a new filing named (cityname) plumbing, go out and snag (cityname)plumbing.com. With so many web designers on craigslist clamoring for crumbs, you could own the cookie.
 
where do you find new business filings? Are there free resources for that? Do the local Chambers of Commerce list these?

LotsOfZeros said:
A great way to buy(squat) locally focused domains is to review the new business licenses lists each day.

If you see a new filing named (cityname) plumbing, go out and snag (cityname)plumbing.com. With so many web designers on craigslist clamoring for crumbs, you could own the cookie.
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^^Good question.

Also, what local niches do you think are the most profitable and easiest to dominate? Law firms, Medical Clinics, Autobody places..........Restaurants?

I'm also having a hard time figuring out what to charge each niche for a listing. There is obviously a sliding scale when it comes to how much that niche could potentially make from gaining exposure from my site.

What do you guys think of this: I have my own internal percentage of revenue gained that I deem as my commission. So I go through the hurdles of....

Page views per month of your listing x CTR (well its a "through" rate) x average cost of service rendered = Revenue gained for business

If I want say 20% commission...

0.20 x Revenue gained for business = How much I charge that business in that niche per month

What do you guys think about this? I guess I'm having problems figuring out an approximate CTR. And I guess it would be different for each niche. Any insights? Also, is 20% commission sounding too low or too high? Thanks!!
 
medicalhumor said:
where do you find new business filings? Are there free resources for that? Do the local Chambers of Commerce list these?
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It's different in every location. In my county of residence you can pay a monthly fee for access to the county's ftp site and pull raw data files of the daily new business filings. If you PM me where you live I don't mind running some checks for you.

LiftBigEatBig said:
^^Good question.

Also, what local niches do you think are the most profitable and easiest to dominate? Law firms, Medical Clinics, Autobody places..........Restaurants?
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I'd start with making a list of niches you might be more familiar with and hopefully they're on this list and not on this one.


LiftBigEatBig said:
I'm also having a hard time figuring out what to charge each niche for a listing. There is obviously a sliding scale when it comes to how much that niche could potentially make from gaining exposure from my site.

What do you guys think of this: I have my own internal percentage of revenue gained that I deem as my commission. So I go through the hurdles of....

Page views per month of your listing x CTR (well its a "through" rate) x average cost of service rendered = Revenue gained for business

If I want say 20% commission...

0.20 x Revenue gained for business = How much I charge that business in that niche per month

What do you guys think about this? I guess I'm having problems figuring out an approximate CTR. And I guess it would be different for each niche. Any insights? Also, is 20% commission sounding too low or too high? Thanks!!
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I wouldn't fall into the trap overcomplicating this since in doing so, you lend too much of an education to your customer. If he gets a little too wise to all of this, he might not be as happy with his purchase as he normally would have back when he was thrilled you magically sent him more business.
 
LotsOfZeros said:
I wouldn't fall into the trap overcomplicating this since in doing so, you lend too much of an education to your customer. If he gets a little too wise to all of this, he might not be as happy with his purchase as he normally would have back when he was thrilled you magically sent him more business.
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Thanks for the tips! Appreciated!

Yea, my whole commission breakdown thing was just an internal formula I would use myself to figure out how much to charge each business. I would offer them my services, and tell them its X amount per month. The X amount would be calculated on my end without them knowing any factors. They would just assume its a flat fee.

Any idea on how to estimate CTR?
 
I think its best to come up with a fixed pricing per category than use a formula because your CTR might even be really low ... what about listings that only have phone number listed? No CTR there unless your counting a map page. Hope I made sense it's late
 
productionhead said:
I think its best to come up with a fixed pricing per category than use a formula because your CTR might even be really low ... what about listings that only have phone number listed? No CTR there unless your counting a map page. Hope I made sense it's late
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Yea that would be the idea if running an entire local directory. But if I'm using strictly the "200k" idea, which is advertising only one business per niche per local area. The listing has its own page, which has a description, reviews, map, directions etc. I obviously have to charge more for that type of service, and the fact that I'm selling an exclusive advertising medium to the business owner that none of their local competitors can get in on. Well, unless they outbid them next month of course, lol.
 
your on the right path LBEB....for some reason this thread keeps getting mixed up with the 100K, but all still fabulous ideas nonetheless
 
For SERP building tactics should I focus on the main directory domain itself? Or focus on the deep link page for each nice?

Seems more economical to focus on the main domain and then hope that it passes that juice off to the other pages. I know that sort of works for PR, but will that work for SERPs?

Thanks!
 
LiftBigEatBig said:
For SERP building tactics should I focus on the main directory domain itself? Or focus on the deep link page for each nice?

Seems more economical to focus on the main domain and then hope that it passes that juice off to the other pages. I know that sort of works for PR, but will that work for SERPs?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ok well I guess I didn't need to implement any extra SERP building stuff as I am already on the first page for my longtail keywords! Booyahh!!!

Now, I'm just trying to set up my whole Advertising/Add your Listing page...

I just have a couple of questions, if I use the strictly 200k idea, should I sign up businesses on only a month to month basis? ie. Should I allow their local competitors to outbid them the next month and take over that page? I know it seems a bit sleezy on my part, but hey its business....right?

Also, what are you guys using for payment and payment processors right now? Is asking businesses to pay me via PayPal a bit cheezy and unprofessional?

Any help is appreciated!!
 
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