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UK Site Rental Method

by Roger Mayne
11 replies
I was wondering whether there are any UK warriors using the site rental/lease model ?

I've setup a few web properties that are doing well in the serps for relevant keywords, but not getting any leads. Each site targets a niche + town.

The only thing I can think if is to build various neighbouring town sites and rent them all to increase the catchment for a potential client?

If you're successfully using this model, what do you do? :confused:
#method #rental #site
  • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
    Do you mean you have a site such as wokingaccountants.co.uk and it is ranked well but gets no leads?

    Or do you mean no accountant in Woking wants it?

    I can't see how adding Guildford would help.

    Dan
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    • Profile picture of the author iAmLesterDavids
      Maybe a way to reduce your risk of losing too much money upfront would be to set up a general yet catchy domain name. Think of creating a brand around accountants (for example).

      The name of your domain could be topaccountants.co.uk (though that is probably taken by now).

      Here is a couple of ideas:

      GoAccountants.co.uk
      Beancounters.co.uk
      Beancounting.co.uk

      Go to smaller firms (non-big 4/5) and pitch the idea of having their firm on a top directory along with other prestigious firms.
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Mayne
    Hi Dan

    I've already built the site and ranked it, but not getting leads. Change accountants to plumbers eg. as most tradesmen cover a wider area. Does that make sense?
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    • Profile picture of the author Q Estherr
      Originally Posted by Roger Mayne View Post

      Change accountants to plumbers eg. as most tradesmen cover a wider area. Does that make sense?
      What do you mean by this?

      If you're not getting leads, then there is a problem somewhere, IMO. When you sell the site, you want your customers to get leads and you have to know they will get leads.
      • Do you have traffic to your site?
      • Do you need to change anything on the 'meta description' section to make people click on your link?
      • What kind of information is presented on your site?

      From our experience, business owners start to see real value when you can show them you've got leads. So... get leads first by encouraging people to take an action, then use them to show your prospects.

      At least that's how we do it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Q Estherr
    Originally Posted by Roger Mayne View Post

    If you're successfully using this model, what do you do? :confused:
    Hey Roger,

    My partner and I have a similar business model. Like you, we rank a website and rent it out. On our website, we have a very basic write up on the business (which is actually non-existent) and have call-to-action at 3 different places throughout the main page. We also have a contact form. The call-to-action on the page is to encourage visitors to the site to drop us an email to ask for more information.

    Even though we don't really offer them the service, this gives us 'proofs' for us to show our prospects when we are finally ready to call people up and make sales. It is a lot more convincing this way, showing them that we are actually getting leads already. We blank out names and contact details and send them the list of leads, and tell them if they are ready to take over the website, the leads are theirs. If you need to, you can also show them the traffic stats. Emphasize that this traffic is super targeted - people are looking to BUY their products specifically.

    Sometimes we may even give the leads to them for free if we think that's going to help us close the deal. That's how we do it and hope that helps.

    Ultimately you need to know why people are saying 'no'. In the worst case scenario, offer them the website for free for a month. When they see the results, they will most likely rent the website from you?
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Mayne
    Thanks Esther

    Yes, I'm getting visitors. I'm not sure where you're based, but in the UK, each county is split into smaller towns, so for the size of town I'm targetting, I'm not expecting floods of visitors. As a rough example, for one site I got an average of 60 unique visits per month for the last 3 months. Traffic was almost double that for the preceding 3 months.

    I use Wordpress for the sites, and wite up a page/post for each problem (for the plumber example, I have a page for central heating problems). This way I'm getting traffic for a vairety of key phrases. I also have a contact form, and have the phone number integrated into the site and throughout the content. I also have images to help break this up, and the call to action is within the image.
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    • Profile picture of the author Q Estherr
      Hey Roger,

      I'm based in Singapore. Some of the keywords we've ranked for only got 100+ exact searches/month. For one of them, we provide services to it directly and usually we get about 1-3 enquiries every month on average but in this year end season, we're getting at least 1 phone call every single day. Most of the time 2-3 phone calls per day. It's crazy, but I'm thinking it is most likely the season of the year.

      How about trying having the call to action within the text too, especially the first paragraph that people will read?

      Then have another one somewhere in the middle of the page - try to position it close to the left hand side of the screen because that's where people usually start reading from, and are most focus before their attention gets diverted away, lol. They say that people read in an 'F' shaped pattern and we just kindda applied it to our sites.

      eye-tracking-1 «

      And have the last one in the last line of the last paragraph of the page. This method has worked for us so far. Usually we don't have phone numbers on the page, just an email address to capture the 'proof'.
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      • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
        Roger

        I don't know how you go about increasing traffic to a site using the internet, that is beyond me, but if 60 unique people a month are looking at the site then they have keyed something into Google for a reason.

        They have then clicked on your site to see if it can satisfy that reason.

        If the answer was yes, then not all, but some would have taken the next step.

        So I would say that the words on the site are not hitting the mark.

        You know when you go out and look through the windows of Restaurants when you are looking for somewhere to eat?

        You sort of have a feeling whether the place is what you want or not. You may have even entered a Restaurant or Bar or even got into a car at a showroom and in the first 3 seconds you just felt it wasn't want you were after.

        But you can't explain why.

        Well this probably happens on your website.

        Maybe you could post the link plus what someone would Google to land there.

        Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Mayne
    Thanks Lester

    To be honest, I'm using sub-domains to reduce overheads. I don't think that's causing an issue as I am getting *some* traffic
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  • Profile picture of the author Roger Mayne
    Dan

    If you search for plumber oxted my site should be the 3rd listing with the description starting Local, Reliable Plumber in Oxted

    Let me know what you think
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
      Okay I see it. Well it doesn't strike me as belonging to a plumber if that makes sense.

      Stotts etc etc should be at the top.

      I have to go out now and wont be back until maybe 22:00 so I will maybe PM or post here what else I think when I have time to have a good look.

      Dan
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