Lead Generation Site Questions

Using a dogtrainingchicago.com limits your client(s) and Limits the target area to market in...

Dogtraining.com allows you to grow in multiple locations across the country and build a brand at the same time.

Evolve91 has some pretty good advice there...

In my opinion, it all depends on your business model.

Exact match domains...

Allow you to sell the property out right to someone.
You can lease/rent it out to a single client for a monthly fee.
Adding extra services for that one client for more pay-per-call revenue is easier.
The ability to clone the site to different cities.
Easier to target and take advantage of mobile search/traffic.
Looks more like an actual local business to Google.
Easy to outsource management of them in segments to various outsources.
MUCH easier to optimize for conversions for different businesses and locations.
Currently still gives a bit of a bump in search engines.


If you are looking to ONLY do pay per call, pay per lead, pay per optin, etc (so no leasing, selling, JV's, etc)....Then in my opinion, it does not matter how you set up your properties. The ONLY thing that matters is that you are generating calls, leads, optins...what ever. So if you find it easier to do a directory type site, a blog, local business niche site, craigs list, youtube, mobile...what ever and those properties are generating you what you need to get paid (leads, calls etc)...then it does not matter.

If you can easily get leads from a website like www . dogpoopingvideos.com /chicago...then there is nothing wrong with that.

Myself, I actually do both methods. I have single properties that I generate leads from, lease them and sell them to clients. I also have some sites that server multiple clients that I lease/rent them a specific section. So http :// www .KeywordCity.com/ Local-Suburb and they rent the local suburb page for their leads.

Lastly, I have some strictly Lead Generation Clients that are on my Lead Gen Services Plan. This is strictly Lead Gen, so they have NO IDEA about the properties I utilize to get them leads. All they know is that they sign up for my service and I send them targeted leads. For these clients, I utilize anything and everything available on the Internet to generate targeted leads, PPC, Social Media, Video, directories, craigslist, owned websites...etc etc.

This last type of client is actually the easiest for me to make money. They want leads, they sign up for my services, I send them leads every month and they pay me. Simple....How I get the leads is up to me..

Cagey,
Im about to start the same business as yours in my area.

Do you go after high ticket business and charge a premium price to do so ? If possible, can you tell us how much you charge for that lead generation package to give us (me) an idea where to start.

In my lead gen business, I have a few different actual business models.

Pay per lead - this is the typical get a virtual number and forward it to a client. They every time there is a lead forwarded to them no matter where it comes from, website, video, flyer, craigslist ad, etc.

Pay per lead by method - this is an advanced spin on the pay per lead model. So depending on the niche and location, I sometimes break out my clients into methods in order to take on multiple clients. So one client will get leads from video marketing efforts, another from craigslist, a third from flyer marketing etc. They are all getting leads for the same service they offer, I am just using different lead sources for each. This is a good intro for a client into getting leads from me, since I charge less per lead than in the first model, because in the first model I am giving them exclusive rights to all the leads for every method. In this model, they do not get all and every lead I can generate, so it is cheaper and more of a door opener.

Phone number leasing - I just setup a website, video, etc that collects leads and sends them to a client. The client pays a simple flat monthly fee for this service. Sometimes I do this with seasonal clients on a sliding scale. So in the off season, they pay a minimum to hold on to the site and in the high season, they pay a semi-premium flat monthly fee that is enough for me to make money and enough for them to still get lots of leads while keeping their monthly cost fixed(important for season business).

Property leasing - Similar to the phone number leasing model but I part out my efforts between the different methods that I can generate leads. So I might have one client paying a flat rate of X a month for all leads generated by site A, a second client paying me for site B, a third paying me for all Craigslist ads, a forth paying me for all leads generated by a youtube channel and it's videos, etc. Again another nice foot in the door model that charges less over all per month for the leads but can be scaled to a larger amount of the client is hungry for more leads.

If I am doing anything prior to speaking to a client, I am always going after high ticket/high value services. The reason for this is because the ROI value is good enough to make me and the client money even if there is a small number of leads trickling in a month.

If I am approached by a client to do lead gen for them, then that is different and I work with them to figure out what services can warrant the cost of lead generation.

In terms of charging the client. If you are just starting out a simple formula of Adwords CPC price X 10 is a decent but still low price for a pay per lead model. So if you have a landscaper keyword in vegas and the CPC cost for that keyword and a few similar to it is around $5.00 per click, then it is fine to charge $50 per lead. If you are doing leasing, then a simple formula is average searches per month * 10% * average CPC price. So a keyword getting 1000 searches a month with a CPC of $5, 1000 * 10% * 5 = $500 per month lease.

If you are more advanced in the business, then you should really take the time to do the research on the services that you are generating leads for to find out the average initial customer value, the average customer lifetime value, the normal margins and the normal sales process(initial price, recurring price, etc). All of this will give you a much better idea of what each lead is actually worth to the client and usually will be a much higher number than the initial adwords x 10 formula. For example, "miami landscaping" gets 360 searches a month at a CPC of $2.41. Now with the formula you could get $25 bucks a lead, which is not horrible and could easily net you a few hundred to a few thousand a month depending on how well you can get traffic. The thing is a landscaping job can run anywhere from $300 to $30,000, with an average initial price tag of say $5000. Well that does not take into account the next 5 years of monthly/yearly upkeep at a price of $500 a month. Totalling $35,000 bucks. So to charge them $24 bucks now seems like an extremely cheap lead, which it is...so instead charging them $100-250 per lead is much more reasonable depending on the speciality of the landscaping client.

Or if you really want to get adventurous, you can workout a commission model, a revenue share, a sliding scale, what ever works for you and the client.

From my own portfolio, I have a commercial roofing company that pays me $1000 per commercial roof replacement lead, $150 per residential replacement, $350 per commercial roof repair/inspection, $100 per residential repair/inspection and $100 per flat roof snow removal lead. This client is on the per lead by method model, so they are only getting leads from a single Youtube Channel where I rank the videos. As a side note to that, I even got them to get the video footage for me of them on roofs.....

Hope this helps.

Great and detailed answer. Thank you, it did help. It clarify some questions I had in mind.