Summary
The “Rank and Rent” is a digital marketing method in which you build a site, nurture, and grow it until it ranks in local search results. Local SEO practitioners love the rank and rent method because it is straightforward, scalable, and profitable.
Local company owners in a variety of industries are interested in renting webspace. For the majority of the local brands, price is the most important factor. Local companies may bundle all of these expenditures into a single monthly price by renting a website.
If you have been following me for some time, you know I design my guides around one simple rule: simplifying your digital work processes and amplifying the impact of your business!
If you ask me about my top SEO techniques at present, Programmatic SEO and Rank and Rent will top the list for sure!
Today’s modern world digitizes at a breakneck pace. Customers reportedly spend more on listings on Airbnb, an online vacation marketplace, than bookings and reservations on most upscale hotels. Today, Facebook, the second-largest online advertising marketplace, reported a 2019 second-quarter revenue of more than $16 billion.
The catch? These two sites own none of the assets they list or the products they advertise. Instead, they are platforms where sellers can connect themselves with buyers.
This connection has huge earnings potential in it. An estimated 15% of total global digital ad revenue today comes from online marketers promoting the products of other companies for a percentage of profits.
Billions of people are connected online, and a considerable part of them have made at least one online purchase in 2018. Yet many businesses either have no websites, maintain it poorly, or don’t spend enough on digital advertising.
Looking at it from two perspectives shows two things. On the one hand, there exists a massive gap in the market.
On the other hand, however, this is a goldmine of opportunity for those looking and willing to take action. Digital marketers harnessing the power of search engine optimization (SEO) fill the gap while making bank.
Today, I decided to share about Rank and Rent method used by SEO veterans and affiliate marketers to earn.” Let us dive into the nitty-gritty detail.
What is “Rank and Rent?”
Let me explain rank and rent in the simplest terms.
The “Rank and Rent” model is a digital marketing technique where you make or build a site, nurture and develop it until it ranks in the local search results, and then rent the site out to someone who needs it, such as a small or local business, for a fee.
The method is relatively straightforward.
- Find a niche and location with little competition and good traffic numbers.
- Choose a domain for your site.
- Create content.
- Optimize your site to rank it in the search engine for a variety of keywords
- Rent out the website to business owners in the same niche with the use of leads.
Local SEO practitioners and veterans are fans of the rank and rent strategy because it is comparatively simple, scalable, and, most of all, profitable.
If you are not that familiar with it, do not fret. Experience in ranking websites and the tools used to rank them is the foundation you need to start ranking and renting.
How is it different?
“Rent” is the word that makes all the difference here. When you ‘rent’ your site out, you choose not to hand over the control of the website.
You are responsible for the links, the design, and the content within the site. Businesses who want to rent out your website would have to negotiate on the content and links.
When they want to end their lease because they either got what they wanted or got nothing out of it, you can then rent out the site to a different client. Sometimes, you can even rent out your website at a higher value, especially when you did everything right, and the first client received positive results.
If you are interested in ranking and renting sites as a long-term SEO-related venture, then you should develop your skills in growing a constant money-producing portfolio of different websites and niches.
Who Rents the Websites?
Local business owners in many different niches are interested in renting web spaces. And as for most of the local brands, the main determining factor is cost.
Maintaining your own website is expensive. Hiring and paying people to design graphics or write content is costly, and chasing down backlinks, on top of the cost, is very time-consuming.
Renting a website allows the local businesses to combine all these costs into a periodic fee. They can stop paying anytime if they feel that it is not bringing in results or moving on to a new strategy.
Rank and rent websites give advantages to certain kinds of clients beyond the cost.
A Newly-Opened Business Venture
Any website started from scratch will take a while before it gains steam and traction in the SERPs. Even a local venture receiving a lot of foot traffic won’t start showing up on the front page of SERPs instantly.
Renting an already existing website is a sure way to skip the problematic process of site-building and ranking and to immediately show up on local searches.
Businesses Relying on Leads
Local businesses will want leads whenever and wherever they can get them. And when compared to the other methods to gather and draw leads, renting an online site requires less work and obligation.
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Business Owners Targeting New Markets
It is much easier and also cheaper to rent a website when trying to tap into a new customer base.
When it succeeds, then congratulations, you have introduced yourself to a new market at a low cost. If not, then it is all right, because your expenses were minimal.
Steps To Rank and Rent Out a Website
Ranking and renting out a website generally involves these steps:
- Choose a niche
- Make a domain name
- Set up a content management system
- Research about competitors
- Analyze keywords
- Create content
- Set up Google My Business (GMB)
- Complete Off-site SEO
- Rent out the website
Let me give a brief outline of the vital steps in rank and rent.
Choosing the Niche You Can Promote
Strike a delicate balance where the niche is profitable enough as evidenced by relatively high search traffic, but is not that competitive that ranking the site will be lengthy and costly work. For starters, you can focus on local businesses by narrowing down the city and industry you want to rank for.
As a rough measure, look for a monthly local search volume of over 200 to below 500. That is an excellent place to start.
Select a Domain Name
Think carefully about the domain name, for it makes a clear difference. Note that Google does not give much weight to exact-match domains, but it is still an excellent idea to fit some exact-match words in the domain.
Try to use a domain that includes both your chosen main keyword and location. Also, string together some keyword terms in different readable ways for an affordable combination.
Relevant: You would like to also read my review of GoDaddy here
Content Management System
If you are not that keen on spending a lot of time managing your content, then you must set up a content management system. And there is not much discussion on the best CMS platform out there.
WordPress is free and is customizable with pretty themes and designs. There are thousands of high-quality and detailed guides out there that outline how to create a WP CMS.
Research Your Competitors
Here it gets a little more technical. Understand what works for your biggest competitors and influencers.
Researching your competitors will involve the use of useful SEO tools such as:
- Ahrefs Surfer SEO
- Can I Rank?
- SEMRush
- Searchmetrics
- SpyFu
- And more.
Don’t forget to reach my guide on how to search keywords here
Analyze Keywords
As a rank and rent-er, you should keep in mind that the end goal is to rent out the website to generate leads. Align your keywords to this goal; focus on those in the final stage of buying a product or service.
There are numerous guides and tools out there you can use to generate your keywords with low competition and reasonable search volume.
Write Content
Once keyword search is done, then it is time to move on to content creation. Focus on articles and blogs relevant to your niche and using the keywords you have researched.
The home page should contain some content describing your expertise, and the about page should provide information to enhance your legitimacy and authority as a content provider. End posts with a definite call to action to help them take the step of leaving their contact information for a possible lead.
Content that does not serve this purpose can still make you rank, but be careful of attracting audiences with wrong intentions.
Google My Business (GMB)
Register your site in Google My Business (GMB) to get the benefit of showing up in Google Maps. Take care not to skip this step.
If you notice in many local searches, map results rank higher than organic listings. Google map packs generate more clicks and leads.
The whole process to register on GMB can be done through the GMB dashboard.
Off-Site SEO
Develop your profile further with a robust off-site SEO campaign. Focus on building citations and backlinks.
Citations refer to your placements in local directories. To start, create a profile on lists such as Whitepages and Yellowpages, before branching out to platforms such as Facebook, Yahoo!, and Bing.
Pull out the data you have gathered during the backlink audit part of researching your competitors and start going for their highest-quality links. In particular, focus on guest post linking.
A correctly placed guest post will solidify your position and increase your authority.
Rent out the Website
Following the above steps will result in a site that carries weight and value for its niche. What you would like to do now is to rent out the website for money.
There are many different ways to go about this.
Cold calling businesses is one. Be ready with your over-the-phone pitch and negotiation.
You can also contract brokers who sell leads. They may not pay you much as a business will, but they will also ask no questions and require any changes; they just want the leads and nothing else.
You may also stumble upon networks in your niche, like a sort of marketplace to direct businesses to lead generators.
Explore these options and more if you want someone to rent your ranked site.
And that’s it. I hope that this post helped you understand the basics of Rank and Rent.
Read more on SEO techniques and tools to utilize for your site.
Drop a comment below telling me your questions, experiences, and suggestions on what to cover next.