Rank and Rent Your Website
Over the last few days, I have been listening to a number of internet gurus talking about their online business models. These guys are not only fascinating but they have mountains of information that I enjoyed listening to thoroughly
One of the simpler systems to improve local SEO was the rank and rent, website model. I had never heard of it so I thought I would share my understanding of it given that so many of us have basic WordPress, SEO and related skills.
What is the Website Rank and Rent Model?
Rank and Rent is when you take action to rank a site (e.g. PPC, valuable keywords) in the top spots of the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo). Once done you then simply rent the site to a local business with all the traffic being directed towards it.
Let us say that you have been able to rank a website at the number one position in Google for flowers in London. If the traffic to this site is purely organic and not PPC (Price Per Click) then the cost of that free traffic is very minimal, minus start-up setup costs.
If we go on to rent out that site to a company say, Exotic Flowers, for $500 per month this is almost pure profit. The store gets traffic to their business and you get the $500. Win-Win situation.
Now you don’t stop there. What you do next is ‘rinse and repeat. You can do the same thing to rank another flower shop in Manchester or Miami for that matter. You do the same process and charge another $500.
Of course, you could stick with flowers and repeat the effort or choose another niche, say baby strollers.
Can you see how you can multiply the income from this model? And all you have to do is generate traffic, pitch to area businesses, enter a rental agreement and Cha-Ching.
What are the best types of businesses for the Rank and Rent model?
This model works best when the following conditions are met:
- There is high search interest/ traffic for the product
- Low competition
- The products should have high margin (if the margin is not significant then you have to sell a whole lot of product to make it worth your while and
- The easier it is for the keywords to rank the better.
Once these conditions are met your businesses are a very wide variety from appliances, real estate, electrical, electronics, furniture, gourmet food, consultancy services, etc. etc.
What do the numbers look like?
If you manage just 10 sites at $500 each that’s $5000/ month delivering $60,000 a year.
Imagine you maxed out your WA Premium Plus account and supported 50 sites. This would yield an annual return of $300,000. I would assume that you would have some help in the latter situation. If labour, local marketing and other costs are $100,000 then that’s a profit of $200,000 a year.
What are the downsides of the model?
- You will have to demonstrate to the client that they are better served with you rather than running their own site.
- Concerns of ownership and control by the client
- Fear of escalation in rental costs
Last Word
If you are into local SEO this might be a formula that is right for you.
What do you think of the Rank and Rent Website Model?
Do you think this is an interesting model?
Look forward to your likes, thoughts and comments
All the best
Hugh
Recent Comments
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Good morning Hugh,
Thank you for your blog post, a very interesting one indeed. I trust all is well with you.
I must admit this is a new and interesting concept to me, however, not a bad idea.
A few thoughts; if we have built up a website that has traffic, would it not be better to keep it or sell it completely?
What happens if someone completely wrecks the website, or doesn't do anything with it?
I'm wondering how much someone would actually pay for a rental website? I guess it all depends on traffic et cetera.
The principle sounds great on paper, but would it really work, I'm not sure. It will be interesting to see what other members think about the idea.
As always Hugh, I appreciate your blog posts. Please don't think the above is criticism, it is just constructive thoughts.
Have a great day.
Roy
Roy I especially look forward to your analysis. I have not delved into the model sufficiently to be able to respond to lessor/ lessee obligations, pricing, ROI, etc. however check out 'The Rank and Rent Masterclass' on YouTube which will answer all your questions. I am not an affiliate or anything but this is where I first heard about the model. It seems like from what I can tell and seen from a summit I recently attended that this is very viable.
Keep on bringing your scrutinizing eye it is much appreciated.
Stay blessed,
Hugh
Good morning Hugh,
Thank you for your reply, it's always appreciated.
One thing that never fails to amaze me with the power of the Internet is the opportunities that it can potentially bring! On paper, this seems like a great idea, although I'm not quite sure how it would work, practically. I will try and have a look at the video masterclass, it always fascinates me the different ways that we can potentially make money online.
This is one of the many great things about the Wealthy Affiliate platform, we can bring different ideas to the table. Thank you, Hugh.
Have a great day.
Roy
That's how I have really leveraged WA so far. Understanding the basic constructs of new innovative platforms gives you a much better appreciation of how to make use of the opportunity.
Always a pleasure to get your feedback Roy.
Hugh
Hugh I have to be honest with you. According to the rules it appears that it is ok. But morally I think it’s gaming the System! There isn’t any value Added just directing Traffic & collecting Money. I am surprised that the Big 3 haven’t caught up with that while Crawling!
Hmm not sure if I agree Ed. The value-added to the business owner is the saving of the hosting, security, and other website-related fees that are now covered by one lower rental charge. You have one point of contact if there is an issue rather than having several under ownership (e.g. GoDaddy for domain issue as opposed to your ISP for site speed). Lastly, if you don't have the competence in-house outsourcing to a firm dedicating to making sure your site is always number 1 in search results sounds like a winning strategy to me.
Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by gaming the system? Let me know.
I don't believe that you are misunderstanding, I just can't rap my head around it. That would be a hackers dream. Who takes the ultimate responsibility for the unruly comments. If you can use the process for helping another, why would it be not far stretch to wrap the process around one of your own Blogs. I am concerned and am probably the only one. Thank you for the post & Share Hugh.
that would be a hackers dream
Thanks, Hugh.
This opens up a whole new avenue of maximizing the potential of my WA membership. IT is an interesting concept and one that can be implemented relatively easily (once the base websites are up and running.
As Alex says below it will not be a cakewalk, but it has potential.
Alex
I know you are a guy of action Alex. So do let me know if you pursue it and how you get on. All the best.
Hugh
I enjoyed reading your post, Hugh, a business model that can be worthwhile investigating; like most things; it can be a specialized segment of the market.
Website creation is a service that many businesses avail themselves of due to knowledge and time constraints. So if someone does front up with service provision, there is a ready-made market.
From observation, a model that is just reaching the mainstream. An entry point can be to focus on niches and expand from there. There is the possibility of selling the web property, renting the web property, and even just leasing the domain name.
Pricing can be the sticking point and the realization that it takes time to develop the web property and rank it and carry out maintenance and further development, which we know is not a cakewalk.
Like blogging, it takes a specific skillset; currently exploring this model, I have come unstuck on some aspects but can see real potential.
Alex when you unpack the framework you realize how many opportunities exist. You can also white-label out-of-the-box solutions that would have worked out all the kinks. It is truly an opportunity to explore.
Perhaps a lowish pricing approach to win market share graduating up as time passes. This would allow for the approach to be cemented in the minds of customers further, something likely more required in territories not familiar with the model.
Agreed; an opportunity to explore. Social proof can be huge in this market, especially around expressing and creating results. The pricepoint is a work in progress lower for that foot in the door is attractive and then build from there.
One of the main attractions is recurring income, as stated in your post.
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The summit was awesome, Hugh. The rank and rent business model caught my attention too. I think the concept is great. Roy Bretton (below) has some doubts or questions if this would work.
It works, and it works big time! I see also there are some questions about the ethics and moral of the business model. But I cannot see where this is wrong.
This is like buying a house, make sure it is in perfect order, and rent it out.
By following this method you are providing a service that will cost local merchants thousands of dollars from other providers.
In return they get a complete solution, making them able to promote their products and services easily, without doing it themselves.
Roy
Could not have said it better Roy. If only we had staff that we could deploy to explore these models and come back to us.....ahhhh one thing I miss about corporate lol. Anyhowz we will certainly get there so says me the little dinghy to you the Oceanliner.
😄You should write a book, Hugh. Your description creates images 🤣