Transcript
Joe Troyer: Kevin Lynn asks, “Do you like or recommend the rank and rent business model for local SEO?” Kevin, the answer is, hell no. I don’t like it for multiple reasons. I wanted to be really real with you. As a local marketer myself, I don’t like selling it, I don’t like pitching it. Why? Because the ROI’s invisible. There’s no proof. There’s no responsibility on my end, and there’s no responsibility on your end. By your end, I mean your prospect’s end. It’s just like, “Yeah, this ranks on Google for this keyword or that keyword,” but at the end of the day, you’re not tracking whether it’s bringing the business owner any real values or bringing phone calls. Is it getting form submits? Those are the things that we should be tracking and that we should be showing to our clients to say like, “We’re doing a bang up frickin job for you. Check it out here.”
Joe Troyer: With rank and rent, the attitude is like, “I’ve already done the work. Here it’s ranking, Mr. Prospect. Why don’t you lease it from me for a flat monthly fee?” I think it’s confusing for the prospect. I think it’s confusing for them, and I think at the end of the day, I think it’s not the best deal for you either. If you really can rank and get rankings on the first page of Google, which isn’t that hard, especially in local … If you follow digital triggers, you guys can all frickin do it. You just got to implement, get off your ass and do it. There shouldn’t be a question whether or not you should do it. But I think that the compensation model for you sucks as well.
Joe Troyer: It’s like, “Okay. I get it up. I get it ranked, and then if I put more work into it, if I get it to bring in more phone calls or I get it to bring in more form fills, I get it to go from 10 contact inquiries a month to 30, or I get it to go from five phone calls a month to 45 phone calls a month, you don’t get any more revenue. You don’t get any more business.” For me, that’s kind of a messed up mindset. I believe if you’re going to charge a premium and you’re going to make a premium in this industry, you’re going to sell higher ticket type of core offer monthly recurring services, that you got to be able to drive value, which, to me, is all about driving business and revenue. You got to be able to show your customer.
Joe Troyer: For me, fundamentally, the rank and rent business model is flawed for local SEO. Does that make sense to everybody? Any questions on that real quick? I want to make sure that I really pounded this one home because this business model literally irritates the shit out of me, like I frickin hate it. I hate it. If you can’t tell, I hate the rank and rent business model. Give me one if that makes sense, why I don’t like it and why you should probably steer clear as well. Alright. One, yep. Good answer. Yep. “I was wondering about that.” Okay. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Great.
Joe Troyer: Again, for you, there’s no value, so selling it’s going to suck. Then also, if you can get it ranking on the first page, you’re not going to be able to lease a site or rank and rent a site until it’s ranking on the first page. If you’re already ranking on the first page, you’d be much better off doing a normal local lead gen or [inaudible] type of deal.
