While I've had a nice corp sales career, I'm always thinking about ways to make extra income streams. Stocks, Bonds, and Real Estate have treated me well. But I'm always thinking about ways for additional income.
I was first inspired by biophase thread of buying an online biz to pay for a sports car (I had an R8 at the time so I can relate). Started researching online biz. Then stumbled across Richard's $240k thread. Which inspired me to buy an online biz for sale vs. starting from scratch.
After 5 months of intense learning of various models, and hours on hours of browsing online biz finally pulled the trigger.
Bought an online lead generation site for web / mobile / e-commerce development companies. Site cost $60k, $3300 per month recurring revenue from 9 customers, been around since 2003, database of 15k registered customers on the website. The business model: I have a directory by city where you can register your business for free. If you want to be in the "top 10" ranking it costs $1k per month for #1, $800 per month for #2, etc etc.
Business Strength: 15k registered customers for me to target for subscription, $3300 current recurring profit, established. 25k page views per month. Google page 1 for local city clients.
Business Weakness: Pageviews decreasing month over month, customer can cancel anytime, backlinks linked to my other website (Google penalty risk), strong competition. Blog content weak.
ASK OF YOU: I need any and all ideas on how to increase my pageviews. Ultimately I my clients want clicks to their website for lead generation.
Why did I buy this site? Recurring revenue, unlimited upside potential, existing clients I can target to turn into monthly revenue, new business models to apply. I can take it in many different directions.
What is my intent for the site: My 1 year goal is to 3x the profit from $3k per month to $9k per month. It also increases the business value to over $250,000 if I decide to sell ($9k monthly profit x 30 = $270,000 valuation using current market rates). Gives me the option to flip for profit of pocket monthly income.
What is my focus? Focus my resources on increasing monthly pageviews from 25k per month to 100k. Increase traffic to paying clients sites. My BIGGEST risk is views are dropping, clients do not get leads, they cancel. It will be difficult to win them back.
What is my execution plan? Unsure. I think I need to put together a digital marketing plan, create a bigger sales funnel. Need valuable content. Build keywords into my existing top pages.
My approach is to go on the "offensive". Improve the site, add value, increase CSAT. Invest $$$ wisely. If I just sit back and collect checks, the site will fail.
30 to 60 days:
1. I'm hiring a digital marketing consultant to build an action plan. Cost is around $1k.
2. Hired consultant to provide keyword recommendations based on search %.
3. Signed up for Ahrefs to start my own learning process, so I can ultimately not rely on others for SEO research.
4. Hire content writer to provide valuable content
5. Solicit registered clients to go from free model to monthly subscription
6. Consider google ads to keep views up for top 3 paying clients (75% of my revenue from 3 clients)
60 to 90 days:
1. Measure results for marketing plan, have views increased.
2. Publish 1 new article weekly. Measure results.
3. Implement improved keywords to top sites
4. Invest into top viewed sites, how to improve
3 to 6 months
I'm not really there yet... I MUST get page views and leads to my customers. I can then add more clients, increase subscription costs. I have to ADD VALUE.
That's it for now. I've officially owned the site for 2 days. I gotta make this happen!
I was first inspired by biophase thread of buying an online biz to pay for a sports car (I had an R8 at the time so I can relate). Started researching online biz. Then stumbled across Richard's $240k thread. Which inspired me to buy an online biz for sale vs. starting from scratch.
After 5 months of intense learning of various models, and hours on hours of browsing online biz finally pulled the trigger.
Bought an online lead generation site for web / mobile / e-commerce development companies. Site cost $60k, $3300 per month recurring revenue from 9 customers, been around since 2003, database of 15k registered customers on the website. The business model: I have a directory by city where you can register your business for free. If you want to be in the "top 10" ranking it costs $1k per month for #1, $800 per month for #2, etc etc.
Business Strength: 15k registered customers for me to target for subscription, $3300 current recurring profit, established. 25k page views per month. Google page 1 for local city clients.
Business Weakness: Pageviews decreasing month over month, customer can cancel anytime, backlinks linked to my other website (Google penalty risk), strong competition. Blog content weak.
ASK OF YOU: I need any and all ideas on how to increase my pageviews. Ultimately I my clients want clicks to their website for lead generation.
Why did I buy this site? Recurring revenue, unlimited upside potential, existing clients I can target to turn into monthly revenue, new business models to apply. I can take it in many different directions.
What is my intent for the site: My 1 year goal is to 3x the profit from $3k per month to $9k per month. It also increases the business value to over $250,000 if I decide to sell ($9k monthly profit x 30 = $270,000 valuation using current market rates). Gives me the option to flip for profit of pocket monthly income.
What is my focus? Focus my resources on increasing monthly pageviews from 25k per month to 100k. Increase traffic to paying clients sites. My BIGGEST risk is views are dropping, clients do not get leads, they cancel. It will be difficult to win them back.
What is my execution plan? Unsure. I think I need to put together a digital marketing plan, create a bigger sales funnel. Need valuable content. Build keywords into my existing top pages.
My approach is to go on the "offensive". Improve the site, add value, increase CSAT. Invest $$$ wisely. If I just sit back and collect checks, the site will fail.
30 to 60 days:
1. I'm hiring a digital marketing consultant to build an action plan. Cost is around $1k.
2. Hired consultant to provide keyword recommendations based on search %.
3. Signed up for Ahrefs to start my own learning process, so I can ultimately not rely on others for SEO research.
4. Hire content writer to provide valuable content
5. Solicit registered clients to go from free model to monthly subscription
6. Consider google ads to keep views up for top 3 paying clients (75% of my revenue from 3 clients)
60 to 90 days:
1. Measure results for marketing plan, have views increased.
2. Publish 1 new article weekly. Measure results.
3. Implement improved keywords to top sites
4. Invest into top viewed sites, how to improve
3 to 6 months
I'm not really there yet... I MUST get page views and leads to my customers. I can then add more clients, increase subscription costs. I have to ADD VALUE.
That's it for now. I've officially owned the site for 2 days. I gotta make this happen!
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