Are you looking for yet another crafty way to make money online. Here is an idea for you, how about starting your very own local classified ads blog for your city or town? Think this might sound silly? Well, you’re wrong! Starting your own local classified ads blog can make money online. Check Google and see what kind of competition you have within your local city, town or even State… you’d be surprised to see that there is little to no competition at all.
Earlier last month, I had the privilege to meet a new customer of mine, Erik Wyche, who ordered my Blog Builder Basic service. I built a very nice niche blog for him titled, Golf Product Sales. Golfing must really be popular, as this was my third golf niche blog I did for the month of Sept. At any rate, Erik was very pleased with the service and placed a second order.
With the second order, he explained to me that he wanted to create a local classified ads site using WordPress to target traffic within his home town. I thought to myself, “How freaking cool is that? What a wonderful idea! This can totally make money online.” I am still building his second site for him, otherwise I would provide a link to let you see it. I’ll be sure to follow up in a week or two long after it has been completed and let you guys see the site, it will be pretty cool.
So here are some ideas that are based off Erik’s. First off, I had to totally give my respect to Erik, because doing something like this is a very excellent idea and indeed it can make money online. While so many people struggle to find various niche topics to target that hold a low amount of competition, there is one thing that you can pretty much count on… and that is having the option of starting your own localized classified ad site for you city or town.
Think about how much money that can be made with a site like that. It almost gives me goose bumps. So with that being said, here are some brainstorm ideas that I think could help you get started with launching your own classified ads site for your town, city or even possibly your State.
First off, let’s start with real estate. OMG! That is totally hot and a niche that isn’t very optimized for SEM or even SEO for local search. If you do a Google search for, “Homes For Sale In ???? (your city or town) you’ll probably find that looking at the SERP page, it is very likely that you can rank on that page will very little effort. Secondly, it is also very likely that the according domain name is available.
When you get your blog launched, make sure to create a real estate category. It is free content — your local city or town always has homes for sale — and it’s no skin off your back to sit there on your computer and write some blog posts about different homes for sale. More likely, you’ll out rank the real estate agent who has the listing on the house. From there, you can contact him and offer him a deal on the ad or threaten to pull it offline.
Next thing you can do is cars! Seriously, people go nuts searching for cars, motorcycles, etc in their local area using Google. All you need to do is have the content that targets the keywords and BOOM! You got instant localized traffic and that folks can make money online. Open up your blog to allow for registration and all your registered users the ability to post on the site. If you do that, then you don’t even have to write content on your blog. Allow people to list their cars for sale on your blog.
You can provide a free classified ads site, and monetize the content with Google AdSense, or you can choose NOT to have AdSense and simply charge a fee per post, say like .25c, maybe a little more… but do provide a cheap price. Who cares? Either way you are able to make money online!
Back to cars… if you end up getting your cars category totally hot in Google, then don’t be surprised to have some interested local car dealers calling you up inquiring about advertising. Seriously, car dealers spend big dollars to advertise in the local newspaper and they will have NO PROBLEMS spending money to advertise on your blog. Same goes with real estate agents.
Next item up for topic is local deals. The amount of material available is endless. What is going on at your local Walmart for the week? What about Joe’s Lawn Mower Repair? The more time you put into this blog, the more you will attract local businesses. Soon, local businesses will contact you with an interest in figuring out how they can get you to write a post for them. Charge them $25 bucks! Once again… who cares? Normally, you’d write the content for free anyway.
So really, the possibilities are almost endless if you run your very own local classified ads web site. Again, competition is very low and secondly, you can almost overnight become the superstar of your local city or town. Seriously, consider how much time and effort you are putting into your dead horse make money online blog and then consider how quickly you could be rewarded by applying the same amount of time and effort into a localized blog that contributes to your local community.
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Date/Time: 10-2-2008 01:21:02 Comment #23522
Hmmm, this is a very interesting idea. I have thought of it before but never really thought anything past that it wouldn’t work out.
My town has about 50,000 people but there is also a town about 15 mins away that has about 500,000 people. This has really got me thinking and I may just have to start up a local blog.
Thanks again for another great idea Garry!
Check out Jarret’s last blog post..Remove Nofollow From Commenter Name
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 12:04:23 Comment #23545
You should… it would be pretty fun and I think it would be very rewarding not only for yourself but for your community as well. You should start two, one for the smaller community and then another for the largest community.
BTW, not a good idea to remove the NOFOLLOW on comments. If you get posts with tons of comments, you’ll kill you link juice on that particular page.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 16:07:36 Comment #23555
Yes I know that, I just made that post because there are those out there that are looking for that info ;P
I used to have all my links followed by with the new design everything is nofollowed besides in post links.
Check out Jarret’s last blog post..Remove Nofollow From Commenter Name
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 06:30:46 Comment #23527
I have to agree with Jarret above… Hmmmmm About two years ago I created a local website for my town of Madisonville KY. It more or less a directory of the town but I never really thought about doing what you and Erick are talking about.
Now I will have to work out how to do this addition to http://www.mymadisonvilleky.com
Once again thanks for the great tip……. and good luck Erick to both of your new sites.
Cheers……..eric
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 12:07:27 Comment #23546
Hi Eric,
With a site like that saying, “MY” Madisonville KY, you can easily create a multi-user based site that allows community members join in the fun. Doing that will allow you to sit back and watch the entire sit grow on its own by the power of other people. This too would free up time to do more of the important things such as the common and neglected, marketing.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 06:42:52 Comment #23529
Garry,
Is it true that local adsense ads also pay more money? I have read this somewhere.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 12:08:34 Comment #23547
Off hand I don’t have an answer for that question. However, it is just a matter of taking some time towards research. Plug in so localized keywords into Google AdWords keyword too and see what you find. I’ll do that myself to in a bit.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 07:34:40 Comment #23533
I agree, a very, very interesting idea. Props to Erik for coming up with it and thanks to you for passing it along. Outranking the competition on google should be a snap.
Thanks for the follow on twitter also.
Check out Bryan’s last blog post..Greg Lemond, the ultimate bicycling tool
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 12:09:41 Comment #23548
Generally speaking…
I mean if you live in New York City, you might have to use a little elbow grease to get the job done.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 10:34:19 Comment #23543
This is a very good post.. such an interesting idea! I may have to try this.
Check out InfectedByBugs’s last blog post..September 2008 Earning Report!
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 12:11:30 Comment #23549
I am glad that you enjoyed reading the article. Show me what you build in a few weeks, I’d like to see it.
Date/Time: 10-2-2008 21:26:13 Comment #23574
Nice idea in making money online by means of local ads,
Using local ads will surely have less competitor in your area. If you get the targeted keywords within your place, sure traffic it will bring to your site.
Keep on posting great articles.
Check out Jacob’s last blog post..Ang Milagrosong Numero OTSO! *8*
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 00:34:02 Comment #23599
Thanks Jacob, I am glad that you enjoyed the article. Stay tuned, more to come.
Date/Time: 10-3-2008 01:20:40 Comment #23582
I thought about doing this in our town. Someone else did so I’ve been trying to give them some tips instead of trying to “steal” it away. I also have other projects that I need to make profitable first.
And speaking of Nofollow since it was commented on above. I guess I know why my rankings have dropped. Garry took all of my juice. :O)
But anyway, I mean I’ll leave comments either way. I don’t go check a blog out first either. But it is a nice gesture for those leaving comments to give them some juice. Some blogs use CommentLuv, but those links are nofollow, correct?
What do you think Garry and others? follow or nofollow?
Check out Coach Chris’s last blog post..Bitten By Bankruptcy?
Date/Time: 10-3-2008 01:42:18 Comment #23585
Like Garry said, if you get a lot of comments, nofollow all the links because that will sap out any PR that you have.
I would just stick with leaving CommentLuv up as I think the default is set to nofollow anyways. In a way you are still giving back to your readers by allowing them to show a blog post so it works out for the blogger and the reader.
Check out Jarret’s last blog post..Remove Nofollow From Commenter Name
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 00:35:05 Comment #23600
CommentLuv can be used as NOfollow or Dofollow. By default, it is set to Nofollow.
Date/Time: 10-3-2008 03:18:34 Comment #23586
Great post Garry!
Actually my brother got think of this way before, we intended to open a website that giving others’ to place their ads on our site, we charge them for few bucks.
But the thing that annoying my mind is, how people want to advertise on your site if your site is new and doesn’t have any traffic in the beginning. It’s always hard in the beginning, until today, we have not created a website like this yet.
I’m curious how advertiser find us in the beginning, perhaps we can look for them and ask them whether it’s ok to advertise on our site.=.=”
Let’s see how Erik works on it, I’ll keep an eye on it to learn something new. =)
Regards,
Lee
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 00:37:05 Comment #23601
Well, if it was me, I’d start off by providing some free and complimentary ads and then start building up the site with more and more listings and as I got the site more established then I would start charging some money. It’s like priming a pump, takes a little bit to get the pump going, but once its primed, that thing will sit there and pump gallons of water like it was nothing.
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 00:47:58 Comment #23603
Haha, got what you mean. I got a plan in my mind right now. I’ll start planting seed and let you know the result Garry!
Thank you!
Regards,
Lee
Date/Time: 10-3-2008 10:29:27 Comment #23592
LOL, I told Garry he posted right into our next video at The Niche Doctor. I have developed a one page site that gets indexed and ranks pretty good out of the box. I use it with small communities to test an area and see how the traffic is for different keywords. Then I can take the site and either sell local ads on it, sell the site, or replace it with a blog.
Example : Do this search, Flowood Mississippi, then look down the list for FlowoodMississippi.net , one page the site is 30 days old and it is ranking in or around the Top 10.
Check out David Cooley’s last blog post..Wordpress Niche Guide eBook
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 00:40:30 Comment #23602
Hehe… planting the seed for the next product.
Don’t worry guys and gals, a full post will be coming soon about this product. This is something that you will not want to miss out on. Also, check out The Niche Doctor Starter Kit. I haven’t wrote a post about that yet because I been so tied up with doing blog design service for clients.
Date/Time: 10-4-2008 01:12:26 Comment #23604
Garry, I’m not sure I understand how this would be set up. Would this be a traditional blog, with categories like real estate, autos, jobs,etc. and each ad would just be a new post? Would this work well with a magazine type theme?
As for local ads, I have found some really good low competition, high paying keywords by putting in my local city and the name of a car manufacturer…car dealers often pay well.
Date/Time: 10-9-2008 13:15:09 Comment #23838
I’m confused. You talk about a classified ad type of program where other people can pay to advertise their product on your blog. Do you have a software program that you recommend?
Date/Time: 10-9-2008 17:58:26 Comment #23848
This is an absolutely awesome idea! I love it, thank you Gerry!
Tom Walsh
Check out make easy money online’s last blog post..Make easy money online with article marketing
Date/Time: 11-8-2008 10:14:05 Comment #26120
Istill can’t picture what this classified ad might look like. Did you finally finish Erik’s stite so we can visit it? Or can you give me an idea as to what you might call the local ad site? Thanks for your help!
Date/Time: 1-4-2009 18:19:04 Comment #28863
If I open a blog and want local classified ads, is there some way I can have the ads submitted to a third party for payment and placement on my blog? The third party would set the ad according to certain limits, collect the fee, and send the fee on after deducting a fee service. Is this something anyone offers?