What is Rank and Rent in SEO 2024 🥇Detailed Guide With (Case Study)

Are you looking forward to creating an online property that is easy to set up and can generate Rent? Wondering how an online property can generate rent? It is possible and I will reveal an extraordinary Rank and Rent Local SEO Technique.

What Is Rank & Rent?

In “rank and rent” SEO, a website is optimized for a local company like a plumber, roofer, or electrician, and then rented out to other local service providers competing for the same set of customers. The term “Rank and Rent” is shorthand for the practice of providing local businesses with sales leads.

Instead of optimizing an already existing website for search engines, rank and rent specialists create whole new sites that are focused on a certain market segment. They still make material, optimize it for search engines, establish links to it, and so on as part of the website’s general SEO maintenance.

Once the site is ranking well and getting traffic, the SEO consultant will rent out the site to a real company in exchange for a cut of the leads the site generates. The challenge comes in knowing how to set up call forwarding and call tracking so that leads are sent in the right direction. You aren’t a plumber, yet people keep asking for plumbing help; here is where search engine optimization (SEO) and wit come together. You can tell whether a website belongs to Rank and Rent since the information on it is quite generalized.

The company that leases your site will reap the benefits of having a high-ranking, pre-existing website that is already generating traffic, and you, the SEO, will receive payment. This is appealing to service providers since there is no danger involved in purchasing an SEO-friendly domain.

Instead of only renting out the website, the SEO may also sell the warm leads to nearby firms.

What Are the Benefits of Rank & Rent?

Many SEO experts are attracted to rank and rent because it allows them to earn a living without constantly interacting with clients.

Instead of being constrained by a client’s wishes, the SEO is free to develop and optimize the site in accordance with their own standards while still receiving payment. You have complete discretion over the ranking process, and you are not required to update the client at every ranking dip or on every modification you make.

The individual renting the site or purchasing the leads, on the other hand, gets all the advantages of a successful specialty site immediately. The price of hiring a skilled search engine optimization (SEO) expert can be high, making the option to rent a website that has already been optimized more appealing.

Now, I will apply the same concept to my Rank and Rent website model:

1. You will Create a Website [Which is an online property]
2. Write a Rankable Content
3. Apply SEO best practices 
4. Get the Website Ranked on Search Engines
5. Rent it out to Local Business Owners

So, Rank and Rent in SEO mean creating an online property and getting it ranked on Google, then selling the space or entire website to local businesses.

If the concept is sounding interesting to you, let us now deep dive and understand how to create one for you.

How to Create a Rank and Rent Website [A Step by Step Approach] Renting Local SEO Websites 🥇

Well, the concept is so catchy that anyone who explores it cannot resist trying it out.

If you are looking forward to creating a Rank and Rent website for yourself, I will help you out through the step-by-step guide below.

Steps to Start a Rank and Rent Website:

1. Select a Niche or Industry
2. Choose a Domain and Web Hosting
3. Install WordPress
4. Competitive Research: Keywords, Content and Backlinks Analysis
5. Create an Awesome Content
6. Link Building
7. Find Investors and Rent it Out

Let us now start discussing each of the steps one by one and in detail.

Step 1. Select a Niche or Industry

What is the cost-effective way of purchasing a Domain and Web Hosting?

If you are just starting your first project or looking forward to exploring this as an experiment, you might now want to invest heavily in infra.

I have a pro tip for you here. Choose BLUEHOST that offers a Free domain with every web hosting plan and currently, you can avail it for just $2.95.

According to Google’s market research, 53 percent of mobile audiences leave a site if it takes more than three seconds to load. Their time is valuable, so don’t encourage them to bounce with a slow-as-molasses website.

You can analyze your site’s speed with Google PageSpeed Insights, Google’s Test My Site, or Pingdom.

Step 3. Install WordPress

If you don’t know to code, here is good news for you. You can create your website without any professional web designing course with WordPress.

A WordPress is a free content management system [CMS] that helps you create your website with easy drag and drop options. It is as simple as creating an MSWord document or a Powerpoint presentation.

There are various other content management systems like Joomla and Magento but WordPress holds a 39% market share globally.

It is an open-source software where you get unlimited themes, templates, plugins for free.

Step 4. Competitive Research: Keywords, Content and Backlinks Analysis

Now, when we have created a website, it’s time to get started with some technical but interesting stuff.

I will now tell you how to spy on your competitors?

Yes, for understanding the competition and finding out the golden keywords on which they are ranking, their content, and link-building strategy, you need to research them well.

How to check the keywords on which your competitors are ranking?

I will suggest you a freeway here as well. If you are a beginner, you can use Ubersuggest, a free SEO tool.

Simply open the tool, type your competitor’s domain name, and hit “Search”. 

For example, if you are choosing “Drycleaning in London” as your keyword or “Drycleaning” as your niche, you will find hellolaundry.co.uk ranking there.

I analyzed it for you and here are the results:

1. This site is generating traffic of 149000 per month [estimated].

             2. The top keywords are “Drycleaners near me”, “Drycleaning near me” and various others.

3.   Top Ranking pages are “Clothing Alterations and Tailoring Service”, Laundry Services Near me in London, and a few others as per the snapshot below.

With this simple tool, we found our competitor’s top-ranking Keywords and Contents. 

Isn’t it exciting to know what search terms are generating massive traffic for your competitors and also their top-ranking pages?

Important:

Now that you have your competitor’s keywords, you need to find the level of competition, that is known as “Keyword Difficulty”

I will suggest SEMRUSH, an awesome tool that offers a free trial as well.

You need to visit the “Keyword Overview” and “Keyword Magic Tool” to figure out the low-hanging fruits [easy to rank keywords].

Check the snapshot below for Keyword Magic Tools wherein, I searched for “Restaurant in London” and it displayed me a lot of suggestions with keywords and KD% [Keyword Difficulty].

Keyword Overview tool I used to analyze the single keyword ”Best Chinese in London”. Another amazing tool that shows you trend, global traffic, and again, Keyword difficulty. 

Use any of the tools and you will find your answer.

One last thing that you need here in this section is to see the number of backlinks.

A backlink refers to the hyperlink that you earn from other sites when they refer you or your services. That helps Google to understand your content and rank it accordingly.

You can use both Ubersuggest and Semrush for this task.

Here is a snapshot from Ubersuggest below:

Now, we have everything that we need to create great content. 

Step 5. Create an Awesome Content

Content matters the most and is actually a key factor behind your success.

Few tips to write content that ranks:

1. Ensure to have at least 1500+ words, short content doesn’t rank anymore.
2. Try to write better content than the top 10 competitors in search results.
3. Keep it engaging, the user should read it till the end.
4. Use proper images and videos to make it attractive and informative.
5. Make it useful, your user should not go back to Google and search again for that keyword.
6. Use Keywords in the heading, meta title, meta descriptions, and content.
7. Make it trustworthy by adding relevant external and internal links.

If these suggestions are followed, your content part is taken care of.

Step 6. Link Building

I discussed the term “Backlink” above in step 4. Once we are finished with the content, it is now time to get some good links from high-authority sites.

Few killer tips for effective link building:

1. Find the sites related to your niche and outreach them seeking a “Guest Post” opportunity.
2. Search for “Free Guest Posting” sites on Google and approach the niche relevant sites.
3. Create links on Quora and Medium
4. Good “Directory submission sites” are also advised for Rank and Rent websites.

Not only this, but you can also reach out to a professional SEO agency or hire a freelancer through Fiverr who can help you in getting some links.

Avoid spammy sites and choose sites with low spam scores only to avoid any penalty from search engines.  

Step 7. Find Investors and Rent it Out

Your site is ready and the content is also created. It will take some time to rank but in between, you must start shortlisting the prospects who can invest.

If your keyword research is good, the content you created is a well-researched article that can help the visitors and you have proper links in place, your site will rank.

Let us now discuss the strategy and step-by-step approach to get your first few investors.

Special Attention : My #1 Recommendation For Rank & Rent SEO Course

 

How to find Rent Paying Customers for your R&R site?

Once your site is ready and it is in the process of ranking, you will now have to start reaching out to the prospects who can invest in your site.

Here is the step-by-step approach to reach out to the probable customers.

Identifying the Stats:

There are the following factors that will determine your customer base and of course the amount that you can expect:

1. Traffic
2. Keywords [Buyer intent or Information intent]
3. Call to Action features and finally, 
4. Nature of Business

Everything depends upon profitability, before you reach out to the customer, ensure you have the data ready.

If you can show them the ROI, they will invest for sure. 

Now, let us figure out the way of finding and approaching these customers.

Shortlisting the Prospects:

So, once we are done with the stats and analytics work and sure that the site has the potential to provide converting customers, let us start figuring out whom you need to contact. 

These leads are useful for small businesses, new ventures, or companies that operate on a lead closure model. 

Businesses with their own website might not be too interested in this project, however, depending upon the ROI you can project, it is worth giving a try.

• Create a List of Lead-based Businesses

As we discussed above, Lead-based businesses like Insurance Advisors, Mortgage Loan Agents are always interested in getting new prospects. 

For example, a customer who is looking to buy a new house might enquire about nearby Loan facilitators and ends up visiting your site. Since these customers are enquiring themselves about the loan, there are high chances of their conversion.

The same goes for various other businesses [some of them are in the list of Rank and Rent Ideas that we shared below] and you just need to sit on a local map or a directory to shortlist a few of them.

• Keep a Track of Newly Opened Business

This is a tricky thing to do but not at all tough. One simple way of doing it so liaison up with Tax consultants. 

Every new business hires these agencies for, let say, VAT registration, GST registration, etc, and that’s where you can get to know about newly opened businesses.  

Apart from these, local directories and advertising agencies might also pass on the leads to you.

Always remember that a newly opened business has a decent marketing budget and spends on advertising initially. You have the leads for them, and they will grab them for sure.

• Contact GMB listings that are Not Ranking

One of the most innovative ways of finding paying customers is to approach the businesses that are not ranking.

All local business are creating their GMB listing these days but only a few are ranking on their desired keywords.

Pull out the possible list of keywords that caters to your niche, for example:

• Website designers near me
• Logo makers near me
• Best Chest Specialist of Boston

Now you need to start contacting the businesses that are listed but are ranked at last. Since they are not getting any benefit from their existing listings, they will not let you go if you can prove the potential.

Isn’t it a simple trick? 

So, these are the ways of finding your clients and start collecting rent. 

Now, let us discuss a few ways through which you can contact them to pitch your product.

Planning an Outreach:

This is the final step and you need to ensure that everything is well planned before contacting the investors.

Few Suggestions: 

• Create a simple product with proper pricing
• Offer some discount on instant signup
• Give them a free demo for a few days
• Provide Free 5-10 Leads to show the Quality

Now, you need to contact the identified prospects using any of the following methods:

• Cold Call: 

How about a demo over the call? You have the prospect number through GMB listing, directory, or any other source you got their reference from.

Call them right away and share the benefits that you have to offer.

At first, don’t discuss the pricing over the call, instead, show them the value and offer the trials.

• Personal Visits 

If you have the address, go and give the demo directly. It is always better to take an appointment in advance. Still, if the size of the business is small and you have an ROI model for them, they will still entertain you.

• Email Marketing

If you have the database of local businesses, you can reach out to them quickly and efficiently with a proper draft through email. This is one of the best ways to reach hundreds of customers every day and generate leads for your own R&R site.

During the contact, you need to show them how your leads can help them get new customers. 

Consider trying a 2-3 days Demo or a few Free Leads so that the customers can try them.

Once they are convinced of the quality, the only step left will be to decide the mode of income and price negotiation.

Pricing Strategy: Modes of Income from Rank and Rent Website

You must define your pricing policy for your R&R site the way you want. 

But before you decide that, you need to understand the value proposition yourself.

Firstly, Consider the investment and maintenance cost of your website.

Secondly, Track the per day traffic

Thirdly, Test a few leads on your own

If you are convinced that everything is right at its place and your customers will surely benefit from it, you should now figure out the pricing strategy.

There can be three major strategies that you can adopt as your revenue stream from this website.

1. Sell Space, Charge Rent

Simplest pricing model where you sell your entire page or a portion for a fixed monthly amount called rent.

In this model, you get a fixed amount irrespective of the profitability and performance of the page. It is the safest way but you earn comparatively less.

1. Profit-Sharing

As the name suggests, you decide a share of profit for simply passing on the lead to local vendors.

Let suppose you shared a lead for website design and the business earned $100 profit through that lead, you may ask for a share out of it, maybe 25% or so.

If you notice that your leads are converting, you must choose this method.

1. Per Lead Commission

This model is slightly different. Here, you neither get a fixed income nor a profit. You simply decide an amount per lead.

If there are no leads, the business has nothing to pay you, that’s the benefit for the business.

The lead, on the other hand, even if doesn’t convert, you will get a fixed amount, that’s the advantage you have.

 So, on the basis of investors, your traffic, niche, and various other things, you can decide your pricing model.

One thing is for sure that you can expect a lifelong income if your basics are right.

Now, Are you interested in getting a list of my hot favorite niches for the Rank and Rent SEO project? 

Here we go.

50 Awesome Rank and Rent Website Ideas

I discussed above, that you need to have a micro-niche idea that works well and can rank easily on local searches. 

Further, I shared with you the step-by-step process to create a Rank and Rent website above. 

Let me now suggest you 50 ideas or topics on which you can start your R&R website:

1. Airline Ticketing
2. Local Tours and Weekend excursions
3. Ambulance Services
4. Doctors [Gynae, ENT, etc]
5. Animal Trappers, Shelters, Hospitals
6. Pets Grooming
7. Electricians or Electronics Repair
8. Mobile Phone Repairing
9. Beauticians or Makeup Artists
10. Salons
11. Dance and Music Institutes
12. Astrologers, Palmists, Numerologists, and various Occult Sciences 
13. Air Conditioner and Refrigerator Repair
14. Event Planners and Decorators
15. Transport, Autoleasing or Taxi Services
16. Website Designers
17. Digital Marketing Services or SEO
18. New Born Baby Clothes, Accessories, and Services
19. Bank Loans Services
20. BBQ Grill Restaurants
21. Discos and Pubs
22. Furniture
23. Jewelry
24. Coachings and Tutions
25. Used Car Dealers
26. Car Repair and Washing Stations
27. Printing and Stationery
28. Sports Goods
29. Schools and Colleges
30. Computer and Laptop 
31. Hospitals and Medical Shops
32. Body Piercing or Tattoo Art
33. Employment Agencies
34. Gym and Yoga Instructors
35. Lawyers
36. Insurance Services
37. Florists and Decorators
38. Currency Exchange
39. Share Brokers
40. Departmental Stores
41. Movers and Packers
42. Household Services like Plumbers, Carpenters, etc
43. Gas Stations
44. Gifts Shop
45. Guns Dealers
46. IVF Clinics
47. Day Boarding or Creche
48. Hardware Supplies
49. Food, Vegetables, and Beverages
50. Spa 

So, these are the niches that you can try and explore for your first Rank and Rent website. Use tools like Google Keywords research, Ahrefs, and Semrush to further deep dive and get the keywords suggestions.

Quick Links:

• SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy Review 
• How Page Speed Affects SEO & Google Rankings 
• Growth Marketing Pro Review 

Conclusion: What is Rank and Rent in SEO 2024

My favorite SEO setup is creating a highly search engine optimized website and then renting it out to others. For individuals who have a firm grasp of Search Engine Optimization and a lucrative company plan, this may be a highly effective approach to online marketing.

SEO consultants that specialize in local lead creation often refer to themselves as “digital landlords” to describe this approach.

While the process isn’t instantaneous and isn’t 100% reliable, if you’re cautious with the kind of site you build and put in the effort to make the site as ready for rental as possible, you may give yourself with a stable income without having to perform daily client SEO work again.

If you’re familiar with affiliate marketing, client SEO, or lead generation, how do you think they stack up against the rank and rent model? Share your comments below for Rank and Rank in SEO.