🎁 Thinking Outside The Niche Site Box

Hey there!

Before we get into the meat of today’s newsletter, just three things real quick -

1 - The Growth Cupid DFY eCommerce site builds with Shopify service is the hottest seller right now and I may end up having to stop sales on this one early this month due to us being a small team.

The big summer sale at Growth Cupid where you can save 22% on everything with code SUMMER goes through my birthday - the 22nd.

2 - Also, you’ll see a sponsor’s ad later in this email. If you’re getting value from what I’m sending you, then I’d appreciate it if you can do me a solid and click through that ad to see if the company is something that’s a good fit for you. Love you!

3 - Quick question - have you seen any sites thriving or that survived HCU that have embedded products from an Etsy store? I’m curious if this sends enough ecomm signals to Google to get you classified as an ecomm instead of a niche site. Reply and let me know!

Ranking local sites is bananas right now (niche sites hidden in plain sight)

I’ve touched on this in previous emails, and I know other SEOs are talking about it - but it’s basically the wild west out there when it comes to ranking for local keywords.

There’s a few ways to use this, but what I’ve been doing a lot of is looking for domains on expireddomains.net of local businesses that are no longer in business but still have some good links and maybe had things like a GMB and listings on sites like Yelp.

I do this because my theory is that these domains already have the classifier of being a local site.

Then, I take that domain and revive it with a homepage very similar to what it used to be. Thanks to the Google Leak, I know now that this has been a good idea thanks to that ‘keeping 20 versions of a page’ thing that Google does.

Let that simmer a bit and then load up a /blog/ section on the site with my typical niche site content and profit.

That’s not the only way though.

I’ve consulted for people who are doing Rank and Rent and having an easy as fuck time ranking and selling those leads. But, the catch here is that you gotta sell leads or rent out the site to a business….which means phone calls.

One guy is even putting a blog on these and double profiting.

Honestly, with my local newsletter I’m considering doing the whole R&R thing and then promoting it in one of my ad spots to send even more traffic. But not sure if I will actually do this.

I’ve also consulted with a few people who are going the local SEO client route. Of course, this isn’t for everyone and does require the ability the market and sell your local SEO service. But once you get a client, it’s not that difficult to rank for local terms.

And I’ve talked with one guy who just decided to start up his own local service business and rank his own site. Respect for that, but not everyone wants to start up a local landscaping business.

Anyways…

We do local SEO at Growth Cupid - for real local businesses as well as “local” DFY site builds for reformed niched site owners looking for a new project. Reach out while we’re running this 22% off SUMMER sale to see if we can help you.

EVERYTHING IS ON SALE

Save 22% with code SUMMER

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Our summer sale runs through my birthday - the 22nd.

If you end up spending at least $5,000, I’ll give you an additional 10% discount with code SUMMERBONUS

Week 7 of Local Newsletter Life Coming To A Close

Closing in on the end of week #7 of doing a local newsletter on Beehiiv.

At the time I’m writing this, we’re at 1,594 subs and we’ll definitely cross 1,600 before the end of today.

We had some growth challenges this week as I was testing a new ad creative AND expanding the geographic radius of who to show that ad to by just a few miles. This resulted in $3.33 per lead costs and that is not cool.

Yesterday I narrowed that audience radius back down and lead cost is trending in the right direction.

I’m also rethinking my plan to hit up the farmer’s market this weekend to solicit advertisers because the above normal heatwave has been extended another week and I’m not really interested in being outside in the 115F heat on a Saturday morning.

It’s also Restaurant Week in Vegas, so we’re hitting up a brunch so that we can write about it in the newsletter next week.

All that to say, I’ve made zero effort in getting advertisers this week. But here’s the teensy amount of earnings with Beehiiv boosts -

One thing I’ve noticed is that you can send these chumps subscribers that you don’t end up getting paid for cause they’re not “verified.”

This is all from a single newsletter that I’m Boosting, and I just got approved for a different one that I’ll try and see if results are any better.

And I’ve only gotten one advertiser request from within Beehiiv still for this local newsletter - but it wasn’t a good audience fit, so I declined it. These seem to be all cost-per-click ads where you get paid by the click. If I hadn’t declined that one, then it would look a lot like the sponsored ad you see below. Check that business out and see if it’s a good fit for your projects.

I’ll give you an earnings update on that ad below once I get the results.

Reminder: I'm writing updates about my local newsletter on Twitter here and doing a more detailed case study in my private forum.

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Next Time…

I’ve seen a surprising amount of people getting into KDP and publishing books on Amazon for a new side hustle or main hustle. It’s also a great new revenue stream for sites. This is something that I’ve been doing for more than a decade, so I’ll talk some about that.

If I get replies to my question about Etsy product embeds on a Wordpress site sending ecomm signals, we’ll talk about that.

And maybe more? Let me know if you have any requests by replying to this email.

Stay awesome,

Shawna

P.S. A reader got a KILLER $1/mo offer after completing the Post Planner free trial. Give it a try if you're building up a Facebook page. The longer I use it, the more I love it.

🚨 🚨 P.P.S. Don’t sleep on this Growth Cupid sale cause we have limited capacity for some of the services. 🚨 🚨

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