GreyWing

We floated this a little while ago and we couldn't get the right off the peg software to run it for us. We have decided to build it from scratch and do exactly what we want it to do.

As you know we write content at that.co.uk but there is kind of a limt to what we and our customers do with that content. So we decided to take it one step further and build a sort of trading market so that one customer can place their content on the website of another person.

So person A puts their content (not links, but seo friendly content) on the website of person B. For that person A will pay person B a fee.

Now what is stopping person B from getting paid and removing the content, well we came up with a solution that all fees are paid monthly. So instead of buying permenant space, the buyer is renting it. Person A would pay at the start of the month, Person B will be paid at the end of the month's term. We would be a type of broker for this and hold the payment until both sides agree all is done.

At the end of the month person A can renew with person b or they can end it, at which point person b can leave the content live on their site (they won't get paid for it though, maybe they will keep the content and just remove the link?) or remove it completely.

We have been drawing this up for about 5 months, we are in bed so to speak with huge buyers of links (I hate to say that word), some of the big price comparison sites.

It won't be an open market, sites won't be indexed by Google, sites will be idenitified by a serial number, pr, incoming links, indexed pages, and some other details. But not the url until after payment has been made and then the buyer can cancel or continue if they are not happy. This is because it will do no good for Google to get in.

Any thoughts or questions as people on here often flag up some good ideas about the system short falls etc.

I'm coming at it from someone who found it hard to buy page space / links and from a web owner who wanted to make more money than adsense or affiliates were providing.

Feel free to voice up, good or bad. We are a long way down this project but we can make changes if we have missed anything.

Cheers
GW

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Ashton

Very interested to see where this goes - I am wasting so much time contacting blog owners for guest posts and paid links, would be nice to have a service to speed this up.

GreyWing

Snap mate...

Trouble was that we would contact blog owners, they came in two forms.

1) they knew what you wanted and would charge a fortune

or

2) they didn't have a clue why you wanted to do it and would tell you to pee off

But yes it is meant to be a huge timesaver. Time scale for launch is about two weeks.

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Forgot to say the web owner can advertise for what ever prive per month they see fit, they will be in competition with other web site / blog owners. Will it be a buyers or sellers market, I'm not sure.

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viceroy

I think this is a good idea- give us some updates when its live to let us know how things are panning out.
I tried a similar thing a while ago to get unique content for one of my sites but the admin involved was a little over the top. Basically, instead of charging for links or listings, I allowed editors, media reporters and webmasters to post news items on the sites' news pages (free)- they provided the meta tags, content, and one link and i kept the link live if the content was proved to be unique. Trying to explain the benefits, why I was doing it as well as what they had to do was very tedious and they inevitably ran out of steam after the first few posts. One gmail convo ended with 27 messages

Blossom

I might be not understanding this because I'm tired right now, but...

If it's not links then what does person A get out of creating content for someone else's site and then paying for the privilege? A very weak ad for their site without link or call to action?

Well you'd assume that if person A has written content AND paid person B for it, that person B would be extremely grateful and happy to have free SEO content for their site and money in their pocket.

It sounds extremely and unnecessarily overcomplicated. If you want a guest post, google it or go to myblogguest, or go to sites which have a lot of guest posters. If you want links/promotion, go to sponsoredreviews or socialspark or text link ads or even fiverr or pay for a press release from somewhere decent. Or do some competitor analysis and see what kinds of links competitors have.

They are plenty of options out there for free and paid links, and free and paid promotion. You just need to know where to look. You can get mommy bloggers to write a promotional post and give you some links for $10 or sending them free stuff...and most of their sites are average quality (think PR4+). You can get a ton of links from them simply by holding a contest and giving away a £50 or $100 gift card. Advertise it on moneysavingexpert for UK or mom forums for US and you'll get loads of people signed up in a day, or get tweeting and it'll spread fast.

These systems already exist, they're simple and they work. I think you should have a look into them and then simplify your ideas a lot. Socialspark and Demand Studios in particular have tons of bloggers listed. Yes there's a good market for a UK version, and there's plenty more scope for different offerings, but keep it simple.

GreyWing

Yep Blossom some good points, but there is more to it and probably the seo focused guys will already have picked up on the benefits of buying space / links.

When we refer to links, we mean purely one or two lines and a html link to a site. We don't want to get involved in that. We are talking probably 200-250 word (minimum) unique articles being placed on a third party's site.

One our system it will be anonymous and well out of site of Google, so the benefits of that pr4 link on our system will be hugely beneficial compared to the pr4 link you will buy on a site that Google knows is selling links / space.

I don't know how many sites like the ones you mention companies like the price comparison sites use but they have indicated to us that they are willing to use us from day one if we can deliver what we promise.

I'm certainly not trying to convince anyone of an seo strategy for their sites, that is there business. If people want to use those types of sites then fair play to them. We have no interest in becoming a pile'em high mass market provider / broker.

We are sure our model will work perfectly well for buyers and sellers because on my personal sites I need to use both sides of it. But the PR level is only one factor of who valuable a link is, we will give about 7-8 factors that will allow a buyer to judge the value of the sellers product. For lesser established sites their will be an option of exchanging space for free unique content.

All the best
GW

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Alien

This sounds a very interesting idea, Graeme - good luck with it and will watch it unfold with interest.

Hope its very successful for all concerned.

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ratboy

I'm a very happy customer of the content side of that.co.uk - good luck with it, sounds massive

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GreyWing

Tried to launch it before mate, never really got the system right so never went live. But yep it is looking pretty big to build, I'm trying to make things as automated as possible, but not automated because Google could get in.

We have a list of average prices the price comparison people will pay and for a pr2 loan type finance site then they are looking about £50 a month. Different companies have different prices for different sectors they are willing to pay but for web owners there will be some good cash to be had.

Cheers for the testimonial on the content side mate, it's appreciated and I'll pass it onto the girls.

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ProDomains

Go for it