What would you do with PhoneRepair.com?

[NathanHH]

[full disclosure] I own this domain/site... not sure whether to build a business on it?

I put up a few repair guides and it has 1000+ indexed keywords... do you reckon it's worth building out and investing in.

If so how do you think the monetisation could be optimised? Thanks for any ideas and I promise to promptly respond for a healthy interesting thread

 

[dee]

Does it get much traffic at the moment ?

Possibly a repair shop directory ? Other than broken screens is there a lot of call for phone repairs these days ? Genuine question.... would have thought people just upgrade quicker / get a new one if phone breaks these days.

 

[NathanHH]

Not much traffic as most of the organic keywords are in the 10+ - 50 ranking range. With a bit of work these could be increased to get fairly decent traffic flows.

You are spot on with the comment about repair. We live in a disposable society and that's a concern when it comes to monetisation...

ifixit has built a pretty big business but in terms of trying to catch them... forget it

 

[dee]

Are there any phone recycle affilliate schemes you could use ? I seem to remember there quite a push on the "sell your old phone for cash" schemes a while back.

 

[scottmccloud]

Are there any phone recycle affilliate schemes you could use ? I seem to remember there quite a push on the "sell your old phone for cash" schemes a while back.

If there are, you could have a page for each type of phone and each type of repair, embed a YouTube video and hope that people find the prospect of repairing it far too much of a pain in the arse and click on your affiliate link to a sell your broken phone website.

 

[NathanHH]

that's a really good idea, hadn't thought about that before very quick check found affiliate networks offering £3-5 per phone purchased

 

[Edwin]

Plenty of phone repair affiliate programs. A very quick Google turned up...
https://www.imend.com/affiliates/
http://phonezoneuk.co.uk/index.php?route=affiliate/login
http://phonefix.co.uk/index.php?route=affiliate/login

Plus you could also have links to mobile phone insurance I guess. For example
http://www.buymobilephoneinsurance.com/64/affiliates
http://www.gadgetbuddy.com/affiliate-with-buddy

 

[NathanHH]

Thanks Edwin that's really helpful to know I'll dig into this further

 

[ausername]

Obvious links would be to phone retailers wouldn't they? Your visitor has a broken phone, so either they:

a) Get it repaired

or..

b) Buy a new one

Links to mobile phone insurance don't make much sense, because they can't (or shouldn't) insure a phone which is already broken, or a phone that they don't own yet.

Perhaps a series of DIY repair guides with affiliate links to replacement screens etc on Amazon & ebay, but with banner ads for online phone retailers and the 'sell your broken phone' companies.

Could try and index 'How to fix xxxxxx xxx screen' for every popular phone model.... A lot of work, but potentially high rewards (eventually).

Suppose you could stick a banner up for mobile phone insurance and you might send the odd one through to steal their cookie, but don't most people purchase this as an add-on at checkout when they buy a new phone?

ps. The cynic in me should suggest making the DIY repair guides sound as complicated as possible, so that all of the technophobic people think "scrap this, can't be bothered" and click through to buy a new phone

Before Google became good at identifying low quality content, there were actually people who would literally make their content as rubbish as possible on their made for adsense sites because it wouldn't increase the number of people desperate to click off the page (and often that would be through the ad units).

 

[NathanHH]

ausername you're right i think there are 4 possible outcomes with the corresponding monetisation:

1. get it repaired using a service = repair: lead gen partner / affiliate links / build a phone repair business
2. get it repaired diy = ecommerce: lead gen partner / affiliate links / build a drop ship tools/parts business
3. can't repair or can't be bothered, get new phone = buy new phone: lead gen partner / affiliate links / build a phone sales business - if they do this also target them with an offer for the trade in value of their broken phone too
4. they can keep using a phone that works but is broken e.g. cracked screen

seems to me it's worth building out, testing 3. and 1. as an affiliate, then if successful moving up the margin chain to build out a business in due course

 

[Edwin]

I still think that someone who finds themselves having to go to the expense of a repair may also (subsequently, perhaps) be tempted by the option to take out insurance to negate or mitigate such an expense arising again in future. Especially since some of the most recent iPhones can cost £300-400 to repair. That's a decent mid-range Android phone's worth every time. So insurance makes sense. Like somebody who suffers a house fire will be more inclined to think about fire insurance in future.

The other angle of attack is to highlight things that would mitigate future damage, such as extra strong and/or waterproof cases, shatterproof screen coverings etc. Again, so that the person who's faced with a repair bill can start to think about how to avoid a similar bill in future.

Even if the above doesn't necessarily generate much/any additional income, it could add VALUE to the site if done right (from a visitor's perspective, I mean - I don't mean that the site becomes monetarily more valuable). And, unless you're trying to trick Google into giving prominence to a thin affiliate play, you're going to need to provide as much value as you can for SEO purposes.

 

[Edwin]

So you have:
- Prevention (cases, screen covers etc.)
- Mitigation (insurance)
- Repair
- Replacement

(Those wouldn't necessarily be the actual categories, but they're the 4 broad lines to take. Each could be subdivided as needed to provide maximum information and detail, and max affiliate link drop opportunity.)

 

[ausername]

Step 1: Build traffic
Step 2: Work out how to make it pay, by AB testing the four obvious affiliate types Edwin lists above (and even give adsense a bash).

Step 1 is the hard bit, not step 2.

 

[NathanHH]

Gents, thanks so much for all your input. I've decided to sell this domain as I'm too busy with the telecoms venture I'm running. Thanks, thanks and thanks again, have a great Christmas.