EP 17: What the Growth!?Buying Competitor’s Websites That Have Gone Out of Business

In this episode of What the Growth!? Nick talks about buying competitor’s websites that have gone out of business in order to drive traffic and leads for your business. This is a tactic that anybody can use, and Visitor Queue has used from the very beginning to drive qualified traffic and leads.

Identify Expired Domain Names

The tactic here is to find old websites of competitors that have gone out of business and redirect that website to yours to take advantage of any traffic that still might be going to that old website. While they are often smaller companies and startups you’d be surprised how many competitors of yours have simply gone out of business and let their domain expire. The previous owner likely spent some time on marketing that could be still driving traffic to that website. You’ll want to start by finding a list of your competitors that have gone out of business. You can do this with a simple Google search and looking through old listing websites for your industry.

Search Their Domain

Once you’ve found some competitors that have gone out of business, identify what their domain name was and do a search in GoDaddy or similar services to see if the domain name is available.

If the domain name isn’t available, it may become available once it expires. So, do a search on the website Who.Is to see when it expires. Then, check again if it’s available after this date.

How to Set Up a 301 Redirect

Once you’ve found a competitor’s website that you’re able to buy go ahead and buy it. Then, set up a 301 redirect to your main website. Services like GoDaddy and other popular domain registration websites will have a default mode built in to create a standard 301 redirect. If you need help setting up a 301 redirect, check out this article. Once you set up the redirect, anyone that visits your old competitor’s website will now end up on your website.

Final Words

You’d be surprised how much traffic goes to these expired domains. And, it’s at the low cost of purchasing the domain. Buying competitor’s websites can drive a lot of qualified traffic and hopefully a few new leads.

Bonus Tip: Set up a landing page or a banner at the top of the website. So, people know that they’re still in the right place even though they’re on a different website.