Introducing: The Mothership

The Mothership is a website.

It's a nationwide website, like the national franchises enjoy, but for you — the independent local brands. Now you have a competitive space to join.

It's brand new, and space is limited, so reserve your boarding pass today!

I thought of this project over 3 years ago when I noticed that the local cleaner from the big national franchises often showed up in higher positions on Google than all the local, home-grown, independently-branded cleaning businesses.

Why? Because the franchise cleaners are so much better?

No, not usually.

It became pretty clear to me that they rank higher because they have an unfair advantage: each local franchisee cleaner has whole web-pages devoted to each city that they serve that is part of a huge, well-built, high-value, nationwide website — THEIR "mothership" as I call it.

I thought to myself, man, wouldn't it be great for my small business clients with their individual brands if I could get them their own pages on large nationwide websites. That would be SEO GOLD!

Well, of course the franchisors would never go for that.

But still — wouldnt it be great?

Then I thought — "What if I created a large, well-built, high-value, nationwide website — except it's only for top-rated, small, independent local brands of high quality and high integrity?" I think it could eventually grow larger and stronger than even the franchisor's motherships, because there's a lot more of you independent brands. And it would almost certainly give you an SEO edge over all the other individual brands in your area.

So, a year ago, I set out to create this website, and I’ve code-named it "The Mothership", and I’m happy to announce that progress has started, and space is currently available. It's called:

OurLocalCleaner.com

The "Local" Connection

The idea of making the Local connection in The Mothership taps into the local community spirit which gives rise to popular "Choose Local Businesses" campaigns such as "Small Business Saturday" around the holiday time.
Here is my first-draft mission statement. What do you think?

Our Local Cleaner™ promotes the best of your neighborhood carpet cleaning service professionals who have created a brand that reflects local character and community well-being. Keep your dollars in the local economy! Compared to nationwide chains, locally-owned businesses keep a much larger share of dollars in the local economy.

Many of the cleaners you’ll find on this site have lived in their local communities all their lives. They’ve built their business from the ground up in the community, working with the small business leaders and authorities to reflect community values, and contributing to local causes. Many of these carpet cleaning professionals are also owner-operators, meaning the owner will clean your carpets each and every time you call. They are interested in building a long-term neighborly trust with you, and provide excellent service, in hopes that you'll want to recommend them to other neighbors as well.

Enhances Your Website

To be clear, The Mothership will be closely connected to your regular individual brand website. The Mothership is never meant to replace your website. You will always need your own brand-specific website. But your website will have a very close connection to The Mothership.

Remember that in SEO, quality links from other websites will boost your website’s authority in Google’s eyes. The Mothership is meant to become the highest quality links you'll ever get. The Mothership is meant to become a golden SEO boost for your individual website, but your page on The Mothership also has the potential to reach the best spots on Google searches for some of your cities.

Very Important Note: Space is limited! Similar to a national franchise, you will have semi-exclusive service territories represented on The Mothership — only 1-3 cleaners per metro area, mostly based on population numbers. The rules set here are subject to tweaks, but it's important that competition within The Mothership is kept to a minimum. So, I must limit the space.

Think about sites like Angie's List that does not limit the space. They're creating a competition within Angie's List. The franchises promise exclusive territories to their franchisees to avoid franchisees competing with each other.

The Mothership is modeled much closer to the website that franchises enjoy.

I also want to be clear: This is a new website, less than a year old. In terms of Google's ranking, it will take some time for the power of The Mothership to mature. The franchise's websites have been around for a decade. The one advantage that they will continue to enjoy is maturity.

However, the potential advantages we have will be greater participation (more cleaners), faster-growth, and more expert contributions (from you!). Our Mothership has the potential to be 10 times larger than theirs in a few short years.

An important component of The Mothership is that each individual cleaner can contribute their voice and expertise to the project. For example, you can submit an article or a compelling success story to the "blog," and receive a link back from The Mothership to your website. That could be SEO PLATINUM for your local brand if you participate. A side effect is that you truly become a nationwide carpet cleaning expert, quite literally. And your local customers will feel lucky that they are being served by a nationwide expert. How does that sound?

Not to mention, as an early adopter of The Solid Setup, you'll have great influence on the direction The Mothership takes. Your feedback will help me make The Mothership the greatest carpet cleaning website on the internet. Seriously.

Another advantage of being a part of The Mothership and The Solid Setup is the power of a group. And that's the topic of the next tour page…

Next: Power of a Group

 

"How Many Cities
Do I Get?"

Subject to change!

Each Solid Setup subscriber
gets a Free Profile Page,
and One Free City Page
(of value 3 points or less).

For non-subscribers:
Each page is one-time $99 setup fee
plus monthly fee described below.

City Page Point Values:

Cities with a population of
over 1 million — 6 points
500,000 - 1M — 4 points
100,000 - 499,999 — 3 points
6,000 - 99,999 — 2 points
under 6,000 — 1 point.

Point Pricing is Currently:
$9.00/point/month
Rate Locked in for:
2 years

Sample Situation:

You're a top-rated carpet cleaner that works near San Jose, California.

You want to target 2 smaller cities in the area
so you'll need 2 pages:

Page 1: "Carpet Cleaning Los Gatos, California" Los Gatos population is about 30,000, so it's 2 points.

Page 2: "Tile and Grout Cleaning in Fremont, California" Fremont is population 237,000,
so it's 3 points.

Your monthly price for these two cities is 2+3=5 points per month, so 5 x $9.00 = $45/month.

There is an additional
per-page set-up fee:

The Solid Setup
subscribers AND non-subscribers
may purchase Mothership points anytime. Check to make sure the cities you want to target are available first.

The initial, one-time
price for each page
— Profile Page and City Pages —
is currently:

$99 one-time/per page

I currently don't have a fancy way to sign you up
— not yet! —
so just email me:
mike@murphymagic.com

What do you think so far?
What's on Your Mind?

I'm all about that no-strings-attached feeling.
No BS.
No Pressure.
No hype.
No bogus claims.

If we're the right fit, then I think we'll hit the jackpot together.

Talk to you soon.