Digital Landlord Mastery: 7 Tips To Crush Success

The term “digital landlord” can have at least two different meanings. It’s sometimes used to define managing physical rental properties using digital technologies.

But it can also mean you own and manage virtual properties as a landlord would with physical rental properties. In this case, the virtual properties are digital real estate like blogs, websites, and social media accounts. Similar to physical real estate properties, once you own them, you can rent them out to other companies.

In this article, digital real estate refers to being a digital landlord who rents online properties like websites.

As a physical real estate investor, owning a virtual real estate asset portfolio is a new and exciting way to diversify my investments even further.

But the main reason digital real estate caught my eye?

Lower initial cost.

The barriers to entry are more accessible since less capital is required to start, and the upside can be just as lucrative.

As you probably know real estate investing is expensive. It takes a lot of work to get your foot in the door, and using your own money to buy property today is challenging, to say the least.

But digital real estate investing offers numerous advantages, which we’ll cover here.

Also, I want to share the inspiring story of one digital landlord crushing it with local lead generation. It’s an example of how you can apply these proven successful strategies to your own business.

Ready to learn from the best and see if digital real estate investing is right for you? Let’s dive into the journey of this successful digital landlord and uncover the secrets to their success.

TL;DR:

• Digital real estate is a type of investment that involves buying and selling online properties, such as websites, domain names, and social media accounts.
• A digital landlord can make money from virtual assets in many ways, such as advertising, affiliate marketing, and selling products or services.
• To become a successful digital landlord, you need to have a good understanding of digital marketing, SEO, and content creation. Consider using Content at Scale as Joe does in his digital landlord business.
• You must also be patient and persistent, as becoming a successful digital landlord takes time and digital leasing passive income doesn’t happen overnight.

Readers support our site. If you purchase through links on our site, I might receive an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you.

What is a Digital Landlord?

A traditional landlord is responsible for managing investment properties, including ensuring the properties are well-maintained, finding and screening tenants, collecting rent, making money, and complying with local landlord-tenant laws.

Traditional real estate investing involves buying physical properties, such as residential houses or commercial buildings and holding, fixing, or renting them to earn a return on investment (ROI). The real estate investor achieves ROI through rental income, the future resale of the property, or both.

A digital landlord owns and manages a collection of websites rather than houses or apartment buildings.

These websites serve as online platforms that you can rent out to small businesses looking to promote their products or services, providing virtual real estate. 

The goal for a digital landlord is to generate traffic to these sites, which can help the businesses renting the digital space to increase their visibility and customer engagement.

Both landlord types involve managing investment properties and aim to generate recurring income. However, traditional real estate investors deal with tangible assets and physical spaces, while digital landlords deal with intangible assets in the virtual world.

Power of Community and Networking

As promised, here’s how one of the digital landlord success stories with someone who has found success in the digital real estate market.

I first encountered Joe Crivello-Sorensen when I was part of the Content At Scale community. Content at Scale is a software that utilizes AI technology to assist content marketers in creating blog posts.

The creators of Content at Scale are not merely software providers. They aim to cultivate a community where idea exchange and collaboration drive mutual growth. And indeed, they are succeeding. This post is an excellent example. 

Joe is a generous participant in this community and willingly shares his experiences and knowledge. His presentation on using Content at Scale for his business operations made me realize he is the epitome of a digital landlord. 

Intrigued by his approach and success, I contacted Joe to learn about his business model and share these valuable insights with my readers.

A Real Digital Landlord

Joe is a genuine success story. He has established a vast local lead generation business, embodying the role of a digital landlord, even without recognizing that is what he’s doing. What distinguishes Joe is his quarter-century of experience in the service industry. 

He possesses an authentic understanding of his customers, their issues, and obstacles, enabling him to provide genuine, practical solutions and save them time and money.

Before diving into the details of Joe’s incredible business, let me share a few statistics with you:

We often use “Assets Under Management” (AUM) to signify syndicators’ experience and real estate portfolio in the real estate industry. As discussed in my blog, traditional real estate investors typically need to raise capital through syndications to scale the business and property investment.

In virtual real estate investing, imagine being a “digital landlord” who owns online properties and rents them to other companies. In this business model, you become an expert at driving online traffic while your “tenants” pay a “rental fee” to generate more leads for their businesses.

If we were to equate AUM to a new term in the digital world — let’s call it Websites Under Management (WUM) — Joe’s numbers are pretty significant (and impressive!).

Joe currently manages over 700 websites.

And in Joe’s experience, the revenue produced by websites can fluctuate based on numerous factors. However, he recently assisted one of his clients in generating over $500k in business, which led to nearly an additional $500k for him. You can check out the case study here.

While it’s not guaranteed that every website will generate this level of revenue, it’s undeniable that managing 700 websites and recurring rental clients is an impressive feat. Joe is delivering successful outcomes for his clients.

So when I say that you should pay attention to Joe if you want to become a digital landlord, you can trust that he is the real deal.

Traditional Property vs. Virtual Real Estate

Let’s look at the differences between owning traditional and virtual property.

Traditional Real Estate

In traditional real estate, adding value or repositioning properties is a crucial strategy to increase revenue. When deciding which properties to buy, you want to identify opportunities for these enhancements because they can help you actively drive up the property’s value and boost its passive income and potential.

Traditional real estate investors can add value to their properties and force appreciation in several ways, such as investing in renovations and improvements or adding amenities. 

To enhance a property’s value by minimizing costs and maximizing net income, you must ensure low vacancy rates and effective property management. Leveraging the power of property management software is an excellent option.

In conventional real estate, changing the function of a property can also be beneficial. For example, converting a single-family residence into a multi-family property can yield increased income.

Virtual Assets

Like traditional real estate investors, digital investors also seek methods to enhance the value of their online properties.

As a digital landlord, your goal is to identify and implement strategies that can boost the worth of your digital assets, ultimately leading to increased revenue.

A digital landlord can add value to virtual assets investors and their websites in several ways:

Enhancing User Experience (UX)

Again, we’ll use Joe as an example, as he is an expert at crafting visually appealing and user-friendly websites. He focuses on designing sites that are easy to navigate, load quickly, and are optimized for mobile use.

His emphasis on these aspects results in websites that draw in more visitors and keep them engaged for extended periods.  For a digital landlord, this is about creating the right environment and investing in the online property.

Here’s an example of his work:

Implementing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Joe has mastered the art of SEO. He strategically integrates relevant keywords, meta tags, and high-quality backlinks into his clients’ website content.

This approach boosts the site’s ranking on search engine results pages, leading to a surge in organic traffic. As a digital landlord, he keeps his virtual properties “in shape.” In the virtual world, this means highly optimized, leveraging local SEO, and providing a great user experience.

Remarkably, many websites he works on start ranking within just days of being launched. His deep understanding of effective SEO techniques drives these impressive results. 

Creating High-Quality Content

As a digital landlord, Joe’s expertise also extends to content creation. By regularly updating websites with fresh, engaging, and relevant content — blog posts, videos, infographics, or any other valuable materials — he attracts more leads and visitors who keep coming back for more. 

Joe’s team consistently produces up to 200 blog posts monthly using software like Content at Scale, highlighting their commitment to delivering quality content.

Executing Profitable Monetization Strategies

While ranking is all well and good, money makes the world go ’round. Joe also excels in implementing successful monetization strategies. These can range from display advertising and affiliate marketing to sponsored content or offering premium services or products. 

Although Joe’s current focus is on building new websites and generating leads for his local service business clients, he has a proven track record of effectively monetizing his websites. One such example is Envirotize.com, an odor and germ protection website he established during the pandemic.

Utilizing Social Media and Email Marketing

Social media is the number one way to attract digital attention. Joe’s digital landlord role extends into social media, which his company uses to promote its customers, drive more traffic, and enhance visibility. This strategy not only increases the reach of the website but also aids his clients in creating awareness and generating leads for their businesses.

By emphasizing these strategies, a digital landlord like Joe can enhance the worth of online assets on their websites, draw in more visitors, and boost revenue generation.

This is an area where Joe particularly excels.

What is A Local Lead Generation Business?

A local lead generation business uses internet-based tactics and tools to capture the attention of potential customers, referred to as leads, for local service businesses—these range from plumbers and carpet cleaners to auto glass repair services and HVAC companies. 

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, 33.2 million small businesses across the United States seek to expand their customer base and grow their operations. This lead generation business plays a big role in facilitating that growth.

The lead generation process often involves capturing the interest of potential customers through various digital marketing methods such as content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media marketing, and pay-per-click advertising.

Rank And Rent Strategy

“Rank and Rent” is a digital marketing business model where someone builds, optimizes, and ranks simple websites in local search results for specific keywords.

Once the website can rank high and attract traffic, the owner becomes a digital landlord and rents the website or its lead-generation capabilities to local business owners. 

For example, a person could create a website about plumbing services in a specific city and optimize it for search engines so that it appears in the top results when people search for a local plumber. Once the website gets regular traffic and generates leads, the digital landlord can rent the domain of this website to a local plumber. The plumber gets access to the leads generated by the website, and the website owner gets passive rental income.

This approach allows you to profit from your SEO skills without managing a local business. In essence, you act as a digital landlord who rents digital assets — websites — to a company that can benefit from its online visibility and lead-generation capabilities. 

Joe employs a similar strategy, except that he works directly with the local business first. He then builds unique websites for each client and quickly achieves high search rankings to show how valuable the property is.

There was only one occasion when a client was selling their business, and he was able to repurpose the website for another local company in the same field.

Helping Small Business Owners

Managing a service business and attracting new potential customers are two different yet essential skills of a digital landlord. Having owned a restoration company for over 25 years, Joe has firsthand experience with both.

He effectively implemented digital marketing strategies in his own business. After selling his company, he planned to consult and assist others in growing their businesses — Joe didn’t have any plans to become a digital landlord. 🛠

However, seeing these companies’ difficulties in marketing and attracting new business, he chose to be more hands-on.

Joe’s business growth has primarily been fueled by word-of-mouth referrals, a testament to his proven track record of delivering results for his clients.

This, combined with his deep understanding of their challenges, his passion for helping the underdog succeed, and his philosophy of consistently over-delivering, has allowed him to become a digital landlord with a robust business. 

Digital Landlord Strategies

So, what are the key strategies Joe employs in his digital business to help clients attract new customers that you can use, too? 

Joe was inspired by a marketing strategy where a marketer outranked all major insurance companies by creating several blog posts on various but related topics, adding up to over a million words.

After studying and reverse-engineering this approach, Joe implemented it in his own business. 

Now, his strategy involves creating a comprehensive ‘pillar page’ with extensive content for each client. He then produces numerous blog posts related to each section of that pillar content and links them all internally.

His team invests two weeks researching keywords and crafting a tailored strategy for each client’s website.

Joe offers more than 14 different services to his clients, including website development, social media management, videos, and pay-per-click advertising.

This is a screenshot of Joe demonstrating some of his work for his clients:

Steps to Become a Digital Landlord

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started in digital investing:

Step 1: Learn About Online Assets

Before you start your journey, learn about the digital investing space, including blogging, websites, eCommerce stores, digital platforms, domains, social media accounts, and more.

As a digital landlord, your primary objective is to invest in various online properties to create income. However, you might find certain areas more intriguing than others, and I recommend sticking to the areas you excel at or are most interested in.

For instance, my main blog discusses traditional online assets, but I also look at virtual properties within the Metaverse.

Step 2: Understand The Basics of Online Platforms

You have to crawl before you can walk.

Learn how the different online platforms work. This includes knowing how websites are created, how domains work, how to monetize social media accounts, etc.

Check out various online courses or tutorials. A great place to start is with Udemy courses such as:

The Complete Digital Marketing Course(164,000 reviews!)

Digital Marketing Masterclass (21,000 reviews)

Metaverse Masterclass(4,800 reviews)

Rank and Rent(761 reviews)

Step 3: Identify Your Niche

Find the right niche that interests you and has the potential to make the most money.

It could be anything from a specific industry, like technology, fashion, or health and wellness, to digital property elements like blogs, eCommerce sites, or apps.

For Joe, his expertise lies in the local service industry. He specializes in helping small business owners expand their operations within local markets.

Step 4: Research and Plan

Do thorough research on your chosen niche.

Understand market trends, pinpoint thriving digital properties in your niche, and scrutinize their business models.

Research and planning are significant factors behind Joe’s success. He didn’t randomly decide to become a digital landlord to local service businesses. He chose this niche because he profoundly understands his customers because he was once in their shoes!

Create a plan outlining your investment strategy and potential revenue streams based on your findings.

Step 5: Acquire Digital Properties

Once you have a plan, you can start acquiring digital properties.

You can either create them from scratch or buy existing ones.

If you decide to buy an existing online asset, there are several online marketplace platforms where you can purchase digital properties, such as:

1. Flippa: This platform is popular for buying and selling websites, domains, and apps. It also provides an auction feature for these assets.

2. Empire Flippers: Ideal for purchasing profitable websites and online businesses, Empire Flippers offers a curated marketplace with thoroughly vetted listings.

3. Sedo: Sedo is a global marketplace for buying, selling, and parking domains.

4. Afternic: Another platform for buying and selling domains with a large inventory.

5. FE International: FE International provides a professional service for buying and selling established websites and online businesses.

6. OpenSea: A marketplace for NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), including digital art, music, domain names, and online assets.

7. Decentraland: This platform lets you buy and sell virtual assets in the Metaverse.

8. Trustiu: You can buy or sell online businesses and digital properties here.

I recommend this insightful article from Empire Flippers, which stresses the importance of conducting comprehensive due diligence before making purchases on any platform, so you make a good investment choice.

Step 6: Improve and Monetize Your Properties

After acquiring a digital property, just like a physical property, you must work to improve it to increase its value.

This process might include enhancing your website’s SEO, producing top-notch content, and boosting engagement on social media platforms, among other strategies.

Then, you’ll want to monetize your property through various methods like advertisements, affiliate marketing, directly selling products or services, etc.

Step 7: Manage Your Properties

As a digital landlord, you need to manage your properties effectively and efficiently.

This includes making regular updates, solving technical issues, increasing marketing, and providing customer support.

Bonus: Rent Out or Sell Your Properties

When your digital properties generate consistent income, you can rent or sell them for a profit via the marketplaces mentioned above.

Becoming a successful digital landlord requires time, effort, and patience. But it can be a profitable business model with the right approach and dedication.

My Take As An Experienced Real Estate Investor Now Venturing Into Digital Property

Here are some of my thoughts on starting in physical real estate investing and adding in digital.

Traditional Real Estate Portfolio

My husband and I have been deeply involved in traditional real estate investments for many years. Our journey into the real estate industry began with investing in single-family homes, then moved on to multi-family properties. Now, we’ve expanded our portfolio even further to include hotels and hotel syndications..

Although profitable, this business model has challenges and learning curves. We couldn’t have begun with hotel syndications; it took years of experience and some failures to work up to this level.

Capital and Revenue

Getting started with traditional real estate requires a considerable initial investment. This could be your money or capital sourced from property investors, as my husband and I do in our syndicate arrangements.

The revenue from our properties is twofold:

1. Renting out the property provides a steady cash flow.
2. The property’s appreciation in value often results in the most money when we sell the property.

Traditional real estate is very hands-on, and I definitely wouldn’t call it passive income… there’s a lot of work involved. Even if you hire a third-party property management company, you must provide oversight and address issues.

Location Constraints

The biggest issue I see with physical property is the constraints of a physical location. For example, owning hotels during the pandemic was challenging, depending on location. One of the hotels my husband and I own is in a business park and suffered greatly from a lack of bookings.

There’s no amount of promotion or advertising that he or I could have done to increase our traffic (bookings).

Virtual Properties

Digital investing also requires a lot of work. If you don’t already know the digital marketing space, you’ll need to invest the time to learn.

And the software tools… these can be incredibly overwhelming.

Especially if you are not technical like me.🤷‍♀️

Similarly to employing a third-party property manager in traditional real estate, even if you delegate some tasks for your virtual asset, you still have to provide oversight as a digital landlord to ensure your investments function as they should.

Lower Risks and Flexibility

As someone deeply invested in traditional real estate, the relatively small capital requirement for entering digital investing appeals to me. The risks are lower, too – as a digital landlord, if your virtual asset fails, you’re not losing a million dollars like you can in traditional real estate.

This provides an extraordinary level of flexibility and freedom to experiment with new strategies for making money.

The major advantage I see in being a digital landlord is its flexibility. You can swiftly switch tactics, alter your strategy, and introduce new methods to generate traffic. And you can do it from anywhere you have an internet connection.

Unlike physical real estate, which is limited by location, virtual property has limitless growth potential.

Diversification

Traditional real estate provides the reassurance of a physical asset but lacks adaptability. Conversely, being a digital landlord may require more upfront work, especially for novices, but in return, it offers unlimited flexibility and potential returns.

That said, a balanced approach is best. Diversifying your investments is a wise strategy, just as you wouldn’t put all your money in one stock.

Traditional real estate brings substantial tax benefits and other long-term perks. Meanwhile, virtual property presents the prospect of a monthly income only limited by your hard work.

For a more passive route into physical real estate investing, I recommend exploring SparkRental’s co-invest club. You can invest alongside experienced property investors in commercial real estate syndications across the U.S. starting at $5,000.

Is being a digital landlord legit?

Yes, being a digital landlord is legitimate. It’s a modern business model that provides recurring revenue by owning and managing digital properties, such as websites, and renting them out to businesses or individuals.

Like physical real estate, the value lies in the location (or, in this case, the web traffic and visibility). However, as with any business venture, it requires due diligence, understanding of the market, and effective management to be successful.

As a seasoned real estate investor, I find virtual assets intriguing. Physical real estate investing requires substantial capital for property purchase or creative financing. And the right location choice can be critical.

You must address these areas to avoid significant financial loss and affect your passive income opportunity.

However, the initial investment is minimal with digital real estate, such as creating websites or managing social media accounts. You aren’t investing much of your money to get started.

If a site struggles to attract traffic, it simply requires more effort to improve. The more you work on creating a virtual asset, the more passive income you can create.

The risk of substantial losses in virtual assets is significantly lower than in physical real estate, and the work on your digital landlord business can take place in your free time.

Wrap Up

As I’ve explored in this article, the concept of becoming a “digital landlord” is a way for some entrepreneurs to generate income through owning and managing virtual assets.

The case study profiled here shows it’s possible but you’ll need to put in significant initial efforts before seeing profits.

Ultimately, the principles appear similar to traditional real estate investing – spotting opportunities, taking calculated risks, and constantly adding value. Patience and dedication are key in either scenario.

Digital Landlord FAQ

What does it mean to be a digital landlord?

Being a digital landlord involves managing and owning online assets like websites. These assets are then rented out to small business owners who wish to showcase their products or services or who need the traffic and inquiries these websites generate.

The goal of a digital landlord is to drive online traffic to these platforms and virtual real estate. This role uses modern technology to manage these digital properties, including various software tools.

In addition, some digital landlords may help businesses unlock high-value virtual property on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google.

How do digital landlords work?

Digital landlords own and manage online virtual properties like websites or social media accounts. Here’s a general view of their work process:

• Acquisition or Creation: Digital landlords either create a new website or acquire an existing virtual asset that can generate traffic.
• Optimization: Once they own the site, they optimize it for search engines and improve the user experience to attract more visitors.
• Monetization: After optimizing, digital landlords rent out the space on the website to local businesses that want to advertise their products or services. Most small business owners want to avoid the hassle of creating their sites. This can be for paid ads through banner ads, sponsored content, affiliate marketing, or other methods.
• Maintenance: They regularly update and maintain the website to ensure it performs well and attracts visitors.
• Rental Income: Digital landlords earn revenue from businesses renting space on their websites to local companies or others.

The ultimate goal of digital landlords is to increase web traffic to their digital properties, increasing their rental income.

What is a digital rental property?

Digital rental property is a virtual property managed and owned by digital landlords, such as a website or a social media account.

You rent these properties out to businesses or individuals who wish to take advantage of the traffic these sites generate, similar to how you would rent out a physical property for its location and amenities.

The renters of digital properties use them to showcase their products or services, reach a wider audience, or generate leads. Digital landlords earn income from the rent paid by these businesses.

The more traffic and visibility a digital or property investment has, the more valuable it becomes, just like a property investment in a prime physical location.

Is digital Investing profitable?

Yes, digital investing can be profitable.

Digital landlords earn income from various sources, such as recurring income, such as advertising revenue, sales of products or services, affiliate marketing, and rental income from businesses that wish to leverage the traffic and visibility of their digital property.

In the metaverse, virtual property can be monetized by creating unique virtual experiences, hosting events, or renting out virtual space to businesses.

Like any investment, digital landlords aren’t guaranteed profitability. They need a good understanding of the digital landscape, effective strategies to attract and maintain web traffic, and constant updating and optimization of the digital property.