richADZ's Site Build It! - Profitable Web Business or Bust

Most "gurus" normally tell us that submitting your web site to the big 3 (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) as maybe Dmoz is sufficient, since a lot of other search engines utilise the Big 3's search results.

The reason behind this is that most second tier Search Engines and Directories bring in too few visitors to your site to warrant submission as it is simply too time-consuming to hand-submit.

In any case, more than 80% of web surfers worldwide is said to use the Big 3 to perform searches for information, and thus, making it irrelevant to pay too much attention to the second tier Search Engines and Directories.

As for auto submission services..., based on my personal experience, it is advisable to submit your site manually the first time round, even if you have money to burn. But then, it may be better to use that money to advertise using Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, which is likely to be more effective. And there are just too many crap services out there that use out-of-date auto submission software to submit your site - and may get your site banned by the Search Engines.

Nevertheless, the main reason for submission to the second tier Search Engines and Directories is purely for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes - getting more links to your site will improve your search engine placement result (SERP) rankings with the big 3.

Of course, your site will get more kudos if you submit and get accepted at second tier Search Engines and Directories that is similar to the theme of your site (i.e., a travel site should submit to as many travel-related directories as possible) or often referred to as Niche Directories.

Does it work?

Of course it does.

And you'll get a lot of free targetted visitors (particularly, from the Big 3) to your site.

That was what I have been doing the last two weeks - adding/submitting my SBI! site to second tier Search Engines and Directories.

Not many "gurus" are promoting this simple technique because..., I believe it is simply too tedious and boring to "light up" the imagination of most netrepreneurs.

Anyway, the "gurus" just want to sell you something, not tell you about the hard work needed.

They will tell you how to submit to thousands of Search Engines with a click of a button..., if you buy their software.

They will tell you they will hand submit your site to 100+ Search Engines and Directories..., if you pay them.

They will tell you they can guarantee top 3 ranking for your site at Google..., if you pay them even more

Or the worst of the lot...,

They will tell you to forget about SEO if you buy their software that can trick the Search Engines to rank your site highly.

If you believe them, then, you'll believe anything.

You will believe that your ranking declines because Google changes its search algorithm - blame it on the Google Dance?

The question is..., who do you trust?

The "gurus" or your own hard work and perspiration?

There are so many "how to" information and books out there today on building or making the big bucks from Internet business.

No matter what advices on building and marketing a business you read, they will simply be advices. You will not be able to relate to them or put them in good use because you have not venture into a business yet.

You have not "dirty your hand", so to speak.

You won't learn much more than what you'd read unless you take action.

If you'd taken some action, no matter how minor it is, you will also have one added advantage:

The ability to see what information will work for you and what won't work.

This advantage will be the lifeline of your internet business endeavour.

To succeed, you need to fail.

The more you failed, the better you will become.

If you are serious about starting or profiting from an online business, do yourself a favour today, just get started!

The present *is* the time to get started. If you have EVER thought about selling a service and/or an e-good (or, more importantly, EVEN IF YOU HAVE NOT!), NOW is the best time to take some action.

Can't find a good "how to" information on starting a web business? Then, grab yourself a copy of Ken Evoy's ground-breaking Bible of Net-selling ebook called Make Your Site SELL! (MYSS!), an indispensable "must-read" for everyone involved or thinking of starting a web business.

For me (after almost a decade online) as well as thousands of other netrepreneurs, nothing even close to Make Your Site SELL! (MYSS!) exists on the Net today.

That was how I got started in this business...

So..., back to the question of "How to Make Big Bucks from Internet business", the answer is pretty obvious - Just take action, one step at a time.

In addition to the Newsletter Sign-Up page, I'd also added a Contact Page, which was easily built using Form Build It! ("FBI!").

The following is the basic Form Build It! process:

Instead of waiting for Thank It!, I decided to go ahead with publishing a newsletter recently - or more like reviving a newsletter for me - at my SBI! site.

Hence, using the option in the block-by-block SiteBuilder function, I seamlessly added an "Ezine Form" after my "page title", "description", "keywords", "headline" and "content" blocks. It's as simple as selecting an "Ezine Form" on a drop down option and just one click..., my page is done (refer previous posting on Building Opt-in List the SBI! Way)

No need for any CGI, PHP or even HTML knowledge.

There is also no need whatsoever for me to "create" a form through Form Build It! as I thought initially (refer to this posting)

Do check out the Newsletter Sign Up page at the following URL:

http://www.borneo-tropical-vacation.com/tropical-vacation-newsletter.html

Do let me know what you think.

And..., if you are a Tropical Vacation Lover, I would like to specially invite you to subscribe to the Tropical Vacation Borneo Newsletter.

Just as I was wondering how come the main page of my SBI! site is not getting any page rank recently (refer posting here) as against my Tier 2 and Tier 3 pages, I have noticed a few days ago that my homepage is now showing a Google Page Rank of 4 (i.e., PR4) on a regular basis.

This is remarkable considering that my 6 years plus non-SBI! site for a similar theme only has a PR5.

Also, I reckon I experienced first hand how SBI! works to get to web pages indexed/ranked by the Search Engines - indexing (and thus, given a Google PR) for the less competitive keyword-rich Tier 2 or Tier 3 pages first before it slowly spider and index the main page or Tier 1 page.

In other words, if you'd built your web site the SBI! Way, the Search Engines should firstly "picked up" your T3 pages, then T2 pages, and only the T1 page as a result of the links referred from T2 and T3 pages. In this way, it's faster to get a higher page rank, rather than the conventional way of concentrating on your T1 main page first.

I know it is nothing really to shout about at the moment as the bottom line is not how high a site ranks, or how many visitors a site receives, but it is all about how much a site sells!

I have no way of knowing that at the moment as I've not yet monetize my site.

So, when to monetize? Actually, it is up to you. Whenever you feel confident that it is ready to pull in the visitors and/or sales. For me, although I felt like monetizing my site from the first month onwards, I'll stick to SiteSell's strategy on when to monetize a site.

I will subscribe to the principle that the Tortoise Way is a Sure Fire way to succeed in the game.

Let's see whether I'm right or wrong...

For those who are looking for a Get Rich Quick system to start/build an online business...

Or

For those who are looking for an alternative to Site Build It!...

I urge you to read this post carefully.

Kristine, a fellow SBIer (and a relatively new one as well), posted the following in the Site Build It! Forum about a week ago that really "snapped" me out of my recent GnL (i.e., greed and laziness) episode.

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Posted by: Kristine from know-your-gourmet-coffee.com
Post subject: Other Programs Like SiteSell...

I thought that everyone would find this very interesting and if anything, reinforce to all current SBIers and especially those even thinking of becoming an SBIer to really give it some heavy thought.

Here's why:

Just today I received an email from a competitor (for lack of a better term) of SiteSell (I won't name who) that had yet another update to their book about building websites and getting to the top of Google and other SE's.

Now, in all fairness, I have not received constant upsell's from this person but one of the reasons I quit following their methods was because things really started to get a little pricey for me.

After purchasing their book I also had to pay for separate hosting, separate domain name registration, separate website statistical software, etc. and when you consider all you have to do to complete your website this particular way, you realize people are just picking your pockets (and probably making a nice affiliate income off of the referrals as well) so I gave up trying to create a site this way and found SiteSell.

Out of curiousity though I listened to the reason for this ebook update and what struck me was what was said about why it was so important people purchase this particular update. And you know what it was?

It was simply creating more, better and quality content.

And all I could think to myself was...

This is what Ken has always said and continues to say. Thank goodness you found SiteSell when you did!

So for those of you who are considering either looking someplace else or who are still on the fence about Ken's program...take it from someone who has put out more money than I'm willing to admit...and stick with Ken.

He knows what he's talking about and even his competitors have realized it.

Thanks!

Kristine
http://www.know-your-gourmet-coffee.com/

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I hope that my previous post, coupled with Kristine's thoughts above will be able to directly/indirectly "Wake You Up" of the reality out there as far as starting/building an online business (or simply making money from the Internet) is concerned.

There is NO other alternative to Site Build It!

Don't follow my GnL footstep and ends up making a costly (in both time and money) mistake.

End Note: My deepest thanks to Kristine for giving me the greenlight to post her comments at this blog. Although she has just started her site, do bookmark know-your-gourmet-coffee.com for future reference if you are into coffee like me. With just a page or two at her site, I'd learnt so much more about gourmet coffee. I just can't wait for Kristine to add more pages to her excellent site.

I was having a fruitful time learning the SiteSell Philosophies of Site Selling and utilizing Site Build It! to build/grow my online business WHEN...

I came across a brilliantly written sales page late last month by two veteran marketers (well, at least one of them is...) promoting an extremely promising business/marketing system that can literally earn me more than US$1,600 per month in passive and residual income without much time and thinking needed.

To top off, the system was recommended by several well-known and purportedly highly trusted Internet Gurus (at least 1 of them I personally admired..., until now - no point to name any names here or the system I'm refering to).

All I have to do is follow their (no hard thinking needed) system step by step and pay them slightly less than US$100 per month and each month, I can make up to US$1,500 or even more in pure profit.

Afterall, SBI! was taking me too long to build even one web page. I've to spent so much time into the thinking process, and I've yet to monetize my SBI! site. What's wrong with side-stepping away from SBI! for awhile for a fast money generating alternative.

With more than a decade into this online business game, I think I'm experienced enough now to pinpoint a genuine online business opportunity that requires little of my time to make some fast bucks while waiting for my SBI! site to deliver the goods in the future.

Hey, I'm sure SBI! can't deliver that kind of profit that fast and without the need to work so hard. Perfect!

That was what I thought...

Once I made payment and entered their closely-guarded members' area, I can smelt a rat and found that there was something fishy about the so-called system .

I was completely disappointed by the fact that their much touted business system was no where near SiteSell's business sytem - not even 0.1% close to it.

The main problem was that their system was not ready for new members. There were several bugs and faults.

I straight away asked for a refund citing their oversights instead of the "being scammed" feeling I had deep inside me.

Not that I can sense that their customer service will be lousy, but I kind of expected that it will be..., and true to my senses, it took ages for them to reply, and that too, through their personal assistant, who did not seem to know much and has no authority to make any decision.

Wow...! They did not even have the decency to correspond with their paid customer on a personal basis. Even the busy and more recognised Guru, Ken Evoy, have time for his customer (i.e., posting personally at SBI! Forum in addition to replying some pertinent emails).

Anyway, to cut a long story short..., they appears to prolong my request for a refund (first by not replying and next, telling me to wait). Finally they resolved some bugs and updated their content - two weeks after I signed up and made a complaint.

They have yet to reply me regarding my refund request and I suspect they will try to charge it again for the second month subscription before they will deal with me (but I'd taken precaution with my credit card so that they can't do that).

What this whole episode did to me was made me lost some confidence...

I mean, I thought only newbies get tricked into such things, not a relatively experienced netrepreneur like me.

In fact, I was truly embarassed...

The good thing though, this debacle forced me to dig deep into my netrepreneur soul and the two main things I discovered about my unusual behaviour were:

I was looking for a shortcut to make more money in the less possible time and without much work. Perhaps I was desperate (for making money)? But why should I be? I was on the right direction (with 'adequate' money flowing in from my online businesses). Why should I suddenly change?

I was going against the philosopies of SiteSell, as well as my own principals of building a profitable web business.

I was "bought" into something in the opposite direction of the Tortoise Way and C->T->P->M..., all because of...

Greed and Laziness (GnL).

Regardless of how experienced you think you are in online business, a sudden gust of GnL will cloud all your judgement and overall focus.

I may have lost about US$100, but that pales in comparison to the time I had wasted instead of focusing on my online business and building my SBI! site.

Nevertheless, for $100, I had the priviledge to be reminded of the following fundamental lessons of online business:

I hope you will fall into the GnL trap.

There is no business system in the world that allows you to make a lot of money without much work or time.

And...,

If it's too good to be true, it definitely is (no matter what the "Gurus" say). Period.

SiteSell recently introduced another excellent add-on to its already fantastic Site Build It! modules. Aptly named SiteSell Supply (currently in Beta format for SBIers to test and comment), this is a tool to truly reveal true competition and locate profitable keywords/keyphrases.

If you have been building your online business for some time now, then, you would know the importance of finding the "Supply" and "Demand" in order to build a profitable web business. If you are new, you may not fully understand what I'm about to share with you..., but I'll try.

Many years ago, Sitesell was the first company to introduce the concept of niche research through "Demand" (i.e., Search Volume) and "Supply" (i.e., competitive Web pages), which has today becomes the cornerstone of the so-called Niche Marketing. If your keyword has high "Demand" and low "Supply", then it is a good "theme" to build your site on, or optimize for the Search Engines.

In fact, there are so many keyword research tools/software out there today that basically do this for you..., all based its foundation on SiteSell's 20th Century concept.

Side Note: If you are thinking of starting a niche site or venturing into niche marketing, then, SiteSell is the MOTHER of all niche businesses/marketings. The only distinctive difference between SiteSell and the rest is it comes in a 3-in-1 package (e.g., how to find a profitable niche, how to build a niche site that sells, and how to monetize from your niche) in the form of Site Build It!

What actually is SiteSell Supply?

It is basically's own "Supply" data (i.e., the number of web sites that appears in the Search Engine Results for a particular keyword).

Results from Google has been the standard "Supply" for many keyword research tools. However, Google Supply numbers currently include countless spammy pages - estimated about 90% of pages are pure junk, created by scammers and spammers to make money from Google. Hence, these sites are NOT competition.

In addition, most pages will likely "contain" the keyword but are not really "about" it. Those pages are not competition, either.

So, SiteSell Supply literally provides you with a number that gives you a quick, accurate fix on how high real competition is for each of your keywords.

Testing SiteSell Supply, I easily found that some of my low profitability keywords may have a greater niche than I previously thought (when using Google Supply). It opens up all sort of possibilities for me to target certain keywords in a way that will bring more traffic and sales to my site. It also provides me with info about how many sites are advertising for a particular keyword as well as who they are.

In nutshell, SiteSell Supply gives you not only the "SiteSell General Supply" on top of Google's own supply, it also shows you "SiteSell Advertising Supply" to the actual advertisers in "Advertising URLs" so that you can get a complete and accurate picture of true competition.

I have used so many keyword research tools/software in the past, but I have to say that SiteSell Supply is something revolutionary for keyword research. I think very soon, you will find some tools on the Web that will based its foundation on SiteSell Supply (and sells for more than what the complete SBI! is worth).

My month-to-month summary statistics (as of end-March 2006) for my SBI! site (courtesy of Traffic Stats, which is part of Site Build It! TrafficCenter module) is as follow:


Monthly Totals ( Visits Visitors Pages )

Mar 2006 - 2039 / 1356 / 4240
Feb 2006 - 1665 / 1082 / 3450
Jan 2006 - 1748 / 1147 / 3974
Dec 2005 - 1318 / 807 / 2983
Nov 2005 - 490 / 215 / 799
Oct 2005 - 250 / 98 / 466
Sep 2005 - 141 / 17 / 269


Daily Avg ( Visits Visitors Pages )

Mar 2006 - 65 / 43 / 136
Feb 2006 - 59 / 38 / 123
Jan 2006 - 56 / 37 / 128
Dec 2005 - 42 / 26 / 96
Nov 2005 - 16 / 7 / 26
Oct 2005 - 8 / 3 / 15
Sep 2005 - 7 / 0 / 14


One of the key stats indicators that I paid the most attention to is the 'Visitors' column (i.e., the number of monthly unique visitors to my site as per unique IP per 24 hour). In March 2006, 'Visitors' increased to 1,356 or by a healthy 25.3% from 1,082 in February 2006.

In terms of page views or 'Pages', the number of web pages on my site that were viewed went up by 22.9% from 3450 in February 2006 to 4240 in March 2006.

Both 'Visitors' and 'Pages' picked up significantly after a slight dip in February (which has several days less in a month) as compared to January.

A similar upward trend is also observed for my daily average.

I'm fairly satisfied as I did not spend much time on my SBI! site in March. Only added one more web page (or maybe none) and did not do any marketing at all.

Regardless, I will try to find sufficient time this month to break all records - although the first week of April had been a pretty busy one for me.

KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 (Bernama) -- The number of worldwide Internet users is expected to reach two billion in 2011, a 100 percent increase from over the one billion users recorded at the end of 2005, says Computer Industry Almanac (Jan 2006).

With this in view, global internet company, Yahoo Inc., is anticipating a significant growth in Internet users from Southeast Asia as local governments continue to encourage information and communication technology adoption for its citizens.

Yahoo's managing director, Southeast Asia, Reza Behnam said Southeast Asia was a vibrant community with 65 percent of its internet users using the Yahoo services.

"The region is very important and Yahoo aims to build an engaged audience for long term," he told a media briefing here, Wednesday.

He added that Malaysia and Singapore led Southeast Asia in terms of infrastructure and usage of internet plus a higher number of major advertisers and marketers investing online.

Behnam said some of the new features awaiting local yahoo users this year were the Malaysia FIFA World Cup 2006, Yahoo 360 - a yahoo community product, Yahoo! Travel, all new Yahoo e-mail service, answer service and Yahoo Messenger inter-operatibility with MSN Messenger.

The company will also launch Yahoo! Go for Mobile in Malaysia.

The new service is designed to let consumers take their favourite Internet content and services with them on mobile phones, Behnam said.

"Yahoo! Go integrates the power of Internet into consumers' mobile phone experiences by combining real time connectivity with access to their community, information and content services from across the web," he said.

Nokia and Yahoo have partnered to launch Yahoo! Go for Mobile to consumers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore.

Behnam said for the moment it was compatible with Nokia handphones but it had plans to expand to other mobile phone manufacturers in the future.

Yahoo provides services in more than 15 languages in over 20 countries worldwide and is one of the most trafficked internet destinations worldwide with average 3.4 billion page views per day.

It derives most of its revenue from advertising, and Malaysia leads the contribution from the Southeast Asia region, Behnam said.

Yahoo reported a US$5.258 billion (US$1.00=RM3.67) revenue for the year ended Dec 31, 2005, a 47 percent increase from the previous year.

Source: BERNAMA

The MailOut Manager, a module under Site Build It! BusinessCenter, is essentially an extremely important tool to set up your Opt-in e-zine/newsletter (e.g., you can handle all your needs related to mass-mailing, everything from sending an e-zine to an e-mail address list, to adding a group of people to a list, to getting stats and a variety of administrative functions).

I have recently touched on some negative aspects of the MailOut Manager as per my little hiccup recently. But on a general note, I feel that whatever the issue, it dwarfs the positive aspects of the MailOut Manager.

The MailOut Manager is 'the' most cost-effective mailing list and ezine management tool I've ever came across. And the ease for me to set everything up without much sweat, really amazes me. I have tried out many different list management services and software in the past, and none is even up to half the standard set by the MailOut Manager.

All I have to do is set up my ezine particulars (i.e., name of ezine, the opt-in form, etc.) by "filling up a web-based form". Then, once someone fills in the online form at my site, the Thank You web page, as well as both the Confirmation and Welcome emails will be automatically generated/sent to the subscriber's mailbox without the need for me to do anything, including coming up with the content of all messages.

Additionally, I can't believe how relatively 'cheap' it is to sent out emails to mailing list using the MailOut Manager (as the price of SBI! includes all tools include the MailOut Manager, there is no way for me to really quantify this). I only found out recently that my MailOut package includes the ability to send up to 5,000 e-mails per month.

But if you do not use them in one month, that amount can be carried over and added to the next month's 5,000 (to a maximum of 55,000). At the moment, my current e-mail balance is 40,000, which means that I can send 40,000 more e-mails (if I need to send more, I can always increase my email balance by purchasing say, 10,000 emails at a unbeliveable low price of US$24.95).

I think 40,000 is more than I can handle at this point. I have yet to promote or even properly set-up my e-zine in any case although a capture page has been added.

But I am confident that Thank It! will resolve my minor problem and make the MailOut Manager even more flexible to be used in the very near future.

After my little "hiccup" with MailOut Manager, I have been to the Site Build It! Forum more regularly the past few days looking for help.

The SBI! Forum may have been called The Place For Friendly, Success-Focused Discussion, but it doubled up as The Place For Support From Fellow SBI! Users.

One of the many discussion boards in the SBI! Forum, which I think is a brilliant piece of idea, is the SBI! Wish List. In this board, you can simply tell the SBI! technicians and Ken Evoy what you want them to improve with regards to SBI!

And not surprising, my wish list is also the wish list of many SBIers.

What I found out was that SiteSell will soon be releasing a function called "Thank It!", where SBIers can customizable the Thank You page, post Opt-in Email and even a Download Page once someone sign up to receive your freebies (this important function is not available at the moment).

I have heard about "Thank It!" from SBI! Xpress, the newsletter/e-zine exclusively for SBI! users, but did not really understand its importance until I experience first-hand the problem with subscribers' Confirmation/Welcome emails at MailOut Manager.

I, like a lot of other SBIers I'm sure, am eagerly awaiting the release of "Thank It!", although its release date has been put forward indefinitely (i.e., first targeted to be released was mid-March 2006 but now I read somewhere in the forum that it may take 1-3 more months - duh!).

Hopefully, the techies at SiteSell is busy refining everything in "Thank It!" until all systems go. My only consolation is that Ken Evoy himself said in the forum a day ago that it is a top priority.

Crossing my fingers that "Thank It!" will come out exactly what I wished for very soon.