To SBI Or Not To SBI
Let’s see what we have in our mail bag…
Ok, I need advice because I’m pulling my hair out here. I’ll just spill all the beans here.
I’ve purchased SiteBuildit and I’m in a day 2 hell that’s lasting weeks – just in the brainstormit phase of building a master keyword list and viewing numbers on demand and profitability. Additionally, even if I just want a plain black background for my site, I’m an artist and want it to look great in the details, navigation buttons, images, etc., and most SBI sites
aren’t that “pretty”.My concern is that SBI advertises that they get your presold warm market first by helping you achieve a “top 3%” status on the search engines… BUT I’m not a techie, (I know a lot less than you about websites!!) I’m an artist, and just day 2 feels like it’s killing me.
Knowing these things above, do you think xsitepro would be better in my situation, and if so, how? Would I end up purchasing a lot of add ons? Don’t know much about Adsense, but have already signed up for a few affiliate programs I’d like to promote.
Don’t wanna know HTML, etc. Remember, I’m an artist – just wanna sell prints and do my artwork so I can add more art to my site. Can you help?! – Angela
Hey Angela,
Sorry to hear of your frustration. I’ve only used SBI on one project that is now long dead. The last time I used it was about 2 years ago. Frankly, I’ve never looked back.
The manual in SBI in my opinion is really not a manual at all. Rather, it is an introduction to Internet Marketing. That said, I think the info in the manual is great especially for newbies but on the other hand it is not so great if all you want to do is just build a site. Yes, I understand that the goal is to teach people to build it right the first time. But that’s just not the way some people learn. Me included. Give me the trials, tribulations and hard knocks. I think we learn more
that way but I digress.
You are also correct in that there are limitations to creative expression in SBI. Personally, I find many SBI sites old fashioned. A site does not have to be pretty to make money and I whole heartedly agree with that. But at the very least in keeping up with the times or in businesses like yours where you should be able to express some of your creativity is important.
After all, how can you convince people of your art if your site cannot reflect that. You knew that already.
Now let’s get into XSitePro. They have just relaunched the software and I have not upgraded yet. It does look very promising and has tons of improvements which I’m happy to see. But not being able to play with it yet I’m not sure if this is the right tool for you.
I think compared to SBI, you certainly have more creative freedom. Yet, on any packaged site builder tool, you will be somewhat limited. It is the extent of your limitation that is different. If you want total creative freedom, nothing works better than getting your hands dirty either with DreamWeaver or ExpressionWeb. While you do not need to know HTML to use them, these tools work much, much better if you do. Honestly, I highly suggest you to pick up some basic HTML because if you own a
website, you’ll need it. Maybe not right this minute, but as you go along.
Here are two other options I’d like to suggest. InternetBasedFamily Site Builder. This is truly easy to use and they have lots of beautiful templates. You don’t need to know a single piece of HTML and there’s room for creativity. Just keep in mind my last note – that no matter what site builder you use, there will be *some* limitation. It is difficult to give a list of what the limitations are because it depends on what you’re trying to achieve but this is pretty robust, plenty of options, recommended for those who are just starting out.
The next option is to get a web host and have WordPress installed in it. This gives you 100% freedom in just about anything. The only thing is, for beginners you may not be able to tinker with the design on your own. Adding content however like blogging and articles are a snap. If you can write email, you can publish with WordPress.
If you go the WordPress route, Here’s what I suggest you do. Get someone to install WordPress for you. If you prefer to do it yourself, you can get detailed help from Blogging Starter Pack.
Then, thumb through the free themes directory to see if there’s anything you like, get whoever installed the blog for you to put up the theme and make changes to the design.
For something unique, you can also design it on your own. Draw it out if you like, make an image of your design. Hire a WordPress theme developer to make that design of yours into a theme.
Hope this gives you something to work with.
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I wish you had not purchased SBI! i did and it wasted 6 months of my life. The course is full of waffle and they have silly ideas about monetisation. If you can get a refund go for it!
As for the stuff about top 3%…hahahahahahahha!
(In fact this is very very unambitious – pure bull)
If you are an artist you should be using wordpress – yes i said wordpress – most people do not realise that wordpress (yes that wordpress ) can build “ordinary” websites. They just think that it builds extraordinary blogs.
it does both.
and if you want some clever stuff that you can’t do by yourself please use some of that $300 to hire a clever guy or gal at rentacoder.
it is an amazing place and method to get stuff done.
Good luck!
Alex
I’m an ex SBI user, too. I found it to be quite overwhelming anytime I tried to do something new. Their formus were quite good at helping though.
I agree with Lynette: You really need to learn some HTML. When I first heard that, I freaked. I thought it was some other language. It’s not. It’s really not difficult at all. If you plan to do much of anything with regards to building web sites, this is trully your best bet.
But I also agree with Alex: If you want to focus on your art, hire a web master. Building web sites has a fairly steep learning curve – you’ll need to know a lot more than HTML.
Building your own site is going to take lots of time away from your primary focus – your art. My son is in grade 10 and his computer teacher tells me by grade 12 he’ll be able to build some pretty impressive and functional web sites.
Many high school students who’ve taken some computer training would be delighted to build a web site for you without expecting hundreds of dollars to do it. Check it out.
Ruby
I would use Easy Site Wizard Pro, and go with one of the templates, and then display the portfolio in an album… it’s all online. Depending on the image size, you don’t have to even FTP you images up to the site, you can just upload them through the interface. I don’t recall what SBI costs, but this costs a fraction of that price and includes blogs, SEO, ad manager, etc. Look, if you’re reading this response and you’d like to try ESWPro 7.2 (my cost is $8.00 a month) or get help just getting started, e-mail me at mary@twelvecups.com and I’ll help you. You can stop going crazy… and get back to your real life:)
It sounds like she needs an ecommerce site to sell her art. can you do that with wordpress?
Thanks for chipping in you all.
@Alex you’ve pretty much hit the nail IMO. I love WordPress too.
@Ruby, great tip! I’ve often wanted to give an opportunity to students but not quite sure where to begin hiring them.
@Cathy: Yes absolutely! There are several options. If using a third party cart like Wahmcart that’s a non issue because you only need to paste the buy button. In addition, WordPress has some plugin carts of their own.
Ugh, I can definitely sympathize with the SBI frustrations. I had the opportunity to try it out while negotiating a project about a year ago. I ended up turning down the project simply because I had no interest in using it.
Worse yet, the clients had read a lot of the crap they try to “teach” you, which left them with some very unrealistic, outdated expectations for their site.
Indeed! What I think it comes down to is Requirements. People look at “stuff” but don’t take a few minutes to think about requirements for what they want their site to do, what time they have, how much moeny they want to invest (budget), etc. etc. Like any application, the problem is that the sales pitch forms expectations about how it might actually perform… So ideally we would all be able to “try before you buy”… but then the problem is, hoiw many systems/vendors to look at? How much time are you going to take to evaluate them? What is the basis or the criteria for the evaluation? OK, I think about this sort of thing more than other people because I’m a test engineer. Another criteria (I think a very important one): Customer Service/Support. Is it a “knowledgebase” or a real live human on the telephone? BIG difference. I evaluated a sitebuilder no9t too long ago named SiteKreator. Had some *wonderful* features. But I drew back from it when I started asking questions and found out that customer support was only through e-mail. To really compare this “stuff” you would create a table and on the left side list all the elements or features you wanted to have, and then have a column for each vendor. Then you would rate each vendor on each requirement, and you would include cost and budget to implement. Of course, the strength of the evaluation is only as good as your picture of your requirements and the quality of the information available.
Hi it’s me Angela, the nervous breakdown who wrote the question up top. Thank you all for insights.
What it boils down to is that SBI attracted me because I was interested in ONE MAJOR THING: attracting warm traffic that would purchase my art prints. Never had a get-rich-quick mentality (not even get-rich, just earn a living from what I do best)and I didn’t expect it to be a breeze or an overnight accomplishment either. I love hard work, but SBI’s process has me slamming up against a wall so hideously “overkill” on actions I cannot confidently conform to with my project, so much that I have all but lost interest in doing it at all anymore. I’m about to chuck a life’s dream because of the tool I bought to make it happen! Primarily paralyzed trying to follow SBI’s Day 1 -3 instructions… all to achieve that simple goal of selling a certain style of art to those looking for it. Never in a million years did I expect to be asked to write tons of “rich content” to draw traffic. Other artists I admire who I’d imitate in business if they’d tell me how, have absolutely NO fluff on their sites. It’s art; a picture, a brief description of size, medium, and what gallery to buy originals from, and a bio. Simple. But they might be marketing in a different way, and paying lots for it, so I reluctantly cling to SBI, not wanting the past 5 months of very heartfelt honest effort to be a waste.
Not sure how big of a joke this is, because I’ve been swamped in SBI hell for so long now, but PayPal now offers a button you can put on your site for “buy now” or “add to cart” and I can tie this into quickbooks for management, but anyway… I’m no expert at HTML – know a little and can pull off some things that even surprise me at times. BUT even if I wanted to just do this my way, SBI says not to monetize yet… even though “prints” is a major part of many of my keyword phrases! So tell me please, do people often go surfing for prints and wish to arrive at a site where they can’t buy one??
I can’t help but think that maybe SBI isn’t for my particular project and that there are other programs that can bond-friendly with the search engines and offer good traffic in an easier way. Here I sit trying to plan an SBI 3-tier blueprint, using one keyword for each page, and getting absolutely frozen with analysis paralysis, totally unable to make any confident move. It’ll be another freakin 5 months to get this site right, and another 6 months to a year for good traffic. There goes my business plan and financial forecast… and any time to be an artist!
Anybody know anything about Site Rubix? Or are all tools like SBI going to confront me with the “one main keyword per page” issue and “the more content the better”?
Thanks for letting me blah blah blah…
Angela
Angela, I think SBI is not the tool for this project. SBI (the program) is more suited for a content site. Is coppermoonart.com your SBI site or something else?
I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to sell you on anything, but at this time I can think of several resource we have in http://www.MomMasterminds.com that will so help you with this.
I see SBI as two things. The manual is an “Internet marketing guide” the site builder itself is a site building tool. These two can and should in my view exist separately. The information in the guide is good in the sense there are lots it can teach you about the principals and tactics of marketing online and getting traffic which can be applied to any website, regardless which builder you are using.
My http://www.coppermoonart.com is not an SBI site, just a little godaddy website I almost put together with my eyes closed, just to get something “there”. It’s the site I had before purchasing SBI — all I wanted was to make it look sharp and professional, organize it better, and get targeted traffic to combine with my other marketing efforts (like some specific advertising).
It seems that my SBI endeavor opened up a can of worms I didn’t anticipate. I’ll check out the link you mentioned above, but I’m also looking over XSitePro and trying to find out if this program might be a more suitable approach. Any opinions here are still very welcomed and appreciated.
I’ll keep checking this blog!
Thanks!
Angela
Angela had said “What it boils down to is that SBI attracted me because I was interested in ONE MAJOR THING: attracting warm traffic that would purchase my art prints. ” This is a great point.
If you never can get your site up, that’s not going to happen… How do others do it? The artists I know of and actually look at their prints are linked to other sites of a similar perspective an subject matter. This is not a plug but an example — Catholic novelist and artist M. O’Brien’s site at http://studiobrien.com ties this together pretty well. He is linked to some Catholic blogs and has had his art re-used by the Franciscans at AmericanCatholioc.org who do a monthly newsletter and religious cards. So, perhaps one strategy for your site to get some exposure is through either the content aspect or the style aspects (O’Brien does modern religious icons.) Can you characterize your art by style or content? Or even decor?
I should probably add in the example above that a search on “art prints southern country” will list a number of private artist sites, for example, but a search on “Catholic art prints icons” renders a listing of religious art stores on the first page. So characterizing the content is important… Good luck.
I’m a little late for this, but thought I’d put in my 2 cents for other people.
I have 2 sites with SBI and 2 with other hosts. I love SBI and think it is fantastic.
Before finding SBI my other two sites were not profitable and successful. I was floundering around and hadn’t learned the proper way to build and market a site.
I learned so much with SBI and then I took what I learned and applied it to my two non SBI sites and they became profitable.
If you’re just looking for a simple Site Builder, then SBI is not the tool you want.
SBI is much more than a Site Builder. It teaches you how to run a business. Yes, it is overwhelming. There is a massive amount of information to consume.
But it teaches you absolutely everything you need to know to build a site that will be able to get traffic and how to run a business.
Yes, there are many other ways to learn this out there. But it is dispersed all over the place and will cost you a fortune The nice thing about SBI is that it is all in one way place for one price. You don’t have to deal with a bunch of scamming internet marketers.
Like all services, it does have it’s drawbacks. There isn’t any one on one guidance. Figuring everything out and understanding it all in the action guide can be difficult. The builder can be a little cumbersome.
There are other good options like Kelly McCausey at Mastermind Moms, which I think Lynette already mentioned. This may be better suited for your needs because you can get more one on one guidance there. I didn’t find them until after I already found SBI, so SBI had already got me on my feet. I have done personal coaching with Kelly and she is excellent.
So in conclusion, SBI can be a fantastic tool for someone who is just starting out who wants to learn how to run a business and learn the ins and outs of internet marketing, but it isn’t always a good fit for everyone. Different things work for different people. I was very grateful to have found them, however if you connect with the right sources you can learn it other places. The trick is connecting with the right sources. There are so many scammers out there and when you’re just starting out you don’t which direction to go or who to listen to.
Cynthia, you bring up very good points. It’s more overwhelming to try to figure out what sources to trust at all, and it’s nice that SBI is all inclusive even if their builder is clumsy and templates not so attractive. I’m forming an opinion very much like yours about SBI right now… after being on the verge of throwing in the towel over the tedious nature of it many times, a view of the “big picture” helps me see that it CAN be a great start to learn so much that will be valuable for being in business. You have to discipline your frame of mind for it though, remain patient, and come to terms with not doing anything with any great speed. This is wise and okay AS LONG AS the effort builds a secure business for the long term. (and I hear that’s what happens with SBI).
I suppose it’s the SBI advertising that tricked me a bit; the sales pitch that sold it to me feels almost like a typical and somewhat misleading pitch, but since they said it would take hard work, they covered their a*$. I had no idea I was getting into something of this depth, and wish I had known, because I probably would have delayed the purchase for specific reasons.
Still, it is a very thorough business product with the sincerest intentions once you’re “in” (which can be hard to come across today!) so I’m becoming more forgiving and more patient. I’ll probably use SBI for a year or two, and look into other possibilities down the road… or maybe just plug in a better template and stick with them if it’s worth it. Time will tell.
PS – I’d like to join Mastermind Moms but I’m pretty overwhelmed with my SBI purchase right now, can’t get my money back… Rather than waste the $299, the simplest thing would be to focus on completing the project at this point. My budget for next year will definitely put Mastermind Moms on the list… looks like some of that one on one would be ideal. Plus, having some of this SBI education under me ahead of time wouldn’t hurt.
Thanks Cynthia for putting in your thoughts. It’s exactly what this thread needed. I too think SBI for education is fabulous. But for a site building it lacks considerably.
Hi Angela,
Yes, one of the best things about SBI is that it is an honest service with integrity. Something that is sometimes hard to find in the internet marketing niche.
Do you know that you can decorate their templates a little and make it more unique and appealing?
You don’t have to stick with the way the template comes. It’s very easy to make a new banner and replace the banner that comes with your template.
For example, here is one of my SBI sites. I took one of their templates and made my own banner and replaced theirs. Then I changed the colors in the nav menu.
http://www.alternatives-for-alcoholism.com/
If you don’t know how to make your own banner, my son does web design and could whip a banner up for you for like $10.
Also, if you can’t afford Mom Masterminds, you might find one on one coaching with Kelly to be helpful and it doesn’t require any monthly commiment.
Also SBI has it’s own coaches if you need help with any of the SBI aspects. It’s pretty reasonable. ABout $66 an hour I think and you don’t have to use your whole hour at one time. You can break it up as you need it.
Well hope that helps.
You’re welcome, Lynette.