Well… it’s the season for love, and you could learn to love SBI just like me!

Why? Because Sitesell is having their annual “I Love SBI! Valentine’s Special”. That’s right, if you buy before the end of Valentine’s Day, you can get 2 SBI sites for $399! That means the second site is only $100, because the price for one is $299 (per year). One thing worth noting… the price for a Site Build It license has not gone up in 10 years… even though they have constantly improved the product and probably quadrupled the functionality and features over that same length of time.

I can’t remember hearing about any other web business building software/services that can say the same.

I buy my new SBI sites every year at the Christmas holidays, because I actually get 2 sites for $299, but if you missed that special, then I highly encourage you to get in on this one. Even if you don’t want to build 2 sites yourself, you can gift the other site to a friend or family member, or even split the $399 fee with them. (If you think you might want to do 2 sites on your own, you should know you have 9 months to start the second one.)

So, I’ve said throughout this site that I love SBI. But I’m certainly not the only one. Take a look at a few of the videos on the I LOVE SBI page and you’ll see what I mean.

Another way to understand how and why people love SBI so much is to read some of the case studies they’ve amassed, all told in SBIers’ own words. There are stories there from men, women, work at home moms, retirees, artists, writers, travelers and more. Check out the SBI case studies for yourself.

So will this be the year you learn to love SBI for yourself? Hurry… the Valentine’s special is almost over…

One of the wild claims made by the interlinked bloggers who started the firestorm was that the only people who are positive about SBI are those who are affiliates, meaning they’re paid to say nice things about SBI through their affiliate commissions. They went on to say that most of the SBI review pages on the net were written by people wanting to make a buck through their SBI affiliate links.

This SBI myth — or false claim — is a bit harder to disprove, because you can never really know for sure what is in the mind of someone whose writing you read on the Web. People can say anything they want and without body language or facial expression, it’s much harder to judge the tone of their written words.

But I read what the slammers I mentioned above said, especially the original blogger, and she clearly had no idea what she was talking about. She had many errors in her so-called review of SBI that made it clear she’d never even used SBI. So it was hard for me to see that what she and her ilk were accusing SBI affiliates of was much different. But I digress..The myth that only SBI affiliates have good things to say about Site Build It is partly right. I mean, people who use SBI and decide to become affiliates ARE usually positive and there’s a reason for that. It’s simple. Because Site Build It is a quality product. And because they have built successful, money-making websites using the SBI system and tools. So why wouldn’t they want to share it with others?

I am one of those affiliates and I’m very up front with you about that. There’s no need to not be honest about it. I have nothing to hide. I am a proud user of SBI with 7 successful websites that support me and I’m happy to help others do the same.

So the next time, you hear that only affiliates recommend Site Build It, ask yourself why?

If you believe that, then I’m guessing you’re willing to spend hundreds (maybe even thousands) of dollars on those get rich quick (GRQ) systems that promise you the moon for very little work. In fact, you’ll make money while you sleep… all without spending a dime! If you believe that malarkey, then I have some nice swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you…

Hey, Site Build It has never pretended to be a GRQ system. In fact, Dr. Ken Evoy tells you that over and over in the pages of his site. That’s not the market SiteSell is trying to target. Why? Because people who want something for nothing are usually not willing to put the work into building a real business…  that really works.

Site Build It is founded upon the niche content model. What’s that? Well, it’s a model that says if you build plenty of engaging, high quality, original content around a specific niche, then free traffic will flow to it… and you’ll build a business that makes you money for the long term. It’s a proven model that many gurus will tell you works. It’s not a new or cutting edge idea, but it’s completely solid.

And yes, it DOES take time to build a website business using the niche content model. You’ve got to have at least 30 to 50 pages of at least 150 words each to even get in the game. More than that is better, and it helps if you add new content on a regular basis. So, it’s work, lots of it.

But, let me ask you something… Doesn’t any successful business take work?

The answer is a no-brainer… of course it does!

The Myth of Shortcuts

You may have read on other sites that it is possible to make lots of money by building a free WordPress blog with other people’s content (either through scraped RSS feeds or by posting resell rights content). And yes, it is possible to make money using that model… just not for very long. See, the search engines like Google and Yahoo don’t really like those types of sites. You might get ranked for a while, but sooner or later the SEs will realize there’s nothing unique about your content, and they’ll dump you to the bottom of search results listings.

Believe me, I know… I’ve tried that model too. It just doesn’t work that well. You have to keep starting over in new niches every few months to stay ahead of the game. And isn’t that work too?

Another shortcut is to outsource, hire others to build your content for you. SBI certainly doesn’t prohibit this, but the bottom line is that the most successful content sites are ones that establish a connection with their visitors, because of the unique “voice” of the site’s owner… you.

Building a Site Build It Website DOES Take Time

Building a website with Site Build It is going to take at least a few weeks of dedicated work. You simply can’t throw up a site overnight, not if you expect it to succeed. I’ve built more than 10 websites with SBI (for myself and others), and I’m a fast writer. But still, it takes hours and hours of work. But if you’ve chosen your niche wisely to be something you’re interested in or knowledgeable about, it becomes largely a labor of love.

You just keep chipping away at it, and before you know it, you have more than 100 pages of solid, quality content! It might sound overwhelming, but here’s the good news…

The SBI Action Guide takes you through a step-by-step process that teaches you what to do, why to do it that way, and how to do it. They leave nothing uncovered. And, if you learn better by seeing or listening, the Action Guide comes in a video format as well. In the near future, you may even be able to download it to your iPod or iPhone!

SBI! Action Guide
View the Video Action Guide

Proof the Niche Content Model Works

Don’t believe in the value of this model? Would some real life results help you buy into the need to work hard and take your time as tradeoffs for your ultimate success? Would a few real live case studies help convince you? You’ll find them here, in every type of business, from service sellers, to infopublishers, to affiliate marketers, to MLM businesspeople:

SBI Case Studies

“My online success means so much more to me than money. The fulfillment I feel in my own life and the example I’m setting for my kids far outweighs the dollars (although dollars will always be welcome!). My boys are growing up with the knowledge that they really can achieve their dreams if they’re willing to have faith in themselves and take action in their lives. Then all it takes is some dedication and hard work, which is easy to muster when you’re doing something you love! … Oh yeah, and SBI! of course.”

~ Michelle Schill
style-hair-magazine.com
http://case-studies.sitesell.com/scsweb.html#WAHM

I’ve been working hard on my SBI sites for 4 years now, and it’s paid off. I make enough to pay my mortgage and most of my monthly bills now from the monetization on my SBI websites, and it’s getting better all the time. You don’t have to be a writer either to succeed with an SBI niche content site. You just have to be able to write like you talk.

So, yes, Site Build It is a lot of work and success doesn’t come overnight… but if you work the system and are patient, success WILL come!

I don’t really agree with this. Dr. Ken Evoy and his team are constantly scouring web trends and evaluating their long-term hardiness and usefulness. And then they tell SBI owners about it in the weekly newsletter and on the forums. They do know what’s going on and Site Build It reflects it. Does that mean they’ll jump on every emerging trend? No, definitely not. Because trends don’t always have lasting power. They also don’t recommend anything black hat or illegal.

That’s because Dr. Ken and his team are all about learning how to build a web business that works for today… and on into the future.

Here are some of the justifications you’ll read for SBI being out of date, as well as my responses…

• The website templates are old-fashioned and non-web 2.0 looking. True, if you’re only looking at their original 20 designs, the ones that were packaged with SBI when it was first rolled out, nearly a decade ago. But, SBI ran a design contest a few years ago that netted around 70 or 80 new designs that you could upload to their blockbuilder as your template. Then, again, they ran another design contest about 2.5 years ago that netted yet another 100 new designs. So we’re now up to almost 300 templates, all free to use. And, to make things better, you can completely customize any of those templates, by changing color schemes, header graphics, etc. Or, you can start from scratch and design your own graphics and colors. Take a look at my 7 SBI sites (in the right sidebar) and you’ll see the kind of variety you can get with SBI, even in the blockbuilder. If you’re comfortable with working with HTML code, you can even upload your completely customized website, bypassing the blockbuilder altogether. And that can be based on ANY template you desire, as long as it is coded in HTML (not PHP or ASP). Sure, you’ll still see a lot of SBI websites that use the old designs, but that’s only because their owners have been focusing more on building their content than on designing a glitzy look and feel. They have their priorities straight too. They can always go back later and upgrade the design, once their site has begun to work for them.
• SBI doesn’t use up to date SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it means doing certain things to your content that help search engines see what it is about and to assign it a high value so that your pages show up in the first 3 pages of search result listings if possible. Again, SBI DOES understand SEO and they help you understand it too. They have a really powerful tool that you can run on every single page you build, whether it’s in the block builder or uploading your own HTML pages, called Analyze It. Analyze It looks at all kinds of on-page factors to see if you have used your keywords in the right places, with the right frequency and many other issues. If you haven’t, they tell you why it’s important to change, even how important it is. Dr. Ken Evoy talks about how while SEO is important, it’s not the be-all and end-all to success on the Web, no matter what you’ve heard. These days, what Dr. Ken has been telling us for years is widely acknowledged… the best way to get ranked by the search engines is to build lots of well-written, niche-focused content. The rest will happen naturally. Want proof? Search on a keyword… I’m betting you’re going to find at least one SBI site in the first 30 sites (3 pages) of search results. Or look at the SBI Results Page, where you can check out hundreds of SBI-built websites that rank in the top 1% of all websites on the Internet.
• SBI hasn’t kept up with the times, though it may once have been good. Wrong again… SBI is constantly changing. In the last year or two, they’ve added a social bookmarking tool for your pages and a Web 2.0 style module that enables your visitors to contribute content to your site. SBI was also the first to develop an automated Google Sitemaps, within 48 hours of Google launching it. Ditto for Yahoo!’s version. And it’s still the most automated system for sitemaps. SBI has an unmatched database of sites, submissions, spider behavior, indexing and ranking and is constantly tweaking and improving site-management algorithms. This is cutting edge stuff and the best part is that the SBI owner does not have to spend a second worrying about it. Don’t believe me? Check out their Proof Page.

There may be other variations on this theme, but rest assured… Site Build IS with the times and so will your site be if you build it using Site Build It’s tools. You may even be cutting edge in your niche!

Let’s deconstruct each of the SBI costs too much arguments…

$299 a Year Is Awfully Expensive Web Hosting

When SBI was first launched, $25/month was pretty typical pricing for webhosts. In those days, you didn’t have a lot of choices. You’d easily pay $25 to $50 a month just to host one website! I know; I was doing it myself for my very first website, hosted with one of the premier web hosts of the early 2000s.

How our web world has changed since then, though. Cheap web hosts like HostGator, GoDaddy and many, many more prolifertated in the past 5 years. Now, it’s exceedingly common to find webhosting accounts with huge bandwidths and unlimited domains for around $5 to $10/month. I have a couple of those accounts myself, and they’re great… if you know how to use them.

In the end, though, those accounts are mostly just basic webhosting. Sure, they may offer one-click installations of forums, blogs, and related tools. And maybe a one-off autoresponder and email account management. But that’s about it. They don’t tell you how to create a site, especially not a successful traffic-producing site. They definitely don’t teach you how to build a business. So, yeah, you can have any number of sites with those kinds of webhosts, but that doesn’t mean anyone will ever find them. That takes other tools, usually ones the webhost doesn’t offer, at least not for no additional charge.

If you’re going to compare pricing, then you have to be sure you’re comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges, as the saying goes. Site Build It isn’t just a webhost. They’re so much more: Compare SBI to a typical webhost

For instance, one of the best features of SBI is their keyword/niche brainstorming tool. It’s extremely robust, showing demand, true supply, potential profitability and detailed competition info for every keyword you input. They use Wordtracker as their backend, and if you’ve ever priced Wordtracker, you know how valuable an inclusion their data is in the SBI package.

I Can Just Get Free Tools That Are as Good as SBI’s Tools

Even assuming that were completely true (which it isn’t), how much time would you need to spend to find all the equivalent tools that SBI offers from free vendors? More than I’d care to count up, I’ll tell you. Here’s just a glimpse into SBI’s tools:

• A step by step course in eBusiness, with video tutorials and a written Action Guide. Sure, there is tons of free information on online business available on the Web. But there’s also truckloads of crappola, information that at best is too vague and meaningless to be implementable, and at worst is downright wrong or misleading. There are also a number of inexpensive ecourses and ebooks you can download. Some of these are good (Jimmy Brown’s  and Jim Daniel’s offerings come to mind),  but again many of them are just affiliate-link stuffed crap or incomplete “blueprints” for success. The better offerings may be the elite packages offered on CD and printed manuscripts, but who can afford to pay a couple of thousand dollars for these, especially when you’re just getting started? Download a free eBook by Ken Evoy to get a feel for the quality of the education offered by the SBI team. (Yes, some of the info in this book is a bit dated, as it was last updated in 2002, but much of it is timeless advice about how to connect with web visitors and establish trust, so as to get the click or the sale.)
• Robust keyword research tool & niche finder. Keyword research tools are a dime a dozen these days. There’s the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, a free trial of Wordtracker, Nichebot, and many more. Again, this is true, but each of those tools has its limitations, and to truly gather all the information you need to make a decision about profitable keywords and niche, you might have to use 2 or more of these free tools and then figure out how to combine the data and make sense of it. With Site Build It, that’s all done for you, all on one screen. And there’s plenty of context help to assist you in interpreting the data.
• No-HTML-Required website builder with over 200 free templates. Some people complain that free or inexpensive website design tools can easily produce attractive websites that are more flexible than SBI’s block builder interface. SBI has taken some hits on their design templates and their block builder. And this is an area I have to agree could be better. At this writing (spring 2009), they don’t have a WSIWYG interface, where clicking a button bolds your text or changes its color. And there’s only one layout, with a left-sided navigation bar and rather narrow content pane. But, if you’re a beginner, don’t know or don’t want to know HTML and have very few graphical skills, SBI will get the job done for you. Sure, WordPress might offer more modern designs and XSitePro might seem more flexible, but you really don’t need all those bells and whistles starting out. If you want to use them later, you still can… with SBI. It’ll integrate nicely!
• An RSS feed submitter, that effectively transforms your website into a blog. One of the reasons so many webmasters love WordPress and Blogger so much is the fact that they are blogging platforms and search engines (especially Google) love blogs. Site Build It detractors claim that content website model is no match for a blog. But let’s take a closer look at why SEs love blogs so much… It’s because blogs generally adhere to a standard of constantly updating content. The nature of a blog is frequent posts on new topics. SEs love constantly new content. People assume that a simple content model like SBI won’t produce that perception of updating content. But, with SBI’s RSS/Blog It module (included free), every change on your website, whether new page or updated page, becomes part of your RSS feed and is pinged out into the world accordingly. So your content website is going to look to the SEs pretty much like a blog. Here’s the RSS/BlogIt page on one of my sites, so you can see what I mean: http://www.discover-acadia.com/acadia-national-park-blog.html

There’s a lot more too, but I don’t want to make this post any longer than necessary. You can find more description on their tools on this page at Site Build It:

http://tools.sitesell.com

One other point I want to make clear is that SBI is adding new and improved tools… all the time. They roll out new features almost every month… at NO additional charge. In fact, the price hasn’t gone up as long as I’ve been using Site Build It (and that’s 9 years!) Oh, and that slightly lacking, non WSIWYG site builder? It’s about to change, big time. I don’t know yet all the details, but I do know it’s going to be CSS driven and offer the option of a 3-column layout. I’ll be sure to report here with my review of it when it happens, probably within the next 3 months, I think.

You Have to Keep Paying That $299 Every Year & For Every New Site

Well, yeah… of course, you don’t get to renew for free. No quality webhost offers free renewals. After all, they’re in business too. And all those great tools, features, etc. that Site Build It offers do cost them money to maintain, troubleshoot and update.

Here’s some good news, though, and something you might not have heard at all those other “Site Build It is scam!” sites… Once you’ve had SBI for a year, you can renew on a month to month basis, rather than having to dole out $299 all at once. So, if a year has gone by and your site is starting to make money, but you’re not 100% sure you want to stick with it, you can just re-up on the monthly plan. It’s a lot easier to stomach $29/month, especially when money is super tight.

And yes, every new website license/account is $299. You might ask why you have to pay that whole amount once you’ve been through the SBI training materials. You may not feel like you really need to review all that stuff again. Goog point, but here’s the thing… you’re not really paying that $299 for the eCourse, though that IS a standard feature of SBI. The $299 is for the webhosting and all of the powerful tools that come with SBI. The course is a wonderful free bonus. At least that’s how I look at it.

Also, Site Build It offers specials several times a year, around nearly every major US holiday (spring, our 3 summer holidays, Thanksgiving), where you can get a second SBI site for only $100. If you buy at Christmas time, you can get your second site free for the first year. This is a great deal, and the way I’ve gotten many of my sites.

And when you’ve built a successful, money-making website with SBI, then that $299 isn’t really that hard to swallow… because you’re probably making it back withink the first month or two after renewal anyway.

So, I hope by now you realize that the Site Build It myth that SBI costs too much is just that… a total myth. SBI is worth every penny you’ll spend on it!

“This affiliate marketing case study describes how a novice working part-time used Site Build It! to create an affiliate web site that achieved $49,000 in sales in just over a year. His second site has now achieved more than $308,000 in sales for one merchant. We earn a commission on that. He spends nothing on advertising.”
~ Allan Gardyne
Rupert’s SBI! Experiment
http://case-studies.sitesell.com/

Apparently, our world is so negative and we’ve been ripped off so often, that many of us find it hard to believe that a company might actually deliver on its promises and that the price we pay for it is worth it. Is this true of SBI?

Well… do a Google search on Site Build It scam and you’re going to find more than a few rants from people claiming unequivocally that SBI is a scam. And to my eyes, that’s a real shame. Because nothing could be further from the truth.

Let’s look at the definition of a scam. In simple terms, it’s basically the same as a fraud. But, a more detailed definition tells us a scam is a fraudulent business scheme meant to victimize or deprive its victim by deceit. In other words, it is an attempt to intentionally mislead a person or persons (known as the mark) usually with the goal of financial or other gain.

I think, if you’ve been skulking around the Internet with the intention of building a money-making website for very long, you’ve probably experienced at least a few instances of Internet marketing scams. Sales pages that proclaim, “Make money while you sleep…”, “$50,000 in 30 Days without spending a dime!” and the like. Nine times out of ten, those so-called gurus either outright lie about their results and the methods used to achieve them, or they omit key steps in the equation.

How many ebooks and video learning programs have you bought that left you high and dry when you were finished? If you’re like me, more than you care to admit to. It’s a common experience in those of us who long to become our own boss and make money from home… unfortunately. And there are any number of true scammers just waiting to take your money.

Is SBI one of these scam companies? I don’t believe so. Here’s why…

They Don’t Claim to Be a Get Rich Quick System

In fact, they go out of their way to emphasize that they are NOT a GRQ system, that to succeed with Site Build It takes time and a LOT of hard work and dedication. In fact, the founder of SBI, Dr. Ken Evoy (a real doctor), calls it the BAM factor. He loves acronyms, a bit too much for my tastes, but BAM = Brains And Motivation. And that’s the key to success with SBI.

That seems pretty straightforward and honest to me.

SBI Is Not Free, But It Does Provide Lasting Value

Site Build It costs money, it’s true, quite a hunk of money, when you’re just starting out. $299 to be exact (at this writing). And while that can seem like a lot, if you think about how quickly all those $27 eBooks, $30 monthly memberships and $17 softwares can add up, not to mention the cost of web hosting, domain name registration, etc., it’s probably not that different. What makes it seem like so much, I think, is that you have to pay it all at once, up front. But look at what you get:

• A comprehensive course in building a successful web-based business
• Sophisticated keyword brainstormer
• Decision software to help with choosing a niche
• Unlimited bandwidth web hosting
• Point and click website builder, with hundreds of free design templates
• Automatic preparation/submission of an XML sitemap for search engine spidering
• Social bookmarking
• Web 2.0 style tool to enable visitor interaction and content submission
• Form building tool, suitable for contact forms, surveys, quizzes and polls
• Autoresponder/newsletter mailer
• RSS feed creation and pinging
• Broad-ranging database of link clickthrough, images, form data and more
• Search engine index rank reporting
• Step-by-step tutorials, video action guide, constantly updated tools and techniques library
• Supportive forum community
• Robust support center

It’s important to note that new features, tools and tips are rolled out at an amazing frequency (at least 4 to 6 times a year), and that the price has never gone up in all the time I’ve owned my SBI sites. That $299 includes everything except the Web 2.0 tool, which is $99/year, but optional to use, and you get 25 free submissions before you pay a dime.

Site Build It Works Hard to Not Mislead You on Its Sales Pages

I already talked about how hard SBI works to tell you it’s NOT get rich quick fodder. But they also go out of their way to tell you every other fact about what it takes to succeed in online business and how Site Build It differs from their competitors. In fact, if you read all of their sales copy, it’ll take you pages and pages and probably a couple of hours of your time. Dr. Ken does love to talk, I  mean write!

I’ll be the first to admit that it can be a bit overwhelming to wade through all that information. But, if you’re the type that likes to find out everything you can before you make a decision, then you might like all those facts. One thing’s for sure… most of your questions will probably be answered by the time you’re through.  But if not, you can even ask experienced SBI webmasters your questions. They’ll help you figure out if SBI is right for you.

And it’s important to know that Site Build It prides itself on overdelivering, in every aspect. So, they don’t just deliver what they promise… they deliver even more.

Should you find after the fact that SBI is not the right match for you for any reason, you can always request a pro-rated refund. That’s a guarantee you can count on.

Now does that sound like a scammer?

In my opinion, there is absolutely no evidence and no basis for anyone to claim that Site Build It is a scam.

It’s often been said that “Content is King” on the World Wide Web, and after all, isn’t that precisely what the Web is most about? Finding free information, that is. At least that’s how I see it. So, it comes as no surprise that some of the most successful websites to be found on the Internet are content sites. In other words, sites that provide tons of content that is focused (hopefully) on rather narrow niches.

Just look at Wikipedia! I don’t know about you, but every search I do seems to turn up Wiki sites within the first page or two. But you can also build money-making content sites that are NOT in the public domain.

For example, I have websites on resume writing, healthcare careers, caring for boxer dogs, motor scooters, quick easy cooking, and Acadia National Park. Each one has anywhere from 50 to 150 pages all focused on its particular niche.

I’m a writer, so the writing part comes easy to me, as you might imagine. But what about the actual building of web pages (and all the other “stuff” that goes into creating an actual live website)? I didn’t know anything about HTML or web building when I put up my first Site Build It website. I didn’t have to, though, because SBI provides sophisticated, but super easy to use tools to build well-formatted websites that get tons of traffic and consistently make money.

How much traffic and money, you ask? Well, my resume site routinely gets over 100,000 unique visitors and makes over $1500 every single month!

In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be publishing a series of reviews and myth-busters about Site Build It and all its many modules. I’ll also answer that frequent question, “Is Site Build It a Scam?” But if you want to check it out yourself right now, visit the QuickTour page to get started.