Another wrong assumption about Site Build It is that all Site Build It sites are ugly and old-fashioned looking. This may be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to making a buying decision about SBI.
When you’re first starting out on the Web with your first website, most of us tend to think mostly about how the site will look. I mean, we all want a cool-looking site, right? Something that reflects positively on us, that we can proud to show off to our families, friends and neighbors? It’s a natural desire, and in my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way.
Here’s where I have always disagreed with Dr. Ken Evoy of Site Build It. He’s kind of a plain and simple kind of guy. He doesn’t put on airs and he doesn’t think websites should either. But I know that I and many other SBIers have never really bought into that opinion 100%. Dr. Ken’s assertion is that it’s the content that matters… and I don’t disagree with that. Content is your #1 priority when you build a website that you want people to actually visit.
But… if you want them to stick around, your website has to be reasonably attractive and to portray a professional image… or at least an image that matches the niche you’re targeting. When Site Build It was first made, it had 10 templates, each in 2 different color schemes. I didn’t find any of them particularly attractive, but you were allowed to upload your own header, which helped. And that lasted for several years. Then, they ran a design contest and introduced about 100 more designs, but you had to be willing to dowload/upload them, which was a barrier for some people.
About a year later, they ran another design contest and introduced 100 new designs. But all of them were designed to work with their standard, left-aligned, 2-column format, with a narrow content pane. So although there was some design variation, you could still recognize an SBI site a mile away, even if it didn’t have the ubiquitous “Powered by SBI” graphic at the bottom of the page.
For many years, you could upload your own HTML pages and then, of course, your design could be anything at all that you wanted. But you had to know how to do HTML and be willing to learn how to upload… not that hard, but still too hard for a lot of folks.
But NOW… exciting changes are in the works! The folks at Sitesell.com ran yet another design contest in the fall… this one for 3-column designs, which many of us had been clamoring for. 107 new designs won out of over 400 that were submitted. And here’s the really great news… they’re all going to be available in the block builder, which means even if you don’t know and don’t want to know anything about HTML, you’ll be able to have a very modern-looking 3-column design. And your design will be so unique, there will no longer be easy identification of SBI websites… at least not by their look and feel. (They’ll still be the ones dominating the first 30 results in the search engines for their niches!)
Along with the new templates will come a totally new web-based WSIWYG page builder. They’re saying it will be along the lines of Weebly, if you’re familiar with it. This is going to be a HUGE improvement, and should remove one of the final barriers to people purchasing this product, in my opinion. Not only will it be easier to use, it’ll be based on CSS (style sheets), which will give you basically endless possibilities for a totally customized design. Here are a couple of samples of the award-winning new designs:
Sample SBI Template
Another very Web 2.0 template
We’re not sure when all of these changes will become widely available… some time this year for sure, but how soon is anyone’s guess. However, there is no reason to delay getting Site Build It if you want to build an online home business. The truth is, SBI sites succeed, no matter what they look like. I’ve seen some pretty ugly sites that are still getting tons of traffic and making their owners steady money every month… because they contain quality content and score high in the search engines, which don’t really evaluate what a site looks like, only what it contains.
And in time, you’ll be able to not only have a site that performs well… it’ll also look great!
