Site Build It Review
64Why I Love SBI
As a website designer I have had many years experience helping small business owners create effective websites. During that time I've gained an appreciation of what works and what doesn't work online.
Gone are the days where you can simply "put up a site" and expect to get traffic, and convert that traffic into profits. Website builders do nothing more than build a website. It might look great, but that doesn't mean you have a web business. Site Build It is a complete system - domain name, hosting, website builder, search engine optimization and web marketing - which will build a profitable online business.
In this age of Web 2.0, social marketing and social networking, SBI is probably a little bit old fashioned in its approach to building a website. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Creating a content site that actually delivers what potential customers are searching for - great content - is the foundation of a successful online business.
That's not to say that SBI doesn't harness clever technology. Some recent examples are new modules such as "Content 2.0" and "Infinit - It". These modules allow you to incorporate Web 2.0-like features such as user-added content and blogs.
Does It Work?
A client of mine is a personal trainer working out of Florida. Doug decided to build his own website using SBI, and with a little bit of help from me (not much), he now has an outstanding content site which ranks on the first page of Google and delivers a constant supply of new clients.
Doug's SBI Site on Google
- Special Prize
The free prize inside every box of Site Build It. - I Love SBI Videos
A collection of videos from SBI users. - The SBI Video Tour
A video guide to SBI.
SBU User Video
Website Design, Development & Marketing Strategies
- Getting Started With Social Marketing
Received some great comments and questions recently from Scott Sheperd who had found me via my profile on BlogCatalog. Scott says: “I started blogging a couple of years ago and then dropped it basically because I just don’t understand the RSS and the networking system and the affiliate stuff. I started up the blogging again and [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Getting Started With Social Marketing", url: "http://www.stevepronger.com/solutions/?p=5" }); - 5 months ago
- How SEOs Screw It Up For Everyone
Received this from the Stompernet guys recently: “Pure Evil: 10 More Devious Ranking Tips for Video + Social Marketing” I’ve learn’t a lot from Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon. Their original “Stomping the Search Engines” course was a good guide to the fundamentals of SEO and despite being very successful at their own online businesses they maintained [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "How SEOs Screw It Up For Everyone", url: "http://www.stevepronger.com/solutions/?p=4" }); - 5 months ago
- How to Shill Social Network Sites
A recent post on LED Digest raised the issue of organised voting up of content on social media sites. One subscriber had suggested that LED readers might be able to devise a system where each subscriber could submit and vote on other subscriber’s content. So in response to that, another subscriber designed and put up a [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "How to Shill Social Network Sites", url: "http://www.stevepronger.com/solutions/?p=3" }); - 6 months ago
- Web Business Solutions - the Blog!
Blogger is no more. After creating several new blogs with WordPress I realised just how much better a blogging platform it is than Blogger. Easier to manage. Easier to configure. Easier to customise. And most importantly, WP outperforms Blogger in the search engines by a country mile. So it’s out with Blogger and in with [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Web Business Solutions - the Blog!", url: "http://www.stevepronger.com/solutions/?p=1" }); - 6 months ago
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Comments
Hi Liz. Thanks for sharing your viewpoint. To me, hype is a whole lot of talk without tangible results. Can't agree with your assessment of SBI as hype. There are plenty of success stories apart from my personal trainer guy. Here's a few case studies:
http://case-studies.sitesell.com/ozbiz.html
Note the example of Marc Liron - http://www.updatexp.com/. He's a tech guy just like you. His SBI site is on page 1 on Google for "windows xp update". He's only beaten by Microsoft. There are 9 million page matches. I'd say that was a crowded market wouldn't you?
But SBI isn't aimed at web designers, SEOs and web marketers. It's aimed at small business owners. And small business owners, on the whole, do not want to become web designers. They want to generate leads, customers and sales. They have a business to run after all.
You and I might understand web design, SEO and web marketing. Personal trainers do not. They understand personal training. Doug basically built his site himself. He's a personal trainer. His market is South Florida. His potential clients search for "personal trainer south florida". They find him. They find great content. They become clients.
Could Doug have bought a template and taught himself web design, SEO and web marketing? I guess so. The information is out there if you look. Would he have had the time and motivation to do so? Highly unlikely. Could you or I build him a website which achieved the same results, without SBI? Yeah, I'm sure we could.
But Doug invested in a "system" which provided all the tools, guidance and resources he needed to succeed. All under one roof. And I don't know about you, but at a price I couldn't ever hope to match.
Sure, I agree SBI isn't for everyone. You do need to devote energy to it to make it work. Any worthwhile DIY endeavour does.
You are so right. I couldn't do it for anyone for $299 or whatever it is, that SBI costs. No way. Of course SBI is cheaper - that's because the client does all the work.
I guess that's my point, it's all still a lot of work, so they may as well do the whole thing themselves. By succeeding in SBI they've proved they are the ones that could have done it anyway. Not everyone has success with SBI who has bought it.
We can of course, agree to differ.
Great hub as I am an SBI owner myself. I think that it is a great tool for people that are new to the net but good for experienced users that want to simply have everything in one place.
Sean
Nice Hub..and My site is proof SBI works. Enter a few kewords random key words with Google, MSN, or Yahoo. You'll find that my site comes up for alot of these terms. There is no doubt it works and if you are considering building a website I would say there is no other way to go. Unless you are simply look to only landing pages etc. If you want a content site that gets traffic then its the way to go. Thats the reason so many SBI'ers have multiples site. You can do another quick test. Search a few random topics. You will notice the SBI sites (you should be able to recognize the templates) appearing alot on page 1 or 2 on Google. (Hint: Alot of the SBI sites will have the hyphens between the words). Try it..anyhow..nice HUB!
Proof it works: http://www.signs-of-a-cheater.com
I too have had success from the Site Build It! program. If you would like to see my review of the problem, please visit my Site Build It! product review at: <a href="http://publicknowledge-site-build-it.blogspot.com">http://publicknowledge-site-build-it.blogspot.com</a>
working
stormyweather says:
5 months ago
Is it just me or are there others who think SBI is a lot of hype. I mean I know it works for some people like the South Florida Trainer guy you mention, but he is hardly in a crowded market. I mean Google only has 305,000 competing pages for the term, which is low. SBI is a bunch of tools that still require a lot of hard work to make work in terms of success online.
People need not tie themselves into a provider like this, given the relative simplicity of most SBI sites, they could get a template and build it themselves. I guess they are seduced by the one stop shop nature of it.
It's just that many newbies think they can't, or that SiteSell will make it quicker. It'll take them an age to read through all of Ken Evoy's lengthy printed training material, let alone build a site. I tried it once - I was brain dead after a couple of hours. The guy really likes to talk!
If you have the energy to get through SBI's material, believe me you have the energy and time to do it for yourself, from scratch.