Categories
Online Business Passive Income Product Reviews Rants

Site Build It Scam Review

Site Build It has been around for a while, the question is – is it a good way to make Passive Income?  There are some good parts to it. But that doesn’t make it any less a scam. I’ve thought about reviewing it before but now I am MAD – and Steve Pavlina is the reason I’m mad. I like Steve –  his motivational writing is great – but now he has sold out to the other side and is pushing the old Site Build It scam review bandwagon!

Latest Update Jan 2011 – read my latest Site Build It Review

UPDATE: If you are late to the riot you may want to check the comments section and also the next post for the update on Site Build It scam review.

Your site all tied up
Your site all tied up

What is Site Build It ?

Its a “one stop shop” for someone who wants a website but doesn’t know where to start. You pay them a heafty fee- PER SITE – around $300 ANNUALLY. And for this sum you get:

  • “free” domain name
  • “free” hosting
  • drag and drop website builder
  • newsletter manager
  • autoresponder
  • search engine ranking help
  • traffic reports
  • hand holding: forum, tutorial etc.

Now if you Google for “site builder scam” – you will find a lot of  “reviews” which are just affiliate pitches.  Why? Because Site Build It pays affiliates around $75 a sale, and that’s an annual fee too remember. You don’t even have to be a user of SBI to be an affiliate – how can you sell something you don’t use yourself – that’s what I turned me off affiliate marketing initially.

You will find no link here for SBI – if you want to join – type in their url direct and then sign up as an affiliate and pay yourself the commission as a discount!

So Why is Site Build It a Scam?

  1. You don’t own your domain – the Anguilla-beaches .com site which features prominently in the sales pitch is owned by Ken Evoy – who owns site build it – according to domain tools anyways; UPDATE: yes you do own your site but this is still disingenuous marketing
  2. You can’t just move your website elsewhere to say cheaper hosting – you are tied up with SBI for life. You have to make $300/year just to break even on the deal! UPDATE: you can with varying degrees of difficulty – its not easy appears to be the consensus
  3. They spend a lot of time quoting Alexa rank of SBI sites – Alexa ranks just proves that you have a bunch of internet marketers visiting your site – probably because of the link from the sales page – as they are the only people who use the Alexa tool bar. Internet marketers are unlikely to buy your homemade chocolates or rent your condo in Puerto Rico;
  4. The search engine help according to Ssite Build Tt’s own sales promotion video involves submitting your sites to the search engines –  do not ever do this – this just prooves to Google that your site is not worth visiting cause no one is linking to it. Read Court on why you should NOT submit your website to Google
  5. Then to rank your site they suggest you use pay per click (PPC) advertising – this is as about as risky as say foreign exchange dealing as it not something any new on-line marketer should be doing.

So, no, SBI! is not a traditional scam. They no doubt deliver on what is promised – though you no doubt have to pay extra for the PPC champaign. Yes traditional hosting and free software won’t give you support on how to build your business.

But $300 for support is pretty darn expensive.

What Does It Cost to Build Your Own Site:

  • under $10 for a .com domain name ;
  • around $5/month for cheap hosting BTW that will cover more than one website to;
  • Drag and drop software to develop the site WordPress free ;
  • keyword research – free use adwords external ;
  • traffic analysis Google Analytics or Statcounter – both free

Yes its not all in one place, you have to learn to do some odd stuff along the way – but you are building a business aren’t you? SiteBuildIt is basically a franchise model applied to building websites – without the brand awareness that having “McDonalds” or “Avon” in your business does to customers in the real world. UPDATE: Its more like a cult – its a pretty scary one to, see the comments! Your visitors won’t feel more likely to buy from you just because your site is a “site build it!” site!

UPDATE: April 2012 The latest update of SBI’s software appears to have been a bit of a technical disaster. So rather than dealing with his customer’s complaints and sorted out the glitches, Ken Evoy has taken to hurling abuse at people who dare to complain that their website’s are broken -and has even, according to reports, banned some from the forums, and possibly even from SBI! 

Think about it – do you really want to have your website held hostage to someone who behaves like that? 

Yes they don’t promise that you will get rich in your sleep. Whatever tools you use to develop a website that’s the easy bit – getting the traffic is the work bit.

Bottom line with the  Site build it scam  you put the hard work in – you get your keywords to rank and you don’t own your website UPDATE You do own your site but you are locked into the SBI tools and although you can take the actual words from the site and you lose the access to the tools that you use to maintain and develop the site.

Photo Credit