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Update on “Site Build It Scam” Post

Here at Passive Income – it seems we are famous! Apparently my previous post which had the title of Site Build It Scam Review has got a little infamy! I never thought that  the “everyone gets 5 minutes of fame” thing applied to me – I guess I was wrong 🙂 Sorry to any one who subscribed to comments early on – bit of email overload I guess!

So for a brief re-cap on those who don’t have an hour to wade through the thousands of words of comments  in the early post – the recap is like this:

I Wrote a Review of Site Build It!

I wrote a review, my opinion of Site Build It. No I didn’t spend days and days researching – I was thinking about broadening my readership to people who may have an real business but are scared of the technology involved – I was looking at products that target that group – and Site Build It!  came up.

I searched “site build it review” and “site build it scam” – two standard phrases worth remembering if you are considering  buying a product: all I got, without exception, was affiliate sales hype pages – not one had a downside, negative point, a possibility of failure, not one didn’t have the financial interest in you clicking on the link and the reviewer getting the commission.

In fact the affiliate program seemed more hyped than the the product – that made me suspicious – if something is good – you don’t need to pushing the affiliate structure to people for them to make money – they are making money following the “system” aren’t they?

Lets be clear – Site Build It is NOT a Scam – its an over-priced, out-dated, cult – read on for details. That of course is just my opinion BTW!

Ken Evoy Responds to My Review

Ken Evoy (not Ken Envoy – people – watch your spelling 🙂 ) is the owner of Site Build It! and he took a moment out of his busy day to post a very long comment rebutting my review, he posted the same comment in the SBI private forum (info to access SBI forum here).

Ken came back and left a few more comments as well.  I made six points in my review and in some of them  I was wrong – well OK I was wrong in the first point – the site I checked about backside accommodation in the Caribbean which features heavily in the pitch is claimed to owned by a “14-year old girl” – they forgot to mention that this was 6 years ago, the girl, who is Ken Evoy’s daughter, is now 20 and he forgot to transfer the domain into name. But I’m sure she did the site with out any help from Dad at the time…

You can also apparently move your hosting and website to – you are not tied in for life – in fact if you get pissed and cancel they will pro-rata refund promptly to get rid of you.

Ken I am not going to argue you point for point because I don’t need to, you see this is my blog and I set the rules, there is one point which really stood out for me – you claim on behalf of SBI

it’s the only product in the world that enables people to create profitable e-BUSINESSES. It’s NOT about building a Web site. There are thousands of easier ways to do that. The vast majority fail due to the lack of process and tools that SBI! provides. Like I said, there are easier ways to build a site, but no better way to build a BUSINESS. (my emphasis)

There is one part of that is true: a website is not enough to make a business – very,very true. In fact what you seem to teach is for people to aim for traffic and a low Alexa rating. Now neither of those things pay the bills where I live- maybe its different elsewhere? The ONLY thing that makes a business that is successful is a PROFIT.  Your supporters quote traffic figures and Alexa ratings as if they were important – they are not!

Site Build It! Cult  Trolls Descend

Now Ken didn’t exactly tell his “Rapid Response Group” to come over and spam the blog – but that’s pretty much what happened.  Now I have a policy of free speech on the Internet – I do however run Askimet because I got bored of the comments about naked sexy girls and pharmaceuticals – Ken’s comment got caught up in Askimet – I dug him and several other out of my spam queue- that was why there was a delay with their  comments appearing.

The curious thing of course was that all your followers were over here sending me comments about why aren’t you publishing negative comments – suggesting that they knew that something wasn’t published. I also don’t live in North America – I don’t approve comments at 4am –  I sleep, well, thank for asking.

Now as the furor arrived so did the other side of the story – the people who were not happy customers of SBI – now I didn’t contact any of them – I promoted the post via twitter that was it – but oddly enough I suddenly had several pissed off people, who had bought SBI,  entering into the fray.

SEO and  Site Build It!

Now at this point I should explain I am not your average blogger. In fact I am not a very good blogger at all, I don’t do the whole social media thing, I don’t develop my professional on-line reputation here. This is my blog and I fucking well do what I please with it. That includes bad language and the odd spelling lapse.  However I do know, obviously, quite a lot more about SEO than most of the commentators so if you are going to provide me with 1000’s of words of free content heavily laced with my preferred keywords – do you think I am going to object?

Note to anyone thinking of doing something similar: – up your bandwidth limits – WordPress is a hog! Oh – and I hope you are on decent reseller hosting so that your other sites aren’t at risk of being taken down by  a sudden demand on resources from one site.

Honestly compels me to point out that I did delete some posts because  I really couldn’t see why my (theoretical) unhappiness, general mental health (lack thereof) and forthcoming (fatal) cancer diagnosis had nothing to do with the keywords I wanted to rank for. Yeah so if that shit bothers you you shouldn’t probably talk about SBI on your blog!

Professionalism and Site Build It!

I certainly do have a problem with my spelling – flipping FireFox doesn’t seem to be doing its auto-spelling thing anymore – if anyone has a technical solution love to hear it!

Just think about it though I have people leaving comments about my mental stability and poor spelling and in their  private forum making fun of my name and calling me names I hadn’t heard since I was at school!

Several people called me on the fact that they noticed I had other pages on this site which mention I do not yet make a full-time living on the Internet – therefore arguing that I had no write to criticise something I hadn’t tried and that my own method must be flawed because I was making the squillions they were.

I disagree, I haven’t called out anyone on their so-called income statements, I left that to people who know what they are doing check out: Vic talking about SBI Noobs – to point out what was wrong with the scenario.   Vic also has quite a good comment discussion going over on Steve’s Is Site Build It a Scam post. You may want to read Frank, at on-line cash,  who has posted about Earning Online Cash with Site Build It In fact read his whole blog if you want to know how to earn cash on-line.

Is Site Build It a Scam?

No, SBI is not a scam – its a lot, lot more dangerous than that – its a fucking cult: a group of people who are in love with Dr Ken Evoy who believe that the sun shines out of, well you know where, who believe the one true way as provided by Ken Evoy and brook no  interference or dissent either within their ranks or outside of them.

Why Were There No Negative Reviews of Site Build It

Site Build It Troll - At Rest
Site Build It Troll - At Rest

Because your average blogger when faced with the barrage I have had over the last 48 hours would have dropped the whole bloody thing, probably deleted the post and run for the hills. Or their useless hosting would have dropped their site for resource over-runs. They would have believed the threats legal and otherwise.

Some of us are old enough to remember that a mob was something that happened in person, and trust me a real riot or mob is pretty bloody scary – but at least the individuals are there in person and not hiding behind made up emails and generic IP addresses. The online version doesn’t scare us old people!

But that’s OK – that is then and now there are going to be a lot of negative SBI reviews – because you see, I now I appear to have a mob of my own 🙂 Odd that for someone who can’t spell and has a funny name! Around comment or 20 or 30 when we were in the realms of libel and slander and suing,  I checked in with a private forum I am a member of, as  I am unfamiliar with US law. I got the answers I needed and moved on, to do some work actually – you know the stuff that makes money. A few people saw the post.

I also checked out one of my favourite blogs, How to Make Money with Adsense by Grizz and noticed a reference to SBI, in the comments  – I replied  in a comment. It was noticed, the rest, as they say, is history.

Grizz has a friend or 3, or 3000 – why because he gives away good information for FREE. Grizz posted a post, about whether is Site Build It a scam.  Its only a crappy blogger blog – a free blog – no less – I don’t think anyone will see it :-). Vic having got into the spirit of things as to whether Site Build It Review or even SBI Review or whatever was an over-priced piece of shit – his language not mine! Friar has an interesting political take on free speech and blog trolls  Site Buid It Scam Trolls

You see we all share a similar dislike of bullies – and Ken Evoy is just that, a bully. Getting off his mailing list is apparently pretty hard, but the level of hate and vitriol from the true believers, is pretty bloody pathetic. Ken thinks that “cult” applies to companies such as Apple or Google.  It may in your lexicon Ken – but it mine, I am firmly associated SBI with Amway, and similar MML schemes – not that I am saying SBI is a MML – but your psychology is:

  1. There is one way and its the SBI – follow it and you will succeed;
  2. If you fail its cause you didn’t try hard enough or, God forbid, thought for yourself and tried to make the business fit your skills and personalities;
  3. Any questions – see 1.

I stopped working for other people’s companies because I didn’t want to work for idiot bosses anymore. I wanted to do my own thing, fail maybe,  but win probably  – and win on my terms, my way and without any arsehole telling me I have not question his way!

Why There ARE Negative Reviews of Site Build It Now

This is the deal people; there are going to quite a lot of reviews of SBI now – they are real reviews: from people have opinion. But worse than that – they are people who know how to get their posts ranked on page 1 – for -oh I dunno something like Site Build It Review?

Allyn, a new talent in video blogging, posted Blogger Illustrated, Slams SBI – caution language almost as bad as Vic’s and beer…

Terry Freelance Writer and ethical marketer wrote How NOT To Make Money with Site Build It

Splork has a great, under-read blog, and posts lots of useful reviews – but he thought that Site Build It Was A Waste of Money

Now I hadn’t seen Friar’s blog before but after reading Site Build It Review and his take on trolls – I will return!

Archie started a whole blogger blog about Site Build It Scam – nice domain name Archie.

Denise has had personal experience and wrote about how Make Money Online for Free – Not with Site Build It

April had thoughts on Dr Evoy and SiteSell.com

Then there is a  Real Site Build It Review on Squidoo – but is $300 – Medic – careful with facts mate!

Wayne got away from Tech and Politics to post a Site Build It Scam

Archie on the other hand just added Site Build It Controversy to his Make Money Online rants!

Site Build It Scam was Christie’s contribution.

Loreecee wrote about her experience with Site Build It Makes Not Much Money

Bruce talks about What is a scam

Simonne writes about the disturbed nature of the Site Build It Review Soap Opera

Max talks about a Site Build It SCAM and re-defines SCAM – entertaining!

Make Money Blogging wrote about Site Build It – Evoy Empire interesting post and great illustrations!

Nick didn’t like the bashing from the trolls in his Reviews of Site Build It

Personal Development for Dummies really doesn’t like either Steve Pavlina or the Site Build It Cult !

Looking for a good structured course on making money online? Check out my review of The KeyWord Academy – good product at a fair price.

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221 replies on “Update on “Site Build It Scam” Post”

Lissie, I’m glad you wrote the Site Build It review which started all this. This is how a system that appeared only outdated and rusty proved in fact to be a hive full of soldier-bees ready to protect their queen and programmed to sting anybody who dares to get closer.

Simonne’s last blog post..The Soap Opera of SBI Scam Review

Oops – missed your’s will add as well! We own 6 out of 10 places on “site build it scam review” so far in my datacentre!

I did not realize that you will have a second post about this issue. I think instant fame is inevitable when we post opinions about a sensitive issue.

However, I would rather consider this issue as a viral marketing strategy. Unfortunately, not a good one for SBI and Ken. He and his group should be able to defend their site very well.

Thanks.

Rich’s last blog post..Site Build It Scam Issue: Viral Marketing in the Making?

@Rich – I am not really going for fame just a double-indexing in Google – and yes I had a thing or two to say – that’s the advantage of this blog – don’t have to be keyword focussed its all over the place!

Hey Lis – I just left a comment on your original post and now here you are starting all over again with a second post ! Is there no end to your energy ? I’m totally drained after reading all those comments and looking at videos and listening to audios – I should get a life ! Steve Pavlina gone over to the dark side ? What is the world coming to ? Steve Pavlina is what we refer to in the trade as a solipsist. An interesting guy and generally I would agree with his solpsistic view of ‘life’ but being a solipsist why is he so interested in making money ? All very odd ! Fortunately I am a solipsist too so I know that Steve Pavlina does not really exist. TTFN – VicW

Make Money Online Blogging (Yes We Can !)’s last blog post..Make Money Online from Anti-Social Blogging

@ MMOB(YWC) – askimet is not your friend! Tired yeah – a little but its quite easy to right 2000 words when you are really pissed off -I thought I should contribute something as the comments on the previous post so outweighed my own, poorly spelled attempt at a review LOL
@Mark – careful this place is BAD neighbourhood you know – full of internet marketers and trolls LOL. There can be bad language and typos too. I am delighted to be considered in the same breath as your ranting crazy self!

@Vic find myself humming -you’re never walk alone – note to self -definitly time to go to bed LMAO!

@Denise We used to have a political party in New Zealand called the Barmy Army – I feel that I have this rag-tag army of crazy people behind me at the moment – its a nice feeling – but I am now going to bed – nite guys!

@Max – I am loving SCAM – are you old enough to remember the Man from UNCLE – they would have understood SCAM – I’ll add you to the list!

Thanks Make Money – an interesting post and I’ll be back to read some real posts LOL

a new blog? a stroke of genius lis. always, leave on the high note.

in personal relationships it’s the same. you leave FIRST!

ok, now back to the fun stuff.

i was just in the sbi forums. thinking, we can’t post there (wouldn’t we love to?), but, they’re scared shitless to post in your blogs now. lol

they’re comparing us to characters in the movie “Deliverance”, saying all we need is dueling banjos.

Well, i guess they forgot what us toothless, inbred, hillbillies did to them in the woods, or maybe they just miss it!

do you miss it kenny boy? do you miss it natasha? um huh, and do you really miss it boris? come on baby be honest.

squeal piggies, squeal. we love to hear you squeal.

.

.

@X-SBIer – I guess we aren’t the good guys right LOL – will try to find appropirate video for next post! I like the duelling banjos!

Hey Lis,

Good to see that there are a few more comments on the blog about sbi, on this post and the other site build it review.
Been keeping an eye on things from when you posted in the forum and think that those guys really don’t realise what they were getting themselves into.

Had a nosy around the site build it forums and some people do say some funny things, lol.

Lets see what the next day or so brings – no.1 for site build it would be a good place to be, and I think we know who’s gonna get there ;-).

Nick’s last blog post..Review of Site Build It – The Bashing

Hi Lis,
Looks like you’re kicked over a bit of a hornets nest here.

I think you’re mostly seeing the natural reaction and protests protests of people defending something on which they have invested time and money.

This is similar to the very vocal response by Renegade University members when I complained about their members spamming Hubpages some months ago. Not many of them addressed the issue I raised, but I got plenty of personal advice about my intelligence, sanity, and mental state 🙂 )

I’ve never used SBI, but have been aware of it for a while. Sorry I can’t really agree that it’s a scam. It’s a package that does many things that can now be done using other methods. Like all things, the value of SBI is in the eye of the beholder.

I’ll be interested to see where this goes.
Cheers, Eric G.

Eric Graudins’s last blog post..CHOP OFF your useless WWW Appendix

Eric – I thought of you and the Renegrade Uni mob. I don’t think its natural to react by threatening the writer with cancer and a bad life! I really do not like mobs of fanatics, but truely didn’t expect to find one, I can understand it on a religious blog or a politics blogs – but Site Build It is just supposed to be a system to build a business.

Where this is going is that the next desperate noob who wants a website to make money will find some real reviews from independent people who are describing a larger picture. I literally found nothing but cut and paste affiliate crap when I searched “site build it review” and “site build it scam” – that made me suspicious – no system is perfect and none works for everyone who buys it!

Do you have a video of banjo playing – I need one – duelling banjos I think its called!

Oh, forgot to mention:
I’m now off to practice on my banjo.
And in X-SBIer’s honour, I’ll start off my session with “Dueling Banjos” 🙂
Eric G.

Eric Graudins’s last blog post..CHOP OFF your useless WWW Appendix

Methinks I will start my own cult following you Lissie! As I have said before, you are one of the people that I trust to give me the real skinny on things, and I applaud you as a person and a writer ( and BTW spelling mistakes don’t disqualify you from being a writer lady!) You are fine just the way you are and those bullies better get off your back! They should get back to making their mega millions at Site Build!
(And BTW the way Lissie the expletives in your post made me laugh. You made my day!)

Dorsi Diaz’s last blog post..How gardeners can help reduce climate change

@Dorsi you are way too smart to be cult follower! I try to keep it clean on 3rd party sites like hubpages – but this is my corner of the internet and language will to my standards! Spelling was only formalised around 300 years – Shakespeare couldn’t spell – I find that a good model to follow! The irony of this is purely delightful – they are hung by their own petard quite literally!
BTW Askimet doesn’t like you – you were in spam 🙁

hiya,

if i don’t use SBI to start a website, can you tell me what I should use instead???

thanks very much

dave

@Dave – no I can’t I have no idea why you want to start a website – figure out what your site is for and start reading – all the links are here!

Dang Lissie, I love you already 🙂 You say what you want and don’t let the bullies get you down.

You said a mouthful when you said the name Griz. He got the minions on the run with his post and that is how I found you. Some of us are loyal “followers” of the old bear follow wherever he tell us to go.

What I don’t understand with people in general is this. Is it SO wrong to have an opinion? That is basically all you did and you get blasted for it? Idiots who hide behind computer monitors get on my nerves.

I say, good for you. Keep sharing your opinion and don’t let those trolls scare you off.

And, I just added a new word to my vocab – SQUILLIONS – so thanks! Wait, is that more than a gazillion or less than a buzillion.

The Computer Lady – I believe that a squillion is a sufficient income to keep me in all the gins/resorts/young men that I require.. A gazillion adds in the toys and a buzillion includes the 3 or 4 holdiay homes.

But I could be wrong – you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the interenet!

@lis:
quote”I can understand it on a religious blog or a politics blogs”

But that’s my point – People with a financial interest in something often respond with religious fervour if you question it. I recall having interesting conversations with people who were Amway representatives and wanted to “show me the business”.

Duelling banjos clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyKvD-4IxOY

@dave:
If you want to start a site I’d recommend self hosted WordPress. Pay a visit to my site, search for “WordPress”, to discover why.

Eric Graudins’s last blog post..CHOP OFF your useless WWW Appendix

Lis,
Great job on the update post. I was concerned with some of the accuracies in your previous post and you put that to rest. Shows your an honorable person. Hope you enjoyed your 5 minutes of fame.. May it last longer and increase your wallet to compensate for the bandwidth. :o)
-Dennis

DennisJr’s last blog post..Ken Evoy Defends Site Build it as a Scam

Wow … so much to try and unravel and keep score (nearly impossible me thinks 😉

Hmmm let’s see ….

We have the SBI Trolls …. The Renegade Uni(-bombers?)

So … now here do we have the Hub-dingers (sorry couldn’t resist) showing up 😉

Thanks for making me smile Lis 🙂

Jim Hickey’s last blog post..Choosing a Free versus Self-Hosted Blog: Think Carefully When Choosing a Blog Platform

hi liz,

i think what you REALLY want is a
BRAZILLION.

thanks to you and the “ken manson family”, we’re having a ball!

.

conspicuously absent from this fray has been debs seeber (debtsteps.com), the “queen bee” of sbi, a moderator with over 26.000 posts. (she’s not as dumb as she looks).

orginally brought on by ken as “the enforcer” she has apparently mellowed in her fat old age.

you are the “greatest” debs.

.

@Eric – nice pitch – you’re welcome 🙂
@Dennis – it was never really about fame but I feel confident that I dominate my chosen keyword !
@Newbie the hounds were called off – Ken woke up to the fact that his foot was sore from being shot. Though I am still getting the odd funny supporter comment on the original post – I am leaving it to Grizz and Vic to respond – they after really know how to make money
@Jim – score – I wrote this 2000+ word post because I was starting to lose the chain of events – and I’m in the box seat LOL. I think the really interesting thing is that his mob all write the same thing, in grammatically correct English. My “mob” all have their own opinions – wow maybe they think for themselves?
@Nick thanks
@Bihar – possibly – I wrote the post and went to bed – I woke up to chaos! This blog gets indexed quicky – so its possible I went straight to page 2 of the search results – more likely he uses google alerts – useful tool to track stuff – like your company’s name

@ Site Build It Review Site – Cool site – wonder what made you think of that 🙂 ! The party continues on the early post – we are at 159 comments and counting – I feel a bit like the spectator – the comments have become self-answering LMAO!

Hey Liz,

I gave you a link a few days ago – hope it helped. Have been reading all the comments with much amusement. You certainly have got yourself a lot of attention lately 😉

Anyway just wanted to drop in and say hi,

Another aussie,
Tracey

Tracey’s last blog post..Fake Scam Product Reviews

I also think he might be using google alerts. As far as SBI goes, I assume it might be OK for people with little knowledge of things like wordpress and other ways of making blogs and websites. But its definatetly expensive.

Bihar’s last blog post..anil left a comment for ‘Shweta’

“The party continues on the early post – we are at 159 comments and counting – I feel a bit like the spectator – the comments have become self-answering LMAO!”

Write a bunch of hogwash and get tons of attention for it, isn’t life just great? Sad.

I trust Ken Evoy and Steve Pavlina. You’re not in the same league and you’re riding on the back of their success.

Keep milking it, it won’t last.

Integrity, beauty and truth wins out every time.

I trust your readers will check their facts before they waste their time on your advice. I hope so at least.

@Hi Tracey and welcome
@Bihar – just a little expensive 🙂
@ Marius – you are kinda missing the point totally! Just read this great opinion piece on Steve Pavlina and the Law of Attraction – Im sure you’ll enjoy it. Over 200 comments now

@Lis: I think the law of attraction is complete BS as well. It’s New Age mysticism for muddy-headed people who none-the-less lack the discipline and intellectual honesty to join an organized religion. Either be a Materialist through and through and reject Teh Force (and all it’s various names), or join a real organized religion that at least imposes some discipline on your urges regarding drugs, adultery, etc. To be half materialist and half magician (e.g. “manifesting” money from mere thought like alchemists of yore turning lead into gold)–is to be wholly whacked.

Yo, Yo, Jomamma,
wassup baybee?

where did you come from? has the “queen bee” taken charge of cleaning up Fearless Leader’s fiasco?

ken has culled his 100,000 affiliates and found one who wasn’t educated with a banana and an innertube.

ok, let’s see, City College New York, pre-law and you were a member of the debate team. how’m i doing?

you passed out in the bangbus one night and woke up pregnant by god knows who.

disgusted with yourself, you got a tattoo and a crew-cut, started wearing camouflage and jungle boots, and riding a Harley (maryann harley).

damn, 100,000 sbi sites and all you and brain-damaged paul can use as argument is 2 (TWO) stupid, shit sites.

god, how much is ken paying you save his sorry ass. it can’t be done. ken and sbi have become a joke, and that’s almost impossible to recover from. once you’re a joke, no one will take you seriously again.

jeez, ken you look a mess! you need a shave,… and get some sleep. And take those sunglasses off, you’re at work and among your fiends. “Wah, Wha, who’s gonna pay for my new home in Anguilla.”

kenny boy, you’ve been screwing the pooch for a long time. but now, WE’VE GOT PHOTOS!

.

@yourmom
Do you honestly believe that organized religion “imposes some discipline on your urges regarding drugs, adultery, etc.????”

That just shows that you have no critical thinking skills. No wonder what people are telling you here isn’t sinking in!

Atheists have the lowest percentage of the prison population and have the lowest divorce rates. Why? Because they believe they alone are responsible for their actions. Organized religions give people a cop out (the devil made them do it, all humans sin) and also an easy way to make it all better (just repent and all is well.)

SBI may not be an outright scam but it is seriously taking advantage of people. I wonder if Ken considers himself a good Christian?

Hi Lis
Put up a hub with ‘Site build It Review’ as anchor text. Now I really should stop reading all the comments and do some work!

Whoa, Lissie, nice work, girl. I couldn’t sleep tonight so I thought I’d check out your blog (got your twitter direct). I remember SiteBuildIt was pretty much my first introduction to the world of affiliate marketing. I printed the free affiliate masters guide and read it (or tried to, it’s pretty dry reading) out on my patio on a warm summer day.

I’d been involved with MLM in the 80s and some of the marketing felt that way. Plus, at the time, I didn’t have the money to invest, I was learning and wanted to check stuff out on my own. I’m glad I have, I like the sites I’ve created and over the past 4 years I’ve learned a great deal. I’m pretty sure I would have missed out on all that if I’d bought a package like this (and then worried about selling the package itself to get a downline…)

Anyway, good for the people who’ve done well with it. To each their own.

Cheryl’s last blog post..Why Are We So Dissatisfied?

Hi,

I dont think SBI is a scam.It provides real value.

But i agree the $300 price tag is very high.

Thanks for the post though.

Even Steve Pavlina says, you dont need SBI if you can provide real value .

He himself uses Go Daddy.com.

If you can afford that much amount a year then go for it.Especially if you are in a job and are very busy to learn something which is easily available for free or at less cost.

Hi Lis. I found your blog through Hubpages, and I must say that I admire your determination and honesty. I enjoyed reading this article and have subscribed to your blog because I want to read more about you. I like the originality and how you allow yourself to use the ocassional “bad words” whenever you see fit.

Please feel free not to publish this content, if you think, since it is not 100% related to this actual post. Sorry, I just could not find a contact me link.

I am looking forward to reading more, Guillermo.

Guillermo’s last blog post..Is The Recession Causing an Overweight Population?

Thanks for commenting everyone – this thing has got waay bigger than I ever thought it would LOL. Anyone reading this who wants to see a really good well balanced review of Site build it should head over to Toban’s site – in the comment above – nice work Toban!

these half assed reviews rock.
love your work lis. u sound like u know what ur talking about but u really don’t. thats the beauty of publishing on the net, u can say what u want, truth be damned. i love it.
i have 2 sites that kick some serious ass thanks to sbi. i’m thinking of taking some of the concept and creating a new non sbi- only because the tech is a bit limited for my needs.

hopefully people will believe your bullshit and not go there so no one will copy my site. im sick of the upcoming sbi’ers who like to copy site concepts it’s so hard to stay ahead of the curve these days. i used to pay it forward in the forums but now i keep all my ideas to myself – i am all about me now.

ok thanks again.
i haven’t been this excited since my first $5000+ month.

Jeeze h-girl its taken you how long to figure out to keep quiet about your niches? Fortunately most SBIers probably don’t know to google for “my keyword” +”powered by site build it” – to see their “local” competition LMAO

Hi all!

I’m working on a list of things I’ll need to get started with a niche website if I don’t go with SBI for $299.

Is there anything else that I should add?

Hosting (1 year)…………………..$60
1 domain (1 year)………………….$96
Keyword Elite…………………….$176
Market Samurai……………………$149
SEO Quake………………………..FREE
Wordpress………………………..FREE

TOTAL: $481

David your figures are a little off
Hosting $60
Domain: .com – standard price $9.99 – you can usually get them for $7.49, you can get a .info for 0.99c you can use a blogger blog for free -those are annual figures, prices as at godaddy
You don’t need Keyword Elite AND Market Samurai – if you can afford one buy Market Samurai its cheaper and does more, if you can’t afford it use the free tools available

Minimum spend to get started : FREE (blogger plus using free tools)
Maximum spend to get started 60+149+9.99 = $220
The only recurring part of that is the domain registration ($9.99 or less)

If you buy more domains your hosting costs will cover those as well in the short-term -ideally you will want a reseller account which cost more but you don’t need one to start.

A host like hostgator provide one button installs for WordPress
You might also want to track your stats Google Analytics or statcounter – both free

You will probably need an ftp program to upload new themes etc for WordPress – I use and recommend filezilla – its free to

If you want to create pdf’s for your website for any reason – use OpenOffice – does what Micorsoft Office does – but its free

Hope this helps

@Lis – Thanks for the advice. It did help.

I’m off to read the blogs and perform my due diligence. This does look like the better way to go, but I’m trying to stay objective.

Shhh… Lis. Don’t tell them anything on how to protect themselves. Dr. Ken is all the protection they need!!

Oh BTW- for “Site Build It Review”

Vic is #4
Grizz is #8
You are #12

All in a span of less than a week.

The power of SEO…

Thai’s last blog post..Site Build It? Forget It!!

Lissie, Lissie

I am away for a few days and all hell breaks loose.

You know I would have rode to your rescue but my donkey threw a shoe.

The funny thing is I have been at the neurologists for the last few days and while I was there, there were all these people walking around with their gowns on back to front, their privates hanging out, and dibbling.

I did’nt take much notice of the twenty or so spit soaked patients until one of them pissed on my bed, while shouting Ken, Ken, SBI, SBI. I told him i’d give him SBI, I picked up my bedpan and smashed him in the face, “Suck Bedpan Imbred” I said.

Now thats the only time SBI is worth saying.

Take care
John

Hi John Tighe – I figured you were doing something more important! Well at least you have lots of free bedtime reading – for months! Hope you are feeling better! I will keep eye out for donkey!

@Toban – that is complete crap – its been an eyeopener this concept of controlling forums for the owners own purposes – I had never realised how censored the internet really is!

Hey Lis,
You’re a Steve Pavlina fan I believe – I just got this comment on my blog from Toban (who wrote a negative review about SBI and started a thread criticising SBI on Steve Pavlina’s forum) –

“It looks like Pavlina wasn’t too happy about me criticizing SBI on his forums. I got banned, and considering what I wrote, it hardly seems fair. Looks like more he’s interested in protecting his SBI revenues…”

Lol – terrible I know but it makes me laugh – I was expecting that to happen – I’m only suprised it didn’t happen sooner !

Site Build It Review Site’s last blog post..Site Build It Review Update

@SBIRS – I kinda gone right off Pavlina – I read that forum thread on his site – seemed pretty reasonable to me as did your review – where there is smoke…

“I did’nt take much notice of the twenty or so spit soaked patients until one of them pissed on my bed, while shouting Ken, Ken, SBI, SBI. I told him i’d give him SBI, I picked up my bedpan and smashed him in the face, “Suck Bedpan Imbred” I said.”

Not only did I spit my coffee all over my desk at work, raising more than a few eyebrows, I think I peed a little!! Funniest comment on the internet!

…and thanks Lis for providing me with such good reading material over the last few days. Gets me through my working day 🙂

hey lis,
god you’ve disappeared! now, i’m going through “withdrawal” (coitus interruptus).

oh shit, don’t tell me you’re buying into dr. ken’s psycho bullshit.

“imma gonna sue ya” and, “imma gonna sue franqui and brears, and anybody that sez shit agin me”. LMFAO!!!!

don’t go off the air now, this is history!
let him bring it on! can you imagine the “shit-storm”?

oh yeah! you’re gonna be famous dr. ken, when every blogger on the net climbs onto your funky ass.

you’ll be in the Guinness Book as “That Guy” who took 1 million dicks in his A$$ at one time. it will definitely make number one on YouPorn. i can’t wait.

.

@We Have a Winner – I’m not disagreeing with John Tighe has shown an hitherto hidden talent for comedy – its a Brit thing I think. Sorry about the keyboard – actually let me state here quite clearly that I am taking absolutely no responsibility for any keyboards or loss of drinks caused by reading my blog at work, or any other circumstance!

@Im a junkie – nope I must admit I think that even if I “saw the light” – I doubt that Dr Ken would be accepting into the SBI “club” after this little entertainment! In fact I was off making some money -sorry about that !

I’m just trying to figure out the double-index thing.

This post referred back to the first post, but I didn’t see where the first post referred to the 2nd post.

Please explain.

CD Rates Blog’s last blog post..Delaware (DE) Banks CD Rates

this is ken’s original post when setting up SBI’s Rapid Response Team.
http://forums.sitesell.com/viewtopic.php?t=30336

and lis, there are sbi’ers calling you a coward and hypocrite for not posting the “hope you get cancer” post. how stupid are they???

i think you should reconsider and post it. “Let all the evil in eggs hatch out!”

.

Now, I see. But won’t google just consider that a reciprocal link and not really count it that much?

I’m not sure why Askimet doesn’t like me. I don’t even have a mailing list to send spam. It shouldn’t be that the email address doesn’t match the domain, because people do that all of the time. Maybe it is the keyword phrase in the name, but others do that as well. Although the domain my email is on had some problems a long while back. For an experiment I used a different email. Let me know if it still lands in Askimet.

Good work by the way.

CD Rates Blog’s last blog post..Delaware (DE) Banks CD Rates

@CD maybe because its an internal link – I dunno? Still Askimet hates you – it could be the blog or the IP as well as the email address – ask for reinclusion – get some other friends to dig you out first – seems to work!

Hi,
Have been looking at all of this info. and am overwhelmed. I was considering SBI! but am glad to have come across the review and other options for making money from a content/blog structure. I have one big question:

Considering I know nearly nothing about the technical side of constructing and maintaining sites and the IM involved in making them profitable, how long would it take to put together an “essentials” toolbox, learn some basics and start experimenting?

It seems to me that SBI! might save an inexperienced person time. (probably not money and definitely not in the long run with recurring fees and $$ for options etc.)

Could it be worth it to “shorten the learning curve” and get a working site up quickly, then gain IM experience gradually and quit SBI! when one outgrows it?

Or would it be better to dig in and bootstrap from the get-go?

Thanks for any input,

Kelly

Hi Kelly: Good on you for asking smart questions.

As you see from some of my posts, I tried SBI to shorten the learning curve and ended up losing time. By accident or by design, their system is set up to keep members dependent on it. Their terminology is different than what’s generally used in the non-SBI internet marketing world, so if you decide to leave, you have to learn a whole new language in order to communicate with the people who can teach you something useful.

Other things to be careful of: SBI says that if you don’t use their system, you’ll have to learn to write HTML code. That might have been true in 2004, but in reality, most of us don’t touch HTML other than some basic commands like bold, header tags, blockquotes, and hyperlinks that you can learn in fifteen minutes. Most of us use either WordPress.org on a host that offers unlimited domains, or free Blogger blogs. Although these sites are set up as blogs, they can be made to look like static HTML pages and have the advantage of fill-in-the-blank forms and readily available free templates. The fact that SBI doesn’t even acknowledge WordPress or Blogger as a viable option, combined with Ken Evoy’s well-known disdain for SEO, really turned me off to them after I got out and saw the big picture of internet marketing and how it changes literally from week to week.

I’ve been teaching a friend to set up a one-page static site on Blogger to sell a single affiliate product with some cheap (<50cent) Adwords advertising to draw traffic while she’s waiting for her Google traffic to kick in. The first one took her five hours. The rest of them will take her fifteen minutes each. I have one that makes me $100 a month for $25 a month worth of Adwords PPC ads. Ten more of them is $$750 a month net profit. She’s in art school, so the money is most welcome. If the product converts like mine does, then she’ll be earning money the same week she puts up the site, although she’ll have to wait 60 days to get paid.

This is the reality of how things happen in internet business. Unless you have tons of money to spend or started in 2003, you read and learn, put up a small site, see what works, tweak and improve it, make a little money, and move on to the next one. There’s tons of room for growth and improvement (and profit) if you’re a quick study. I love doing this more than any work I’ve ever done, and I’ve had a lot of jobs with way more social status.

Lorecee’s last blog post..Passive Income Online: It’s Hard Work

Hi Kelly, thanks for the questions. I have some questions for you: – you don’t need to answer them in public- but you do need to think about them:

* why do you want a site/s – is just for fun, learn some new skills earn extra money?
* if earning extra money: do you need to earn money now e.g. you just lost your job or do you have a timeframe – say 6-12 months?
* do you want a second income – few hundreds a month or do you want to replace a job’s income?
* how much money do you have to invest up front – can you afford to lose that investment?

Now look at your skill sets: which of the following skills do you already have/ know you could acquire if you wanted to/know you would struggle with:

* can you set up a blogger blog? – go and setup one – its free, try it for practice.
* do you know how to sell things in the real world? Do you have a feel for what people are buying ?
* have you run your own business before – do you know how to motivate yourself and be your own boss

You say you feel overwhelmed – I am not at all surprised – so is everyone else when they start down this line. Most give up or burn out, or max out the credit card chasing idea after idea. That’s where Ken Evoy’s product is smart – he says – trust me, follow my way – you will win! You don’t have to think – its discouraged really – just do what I tell you. That’s attractive if you are suffering from information over-load.

I worried about information overload when I first go into this game – I gave myself 3 months to make it – LOL – I had no idea! I have had a couple of previous careers -both took 2/3 years full-time study at college/university – why would making money online take me any less time especially though I had no fear of technology I had no idea of how to work for myself, or marketing! Trust me if your only problem is the technology you are are way ahead of where I started!

To me that most important thing you can lose is time – most of us don’t know how to make any more of it! Not all sites make money – this is not an exact science so to me the biggest negative with SBI for my business model is that they charge $300 /site – I want around 150 sites- the model clearly wouldn’t work if you want more than one or two sites. There is enough comment back and forth on my original post to see that moving away from SBI means quite a lot of rebuilding and relearning – so you don’t just lose the upfront cost you lose that time as well…

IF you decide to try out SBI please use my friend’s splork’s affiliate link in this post http://lostballinhighweeds.com/site-build-it-is-a-waste-of-money/ I believe you can bail in the first 30 days and with no obligation (double check that).

I have also added a banner at the bottom of the post for a product called StoreStacker – it won’t build the business for you – but it may take some of the learning curve out if you are nervous about adding eBay, Amazon, affiliate links, RSS feeds etc etc Its not free – but you can can get it for a $1 up front and then have 2 weeks to cancel before the main payment goes thru. You’ll need your own domain name and hosting but a dot info domain is currently 0.99c and hosting we’ve discussed before! Again the cost of the software is one time and does not restrict you to how many sites you can build.

IF you don’t understand how to figure out what people want to buy online then I highly recommend at least viewing the videos I referenced here – https://lissowerbutts.com/whats-a-buying-keyword/ they are well done and understandable.

Most important though figure out what your goals/business plan is up front and then you will have a blueprint – you might have to change it along the way – but you will have some structure

@Lorecee – we cross-posted – hadn’t seen your answer before I posted mine – not that some people will believe me! You make some valid points from someone who was a member of SBI for some time!

Kelly got some stuff to think about between our 2 comments I think 🙂

@CD Rates and the reciporcal link to get the double listing. I had the double listing within 24 hours having got for the linking right – only showing when you search for the exact anchored term “site build it scam” – I suspect Google does discount the link – but the display of 2 posts has got to do with Google seeing the 2 as closely related – and for the visitor -it takes up more screen real estate so more likely to click surely?

While SBI doesn’t have the greatest templates, and may be a bit clunky/ outdated in some ways, I do believe it is a great way for those new to the web and to website building to learn how to make money online through niche sites.

There are many website owners who went from not knowing what SEO meant to running profitable sites and earning an online income thanks to the SBI program. SO I don’t think it can be called a scam.

I started my very first site using SBI and it runs on SBI to this day. I now also use HostGator and WordPress and html templates for a variety of niche sites I run, but that’s because I’ve taken the time to learn some basic html, ftp, etc etc.

I do credit the information I learned at SBI with my success on other online ventures, as it was a in-depth course in SEO, keywords, pre-selling, etc.

The $300/ year is just $25 a month. For the time and effort saved for a beginner, not to mention the wealth of help available on the forums, I think it is well worth it for many.

Maria’s last blog post..How to Make Money with a Website: Writing Content

Wow, thanks for all the thoughtful replies, and the time you all took to write them. I think each one is very valuable and will help me to make my ultimate decision.

@Lorecee – that’s what I was thinking re: losing time by having to re-learn techniques and transfer everything to another host. it seems possibilities are infinite outside of SBI!, and with low start-up costs. As I have learned from you and Lis, SBI! seems to limit your growth. That would definitely be a long-term problem for me. However, my short-term problem is time, and while I am a quick study (usually), I’m worried I will overlook something key in my haste. So, I guess I just answered my own question (with your help!): if I am going to do it on my own, I need enough time to learn the basics thoroughly and start the trial-and-error process of attracting enough profitable traffic to make it work. And am I right in saying you have more than one niche site? So, it is also an exercise in hit-and-miss niche site profitability. But, as you and Lis explained, with such low domain hosting, one can afford to “hit” sometimes and “miss” others? – something not true with SBI! It seems that if you goof on the concept, (ie. one that does not monetize well online) then you are stuck with it.

Like learning any new skill – you can’t just academically absorb the knowledge – you have to get out and try it as well! We can all read about how to paint an oil painting- but I for one know that if I tried my first 1 or 10 attempts would be horrible! So yes having your first attempt sort totally committed to because of the cost is a pretty big disadvantage …

@Lis

Very good questions for me, very insightful. I don’t mind answering them online, especially if it will help someone else to make a decision.

* Why do I want a site – fun, new skills, extra money? Well, all of the above, really. I also like to write, so producing written content for the web could be a creative outlet, too. But I’m looking for something a little more than a hobby. (Maybe a hobbby with benefits?) Yes, I’d like to translate my skills into profit, which brings me to your next question.

* Earning extra money – when and how much? I think a realistic goal would be roughly 6 – 12 months to get a good idea of the output/income ratio. How much? Well, let’s say if I am only making $10/month on three websites after a year of hard work, I might be a little frustrated.

* A second income or a “job salary”? Hmm… well, definitely a second/extra income. I doubt I would ever quit my job. Firstly, because I enjoy it and, secondly, because I believe it would truly provide a ton of fresh content for a (heretofore imagined) niche market. One more thought: I have three months free (maybe more) every year that I could use to further develop my online projects.

* How much can I afford to invest (and lose) up front? I was thinking about $300.

* Can I set up a blogger blog? I don’t know but I will go and find out.

* Can you sell in the real world? Yes, I have held numerous sales positions, and even some with online components.

* Have I run my own business/worked for myself? No and yes. I basically work for myself now, but would not call myself a true entrepreneur, maybe more a freelance professional. Really, the only person who motivates me is myself. However, I know little about the ins-and-outs of investment and profit. I’m worried I won’t know how or where to spend my money and efforts to give myself the best chance of success.

I watched the Market Samurai videos, and you are right, they are very informative. It seems like a great way to get going with the right keywords. I am working on a business plan with rough goals and have come up with two seemingly viable routes. I will keep working out the details though, until one wins favor over the other.

Thanks again for your input, and if you have any more ideas or comments, they are welcome!!

@Kelly: if you snoop around on Courtney Tuttle’s site, you’ll find his one-on-one consulting service. It’s expensive (more than SBI), but he’ll bring order to the chaos of all the IM information out there and personally evaluate all of your sites as you create them. I’m not an affiliate or anything, but he helped me (for free) when I was starting out, and I want to pay it forward. Be careful on Warrior Forum–there’s a lot of misinformation. My two favorite members are TommyGadget and bgmacaw. You can find their posts using advanced search.

Yes, I have numerous niche sites (5-30 pages) working AdSense, a few one-page affiliate sites (will have more when I finish the AdSense sites), and two authority sites to help my smaller sites.

I’ve been fascinated by the meta aspect of the SBI war that’s played out here. The internet business model that Ken Evoy preaches involves building long-term sales relationships with returning social traffic, although that traffic may initially come in through Google. Griz, Vic, and Court (and me, and Lis) prefer to draw one-time Google traffic and make sure it doesn’t leave our sites without making us money. About 50 percent of the people on Warrior Forum are following some variation of Ken’s model. Another 45 percent don’t know WTF they’re doing, and the rest are doing what we’re doing.

Ken says our sites are polluting the internet because they’re only intended to make money, not provide a quality visitor experience. We believe that a quality visitor experience is in the eye of the visitor–if he got what he was looking for, that’s quality. Is a credit card site with 100 highly competitive offers and no content a quality visitor experience? If you’re looking for a credit card, of course it is.

The internet started out as a way for academics to exchange knowledge. When it became more commercial, there was a lot of complaining from those who would like it to be more like a library, but libraries don’t pay for themselves. While Google publicly states that it likes rich content, they also know that their $2 billion a year AdSense program (which pays for that nice free search engine we all use) pays best on sites that don’t provide quality content. It’s a fundamental disconnect that they all know but don’t like to talk about.

What does all this meta mean to you? Think mass appeal when you’re choosing sites, and go with established internet business models like AdSense and affiliate sales. Don’t try to do something new and different–this is a numbers game. Pitch your sites to visitors who are looking to buy something and then go ride their motorcycle, not people without a life (like us, LOL) who hang around in forums and on Twitter all day.

If you need proof that social traffic doesn’t pay, take a look at Griz’s March 27 beginners blog post, where his AdSense income for one week is $900 and his social traffic from the Digital Point forum paid a whopping $12.

Lorecee’s last blog post..Passive Income Online: It’s Hard Work

I remember the first time one of my hubs got stumbled and I had a flood of stumble traffic – Id only ever had 5 or 10 visitors a day – suddenly within 24 hours I had 700+ I was so excited I stayed up to 4am hitting the refresh button on the stats – I couldn’t believe I had so many visitors – and I made, a grand total – of around 5c from memory LOL
I guess for me I don’t really want to build up a group of potential customers who hang out to get my weekly email! Who may one day buy from me – maybe if I was selling my own product – but if I return again and again to a site I just ignore the ads (well its worse these days I usually analysis the monetisation method- but I still dont buy LOL) You see as the name of the blog suggests I want passive income: I want to be able to take a month off and go on holidays and not login to the Internet. I work hard now and stupid hours – but I work so that I can get paid over and over down the line – while lying on that beach.
Listen to Lorecee – she makes good sense!

I just downloaded my trial version of Market Samurai, and it’s fascinating. I can see I have a lot to learn, but I also have a lot of enthusiasm.

I’m glad you both mentioned the fact that good social traffic (even a lot of it) doesn’t necessarily convert to high earnings. @ Lis: makes sense about selling one’s own product. It seems the only reason one would spend a lot of time on a ton of original content and be willing to invest in the “not-so-passive” income.

I have a lot of things to think about, but while doing so, I am collecting my tools and thinking hard about the most viable plans and most reachable goals. I thank you both for your advice; it has been a tremendous help.

Glad you are having fun Kelly! Yes the social thing is a huge red herring – have fun with Market Samurai

Hi there, I showed interest in SBI, paid the $299, thought it would help a friend.

I struggled to stay awake through the b-o-r-i-n-g outdated tutorials. If anything could cause you to give up the will to live then this has to be it. They suggest that SBI is equivalent to a business degree. They have to be joking!

At present I’m banned from the forums for standing up for another newbie, so I can’t access the valuable information there. LOL

It’s a networkmaketing set up, calling itself an affiliate, which of course it aint and apart from percentage with sites with valuable key words, seems to consist of a huge bunch of wannabe IMs only making money introducing others to do likewise.

Several SBIers I know have spend hundreds/thousands of hours working on their sites as per SBI tutorials Zzzzz! and still haven’t made any money from them. They say, rote fashion, “I’ll have to build more pages” and “I’m retired anyway, so anything is a bonus!” and “It may not be making much now but it’ll be much more by the time I retire” and “We can leave the sites in our Wills.”

And with some hoping merely to make enough to cover their annual fees, they neglect to count their time (wages)in the “overheads” equasion. In all truth, they’d make more if they took a part time job such as walking dogs or being a postie, and it would be far more enjoyable.

It’s all happy families on the forums. So much time taken up reading comments such as “How nice your site is, you’ll soon be making lots of money, just write a few hundred pages before monetising”. You really have to search for the meat of the topic.

And if you ask an awkward question or raise any slghtly contraversial issue and you’re banned from the forums, until you email support, accepting and acknowledging your bad behaviour and resolve not to misbehave again. And no, I’m not making this up. I’m still banned. LOL.

Great info here folks. I’ll be back.

Actually sounds lot like a business degree – I made half thru one but the boredom won out in the end 🙂 Im not saying every site I have makes me money – but at least I don’t spend all year building one of them – and walking dogs or cleaning at least will get you fitter than sitting behind the computer. I am really over sites which control their forums – businesses that can’t handle criticism really deserve no place on the Internet! Any business that can’t handle criticism or admit that there’s is not the ONLY way to make money online needs to get with the real world really. Making $300/year on a site that you have spent many thousands of hours on is really very sad – unless it was never your intention to make money in the first place – but I assume because SBI bills itself as a way to develop a business that’s not the case here! Leave your site in your will- that’s a new one 🙂
Thanks for your comment!

Thanks for a fascinating tour through the internet — SBI was recommended to me; I looked up SBI, Reviews on Google, got your original blog, and followed the links from there.

What a great education. Dunno whatall I’m going to do with it, but it’s been fun.

Well I can pretty much say that you will never come across a more interesting set of comments when looking for any product review that I’ve acquired over these 2 posts! Come visit again if you decide to persue makeing money online, and delighted to be an entertainment!

Well I just asked for a refund after a nasty chat with someone in the forum. OMG the rules is unbelievable, it definitely feels like a cult. I was only with them since Saturday, horrible and very confusing and frankly I’ve seen several of their websites and they are ugly and why are the names so long? I hate hyphens in websites, hard to remember. Good luck all. I don’t know where to go now to start an online business, any suggestions?

Hi Lisa, Congrats on getting out sooner rather than later. Yes I do have an option to recommend: The Keyword Academy. It costs a $1 for the first month and $33/month after that but they will teach you how to think and you can have as many websites as you want . If you want to cancel after a month – you just cancel the sub in Paypal – there is no obligation to even tell them! And the forums are unregulated 🙂

And for the cynics the KWA program did not even exist when I wrote this post – it just happens to be the answer to the question that Lisa and many others have asked me!

Thanks Lis, I almost put an “a” at the end, Lis looks lonely without it, lol!

Hi,
I made half through one but the boredom won out in the end. I am not saying every site I have makes me money – but at least I don’t spend all year building one of them – and walking dogs or cleaning at least will get you fitter than sitting behind the computer.
It’s a networking set up, calling itself an affiliate, which of course it and and apart from percentage with sites with valuable key words, seems to consist of a huge bunch of wannabe. IMs only making money introducing others to do likewise.
Thanks.

Hi,
I was considering SBI but am glad to have come across the review and other options for making money from a content/blog structure.
I’m glad you both mentioned the fact that good social traffic doesn’t necessarily convert to high earnings.
Great job on the update post. I was concerned with some of the accuracies in your previous post and you put that to rest.
Thanks.

Hi all,
I am interested in creating a website and of course try to make some extra money while doing so. Therefore, I came across SBI, I was really excited that there was a product that can do it all for me.
However, it was just a bit too good to be true, so I googled it, and of course I got all the great reviews, so I figured it was great, and I was gonna buy, but I said let me just check out this last review, which was when I read your first blog and it goes on.. LOL

I lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvve this blog, I love the way you stood up to Ken and his followers. I loved the honesty, the sarcasm, the jokes, yet seriousness. You also saved me from spending 300.00, so thank you very much Lis.
Continue doing your thing :-)!

Gabby I am so pleased you still have your $300! I hope you managed to get that website up with out SBI – I’m sure you will!

Hey Lis, no I havent been able to create a website as site, I am still confused with all the information and I am trying 2 not make too many costly mistakes, so if you have any suggestions I will gladly take them 🙂

Try WordPress – you can make it look like a regular website as well as using it as a blog

Great! I will go check it out now, and I will let you know how I am progressing. Thanks again for your great blog.. LOL Love it!

Hey Lis, great post here! I also had the thought of getting involved with SBI and read nothing but good reviews but for some reason I decided to put it off. So anyway tonight was going to be the nite that I paid my $300 and started with SBI….. until I stumble across your blog……thanks! The thing is I really don’t even remember how I got here. I think you might have made a comment on another blog then i clicked on the link to your blog. I do wish I had found your blog about 2 hours earlier since it is now way past my bedtime !! Anyway keep up the fucking great work! Larz

LOL re your bed time – sorry about that! Feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed and come back – most of the time I don’t have posts which take quite as long to read! Good luck with your new ventures

Thats ok it was worth the lost sleep!! I will subscribe to your RSS feed forsure since I have enjoyed what I have seen on here.Anyway keep up the great work and I’ll probably be on here leaving a comment from time to time. Thnx…..and now off to figure out what that new venture might be! Larz

I don’t feel like reading all of the comments, sorry if this has been repeated: for spelling—Firefox/Preferences/Advanced/General/check box “check my spelling as I type”

I have been researching the Site Build It program and looking at reviews and I came across your blog. Wow, it seems to touch more on personalities than on business and common sense. It’s amazing how the negative comments continue to gush out as if their product is wothless and yet there is a plug in there for another type of money making program “Keyword Academy” that you reviewed. I wonder if you are making anything from them. Here’s the bottom line: I am just your average Jo Blo trying to find an avenue to make money and it is incredible to me that there are so many conflicting opinions out there about anything you become interested in. I am blown away at the way human beings tear each other down. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and unfortunately, most are totally wothless. I have yet to form an opinion on Site Build It because I cannot trust any of the opinions now. It’s a shame because it really looks like a way to begin the site building learning process if nothing else with some guidance. That should be worth something.

“It’s amazing how the negative comments continue to gush out as if their product is wothless and yet there is a plug in there for another type of money making program “Keyword Academy” that you reviewed”

Jim The problem with Site Build It is that you have to pay $300 for each site per year. You are locked into paying that every year to keep your site. If you are going to make money from niches you need a lot of sites and you can do it at much, much lower cost using free WordPress and hosting for around $9 a month.

Keyword Academy is completely different in that it teaches you how to do niche marketing so you can build up a business that YOU control and once you’ve learned how to do that you can stop paying the monthly subscription if you want to.

Granted that with Site Build It you don’t have to learn how to make a site etc but this should be a long term business plan and if you aren’t prepared to put in the effort to learn the basics of building a web site (which is really easy with WordPress!) then go ahead and pay $300 a year per site but you would be much better of in the long run learning how to do it properly.
.-= janetra´s last undefined ..(Enjoy 10 returned posts for 2 weeks) =-.

At present I’m banned from the forums for standing up for another newbie, so I can’t access the valuable information there. LOL

Yes indeed. Unless you tow the line, agree with everything the poor brainwashed souls over there believe, then you’re made to feel very unwelcome by the evoy moderators. But try to defend yourself, since you know you’ve been wronged, and they ban you from the forums and refuse to speak to you at all. That’s the kind of business ethic you’re in danger of learning over at sbi.

Just googling “Site Build It” and found your site. Now i should think twice to use their services :). Thanks a lot Lis

It is amazing what you can do with WordPress!! After 24 hours, I’m enjoying building my Blog site. It costs me $18.00 (14.95 for custom domain name, and 3 bucks for the custom header image). Sweet!! Can’t say if SBI is a scam or not. I have only watched 4 days of their Action Guide video’s and familiar with its functionality and tools + saw handfull of websites which were built with this tool. Not even close to what WordPress has to offer and how coll and flexible it is!

hey lis, i stumbled upon your blog and got really nervous about SBI. been thinking about it since last year, watched the action guide videos, saw the blogs, videos, etc.

yet, i’m still nervous coz $300 is serious money for a college student like me.

any suggestions on how i should start. im looking into putting up a blog instead.

thanks for the info.

Lis,
I’m way past SBI now. I now have 7 sites working towards 100, all SEO, and I am making my little drips from adsense and 3 sales from amazon. I decided to take a great course online and now I feel like a human being and I set up my company already with the help of my accountant, I’m thrilled. I remember those people at SBI, they are so weird! Ugh.

Thanks Lis! It’s a lot of work, but I don’t care, get me out of corporate life, that makes me come up with lots of great niches! lol!

I am moving away from SBI.
It is soooo expensive. To pay 300 $ every year? For what?!!

In the end, I am not using any of those tools. You see, my websites are in foreign language, and I can not use the keyword tool, the Analyze it, the exchange tool, anything!!!

The multilingual feature was promised years ago, and it is till not available. Instead of that they have some stupid new features.

Now I own my VPS at wiredtree, where I am going to put all of my websites. It will be so much cheaper, then to host them with SBI!

Lis,
As a professional writer, and someone who runs a blog about writing, I’d just like to go on record here – and say I love your writing style – grammar howlers, spelling mistakes and all.
It has a certain …. energy to it. You have your own voice, and you personality comes through loud and strong. Don’t ever change.
As for site build it, gee, that sounds like a lot of money, every year, for not much.

Thanks Simon- I am getting quite intrigued by this writing style thing – apparently I have one – now I just have to figure it out what it is is – I do try to remember to run the spelling checker over the copy before I post but it doesn’t always happen

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Just had a crazy interaction with an SBI affiliate.

I even admitted that certain parts of the product might have value for beginners, but I would not use it myself. That is not good enough for them, and you had it right!

Rule #1:

There is one way and its the SBI – follow it and you will succeed;

My entire argument is why would you pick an inferior website platform based on a free keyword research tool? Here is a link to my blog, I hope you don’t mind I posted it:

http://insidersmind.com/site-build-it-cult/

Everything else the product can teach you, you can learn for free or find somewhere else. If you learn it from their little action plan, take it with you, and if you are smart, there is no way you are going to plop down another $300. You are going to pick WordPress, which says everything I need to know as far as the products value to anyone who is not a beginner.

Besides isn’t that where all the money is to be made with online marketing, selling dreams to beginners? Nice work, if you can get it.

Scott Carlson

I was a member of SBI about 5 years ago. I found the software really clunky and not very useful. I got my site up and built content but what ive learnt now (from free information)about keyword research is much more effective. Currently I use wordpress and hostgator and am getting much better results and find it easier to create a site. You could easily build a supersite with free keyword research tools and wordpress without the need for SBI and save $300 for article outsourcing or links. What if you want to have 10 websites? $3000 a year? holy crap!

BUYER BEWARE . . . BUYER BEWARE; I wanted to try Site Build It out, so I went with the monthly payment thing to see how and what it was. IT WAS TERRIBLE!!! CONFUSING!!!! USER-FRIENDLESS!!!! And, NON-SUPPORTIVE. They divide their learning sections into “DAYS” . . . supposedly for a “ten day process.” These days can turn into weeks . . . depending on your time. By day TWO I was beginning to wonder what in the world they were talking about [when I am a poet, writer, composer, musician, inventor and wanted to sell my own products] and they were talking about “nitches.” I had a terrible time following their very poorly presented video presentation. I would watch parts over and over and WONDER what in the . . . ? I think most people with the slightest bit of intelligence could have approached the design of the training methods of SBI–or writing procedures—better than they chose to present it. And, it appers that they aren’t too keen on suggestions.

Then, “SUPPORT????” What support? They have—evidently—a few poorly trained SBI’ers sitting in as a support team; but, if any customer [who has already paid their money] shows even the least bit of frustration . . . they won’t write you back at all [at least they haven’t me]. I don’t know how they handle their support, but one gal—supposedly a support person [as she was answering my support email questions]—told me that she was too busy with her own sites to be too involved with mine, and then referred me to Ken Envoy . . . who I don’t know if he ever answered any of my email questions personally. Not much caring and sincere interest in my problems expressed. SOOOO VERY FRUSTRATING!!!!

In any case, I am soooooo thankful that I only signed up for the monthly payment plan . . . it only took me two months to see it was a very terrible waste of my time. Now they can’t deduct another month’s payment because I changed my debit card. PLEASE . . . PLEASE reader . . . DO NOT . . . I repeat “DO NOT” PAY THE FULL SUM FOR THIS SOFTWARE!!!! If you are one of those who MUST try it—no matter what others my say—at least choose the monthly payment plan, at least you will only lose $29 per month . . . until you, too, SEE that it is a good concept, but a very, very, very poorly written and confusingly presented approach to building a website. I am not sure what I am going to do now, as I have tried others too . . . but, I guess I will have to keep on a keepin’ on trying to get a website constructed.

@Rish:
Your problem of “Not sure what I’m going to do” is very common.

I would strongly suggest building a website with WordPress, which is the “weapon of choice” for millions of people.

Self hosted WordPress gives you a strong platform on which to do pretty well anything online. There are countless free and paid themes available, as well as a range of plugins and addons that can add pretty well any function that you can think of.

Now – the problem with WordPress is the myth that it can be installed quickly with Fantastico, and you’ll be up and running in 5 minutes.
This is NOT the case.
Sure – Fantastico will set up the necessary database and program files.
But you’ll have a pretty plain site that still needs a fair bit of technical type work done to make it effective as a site for internet marketing.

This can take an hour or more for experienced people – and I’ve known of technically challenged people to work on it for over a hundred hours and then giving up.

I’m currently doing a review of some free wordpress installation tutorials, and will be recommending the best one soon.
Will post the link here ( with Lissie’s permission) when I’ve finished it.

cheers,
Eric G.

Thanks Eric – must admit I no longer recommend many free wordpress themes – not just because I can make money promoting the paid themes 🙂 but because I have too many times had to drop themes as they fail to keep up with the upgrades in WordPress and therefore break.

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There are quite a few good themes that are updated.
I used to use Atahualpa for my blog, which is comparable to Thesis in its functionality, but is pretty code heavy.

I’ve recently changed over to a theme called “Swift”, which is almost as flexible, but which is much smaller, and therefore loads very very quickly. (Which is becoming quite important in the eyes of google)
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/swift
The Swift theme has lots of very nice features, and is ideal for people using adsense – as well as having great facilities for affiliate marketers.

There’s certainly a place for paid themes, because the developers can then devote more resources to manuals, support, etc. which are vital for most people.
I’d rather pay $100 for a theme and have full support, than pay nothing and have to spend 20 hours reverse engineering everything to find out how to make it work.
cheers, Eric G.

All I can say is that company is AWFUL, AWFUL. There are more less expensive, more professional solutions out there. I paid to have a site built for me since 1. Instructions were cumbersome and taking too long to figure out 2. was told that the SEO would be better and get more visibility.

From the beginning, I asked the so-called ‘specialist’ 3 times for a document listing our responsibilities with timelines – never received it. The process was never explained. The URL transfer got botched. Took 3 weeks to get it transferred! You pay for hosting through the site development so SBI can make more money (they don’t have to develop the site while online) Their sites look like they belong in the 1980’s and I kept wondering how many people am I losing from the way it looks.

Oh, and the affiliates say anything you want to hear to get you to sign on.

Emailed a ‘higher’ up at the company and was told “‘they’ve’ been doing this a long time and their process works just fine.” WOW, shoot me if I ever become as pompous with my business, as he was. He got lost on the whole point…and therefore lost my business and business from all of my customers.

Was so much happier once I pulled the site.

Al

Its a sad thing Alexa when companies get to the point that the customer is always wrong! The great thing about the Internet is the increased spotlight so many companies are now under – and a good thing too Thanks for commenting

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Lis…Given that I no longer have a website (thanks SBI) I am having a launch page created to market some upcoming business courses I am offering. What is the absolute fastest way to get these courses marketed in your opinion? Im planning on doing a facebook ad and will tweet the courses but are you familiar with any other ‘quick’ methods? Target market are 32-55 m/f, either no education to some education, any location, English speaking, wanting to start business. Thanks in advance if you have ideas……….Al

@Alexa – use WordPress to create a website – otherwise where are you send FB and twitter traffic? Are the face-to-face courses? If so I should think the fastest way will be to advertise where your target students hang out – do they hang on Facebook or are at they at the local gym? Do the they read the local paper? I think you need to target the market a lot more – any location? Starting a business in the US is different from starting one in Australia – in Australia the requirements even vary by state. No education/some education – totally different people and likely to be in different places – you need to define your niche and then figure out where to find them

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Oh, I should have mentioned, I am having another mini website created that will also have a WP blog. The courses are teleconference but you are right, they are for the US market. 32-55 m/f some education, medium income….is what Im going after.I’ve found a couple of companies that guarantee from page organic listing for my new website for less then $200 a yr which I might try. i don’t think my developer would be able to get front page as quickly. Anyway, thanks again

Hi, Lis!

Thanks a bunch for all you’ve posted in regard to Site Build It. I had never heard of it before. My Uncle has been desperate for a website and signed up with them. He wanted me to touch up the result and told me about it. I’m gonna recommend that he get out of this as soon as possible.

Thanks again!

Red Ronin

Just an FYI. There is an Internet forum for website development in general called website babble. The lady who owns and runs this site (Lisa) is obviously a Site Build It affiliate. I have entered comments and responded to others on this forum but all of my comments have been removed, and they weren’t that harsh. It is their discretion of course however very unfair for the people looking for an honest evaluation of a product.

Can I suggest to everyone that we Tweet the URL of Lis’s site (this site) so that there is at least one website that shows the honest truth about Site Build It?

Yeah robust discussion is rarer than you might think online! I just got banned before I even posted on a new site a joined because of my “reputation” LMFAO The site you mention she’s not even directly selling SBI – she’s pushing her own ebook – so I can’t really see what her problem is??

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Lisa is an SBI! affiliate, but she is also an affiliate of other web hosting products. Lisa will be the first to tell you that her most popular and most successful site (2createawebsite.com) is NOT an SBI! site. And she will be the first to tell you that you do not need SBI! to build a successful site. She states that you can use hosts other than SBI!, but SBI! will also give you marketing and search engine help that other hosting companies lack.

If you were banned from websitebabble, I really doubt that it had something to do with you asking questions or making comments about SBI!. Some of the moderators on websitebabble do not even use the service. Besides, any member of the forum can give you a bad rating for your comments, not just Lisa (the admin), which could lead to you getting banned.

If you’ve ever tried to raise a discussion on the SBI forums raising even the slightest criticism of the SBI system or pointing to other valid sources of information, you’ll realise very quickly that SBI has strong cultish tendencies. Disagreement with the SBI way
(or even healthy debate about it) is NOT tolerated. I had a post removed because it mentioned another source of internet marketing information, and then shouted down when I raised an objection.

Also if you want a nice looking website and you rely on templates, go elsewhere, the templates are TERRIBLE. Even if you upload your own html, SBI added features make a complete mess of your code (it never validates). WordPress is a much better option.

Site Build It Commentary

Site Build It is a unique method of getting your site online and making it work for you. but I also agree with what’s been said here. In most cases, the Site Build It Method works best for those who have nominal skills in the online world, because it tends to be quite limiting, but I don’t believe it to be a scam, just hugely overpriced and honestly a waste of your time.

I find the “free domain” commentary to be hype and hilarious at best. Honestly after having reviewed it and taken a hard look. I own 98 domains. were I to pay 300 dollars per domain for hosting, domain purchases and builds, who could afford that? Your domain isn’t free, you’re paying through the nose for it.

Now I’ll grant you, I like to design and I build wordpress sites for $150, including five posts that will be top ranked in Google. Thats cheap but here’s my thing. I think everyone deserves a website and everyone should be able to afford one. That means I don’t think my time is worth 100 bucks an hour or that I double the prices that people pay. I’ve been online since morons like Evoy were wearing three corner pants. I started programming with fortran, cobol and basic when a computer filled a room. I”m a fifty year old woman who doesn’t really care if idiots like Evoy spam my blogs.

It’s the troll mentality. You have to let them do their thing but I’m going to back the comments made here on this one. It’s a Lissowerbutts world on this site.. its their fucking blog, if they to swear, to use the odd badly spelled word or anything else, deal with it.

That being said. for all you proponents of SBI..
Hosting costs about 75 per year, so that pulls the total up to 225 for the first year. The fee for the next year to host would be about 5 dollars per month on a host that lets you change designs to your liking and etc and about ten dollars for a domain registration. With such a huge price differential and the fact that Caffeine is spidering blogs first now, I honestly don’t understand the draw, I’ll admit it, but I”ve been working online for more than 10 years, so I’ve seen a lot of these things sort of come and go.This one will too.

Site Build It was designed for those who buy books like. Computers for Dummies. Now, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing IT or computers or anything else, but there is something wrong with a community that fosters ignorance as a method of keeping you dependent upon them.
That I tend to find a bit on the horrid side. To offer you the means to use your own creativity and to help you learn more about the online world or the IT world is a good way to go. To offer you something that encourages you to depend on them and to pay a fairly exorbitant fee for the use of their services while not helping you to grow in any way, I find to be just a heinous way to do business and a less than efficient use of your time and energy.

Site Build It is a testament to the marketing and advertising skills of the owner that much I will say. The man could sell ice to eskimos cus he not only has all of these little wannabe’s seling his shit, but also defending him while he rakes them over the coals.. Now THAT.. is a good marketer.

Two things, in particular, draw me to Site Build It. (If anybody can show me similar or better options elsewhere then I would be very happy to know about them)…

1) Brainstorm It, their brainstorming tool. I know there are loads of alternatives, Market Samurai seems to be the one that is plugged most often. But Brainstorm It does appear to do a pretty good job of finding “low hanging fruit” to get a new site off to a good start with ranking in Google.

2) Content 2.0, their module for getting user generated content. OK, you could write an article on a blog and get 100 comments left on it. But you would still just have one web page with 100 comments. You would then have to write another page, and wait for more comments, and on it goes. Whereas, with SBI’s Content 2.0, if you write a web page and get 100 (decent, non-spammy) replies you would then have 101 web pages (because every reply is made into a new web page) each of which other people can then leave comments on. Is there a WordPress plugin, or anything else remotely within the budget of an ordinary Joe, that can do this? I would love to know if there is.

You could go the blackhat way with all this rehashed, auto-generated, auto-posted tosh. We’re not all inclined to go that road though.

Or I suppose you could start an article directory and get user generated content that way. But, unless you are ezinearticles, or articledashboard, or something like that, or you are an expert in a very specialized field, then I don’t think you would have much success getting people to submit articles (other than those that are auto-posted all over the place), because you are not offering them anything in the way of content to entice them to want to add more.

Sure Bill
1) Brainstorm 2.0: The Keyword Academy has a tool called niche refiinary which does the same thing – you actually use Google’s own keyword tool and then use Niche Refinary to rate the potential kws as far as difficulty is concerned
2) Content 2.0: Ironically I use something similar for this blog – called super SEO a free plugin. Also if you set WordPress to index tag pages and categories a 5 page site will get 30 pages indexed by Google with no extra work on your part.

I don’t use auto blogging or similar either – it doesn’t work as a long-term business model for me.

I have several sites in TKA’s postunner system both had over 40 user created articles published on them last month. Each article is unique, well written and focused on an easy keyword. The utlimate user generated content if you ask me — oh the price – included in the TKA membership – plus the costs for a domain name (about $10/year) and hosting (about $5/month)

Hope this helps

I have 2

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I agree with you five thousand percent on the sbi. To the point that I am giving free hosting to a couple of their folks who wanted a blog. That place is bad news.

Bill two posts a week on wordpress will keep in motion and that keyword discovery tool is free LOL You can articles for under five bucks from needanarticle.com which is a great site. You are being ripped off fairly substantially.

Thank you very much for the replies.

WordPress and all its plugins is definitely something that I am going to get myself more familiar with. The more I look into it, it’s frightening what you could achieve with that system if you had a good working knowledge of it, and a worthwhile project to go along with it.

As far as the Postrunner system though… unless I have completely misunderstood how it works, that is just a web ring. Not the same thing as SBI’s Content 2.0, which, in my opinion, has more potential if used to maximum effect.

@Bill – I had to google Web ring – its apparently a circle of webistes all linking to each other – Postrunner is nothing like that – its a way to get free user generated content to your site in exchange for a link out to the poster’s site – just like ezinearticles or hubpages.

SBI Content 2.0 – allows “allows every visitor to your website. the opportunity to create their own web page” – like hubpages or squidoo – or postrunner… The question is of course WHY would your visitor want to do that – precious few of them will unless there is something in it for them – revenue sharing, upfront payment, or backlinks is what normally works – so has Ken Evoy just invented the multi-user blog LMAO ?

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I’ve worked with wordpress and multiple security and other plugins for a couple years. The potential for it is simply amazing.
I’ve done about I’d guess about 75 so far this year. some I build free and some I charge for and some I teach how to build their own.

You can build community sites, with multiple users and facebook like areas, as well as just about anything you want to build. Its a CMS, its a blog, or its both.

I”ve got 20+ odd sites of my own.. maybe a few more..and 90 some domain names. of those I’m guessing only 5 or 6 are really static html. In fact I’m evening building wordpress community sites for family reunion sites and I promise you its just such a low learning curve that you’re going to be completely impressed..

Take a look and if you’re interested I’d love to help you. The cost of having one done is just so nominal and it takes no time at all to learn. The total cost for a year , not counting the hundred or 150 or whatever they charge you to build it, is about 150 dollars for all your hosting and themes and just about anything you want to do..

drop in some advertising and you’re still under what it costs for the SBI thing and you learn in the bargain. I just don’t understand the draw honestly. A couple of my WP sites went to PR 4 in under 6 months. its a great way to get in motion.
There is no one who can’t do this. I’m teaching 80 year old women to build their own WordPress and they don’t need the sites that overcharge them or encourage them to leaven very little. I also have have some experience with webrings. Its not a bad way to get noticed.We used to use them a lot more than now but they are coming back somewhat.

There is a hub page, which has links to multiple sites, then you click on one and it takes you to another, a great deal like some of the blog sites do.You can actually join multiple webrings or start your own.

I really encourage people to learn and to grow and the best way to do that is to get out there and explore your options.

Happy building

Robbi Drake.

“I really encourage people to learn and to grow and the best way to do that is to get out there and explore your options.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

I still say there is merit in SBI’s system, especially since they added Content 2.0.

That said, I do not agree with Ken Evoy’s “SBI blinders” approach. Anybody who wants to achieve their maximum potential in this life does not, and should not, require to have their hand held every step of the way for ever more.

There is a big world out there beyond SBI, and, although I am no expert, I am discovering that what you say is right, the potential of WordPress is amazing. In actual fact, it’s frightening.

I spent years as a nurse. I began in programming, went to nursing and back to computers after ten years. I can honestly say that anything has merit. The most invasive technique, the most horrid drug has a side effect that can be beneficial.

WordPress is outstanding but it has it’s down side, just like anything else. I work on networks.. Networks aren’t always secure LOL everything has something negative but when that outweighs the positive then it’s time to change suits.

SBI may have the up side, in all honesty I can’t say.I think it is cost prohibitive for those who would and could most benefit from it and I don’t think that is accidental. I also think that the sort of.. cult mentality that is promoted is not accidental because otherwise why would you pay twice what you had to? Add the two things together and its a huge red flag to me.

I know older people who were convinced that they could not do this any other way. I honestly think that its wrong to consciously limit peoples potential and convince them that they can’t do something without you. That’s my big issue. I think anyone of any age can do whatever they want and convincing someone that they need you to be successful is just wrong on so many levels. LOL but thats my gripe.

I work with wordpress contributing. I’m good, but there is someone out there better. There is something that will be worth more than wordpress in a few years Nothing or no one is irreplaceable.

What bothers me the most I think about SBI is that it primarily takes people who are new users or elderly users and without actually saying so, convinces them that they are simply too stupid to learn something new and that SBI is their best option. Those people deal with that stereotype and that societal concept of them on a regular basis. Seeing it happen again in a way that costs them three times what they have to spend to get a website in a time when their money and everyone else’s is limited, just goes against the grain I think.Maybe its my underdog mentality popping out.

Anyhow. Thanks for your comments. and just FYI. even the experts aren’t experts. The computer world is changing so rapidly, with such dynamic things going on, Google Caffeine, changes in Yahoo and in Bing.. that even the most learned has something to learn.

And Liss Thank you for letting me sound off. Great site and a nice job of laying things out. So far as I’m concerned you don’t have to BE an expert at SEO all you had to prove to me was that they weren’t either.

Happy Tuesday Everyone

‘I know older people who were convinced that they could not do this any other way. I honestly think that its wrong to consciously limit peoples potential and convince them that they can’t do something without you. That’s my big issue. I think anyone of any age can do whatever they want and convincing someone that they need you to be successful is just wrong on so many levels. LOL but thats my gripe.’

I totally agree. I use WordPress and its easy to set up although using it to its full potential may take some time. But it’s time well spent! It doesn’t matter how much experience you have (or how old you are) if you put in the effort you can master it and then YOU are in control not someone else. As others have said setting up a site only involves paying out around $10 a month for hosting (with unlimited domains) and the cost of a domain. WordPress is free and there are a ton of free themes too. If you don’t even want to pay out this much start with free Hubpages. There’s absolutely no need to pay out hundreds of dollars for one website.

If you are a complete beginner do as Lis suggests and invest in the Keyword Academy. Not only will they teach you all you need to know about making money online but give you some great tools to use, all for $33 a month.

I’ve had a look at Site Build It and I agree with you, I don’t think it’s a scam at all. It’s just over expensive and turns out to be something that requires a lot more hassle than a lot of other services out there. Well done for putting up with all the negative reactions and keeping up with putting out your message.

Hi there, about a year too late for the original debate. Firstly, congratulations Lis on provoking so much debate – an impressive effort. As pathetic as I am, I have read every word and what strikes me most is the violent opinions on both sides of the fence. There appear to be many seasoned pros out there who have an aversion to SBI, others who seem very happy with it. If of interest, I propose a task where we get to evaluate SBI and its alleged scam status.

I started looking into online income 10 days ago. I quickly learned that putting ‘scam’ into Google after the scheme’s name (which is how I found you), sorted through the majority of the schemes. I was left with two sites which looked of interest and centred on niche blogging, a concept I had not come across before – SBI and The Niche Blogger. After a full two days of looking into it, a large amount spent on this site sifting through the various comments, I decided I would give SBI a go on the $29.99 a month deal, figuring that I have 3 weeks at home now, lots of time, so I could really give it a go and the most I could lose if I was not satisfied was $30, but I would hopefully learn something even then.

I am not particularly web savvy (can edit my own sites by cut and pasting – they were built by others), and I have no real agenda rather than building a business that will generate some passive income, but I thought it might be an interesting angle to the debate on your site to follow an SBI site being built.

I am happy to share my experiences of traffic numbers, monetization efforts (and any advice welcome!). I am also happy to have a standalone SBI experience update page on the site that people can follow (happy to route it through you or host it on your blog – you will have to show me how…).

I have not visited an SBI forum or had any contact with SBIers about from the initial sign up but so far I am more than impressed, not that I have been going along. As you will be able to check out, my site http://www.total-croatia.com (if you allow sites on your blog, will this come out as a link? If not, can you make it so? – that’s how techie I am!) was registered a couple of days ago. I signed up 4 days ago, have been through the ten day course and built 37 pages so far (need to revisit all to improve content, links and graphics, but I wanted something up for the search engines to fined. Got my stats page today and was surprised that Baidu has already found me after two days live. I have a contact page on the site, but doesn’t seem to be working yet (need to go through that part of the guide again – 10 days course and 37 pages uploaded is probably a bit to quick for four days…).

My intention is not to jump on the back of your success with this blog, but to help people out there evaluate, myself included. I am sure if some of your expert followers took an interest, then they might pass on a tip or two my way… Various claims have been made about SBI, positive and negative. I am happy to invest $30 as it sounds like a more promising option for a newbie like me, and more than happy to share my experience. Keep up the blogging – would be nice to get to your level one day!

Cheers from Croatia, Paul

Hi WordPress Fan, can understand the cynics and me being suspiciously quick. I am working this quickly for two reasons. Firstly I have 3 weeks off before an intense work period and wanted to get as much content loaded in that time; and secondly, if SBI is a scam, then I would rather find that out before parting with another $30. In my initial research, I came across lots of people who have spent lots of money, but also months if not years trying out different schemes. By having a real go at SBI for a month, I would learn if it works.

I joined up seven days ago, registered the site five days ago, and was more than a little surprised to find myself already number two in Google for the two words in my domain name, total croatia. Am also on the first page for some other random combinations that include the word Croatia, which encourages me to think that getting the focused content out there probably does work as per the SBI advice.

Once I figure out how to get the blog side of things, I think I might start a weekly blog on the SBI experience, including info on visitor numbers etc. I am as interested as many others looking for income online to see if SBI really works. Week One has far exceeded my expectations. Cheers Paul

Wow amazing that we’re still going. I got a couple new clients from —that OTHER place– this week. who had questions and comments and honestly, here is the interesting part. they want a blog, they want more help, but they are NOT ready to say, hey I think this is overpriced and overrated.. I’m thinking. wow. so whats it going to take? Gonna invite Lis as a guest blogger in the new toy this week. Definitely qualifies as technology twisted.

I don’t think there is a scam going on I just think it in unnecessary if you don’t have teh cash to spare.

I’d say that everyone agrees on that score, but honestly I don’t know how I feel about the scam end of it. Realistically, they tell you that you’re going to have a better traffic setup, a better way to do things, more authority, more this and more that than you would ever get any other way. In fact, the coaches, coach you to use this product and not really to learn anything new, keeping you more dependent and on that score, I think about half the world finds that its a scam because you don’t work so hard to keep people dependent on overpriced services if you’re an honest business. You offer them the options and tell them what’s out there that might work better.

I agree, it’s not so much that the product is a rip-off (but it is too expensive) – the training manual is very detailed and it teaches you a lot about SEO – but it’s the fact that they peddle it as the only option. They protect this notion to a ridculous extreme, even to the extent that they don’t allow free debate in the forums. I find this distasteful, nannying and highly suspect. They’re not fond of free debate outside of the forums either and I question the authenticity of some posts you see planted here and there. I can’t believe I’m still commenting on this subject, but it makes me mad!

Day 17 of my SBI experience and I have been giving this my best shot and building pages (some cynics would say suspiciously quickly… – see above). I have learned more about a single subject in the last 17 days than at any time in my life, mostly just to the SBI training, but also due to some independent research. I have even been to those ‘cultish’ SBI Forums and posted a couple of posts, and received some great feedback and tips.

So far I have parted with $29.99 and am due to part with the same again in 13 days. What have I got for my money so far? A whole load of new knowledge about internet marketing concentrated in one place that if I cancelled my subscription tomorrow would be far more valuable to me that $29.99. A live website of 100 pages, some more polished than others… After 15 days live (spent the first 2 days doing the 10 day tutorial), according to the stats, I have 209 unique visitors from 30 countries, including visitors from Facebook, Google and Twitter (I have no concept of how the latter works).

I have picked up some awesome free tips from the forums – people sharing their experiences of what works – and implemented one late last night, with the result I had 30 unique visitors yesterday, and I don’t expect it to drop much below that again as I implement more tips.

I am going to pay for next month no question and see where this goes and I hope to start monetising in a month. If by the end of the year I have a site with 100+ plus unique visitors a day (that would be a conservative estimate based on what I have learned these past 17 days), which brings me a passive income of $100 (again very conservative) and I pay $29.99 for that to look after itself, with access to all the SBI tools and great forum advice, is that such a rip off? Compared to searching in the internet wilderness for something which is cheaper? My aim is to make a profit, so if I am speculating (and $29.99 is not a fortune, even in these tough times) to accumulate, isn’t it better to send $29.99 to earn $100 than zero and zero?

I started researching online marketing 3 weeks ago and read about hundreds of people who bought this book, or tried that method, with the result that they are no further forward but a little bit poorer. Based on that, I decided to try one method, clear some time and really give it a go. $29.99 and 17 days later (not much sleep I admit), I couldn’t be happier.

The debate here has been a lively and interesting one, but seems to have moved from SBI being a scam to it being expensive and cultish. $300 up front is a gamble in the online world of scam, but $29.99 a month is not, especially if you free up time to really give it a go for a month. Is SBI cultish? Nothing I can see from the ‘inside’ suggests it is so, and I have had nothing but friendly advice and encouragement. If the worst complaint about SBI is their insistence that only their method works (and it seems that it does work), then is that really so bad compared to all the real scams that are out there?

As with anything, you get out what you put in. Giving it a go for $29.99 is not such an outgoing. I have nothing but positives so far, and I appreciate (as someone not particularly website savvy) the little things – the system analysing each page before upload, so you can rectify to make it more search engine friendly, the (free) Site Review forum, where others give honest and frank critiques, and the sharing of diamond tips for improving sites and rankings. Speaking of which…

Paul – you will discover that social media traffic from facebook, twitter etc will not buy anything – been proven again and again – but knock yourself out you will probably need to prove it to yourself. If your aim is to pay 30% of your income to Ken Evoy – then you are f*king nuts mate! I have sites that cost me $10/year to run – yup just the domain name – the hosting is paid for by other customers – go figure!.
I notice the Ken has offered this “recession busting” option of paying him even more PER A SITE ($30×12 =$360) – nice one – for him.

Paul if you are beginner as you claim then you are at least taking action which means you have much better chance of success than most wannabes. The sad thing of course that you would succeed in any genuine program – like the the one I have here which provides a whole lot more for the same price and doesn’t limit the number of sites you can run!

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Hi Lis, this is what it says on the site re the recession buster

If you work the SBI! process, you will be successful. When your e-business is generating sufficient income, switch to the yearly subscription (and save $60/year).

which I read as give it a go for $30 a month (low risk trial) to see if it works and once it does, switch to the yearly and don’t pay more for that flexibility. Maybe I understood it wrong.

Have answered stuff in a much longer post below, but wanted to ask you, if you have time to answer, about your comment about social media traffic not buying anything. Only 10 of my 257 uniques in first 18 days have come from Facebook etc (I only registered there yesterday), but would like to know why you say they won’t buy. I would classify ‘buy’ as someone coming to the site and generating income – purchase, Google Ad click etc.

I am doing a site about all aspects of Croatia in English – a country with great tourism and lots of generic destination guide sites in English, but very little in terms of updated content on life, events, special interest etc, so if my site caters to all that, and invites people to contribute too, surely hits from social media sites would have value? Or am I missing something?

Would appreciate your thoughts, as I appreciate the debate on your blog. Cheers from a non-SBI plant (that made me laugh) in Croatia.

People who visit you via Facebook, twitter, other blogs, etc generally are wasting time at work – I have spent hours and hours on travel sites on other people’s time LOL They are browsers not shoppers. If they are acutally planning a trip they are googling stuff like – “hostel under 10 euros dubrovnick” (sp!)or “stag party beer garden splite” – those people are about to make a booking … if you see what I mean.

In the make money online niche its a little different – I do have “social” people here who follow me who – because they understand affiliate marketing – will come back and give me the commission if they decide to use a product I’ve talked about – but thats a little unusual. Few people booking a hostel understand that the website they click thru to hostel world from is the one that gets the commission (that’s a hint BTW)

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Is SBI! a scam?…………… No

————–

Does it work?…………….. Yes… but not for everybody, and far better for some than for others, and not just dependent on how closely you follow the “Action Guide”. It also depends on a whole raft of other more personal factors, including…

genuine subject knowledge (as in “are you really an expert?”, because you had better be really interested if you are not, otherwise you will probably run out of “stamina” midstream);

life experience and personal circumstances (and some of us would rather keep that to ourselves, TYVM);

opportunity… we don’t all have the time or money to go swanning off to exotic locations, and we don’t all like our “home town” enough to wax lyrical about it on a website;

do you have a profession/consultant level experience, or a bricks and mortar business selling “high ticket” items… not essential, but very, very, very helpful for your bottom line if you do

your personality… this is probably the most important deciding factor of the lot, yet one which “gurus”, including Ken Evoy, ignore big time (although years ago Ken Evoy did produce an ebook called “Why People Fail”. It’s basically what he regards as a definitive list of negative personality traits that scupper the chances of anyone succeeding… it’s too simplified, he has everybody starting on a level playing field, and it gives not one iota of consideration to the effects of personal circumstances on how people respond).

————–

Is it worth the money?……… At $300 dollars a pop, most people couldn’t afford to get it wrong too often. That said, the equivalent of some of the individual modules (even if they were available) would probably cost that and more if purchased elsewhere. And $300 a year is not a lot for a genuine money-making business.

————–

Is SBI “the only way”?……….Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not even the best way for ALL beginners.

————–

Is it a “cult”?……………..IMO, yes, there are definitely cultish factions to it. Follow the leader without question, and all that good stuff. Some do. Some don’t. Who succeeds? Some of both.

—————

Paul, you almost sound like a Sitesell “plant”. Not saying you are. You just come across that way.

Nothing in this world is perfect.

Bill

I wondered too Bill- I read his comment carefully before posting it. Sadly I have had so much experience with SBI trolls that I know recognise some of the pre-packaged paragraphs they use! I didn’t find any in Paul’s so I let it thru … I am giving him the benefit of the doubt for the moment. Gotta laugh he gets useful free info on the forums – WTF does he think sites like this provide!

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@Paul–the reality is that we permit you to come here and say what you want, but SBI does not permit honest debate and any type of detrimental feedback about their product, no matter how respectful.

Hell even the president doesn’t mind a bit of honest criticism, which is where the cult bit comes in.

When you don’t permit anyone to speak evil of, and protect your product to that extent, you get the bad name that you richly deserve of being a despot.. or a little tin dictator.

Sorry but if its not a cult or a scam or whatever other name you’d like to offer it.. why not permit honest and open and respectful debate? what have you got to lose if you have nothing to hide and nothing to lose?

It all seems just a bit too ridiculous to me that people are stupid enough to buy into it , but it’s all good. If you’re happy dude, then we’re happy.

Robbi – exactly – for any reading this new into the debate – I call SBI a cult because I was descended upon by zombies all chanting “death to Lis” in chorus – you think I am exaggerating – I’m not – my only regret is that I deleted the comments which hoped that I would die from cancer and my family would leave me – I thought it was in bad taste. To be clear that wasn’t from Ken himself – but from his organised “rapid response” team who descend when a negative review on SBI comes out. I wrote the original review because there were NO negative reviews at all in the SERPS – and then I found out why …

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Oh Whoops. also @Paul.. for your money. you get one site, no sub-domains etc.YEP, maybe you get a few modules that you could get free form wordpress plugins.. so I’ll give you that one. but in any other addon hosting company, you get fifty kinds of free software, and also you can make unlimited domains. NOT just one.. SHOW me. another hosting company that charges you 300 bucks to host your sh!t and limits you that strongly and I’ll write a scathing commentary on them too.

RD

There is no website but SiteBuildIt, and Ken Evoy is it’s prophet.

Seriously though, all you SBI kool aid drinkers just don’t quit. SBI is one solution, amongst MANY. There are multiple paths to success, and no single person has all the answers, regardless of what they tell you.

I wouldn’t waste my time with SBI because I have 5+ websites that generate income, and I am not looking on dumping $1,500/year to Ken Evoy in order to continue. Finding success online is about studying and putting in hard work, if SBI helps you get there, so be it.

$30/mo. isn’t much to learn for a few months, but once you have a clue, less than $10/mo. for hosting multiple sites sounds MUCH BETTER.

/end debate

Mitch, totally agree with a couple of your points:

1. Finding success online is about studying and putting in hard work, if SBI helps you get there, so be it.

2. $30/mo. isn’t much to learn for a few months, but once you have a clue, less than $10/mo. for hosting multiple sites sounds MUCH BETTER.

I am prepared to put in the work (have decided that this is my one project for August), I know my subject and the SBI system has helped get me to where I am now – very pleased. $30 a month is nothing for the knowledge I have learned – the same price as buying 5 beers in London for a web expert friend to explain it all in the pub. The key thing for me is that now I understand how things work a little better (and that will only continue), I will then be able to better evaluate if I want to spend $1500 a year for 5 SBI sites for example, or go down a different route. The advantage all you guys have over me is you are very knowledgeable in this field, I am a newcomer, but having spent 4 days from initial looking into online marketing to deciding to give SBI a go, 18 days later, I am more than happy. And when I get more time to look around, maybe with my increased knowledge, I will find better and cheaper options that you guys are out there, or maybe I will stick with SBI for my next project, as I am comfortable in the system and there are nothing but positives so far. A comforting thing for me in a world of internet scams is that SBI for sure is not a con in terms of not delivering. Expensive? To you guys yes, to me, a newcomer, so far an absolute bargain.

SBI may well be one of many ways, as you say – so far for me it is the one I researched and decided to try and it has far exceeded my expectations. My aim is not to debate who has the best system, but to find one which works for me and will start generating passive income – and based on my experience so far, I am happy where I am.

A final thought for all you experienced passive income makers out there. You are all knowledgeable and no doubt successful, but there must have been a time long ago when you too knew nothing, and you probably tried a few things before finding your method. If you could have been guaranteed back then (not knowing what you do now), for $30 a month, within 3 weeks a 100 page self-built website (with no real web design skills), 257 unique visits (less than 10 of which are from Facebook etc) and random people adding content to the site for you through contact forms, wouldn’t you all have thought that was a great deal? Can see why Lis and Bill may suspect I am an SBI plant due to my enthusiasm. I am not, just a very happy beginner who seems to have found fairly solid ground at the first attempt after four days of research. Cheers

Paul – to answer some of your questions – I have no web design skills and no little html and less CSS – WordPress is now so easy to use it should be illegal – if your site was in WordPress you would be able to have a beautiful design and interaction with comments – like you get on this blog. Your photos are stunning and deserve to be properly featured – maybe something like this site (not mine- http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blog/ ) You built the website – you added the content and the photos – from everyone I’ve heard do both it would have been quicker and easier in WordPress. And you don’t make it easy for your users to add content (and travelers love to add content – see Matt’s site – because they can’t comment easily and have a converstion like we are here)

Not SBI or any other program can guarantee traffic or rankings – but decent keyword research and backlinks are the key to both – the actual architecture of the site is irrelevant.

You are doing well but you are focussed on the site as the most important part of getting website up the rankings – a common mistake – the most important thing is understanding which keywords are a) worth ranking for (ie has traffic) and b) has competition that you can beat. Get that wrong and a 1000 pages of brilliant content won’t help.

Happy to be wrong about the plant bit – buy me a beer if I make it Croatia – I’ve only ever heard good things about the country!

By Post Author

thanks for that – interesting site and will take a closer look later. i get the keyword and backlink bit- have done the keyword research prior to kick off and the content has been written accordingly for the first two tiers at least. working now on the linking bit but making good progress on that score. I will probably submit my site for review on the SBI forum in a week or so. As an interesting exercise, are you or anyone else interested in doing a review of the site at the same time? WOuld be interesting to compare notes and I will benefit from more good advice. Let me know.

The mention of beer is making me thirsty… cheers Paul

You’re a slow learner for someone who started registering domains in 2005 and now owns 48.

Hi WordPress Fan,

are you referring to me? Would be interested to know the 48 sites I own if yes… My businesses have a total of I think five, none of them built by me, some of them badly maintained by me (cut and paste HTML in Frontpage) – they cover Albania, Sarajevo, Croatia, Medjugorje and alcohol free hand gel (am happy to supply links as none generates more than 300 unique visitors a month) – what are the other 43 about?!? Just because I own a domain for my business, doesn’t mean I built it. If this wasn’t referring to me, then apologies.

Sorry Paul, yes I was referring to you. I don’t know what your other sites are but my suspicious mind made me look you up on whois.sc As you can see for yourself, it states you have 48 domains. Not exactly the complete beginner in the internet world you’re touting yourself as then. I don’t mean to be rude, I’m not into slanging matches or anything, but something just doesn’t ring true here. You say you have no axe to grind yet your comments read like a sales pitch. I’ve tried SBI myself so I know that it’s far from perfect, and if you got through their training manual in 4 days (took me weeks) then you’re too clever to need to use something as expensive and inflexible as Site Build It.

Good to hear you are not into slanging matches – me neither and thanks for the link to whois.sc and you are right, I do apparently own 48 sites (I don’t) – anyone know how I can find out what they are? I have registered a few over the years (starting Feb 04), but even if I did own 48, doesn’t mean I necessarily build them, just as i have owned 4 cars in the last five years but didn’t build them either. Am really intrigued as to where this info has come from and how I can find out – suggestions welcome. As for my being an internet beginner, in my first post I said – I am not particularly web savvy (can edit my own sites by cut and pasting – they were built by others) – and that is where I am at.

Re getting through the manual quickly, I have 3-4 weeks free and made a decision to give this 100%. I am sure I have overlooked certain bits in order to get started. Maybe there are better things out there, but as I said above, which beginner would not have gone for my current position after 3 weeks, having never looked at online marketing before? Now that I know a lot more, when I have time, I will look at alternatives, but while SBI continues to exceed my expectations and I now go back to my job, I am happy with the status quo. It is obvious from the comments above that SBI is not for everyone, but so far I am more than happy.

BTW quick question – as you are a self-described fan of SBI Paul – how did you find this little discussion? Just curious

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Very interesting to be honest and I don’t normally contribute to forums that much. It is obvious that both sides have strong feelings. As for me, my focus is trying to get some passive income moving (am staying in the debate as I am learning lots), so am a little surprised at the lengths people have gone to to attack SBI. But an interesting debate and a heap of suggestions from your good self and others are certainly worth looking into when I get a min. You have steered a good moderating ship I think and appreciate the time you have put in to post replies to me. So a beer in Croatia for sure! And an even bigger one for whoever can give me the list of 48 sites I own…

Hi WordPress Fan, I contacted the domain company who say I have 48 domains (copied Lis and happy for her to share that email with you). I can totally understand your suspicions and I had no idea where the 48 came from. Here is their reply – makes you wonder why they bother really…

Thank you for contacting DomainTools.

In most cases like this, you are not the only “Paul Bradbury” that we show who owns domains.

Thank you again for using DomainTools.

Best regards,

Brian W
DomainTools Client Support

Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: DKD-738578
Department: DomainTools Memberships & Transactions
Priority: Low
Status: Closed

They only match on the name ????? Thank heavens that your name is not John Smith LOL

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Right well, I signed up to Site Build It a short while ago to conduct a review and I can honestly say that although it’s not a scam, I’d recommend to people to steer clear. It’s not that it’s crooked, it’s just that it is very expensive and in addition, you can’t seem to see any genuine people involved with it to give you the downsides. Most people get suspicious in this instance and Site Build It takes too long to come up with real information for real people, it takes far too long to get beyond the hype.

LOL gosh you don’t say? You mean they don’t want honest discourse, but expect blind acceptance and vocal approval? Hm… sounds like some cult thing to me.. the only real difference I guess is that —hm… well the only one I can think of off hand is that they don’t promote mass suicide???

It’s that SBI enthusiast in Croatia again. My site is now one month old and thought there might be some interest in my stats, for those of you wondering if SBI is a scam/rip off etc.

Total unique visits this month – 1,074
Total unique visits yesteday – 126
Pages built by me – 105
Content pages contributed by random people from the web – 19
Google searches yesterday – 61
Google searches for one of my target keywords yesterday – 36
Money outlaid so far – $29.99
Money earned so far through the site – c. $400 (mostly, but not excusively, through renting one of our apartments – I had it on as a holding page for accommodation, and to get bookings this late in the season is a real boost)
Hours worked on the project in last month – 300 (yep, been busy)
Alexa ranking (don’t understand this tool and can’t believe it is accurate) – 746,458

I have owned businesses with websites for the last six years and never come close to 126 unique visitors a day that I got today. And this, I can see, is just the start.

Is SBI a scam? No. Is it expensive? Judge for yourselves. As I asked above (no reply), all you experts were once newbies. Would you have settled for those results when you were starting out or too expensive? Is SBI a cult? No idea, my motivation is to make money, and their system is showing me how. Does it bother me it they “expect blind acceptance and vocal approval”? No. I pay my money to use and learn from the system, and slowly build my business. My only interactions with SBIers have been the forums where the quality of feedback and support has been awesome. If that makes it a cult, sign me up. A cult that can show me how to make money to support my family – perfect!

Cheers Paul

whoa dude. you’re really getting into the swing of things. so your total cost so far has been 29 dollars. no setup fee, no hosting fee no nothing

well no. i’d have to say I wouldn’t be okay with those stats. but if you’re brand new then way cool. but then too. I’ve been around a while.. longer than I would care to admit actually.

If you don’t mind that you’re doing the whole don’t talk bad or say anything negative and walk the path we set for you, and it’s okay that you can’t have subdomains and that you are strictly limited on your design and that you’re not able to do certain things, then hey. if you’re happy.. i’m happy. and congratulations on your traffic. it’s a good start and honestly. I don’t much care WHERE your site is sitting. if you’re not flapping one of those endless-worthless-totally without redeeming qualities damn landing pages in my face– and you really want to put up quality content.. well then.. welcome to the internet.

Robbi.

Hi Robbie,

that’s right – $29.99 – no hosting fee extra, no set up fee, no nothing. So I had a whole month to try it out and if was really unhappy, I could have cancelled and only being $29.99 down.

Re all the negative chat and cult chat, the only place I encounter it is here. I keep in touch with this forum because this thread is what made me decided to go ahead. It was difficult to judge the reality on this thread as there was so little middle ground in the debate – I am just posting my experiences as i start my SBI assocation. I guess a lot of people check this forum due to the no 1 ranking for ‘SBI scam’ – I get a good chunk of traffic from it, and looks like maybe my first referral, so thanks guys! The system works, if you put in the effort and produce the content and do your monetising the correct way.

Interesting to hear you say you wouldn’t be happy with those stats Robbi. Are you speaking as the experienced online marketer that you are now, or as the newbie that you once were?

Cheers Paul

Good for you, Paul.

But please don’t rub peoples’ noses in it.

In my last post, I said this…

—————————————————————————————-
do you have a profession/consultant level experience, or a bricks and mortar business selling “high ticket” items… not essential, but very, very, very helpful for your bottom line if you do
—————————————————————————————-

You basically confirmed what I said here…

—————————————————————————————-
Money earned so far through the site – c. $400 (mostly, but not excusively, through renting one of our apartments – I had it on as a holding page for accommodation, and to get bookings this late in the season is a real boost)
—————————————————————————————-

Renting “one of” our apartments??

Unfortunately (for me) I don’t own ANY apartments that I can rent out. Nor, I suspect, do most other people trying to “make money online”.

SBI is not a scam. I said that before you did.

But the point, Paul, is that SBI is a much better fit for some people than for others. You appear to be one of the “lucky” ones.

And, from reading your posts on the SBI forums, it seems the remainder of your $400 came from selling an SBI subscription… I would guess to someone who was impressed by your natural, unbridled enthusiasm over all the “nasty negative people” posting to this blog.

You have me there as well, Paul. I am not a naturally enthusiastic person. Truth be told, I couldn’t sell bread in a famine. And never mind the “preselling” jargon, that comes even less naturally to me.

Adsense rules then, it seems. For me, at least. How to accomodate it is the dilemma.

I agree that there is not enough objective, “middle ground” information to help people decide if SBI is for them. “SBI is a scam” doesn’t help them. But neither does “Rah, rah, rah. Three cheers for SBI”.

Bill

Hi Bill,

thanks for your comments. I am self-employed and so we make money from renting apartments, but that is not the reason I started the site or where I saw income generation potential – we have a good network of other marketing outlets to look after that side of the business. This season has been poor, due to the global situation, and we are not as full as previous years. There is still the same competition to get bookings as before, which is why I was very pleasantly surprised to get the bookings this late in the season – either through the SBI site or elsewhere. And while it is great to get the income and cover SBI costs, that is NOT what has got me so enthusiastic.

What has got me a lot more excited is that Google has found me for one of my key search terms, Croatia map. I don’t have a map shop, or any high end map tickets, but I am learning how to arrange the site to benefit from that traffic (and I would say that Adsense would be less than 20% of that) – yep, those freaks at SBI showed me how for $29.99. I wrote an article on something specialised and posted it last week and already am number one on Google for that specialised term, and again, I have no high end tickets on that theme either, but I understand what to do with the traffic.

I started researching online marketing 6 weeks ago and I think Lis will confirm I am genuine from some email correspondence. Having understood the concept of niche blogging (had never heard of it 6 weeks ago), I thought I had my perfect niche. Having signed up with SBI I used the brainstorming tool and found that my niche was never going to get the traffic and so I ended up with my current site, which is much broader and actually a lot more fun. I never envisaged 6 weeks ago that i would be writing about Croatian maps (or nudist beaches!), but that is where the research directed me, and Google seems to agree.

Do I expect to make money from the site (will start to monetise in a month)? Yes. Do I expect to make it through high end tickets such as the apartment rental? Perhaps 5% max, as our other established rental links (plus happy customers returning) should look after that. I have ‘met’ lots of people on the forums with successful sites (cool small pets, ikea kichen cabinet review, varietal vines etc etc) who have no highend tickets but are doing well. There is even a guy who claims to make 4k a month on Adsense alone, and the nice (cultish?) thing is that he is ready to share his expertise and experiences. I am not ready to get to that stage yet, but when I am, I will contact him for sure.

Bill, I have no idea what your site/sites are about, but by all means contact me and I will have a look at them. I have done 300 hours on this in the last month, so am understanding how it works more and more. If it helps, and I am far from an expert, will happily give you my two cents worth on content, affiliate programs, links etc. I don’t agree that Adsense rules, even if you have no high end tickets, although it has a part to play for sure.

And sorry if you feel I am ‘rubbing your nose in it’ – not my intention at all. I am enthusiastic as I have found a product that works for me at the first attempt (did spend 4 days researching it though). And while I agree that it is not for everyone, the main reason people struggle with it I would say are 1). not enough quality content (if you look at my site, with submissions from the web, there are now 200 pages – lots needs to be tidied up, but content is my starting point, and Google seems to agree), 2) not building up links correctly. 3) and I am ready for the slating – not following the cultish Action Guide. 4) not researching your niche properly – it is easier to write about what you know best, rather than what can make a successful business (and trust me, I didn’t know a lot about nudist beaches a month ago!) – without the brainstorming bit, I would be in a completely different place now. I would add a fifth, which is not spending enough time on the forums, but they are only available for members.

As someone said above, if you are not prepared to put the effort in, you won’t succeed (same with every other business, oddly). And am sure SBI is not for everyone, but if you have a properly researched niche, are willing to provide content to drive traffic, get your links done, and follow the cultish guide (am sure there are non-SBI versions of this advice out there – I am happy where I am and so have no need to look), get your affiliate strategy right, and have a modicum of intelligence, you will succeed. Cheers Paul

Greetings by the way.. to Lis and the rest of you.. Today.. for 15 more minutes. at least.. 9-11 is my birthday so I’m having my birthday play online LOL. and I came over to see what was up You know it doesn’t matter how often I pop over. . the conversation and the endless debate still continues. but you know what.. we’re never going to agree completely. LOL @ Bill. on your natural unbridled enthusiasm..

I agree. for the most part, people aren’ t online to sell or rent their real estate, they are here to actually sell other things or to make a living. and I tend to agree with Bill. I think I’m going to come back tomorrow with a payment and fee schedule for SBI. what they offer, what a normal wp site might offer and what each one has for strengths and weaknesses. and try to be objective about it. because I do believe it would be an interesting read..

Bill. I agree on the sales. I’m not great at it. I build, I write, for my own sites and professionally for companies and medical websites. that’s how I make my bucks LOL –actually I provide content for quite a few SBI folks.. and that’s what I do and have done online for more than ten years. (blackcatconsultants.com) my own sites do fairly well for the affiliate stuff, but I would not be happy with selling online for my entire living.. primarily because I’d be a seriously hungry person LOL

BUT if I could not build for myself and really had no skills so far as writing or content, then I might conceivably give SBI a try I suppose. To me. its not so much the service honestly as the control issue. and maybe that’s my issue. I just don’t like companies who feel that silencing you is okay and slamming you is okay and censoring you is okay… thats my biggest beef I guess. if there were some ethics there about those things, I’d probably be less unimpressed by the whole deal.

happy saturday to everyone.

Hi Robbie,

Happy birthday. Would be great to read your piece on what WP offers v SBI etc – will help give people an idea of what is out there. And who knows, if I had found that info in my research 6 weeks ago, maybe I would be in a whole different place right now… But interesting to see you saying that you could envisage a situation where you might use SBI, if you didn’t have the skills that you do have (am envious…) – am sure I am not the only one who went looking for online money making ops and was terrified about being scammed – which is how I found this site and ended up going ahead (SBI scam leads you to this site on Google) – so the more info out there the better, to help people make the right choice for them.

Cheers Paul

You know what Paul, I’ll give you that one– There are a ton of people out there asking for literally hundreds of dollars. I have people come to me every day who say that someone offered to build them a wordpress for 2200 dollars plus hosting for a five page site. I tell them I hope to god that they had the good sense to say no. Scammers are everywhere though. both offline and online. Integrity in business and ethics in personal dealings.. well those are things–sadly, that don’t seem to be as common as they once were. That’s part of what made me start building sites for a hundred dollars and hosting them. I think that everyone deserves a website. Kids, old people, Native Americans, you name it, they should have it. A nice looking page and a good host should not cost you a thousand dollars and it should not cost you your identity and your self respect. If you NEED to make a few dollars online you should not get ripped off for that need, but get someone who wants to help you because they remember what it was like to be new..

LOL then too. what the hell do I know.. I’m well past forty and maybe words like ethics and respect for others.. just don’t count any more. Cheers!! and thanks for your good wishes.

I hear you on the $2200 for five pages Robbi. Six years ago, I paid $3000 for two sites (inc some travel costs) and got two very nice sites, one of which was my main business for 4 years. I never got close to the 126 unique visitors in one day or the 1074 in a month after my first month with SBI, in any of those 6 years.

I am now in my second month, so $60 in, but rather than five pages for $2200, I have a site of 250 pages for $60, and the nice part is that 150 of those, with great and relevant content, were submitted by people I don’t know, and the site is quickly taking shape. How did I get them to contribute? Something I learned with my first investment into the online world – $29.99. I would add that, as great as I think SBI is, I probably would not have signed up for the $300 deal as that is a lot upfront, but the $29.99 monthly package, allowing you to revert to $300 when you are generating income, makes it a fairly risk-free option to try.

Looking forward to your post on WP – am always up for learning more, as I am new to all this.

And one unrelated question – is there a guide of how much a properly monetised site makes without high end affiliates (like my apartments)? Some equation like X visitors a day will average an income range of Y-Z cents a visit? Or how is this calculated?

Cheers Paul

Paul,

Did you really need the “freaks at SBI” (your words, not mine) to tell you to contact people interested in Croatia through various social networks, travel forums, etc and ask them to contribute to your site? It’s hardly rocket science.

In actual fact I would have thought doing something like that would have come as second nature to an outgoing chap such as you appear to be.

We are all different, Paul. Some things come easy to you, but not to me. And who knows, maybe vice versa as well.

And…

————————————————————
if you have a properly researched niche, are willing to provide content to drive traffic, get your links done, and follow the cultish guide (am sure there are non-SBI versions of this advice out there – I am happy where I am and so have no need to look), get your affiliate strategy right, and have a modicum of intelligence, you will succeed.
————————————————————

It’s not that simple for everybody, Paul. Really it’s not. And “intelligence” (whatever that may be) often has very little to do with it.

Bill

Thank you, thank you for this post. I’m so glad I discovered it before I signed up to SBI, I’m only 1/2 way through all the stuff written here, but it’s soooooooooooooo useful. I’m a total novice and so SBI was looking like a good option. I’ve built a site using wix at http://www.fantastic-you.co.uk and then discovered that Wix is really pretty rubbish (as I’ve been writing it…. it doesn’t allow drop down menus, it doesn’t allow lots of stuff AND it’s all in Flash so loads of people are being put off by not being able to access it at all….) + no way to monetise without paying large sums per month….. how the f”£$ did I miss that?!?! yeah, as I said, I’m a novice…… anyhow this is all so useful and I’ll be going with wordpress. Thank you. F

Glad to be of help Fiona – yeah there are a lot of “free” website builders provided by hosting companies which are very, very limited. WordPress is free and definitly only limited by your imagination

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Lis, will you sue me if I use the following quote from you as my new blog’s subtitle? LMAO Instant Classic!

“This is my blog and I fucking well do what I please with it.”

Hi lis,
I need a little more info here… Time goes by and I have been searching for some ways to create my own website, pretty much I signed up to site build it before understanding of what hell I’m sopposed to do. You see I don’t have any knowledge on how to make a – Proffesional web – pretty much I went through some website 2createawebsite.com and was persuaded to buy site build it, As reading the whoole of this blog I am shocked for words. please tell me more and please tell me what HELL am i supposed to do: The problem also needs to stop – Am I better off with dreamweaver and a seperate domain host? why do I ask this? because I finally realised that the women in the website ACTUALLY was an affiliate…bloody hell, where does it end? because I need to get a hold of a proffesional website, with java script and flash player script all over – I signed up for that matter. unfortunate enough I am lost. wordpress you say? is it proffesional like the following website? crytek.com

Ramirez – do I wouldn’t recommend Dreamweaver unless you know what you are doing – nothing wrong with the software – I own it myself- but its not going to make a website for you unless you learn quite a lot about html, CSS etc etc.

The site you mention – yes that could be easily reproduced in WordPress, in fact I’m not sure why the person who owns that site hasn’t done it in WP – would have cost them a fraction of what they no doubt paid.

The question is – what do you want the website for? A pretty website by its self won’t make you a cent.

Oh and beware – I am an affiliate too – I make a commission from the products I promote on this blog – not sure why you are so horrified about that? I do only promote stuff here that I use and find helpful though

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I totally agree Lis. Not sure why that the site wasn’t done in WP. and HI by the way, gosh I’ve missed seeing you. LOL. That website could have been done for a third the price and actually done better.. not to mention the security things you can do that will shore it up quite nicely.

LOL Ramirez.. she has you there. I build wordpress sites for myself and for others.. Most of us build them because we want to use them to make a living and they do help to do that. Promotion of affiliate things isn’t that horrifying when you consider that you’re quite likely going to sell something from yours too…

WordPress can not only be flash and glitz, it can be professional or business. The Wall Street Journal is using it too.. among others. I’d take a good look at it. I’m on the contributing team for WP and it can do literally anything at all…even community sites and forums, and the learning curve is remarkably short.

Have a great Saturday…

Robbi

OMG, I am in the middle of trying to get my money back from SBI! I stupidly paid the 300 bucks thinking this program is the best way to start an online business.
Once I was in and looked through the forums and the different SBI site owners websites, I was——-mortified! These peoples sites are the ulgliest most hideous things Ive ever seen. They remind me of those old free yahoo sites…eek.
All of their websites have the stupidest name ww.how-to-make-money-online.com or ww.weight-loss-is-easy-for-people.com….or one of the most successful sbiers site is ww.kids-coolest-birthday-parties-that-are-cool.com Uuugh, the list goes on and on.

Sure they may get a lot of traffic, but with their pages COVERED in google ads, as soon as you hit one, you are going to get that feeling in your gut that it is all spam and immediately click off. That and the fact that they are so visually unnapealing!
Anyhow, just waiting on my refund. I lasted one week, lol I just got an email back saying — before your refund, DR Evoy has a special message just for you!—- Where he tries to intimidate you into staying on the success track of sbi.
Gross. Normally I dont post this kind of stuff, but I really want the world to know!
Cheers

I want to address something else to the last writer and commenter. I’ve got no problem at all helping you to create a website and I do marketing, but so does Lis. It might be interesting and fun to build you a site and then do some marketing and keyword research here as well in order to sort of share ideas and give you some insights. No one is an expert in marketing.. at the end of the day, so much is changing that regardless of how much you think you know, we’re all just sort of runnning to catch up.something new crops up every day.

My one issue with SBI after working with so many of their clients, is that the tendency to keep you dependent and not offer any extra information that would work outside SBI is what troubles me. Growth doesn’t seem to be encouraged and I find that heinous on so many levels. Lis, feel free to pass me his email or pass him mine, I”ve no issue at all with that, but along the way, lets address a few marketing and other tips here, social networking and etc. It will give you some added traffic and really is a great service to help newcomers who want a bit of help.
Everyone, Have a fantastic day!!

Robbi Drake.

Hi from Monday Robbi – you guys are so behind the times 🙂

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LOL–Typical darn Americans — Just lagging a bit in everything. Can’t believe this thread is still so robust. Villains seem to hold our attention forever.
Hey wait, I’ve caught up with you. it’s Monday now.

Well, I just got another email today saying that my refund went through. I don’t see the money yet, but I imagine it will be about 5 or so business days to see the credit back on the card.
I also recieved another message just after the confirmation saying how the grass definately isn’t greener on the other side, and how I could very likely be making THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE by not staying with SBI!
I will definately say that it is not a scam….but…it is a very shady, creepy bunch. Just reading through the forums for a bit gives me that unsettleing feeling. Has anybody seen the creepy videos on YOUTUBE about the successful SBI’ers. The hands down worst endorsments I’ve ever seen….
What strikes me the most is that the videos and the websites and everything about SBI is that it looks like it’s based on the mid 90’s version of the internet. What the fuck??? lol
ANyhow, I’m sure that this has been talked about enough already…but I just had to vent. THanks lol
Cheers
Steve

Glad you got your $$ bvack Steve- no problem about venting around here – yeah its a bit of a 90’s trimewarp isn’t it!

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Update….confirmed, got my 328 bucks back from SBI. That being said, thanks for the heads up Lis, I’m giving the Keyword Academy a try. Loving what I see so far….just a couple of days in and still a little bit overwhelmed.

However; I can tell you the vibe is so much better over here at the Keyword academy!!!

Yeah its a wee bit OTT to start with – but focus on the first 100 hours stuff and you will be off to a great start! Good luck!

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…Just going through the KWA course, and one thing that struck me funny was how they advise people to keep their domains short and sweet…..while all the SBI’ers are making sites that look like———-> www-my-domain-is-really-long-and-very-spammy-looking.com LOL…..
So glad I got out of that SBI crap 🙂
Cheers
Steve

Hello,
I just wanted to say a quick thanks.
I was investigating site builing suites and my hackles went up immediately with SBI.

There is always a down side to everything and wise people want to know if it’s a problem they can deal with.
It was WAY to hard to find negative comments which made me immediately suspicious.

It’s not what I am looking for (of course, I can’t buy by kid a resort like Evoy is reported to done.) 🙂

Have a great day!

Don’t know if you will see this since the last post on this subject is Nov. 29, 2010. But here goes. I was on my way to join SBI because I happened on Lisa’s Youtube presence and from there I advanced to 2createawebsite.com which took me to her page recommending SBI. Since I was scammed big time last year on the internet by a site I don’t care to mention, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS research a company now before I sign up; especially if they sound too good. Well, I started researching SBI and after reading 3 or 4 glowing reviews I came upon your site. I started reading and wondered why you were so negative about them….but I kept reading.

Then came the comments and they were a lot. I started to read. I don’t mind saying I got a little flustered and a little tee’d off at you and, especially, Robbi when Paul of Croatia came on and was so enthused about having joined SBI and told how it was working for him. I was cheering him on. It made me feel good for him (and about SBI). By George! I was going to join this company and nobody was going to stop me – not a few negative comments……but I kept on reading – until the very end. I read all the comments and came out with a whole new perspective. I think I changed my mindset when Robbi came on and talked about how scammers are everywhere online and offline and how a good professional website shouldn’t cost you thousand of dollars. Then Bill offered a comment where he said – We are all different, Paul. Some things come easy to you, but not to me. It’s not that simple for everybody, Paul. Really it’s not. And “intelligence” (whatever that may be) often has very little to do with it. He hit a nerve right there. Because that’s me. It doesn’t come that easy to me. I’ve been trying for a while now and I am still struggling so much so that since the fiasco with the last “very costly” website, I haven’t been able to will myself to get back on the internet. I want to, though, but I am nowhere closer to knowing how to do this successfully than I did back then.

I would be interested in Robbi helping me create a website on WordPress, but I will need major help in promoting/marketing it. That is where my real big problem is. I know zilch, nada about marketing, getting traffic, promoting or getting your web site to rank tops in the search engines. Do you think I would profit by signing up to Keyword Academy? Do they teach these things there? I really hope you see this post. I need some answers. I will not join SBI. Simply can’t afford to fail again.

Chi

Hi Chi, I monitor my comments – especially about SBI – the topic that never dies 🙂 I’m not Robbi though, if you want me to put you in touch with her – leave me another comment giving me permission and I will forward your email addy to her.

Keyword Academy is all about promoting your website to the top of the search engines. Most people start with knowing nothing about marketing so you will hardly be alone though. Some caveats though: I generally say – you need to be prepared to work a year before you start making a reasonable income – this seems to be a stumbling block for most people, being too stubborn to give up is a definite advantage 🙂

You can try it for a month – for no money – if you cancel within the first 30 days – (by cancelling your Paypal sub) – you pay nothing. There is no minimum commitment either. TKA has been changing over the last few months and you may want to read my most recent review before finally deciding TKA 2.0

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Hey Lis et al, I’d love to help you to create a reasonable website for a low cost, just give me a shout. LOLOL Just got this in email Lis as I’m a subscriber.. Was too funny, because I was just thinking about you. HAPPY THURSDAY!!

Robbi

Dear Lis,
Thanks so much for your quick response. If I had any doubts about the genuineness of this site, they were dispelled by your quick response. You don’t know how bad I want to succeed in this. I have questions I hope you can answer. Do I apply first to TKA and begin their lessons before attempting to create a site seeing that I know next to nothing about creating or maintaining a site? Just finished reading your TKA review. Please forward my e-mail to Robbi. I am still not sure what my niche is… (isn’t that amazing?) This is something I am on fire for and I can’t think of what I want to talk about on my site. If it wasn’t so sad, I think I would be laughing. I need help. But, I’ve been reading your blog (is it a blog or website?) for a while now and I find it very informative. Hope you don’t mind if I ask, but how do you make your income from this site since you don’t use any adsense? I thought you always needed adsense to make money on the internet.

Btw, I have been also reading some of Grizzly Brears posts. I know, I know. When you sent me there via your TKA 2.0 review, I couldn’t believe it. I was back in a jiff because I thought I had the wrong site. It’s horrid. But then I went back and started reading and I found it so interesting. There is so much to learn there also. I realize I can’t get too involved with that though, because it is way over my head. All those Acronyms – PR, PR0, CPC, SEO, SERP, etc. Maybe later. Please let me know what you advise. Will be waiting. Thanks

Oops sorry I missed this question – this is a blog and a website – there is really no difference anymore – the technology has moved on – I could get technical but it doesn’t really matter in the big picture.

TKA can teach you from the ground up how to start a site – its really not that difficult these days – I don’t know a thing about the programming that controls this site – I use an interface which is about as difficult as Microsoft Word.

No its not at all surprising you don’t know what your niche – I’ve only picked one in the last couple of months – and I’ve been doing this since 2007!

You don’t need Adsense to make money online – I’ve never run it on this blog – because I make a reasonable amount of money from the affiliates that I promote. On my resources page if you click on a link for something like the keyword academy or build my rank – then I get a paid a percentage by the owner’s of those companies if you sign up – it adds up believe me. With Adsense on a blog like this I would get a whole lot of crappy make money online schemes – with affiliates I chose exactly what I promote – so if I do promote it my visitors tend to trust it a bit more.

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Hey Lis,
When I clicked on your resources page link, it took me to Grizzly Brears’ How to Make Money Online page where he says he’s golfing and hasn’t turned on the computer for months. There are a lot of links on the right hand bar, mostly about golfing. Is this correct? Is this your resource page? If it is, this is more complicated than I thought. I don’t understand. Ok, I’m on my way to sign up at TKA and find out how to start my site.

I visited Robbi’s site and didn’t find an e-mail address to contact her. Should I just comment on one of her posts and that way she can answer me? Btw, I don’t have Twitter (wouldn’t even know how to get around in Twitter). I have a Face Book account which I use minimally (just to keep up with family and friends). I do know my way around Face Book but would rather not post my personal life all over the net. I’m really not very socially oriented on the net that way.

Sorry – I had the wrong link – doing stuff too fast with too many windows open again – its fixed now. I sent Robbi an email with your contact details – hopefully she’ll drop you a line. Twitter is beyond me and FB drives me crazy – focus on the TKA stuff first – social media has its place – but its a (long) way down the list in my opinion!

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