the SBI thread, tips, tricks and success stories

[alexplatups]

True,

there are many options, but it is very difficult to create a profitable business
online if you have no experience in building sites, and do not know how to drive
free targeted traffic to your site

to build a profitable online business takes doing many things *right*

the best example is StevePavlina.com site, in reality this is a content site,
it is not a blog, and this is one of the reasons for its success

plus this forum, where people who post create content, that also gets picked
up by the spiders, and people find the site when they search for something,
without Steve actually doing the work physically

he gives the users the opportunity to post in this forum, and this helps him
attract more traffic to his site

people who are making *real money* in an online business very rarely post
somewhere because they are busy running their sites, and it is the exception
and not the rule that you can make real good money working on your site
3-4 hours per day, for most people it is a full time job

and yes there are many other options, but creating a successful, profitable
online business is much different...from just a *site*

Alex Platups

[bluedragon]

The advice I got from a few SBIers was that I should write in shorter paragraphs and include more white spaces. One suggested that my homepage contains too much information. I was like... what!? I thought it was too short.
I can understand the part about adding more white spaces, to make my content easier to read, but what's the whole deal with shorter articles? I don't want to write short articles... I want to write long ones that touch the core of a subject and provide insightful thoughts to the reader.
Maybe my phrases are too long? I noticed this myself. I am generally able to break them down into shorter phrases, but I think most of my articles have not been edited in this manner.
What do you think?

[Angela Leeds]

I looked at your site, bluedragon. I think your article length is fine. But I agree that the word density is too intense... The articles are hard to scan with the eyes.

I suggest not only to break them out into not just more word space but also more subheaders, so the ideas are in chunks and easy to absorb by the average scanning eye.

[alexplatups]

Bluedragon,

I agree, you should give more white space, 4 lines should be maximum...imo

and the page can be as long as you want, the white space makes it much
easier to scan and read for your readers, especially if it is long

Alex Platups

[Angela Leeds]

I was fiddling with my SBI site yesterday, which has a different but similar domain to my main blog, and I think I'm going to keep it for a landing page for a book when it comes out.

You know, there's so much to learn when you hit the web with the intent to blog & market, especially if you have no previous experience navigating the online marketing realm. But it's also amazing how quickly you can learn these things. The idea of building a landing page on my own with HTML and then loading it into the SBI host was too far a stretch for me a couple months ago.

But now... I've been learning the basics of HTML just to be able to do some basic linking and formatting, and I've been getting comfortable uploading & modifying files for my Wordpress sites.

It will be very handy to have two domains that are very similar in name. Everything comes together and finds its purpose...

[bluedragon]

Since most of you are familiar with the guidelines of SBI regarding SEO, how do you think I could format the meta tags for an article dealing with a delicate topic?
I'm writing a series on "Healing Your Reality", and I've written about the objective perspective (being proactive, etc), and now I want to write about a more subjective perspective - "Being Congruent With Your Intentions and Goals", and in the 3rd article, about the law of attraction, and the 4th - about the concept of a totally "subjective reality". I have NO idea how I can choose effective keywords and headings for such topics. What filename to give? Must both the <h1> and the first 90 characters contain that phrase, even if it is long?
So for the 2nd article, "Being Congruent With Your Intentions and Goals", I want to begin like this:
<h1>Healing Your Reality Part 2: Being Congruent With Your Intentions and Goals</h1>
and then:
"Manifesting your intentions is easier done when you live congruently with what you want to achieve. When you build a vision in your mind, you acquire habits that support these goals [...], you will [...]"
I don't want to include the same phrase 100 times. And I think these phrases are good, but at the same time, I am not sure if they convey to the reader (as they do to myself), the essence of what I want to say. Maybe choosing more commercial, common keywords would actually allow me to reach more people, and later in the article, I could dive into saying things in my own, unique way (and maybe not very English-sounding .
What do you think?
Please do give me an example of how you would do it, at least for this article - what filename, what keywords, what <h1> and how would you fit it in the first 90 characters. Thanks in advance, and I hope my question wasn't too lengthy (like my paragraphs ).

[Rebecca800]

Hey Bluedragon

You main keyphrase should be 2-3 words long - rarely 4 and never 5 or more. In this case, very few people are going to type "Being Congruent With Your Intentions and Goals" (7 words!) into a search engine.

Also it needs to appear in the title as soon as possible, not after "Healing Your Reality Part 2", so you will need to rethink this format for the series. The keyword really needs to be in the first and last 90 characters of the page. Otherwise you are not giving your article the best chance possible of being found.

If you do go for a long-winded phrase (we're still talking 5 words max) you don't have to use it as often in the text. It will be such an unusual phrase that Google will pick it up easier in fewer repetitions.

The filename should be exactly the same as your main keyphrase, with dashes for spaces.

As for finding the right keywords, I recommend you go to your SBI Master Keyword List and look at the most profitable keyphrases on there. That list is very important, (I doubt "Being Congruent With Your Intentions and Goals" was on there!) and will make all the difference to your traffic since SEO is so critical to your success at this stage.

I'm not sure I can come up with the right example for you, but if I were to stab in the dark, I'd say "How To Set Your Goals" or "How To Follow Your Goals" would be more searchable.

[bluedragon]

Thanks Rebecca!
I think this is exactly what I've been doing wrong so far! I haven't been focusing on choosing effective keywords. I only tried to choose the most effective ones - for the articles that I wanted to write. Instead of choosing what articles to write according to the best keywords. I didn't have a very good business mentality.
And since you can't have better results by doing the same things as before, I will try to radically change my approach. Cause unless I get my site up and running soon, I will need to find another source of income. With this site, all I earned was 0.54 cents. How ridiculous is that!
How did you win 300 dollars in your first month of monetizing !? How many visitors a day did you have? Did you have lots of inbound links? Were most of your visitors coming from search engines?
Thanks for the tips!

[Rebecca800]

Hi Bluedragon

The thing is, you can't rush monetization. You need to add each income stream slowly, and make sure its a quality and relevant product, not just something that earns a nice %.

Having said that, I implemented 5 products that month, which in hindsight is quite a lot. Ever since I have taken it much slower; adding 1 or 2 products per month.

I was over the moon when I made that much in my first month- it was quite unexpected. I was averaging 140 unique visitors per day, all of which came organically (not through PPC marketing). I only had a few income streams set up:

- AdSense delivered about $20. Nothing to write home about.

- The Lucid Dreaming Kit sold well. I put up my own review and had several banner ads on site. The important thing is that it is highly relevant to my site.

- I also made my first steady income from Mind Sync and Unexplainable - brainwave entrainment products (for lucid dreaming, astral projection, meditation, and others). These continue to be a very profitable income stream.

- I even made my first sale of Site Build It (approx $75), which is great because my site is a working example, and that was enough to convince someone to do it too!

I have about 15 income streams now. Some perform much better than others, and those that fail miserably get dropped quite fast! I find the best results come from highly relevant products, ie those that help people to lucid dream regularly.

I can't say for sure how many links in I had back then. I had probably submitted my site to at least 50 directories (let's assume 10 had picked it up by that point) and a number of social site links. This is an ongoing effort for me; I have a lot more links in now.

Basically I followed the SBI guide to the letter and it just all seemed to work itself out! I'm sure you'll do well if you follow the guide, with particular attention to creating a monetization plan BEFORE you start, and working on gaining quality inbound links.

[Angela Leeds]

Thanks, Rebecca, for that very informative post!

[alexplatups]

Hello everyone,

yes...Rebecca that is the #1 most important thing with making an SBI site
really profitable, to follow the Action Guide, from start to finish

...99% of the basics and fundamentals are on those pages, and in my opinion
the folks that do not succeed, either do not follow the Action Guide, or are
reading or hearing something else, and not what Ken wrote in it

...in other words perceiving Ken's suggestion through their own subjective
world view, and after following the Action Guide, the next step to success...

...without a doubt is creating your site's blueprint, from your brainstorming
work, and imo...buying more credits is the best investment you can make, so
that you can do more searches

...of course it all depends on your niche, but if you want traffic you have to
look and look for those diamonds in the rough

...Ken says a million times to *keep it real*--this means to be objective in
everything and let your common sense make the calls, except for the basics
and fundamentals of course like quality content, high quality back links, and
as Rebecca said...high quality monetization models

...driving additional traffic is different for everyone, since everyone's niche
is different, and this is something you will have to test and adjust to get it
right completely

...I wanted to write a comment in that thread about SBI being a scam, but
I figured Steve will make his comments, and he did

anyway that is it for now, later and good luck to everyone

Alex Platups

[bluedragon]

I keep wondering - a blog using a blogging platform has some advantages, right? comments, trackbacks... getting noticed by the other bloggers. The same with having a forum. I probably visit Steve's forum 100 times more often than his blog, mainly because he posts only once a week or so. Is there any reason not to avail ourselves of this opportunity? Why have you chosen not to install a Wordpress (or other) blog on your site?
Can you get noticed by other bloggers if you have a static site? Can you get tons of links every day, like Steve used to get, only from people commenting on what you write, if you don't have a blog?

[Rebecca800]

Hey Bluedragon

How much value do you think comments offer? (That's not a rhetorical question - I would really like to know!) I don't have any comments on my sites and wonder if they are worth it. In my mind, they are another drain on your time because you have to moderate them for spam and for inappropriate content. Personally I visit a blog to read the article, not the comments. I trust the author but I don't know these other commentators from Adam. I don't consider them to be like a forum, where you can interact with other posters. And from an SEO perspective, if every commenter adds a link to their own site, I'll have lots of outgoing links which, unless they are linked back, damages my ranking with Google and co.

Is there a tight blogging community? Are you more likely to be found by other bloggers than me, with my website? Again, this interests me. I've never had a blog before and can't talk from experience. I do know that bloggers have written to me via my website, so I am still being found. Likewise, I am always hunting down lucid dreaming blogs to exchange links with. Some of them are quite elusive; I am still finding new blogs now despite working in this area for nearly a year. Do you have access to a hub of all blogs on a particular topic because you own a blog yourself?

Forums are great. Especially this one. It has high volume traffic and all the users are (hopefully) working from Steve's philosophy -- so we are all on the same page (or at least, we're reading the same book ) But I've seen forums with no traffic, 1 guest user online, hardly any comments. I've worked hard to support lucid dreaming forums but some are lost causes simply because the site/blog doesn't attract enough traffic in the first place. So while forums can add amazing value - they're not for everyone. Steve is an exceptional case with millions of viewers each month. Of course he's got a buzzing forum!

I chose not to install WordPress because I wanted to start an online business, not just build a website. I've seen some lovely looking WordPress sites. But there's no point creating a work of art when no-one can see it. I simply didn't know how to build good traffic (without a mammoth advertising budget!) so I chose SBI over WordPress.

Also, I do think you can get "tons of links every day"! Regardless of whether you have a site or a blog. If your website is lively and publishes great content - why not?

[Angela Leeds]

Comments & trackbacks are critical, it has been explained to me. They give links back to your site, and I'm sure they demonstrate site-related activity, which Google is going to love in addition to the external links.

I'm a member of Blog Success, which very much promotes Wordpress. I originally started with SBI, went to Joomla, then dumped all my work and started over with Wordpress, at which point I really started to fly because I could build content and organize my site easy-peasy. With Wordpress, trackbacks are a cinch. I don't know how they would be handled with SBI...

And to be honest, posting comments is not a waste of time. It reaches you out into your niche community, makes you more visible, helps you build relationships and become aware of what's going on. It builds "social authority" and credibility... all important for business success over the long haul.

[Rebecca800]

Hey Angela

Can you explain to me how comments and trackbacks give you links in to your site? Like I say, I don't have these functions so I don't really understand how they work. In my understanding, if someone posted a comment on my site and added a link to their own site, that would be +1 inbound link for them and +1 outbound link for me?

Thanks!

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

Hey Angela

Can you explain to me how comments and trackbacks give you links in to your site? Like I say, I don't have these functions so I don't really understand how they work. In my understanding, if someone posted a comment on my site and added a link to their own site, that would be +1 inbound link for them and +1 outbound link for me?

Thanks!

It was mysterious to me as well, especially trackbacks.
For comments, usually when you comment you are required (or have the option) to include your website URL as part of the comment. That becomes an inbound link to your site from the other site. I never realized that the plethora of automated spam on comments is to get these valuable external links.

For trackbacks, these have to be approved by the site owner. What you do is write a post on your own blog with a link to a site's content. The owner then either approves the link or not, depending on the value of your post to them -- a link to your site will appear on their site, so they're not going to want it there unless you have posted something of value. So in that case, it's a link back from the site as well as a link to theirs. But it has been explained to me through my Blog Success membership that Google values such a link, probably because of the approval process.

A Wordpress site can easily enable trackbacks, so it's an easy feature to include.

[Rebecca800]

Interesting - thanks Angela!

[bluedragon]

Trackbacks offer an advantage to anybody who comments on your blog - they get a link back to their own blog. If you don't have trackbacks, they're just gonna post a comment on your blog, but you will get no link from them. If you don't have comments either, they're not gonna do anything, I guess
Of course, they could take the time to write a post about how great your site is, but I think they would only do this if they really loved your site, and maybe not even then. However, if you have trackbacks enabled, they will eagerly do it, since they would get a link back. How else could we get to have millions of visitors per month?
I can't imagine anybody setting asside half an hour to write a piece telling people "Hey, there's a guy from Romania called Dan who has a great website on self healing - check it out". Maybe that's why it doesn't happen, cause I don't believe it can.
As for a forum, I know I wouldn't need one right now, cause I only have 27 visitors a day. But I thought you did have enough visitors to make it worth it. Even 10 people could make for an interesting discussion, I guess.
I want to create a great blog and forum in Romanian, and here I hope to attract more people, since the field is not well explored.

[bluedragon]

I already asked this in the technology forum, but there has been much discussion in the SBI forums about bilingual sites. What are your current thoughts on this topic?
I'm planning on starting my personal development blog in Romanian, but I will surely have one in English too. I wonder if I shouldn't mix them in one bilingual site. If so, I would need to select a domain name with English keywords.

[bluedragon]

I have finally decided to give up SBI and start my Romanian website with Wordpress and Bluehost.
Guess what? In 2 days I managed to learn all the things I've applied on this website: Construim un Portal de Dezvoltare Personala - I love how I made it show a different header for the Work & Travel category.
The functionality of Wordpress, coupled with the amazing rapidity of using and FTP like Filezilla, or even using the Bluehost C-panel, which I sometimes use - it's just incredibly simple and beautiful. After having used SBI for 4 months, I feel like I can finally... breathe, when I upload files. No more errors for having selected the wrong filename exactly where SBI wants me to select it, and no more having to go through 25 photos just to find where did I select the wrong one. No more "upload include files or skip", no more build it, no more "are you sure".
I'm curious how I will do in terms of rank and traffic, and I'll let you know.

[borisg]

where did you get the template?

[bluedragon]

If you mean the theme, I made it, but the .css and the page layout are here:
The Perfect 2 Column Liquid Layout (left menu): No CSS hacks. SEO friendly. iPhone compatible.
I adapted it cause I understand most of the programming inside, except for the percentages, which I tried to modify without sucess.
I just copied the <style> part in a .css file and converted it to xhtml with a fee application.
I copied the <html> part in a file called index.php, then cut the header from inside and put it in haeder.php, the sidebar &the footer -the same. I then copied index.php as category.php, and category-8.php for the work&travel category. I deleted the php there and inserted one that calls only for the posts in the respective categories.
Sometimes it doesn't work with the sidebar in a different file, so I just copy it in the category template.

P.S. I'd be grateful if anyone could tell me how to add right padding to the css. All the percentages for the column widths depend on one another as well as on the paddings. I tried changing them and calculating the other percentages accordingly, but I couldn't get it right.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

... I feel like I can finally... breathe, ...
I'm curious how I will do in terms of rank and traffic, and I'll let you know.

Alas, I felt the same. Download All In One SEO plugin... should help with SE ranking. I haven't yet submitted to directories, but my SE performance is doing well, and I did nothing but create my content with some basic intelligent usage of keywords as taught by SBI. I do include met tags in all my page publication.

I received my SBI refund this past week. I'm happy for others when I see good sites using SBI -- good for them, I think.

[Rebecca800]

As you know I'm an SBI fanatic because of how it helped me develop my site. However last week I decided to test out Wordpress myself to see why everyone loves it so much...

I totally see where you're coming from now when you compare back-end functionality. Wordpress IS slicker and smoother. The layout is more attractive and intuitive and it's quicker to build pages than SBI's Block Builder. However I still find my own HTML Editor the best choice of all, and this is compatible with SBI. So I never had the filename problem that plagued Bluedragon so much.

Wordpress has some neat designs that look way more professional than SBI's current templates. To compensate, SBI is running a new design contest (in which we will be taking part!) with a $10,000 first prize. That will surely bring in a raft of fresh new designs to benefit SBIers.

Those seem to be the two main gripes with SBI: uploading files is a little clunky and the templates are out dated. I've been able to overcome both and don't see why anyone else can't, especially when the new templates come into play in the coming weeks.

If this is what people are buying SBI for, then I'd say use Wordpress, no question. But that's NOT what SBI is about! And that's the point we SBI nuts are always trying to bring home. SBI is about building a profitable online business, not building a slick blog that gets no traffic. It was very easy to set up my Wordpress blog but - unless I'm missing some major tutorials - I was offered no information on how to put my blog in front of thousands of people. In contrast, SBI set me up with this attitude from the very start in its day-by-day guide.

If Wordpress can teach me how to get 20,000 visitors per month in less than a year, then I'm all ears. That's what SBI did for me. So to compare the two is a little crazy, especially if you're new to blogging / website building, because ultimately Wordpress does not teach the internet secrets that SBI does... and that is the difference.

I'm not saying you CANT have a great website and high traffic with Wordpress. I'm saying it's a hell of a lot easier with SBI. We just have to look past the aesthetics and get to the real valuable stuff underneath that makes SBI the success that it is.

[bluedragon]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

...and get to the real valuable stuff underneath that makes SBI the success that it is.

I've been trying over and over to find out what is this "underneath" stuff. I posted in all treads on the subject in the forums. I asked customer support. I got a generic response and told them again that I don't see more than valuable guidance, RSS, and SE pinging, and that I can't see where is all the complexity, but with no success.

SBI has a great business philosophy, which is also what Steve appreciated when he recommended it. But when it comes to hidden functionality, I don't think there is much. It doesn't have "a pipeline into Google" as far as I can tell. It just teaches you what to do, and automates a few things for you. An most of the tutorials, you can read for free anyway. In the forums, nobody answers most of (at least my) questions, except for people looking for answers themselves.

I appreciate what is to be appreciated, but I don't like when they make it appear as more than it really is. Or as something else, like a mysterious system that runs in the background.

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

If this is what people are buying SBI for, then I'd say use Wordpress, no question. But that's NOT what SBI is about! And that's the point we SBI nuts are always trying to bring home. SBI is about building a profitable online business, not building a slick blog that gets no traffic. It was very easy to set up my Wordpress blog but - unless I'm missing some major tutorials - I was offered no information on how to put my blog in front of thousands of people. In contrast, SBI set me up with this attitude from the very start in its day-by-day guide.

True, if you go the Wordpress route, you have to take it upon yourself to learn & apply those things that will build a successful online business. But the information's all out there & available. And Wordpress has some advantages, with its trackback functioning & commenting feature. And excellent education is available elsewhere regarding how to turn a Wordpress blog into a success money-maker.

If Wordpress can teach me how to get 20,000 visitors per month in less than a year, then I'm all ears. That's what SBI did for me. So to compare the two is a little crazy, especially if you're new to blogging / website building, because ultimately Wordpress does not teach the internet secrets that SBI does... and that is the difference.

You have 20,000 visitors a month to your site? Very nice... good for you!

I'm not saying you CANT have a great website and high traffic with Wordpress. I'm saying it's a hell of a lot easier with SBI. We just have to look past the aesthetics and get to the real valuable stuff underneath that makes SBI the success that it is.

The valuable stuff is just the knowledge of how to do it. If one relies on SBI for that, therein lies its value. If one doesn't rely on SBI for that information... meh... it's like wearing a straight-jacket and high-water pants to a formal ball, lol.

SBI teaches excellent basics about how to set up the site and intelligently build content so it's visible to the SEs, but there are people who are using Wordpress without doing all the required things, and their sites are still visible & successful. I've seen it myself -- where I've released a content page in a hurry and didn't pay it any mind except to write what was at the top of my head, paying attention to absolutely nothing regarding keywords & tags, not even an official page title! And it will return at the top of a page 1 search result.

In addition, SBI does not teach anything about how to use social marketing & social media, which is the next step once you get your site together. Just something else to consider if one is to make a weighted decision.

The realm of internet marketing has continued to evolve at a rapid pace since SBI came onto the scene...

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by bluedragon

I got a generic response and told them again that I don't see more than valuable guidance, RSS, and SE pinging, and that I can't see where is all the complexity, but with no success.

FWIW, every time I write new content using Wordpress, it pings the SEs and submits a new site map to Google. What I write today is searchable tomorrow, but I have seen people find my site within hours of my publishing content, via an SE search.

People RSS feed my blog all the time, and it took no brain-power on my part of make sure my site included that option. I have so many features on my site which I don't know how I would have ever included on my SBI site, since I am not a programmer or web designer... And I can make changes quickly, and they update instantly.

I really do hope that the SBI team improve their infrastructure and offerings to their people, because it's hard to compete with this kind of flexibility.

[Rebecca800]

Originally Posted by Angela Leeds

In addition, SBI does not teach anything about how to use social marketing & social media, which is the next step once you get your site together. Just something else to consider if one is to make a weighted decision.

I learned all about social booking and social media through SBI - it's all I know!

[Angela Leeds]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

I learned all about social booking and social media through SBI - it's all I know!

That's excellent if that's the case. I never saw much about that in the SBI materials that I studied. I learned about those things elsewhere.

[Rebecca800]

I think it's covered in the e-book module, Make Your Links Work ?? And I must have read about it in their tips and techniques articles too. They show you how to add a "share this" widget to your articles so people can digg/stumble you at one click.