How To Build A Blog The Non Site-Build-It Way

[Scott Marcaccio]

I purchased SBI last August... and was incredibly disappointed with it. I may take some flak for this, but I don't care - 95% of the SBI sites I see look like they're from 1999.

It was clunky, didn't have a lot of customization, and just felt 'old' to me.

Now, I'm young and a very fast learner, so I refunded my money and did a little research. I started promoting my website in December and had just over 6,000 unique visitors in January and 14,850 pageviews, not bad for 2 months of focus. Also generated some great revenue.

Just a note: I had ZERO prior experience on the internet before starting this.

Here's EXACTLY what I did:

1. Bought a hosting plan - I use Dreamhost, use whatever you want. Cost - $120 for the year and they register your domain for you with that cost.

2. Do a one-click install of Wordpress onto your domain (tutorials on the site, takes 5 seconds) - you do this from the Dreamhost platform.

3. I bought a custom theme for WordPress called Thesis. - $87

Thesis basically makes it super easy to customize things and makes doing search enginge optimization a breeze.

They have help forums where I would ask questions, and then just copy and paste the responses so my site looked like I wanted it to. Over time of doing this, I learned quite a bit about CSS, PHP, FTP, etc. and that's good stuff to know.

4. Asked questions and kept learning, putting in some time and learned to write! Anytime I had an issue, I would just find the right website to help me or the right person to ask, and now my site looks exactly as I want it to.

Total cost - $207 and some time, and EXACTLY what I want.


If you found this useful and are going to act on it, please PM me if you would like to use my Thesis affiliate link for your purchase.

If you have any other questions, you can contact me through my website or PM. Just realize that there's something different from SBI if that's what you want.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Scott Marcaccio

Here's EXACTLY what I did:

Um...that's not EXACTLY how you did it.

That's how you got started...then you skipped about 8000 steps and told us how things are today.

It's like if I told you that I was going to teach you how to ski and this is what I said the exact steps to learning how to ski are:

1. Purchase skis

2. Purchase ski boots.

3. Buy a season pass to a local ski resort

4. Ask someone to teach you how to ski

....

Did I really learn how to ski with that set of instructions? No. I learned how to go buy what I needed to ski.

Not trying to be critical here, but this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine with the personal development stuff that is out there. Everybody promotes how they have the answers, yet nobody takes the time to go into depth with insight.

[Scott Marcaccio]

Originally Posted by James81

Um...that's not EXACTLY how you did it.

That's how you got started...then you skipped about 8000 steps and told us how things are today.

It's like if I told you that I was going to teach you how to ski and this is what I said the exact steps to learning how to ski are:

1. Purchase skis

2. Purchase ski boots.

3. Buy a season pass to a local ski resort

4. Ask someone to teach you how to ski

....

Did I really learn how to ski with that set of instructions? No. I learned how to go buy what I needed to ski.

Not trying to be critical here, but this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine with the personal development stuff that is out there. Everybody promotes how they have the answers, yet nobody takes the time to go into depth with insight.

I see your perspective, but I disagree.

This is EXACTLY how I built my website without relying on SBI. This is info I wish I came across when I first started, I had no idea how exactly to set up a blog normally or hosting, etc.

Buy Hosting > 1 Click WP Install > Pick a Theme (one that let's you customize easily is best > Write.

"Did I really learn how to ski with that set of instructions?"

Yes, those were the steps you had to take to get to the point where you could learn to ski properly.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Scott Marcaccio

I see your perspective, but I disagree.

This is EXACTLY how I built my website without relying on SBI. This is info I wish I came across when I first started, I had no idea how exactly to set up a blog normally or hosting, etc.

Buy Hosting > 1 Click WP Install > Pick a Theme (one that let's you customize easily is best > Write.

"Did I really learn how to ski with that set of instructions?"

Yes, those were the steps you had to take to get to the point where you could learn to ski properly.

Whoops, wait, I misread your thread title. I thought there was a "successful" in there and upon re-reading I realize that I must be loopy from a lack of sleep or something. lol

Anyway, now that I see that I misread your thread, I'll say that I was wrong.

Carry on.

[Scott Marcaccio]

Originally Posted by James81

Whoops, wait, I misread your thread title. I thought there was a "successful" in there and upon re-reading I realize that I must be loopy from a lack of sleep or something. lol

Anyway, now that I see that I misread your thread, I'll say that I was wrong.

Carry on.

I appreciate the maturity. Thanks for the input

[Zaphod]

That is some impressive growth though. Where do all of your visitors come from and what have you done to promote it? I started my blog a little over two weeks ago, and I have 500 unique visitors - but maybe 200-250 of them have come from PPC advertising, which probably has cost $15-$20.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Scott Marcaccio

How To Build A Blog The Non Site-Build-It Way

I just want to chime in and say that SBI itself says that it is not intended for building a blog. It does include a blog-like feature, but they do literally tell people "if you just want a blog, SBI is not for you".

Originally Posted by Scott Marcaccio

Also generated some great revenue.

I see you are selling your personal services on the website. Are you a personal trainer in the offline world? Just curious.

[DBV]

Gotta chime in and say that you can get beautiful themes for WP for free, no need to pay for them even. WP also gives lots of flexibility and options for expansion with it's plug ins!

[Scott Marcaccio]

Originally Posted by Zaphod

That is some impressive growth though. Where do all of your visitors come from and what have you done to promote it? I started my blog a little over two weeks ago, and I have 500 unique visitors - but maybe 200-250 of them have come from PPC advertising, which probably has cost $15-$20.

Pretty decentralized, mostly from forums but facebook/twitter have done well. Stumbleupon hasn't given me anything great yet, about 300 visitors out of that.

My Warrior Diet series attracted a lot of attention.

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

I just want to chime in and say that SBI itself says that it is not intended for building a blog. It does include a blog-like feature, but they do literally tell people "if you just want a blog, SBI is not for you".



I see you are selling your personal services on the website. Are you a personal trainer in the offline world? Just curious.

I completely agree re: SBI. If you were building an informational website like the Lucid Dreaming one Rebecca has, I think it's a great tool, especially for a new person.

The issue was that I was kind of pushed in that direction from Steve's testimonial at the end of one of his articles and when I was reading about SBI it said they had an easy blog feature, etc.

I just didn't realize that there was another way that was remarkably easy, and I wanted people to know about that if they were thinking about starting.

Yes, I have my own personal training company off-line.

Originally Posted by DBV

Gotta chime in and say that you can get beautiful themes for WP for free, no need to pay for them even. WP also gives lots of flexibility and options for expansion with it's plug ins!

Absolutely, there's TONS of options. Some very nice ones!

The big pull for the paid themes (top 2 are Thesis and Headway I would say) is that they're really a lot more flexible in terms of design and SEO, metadata, etc.

So for just starting out, after the hosting you could be set and ready to rock. Paid theme is optional.

[Requiem]

Originally Posted by Scott Marcaccio

I purchased SBI last August... and was incredibly disappointed with it. I may take some flak for this, but I don't care - 95% of the SBI sites I see look like they're from 1999.

It was clunky, didn't have a lot of customization, and just felt 'old' to me.

Now, I'm young and a very fast learner, so I refunded my money and did a little research. I started promoting my website in December and had just over 6,000 unique visitors in January and 14,850 pageviews, not bad for 2 months of focus. Also generated some great revenue.

Just a note: I had ZERO prior experience on the internet before starting this.

Here's EXACTLY what I did:

1. Bought a hosting plan - I use Dreamhost, use whatever you want. Cost - $120 for the year and they register your domain for you with that cost.

2. Do a one-click install of Wordpress onto your domain (tutorials on the site, takes 5 seconds) - you do this from the Dreamhost platform.

3. I bought a custom theme for WordPress called Thesis. - $87

Thesis basically makes it super easy to customize things and makes doing search enginge optimization a breeze.

They have help forums where I would ask questions, and then just copy and paste the responses so my site looked like I wanted it to. Over time of doing this, I learned quite a bit about CSS, PHP, FTP, etc. and that's good stuff to know.

4. Asked questions and kept learning, putting in some time and learned to write! Anytime I had an issue, I would just find the right website to help me or the right person to ask, and now my site looks exactly as I want it to.

Total cost - $207 and some time, and EXACTLY what I want.


If you found this useful and are going to act on it, please PM me if you would like to use my Thesis affiliate link for your purchase.

If you have any other questions, you can contact me through my website or PM. Just realize that there's something different from SBI if that's what you want.

I'm really glad it's working out for you, because I plan on launching a wordpress + thesis site in a couple months. Thesis sites in general, including yours, look very professional, and I love the simplicity.

I hope your success continues.

-peace

[wbindia]

How To Build A Blog The Non Site-Build-It Way

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I purchased SBI last August... and was incredibly disappointed with it. I may take some flak for this, but I don't care - 95% of the SBI sites I see look like they're from 1999.

It was clunky, didn't have a lot of customization, and just felt 'old' to me.

Now, I'm young and a very fast learner, so I refunded my money and did a little research. I started promoting my website in December and had just over 6,000 unique visitors in January and 14,850 pageviews, not bad for 2 months of focus. Also generated some great revenue.

Just a note: I had ZERO prior experience on the internet before starting this.

Here's EXACTLY what I did:

1. Bought a hosting plan - I use Dreamhost, use whatever you want. Cost - $120 for the year and they register your domain for you with that cost.

2. Do a one-click install of Wordpress onto your domain (tutorials on the site, takes 5 seconds) - you do this from the Dreamhost platform.

3. I bought a custom theme for WordPress called Thesis. - $87

Thesis basically makes it super easy to customize things and makes doing search enginge optimization a breeze.

They have help forums where I would ask questions, and then just copy and paste the responses so my site looked like I wanted it to. Over time of doing this, I learned quite a bit about CSS, PHP, FTP, etc. and that's good stuff to know.

4. Asked questions and kept learning, putting in some time and learned to write! Anytime I had an issue, I would just find the right website to help me or the right person to ask, and now my site looks exactly as I want it to.

Total cost - $207 and some time, and EXACTLY what I want.


If you found this useful and are going to act on it, please PM me if you would like to use my Thesis affiliate link for your purchase.

If you have any other questions, you can contact me through my website or PM. Just realize that there's something different from SBI if that's what you want.

Scott Marcaccio-

Obviously you have not gone through the 10 day activity guide nor have you particpated in any of the SBI forums-for if you had you would have learned that SBI has just released new templates in the look and feel section.

SBI does take time to understand all the nuances, but if you focus on CTPM, continue to build content that over delivers you will see the results of your labor. I too joned SBI last June, and have steadliy watched my traffic increase every single month since my site went live last June (almost 9 months) now and my traffic is now averaging 25 new visitors a day.

Like anything in life, you get out what you put in.

Best-

Wayne

[Tarzansjane]

I know I'm late posting, but I've been away and just saw this.

I hate to say it, but your post looks more like a covert attempt at self-promo for your own product than a legit problem with Site Build It. Don't get me wrong, SBI is not for everybody and I'm not giving you flak for not liking it, I would just find your complaint more credible if you weren't trying to counter-sell at the same time.

By the way, SBI is not intended to be a site builder to slap up quick sites. You were in the wrong place, so good for you for realizing that early and not dilly dallying.

Good luck on your journey!

[Requiem]

I've gotta say, wordpress + thesis is working out pretty well for me so far. My original post in this thread mentioned that I was starting a site in a couple of months, but I ended up launching it two weeks later instead. Less than a month after launching, I'm getting about 45 visitors per day and have had 533 unique visitors and 750 visits. Not as good as Scott but better than I expected for my opening.

I can't guarantee it will continue or that it's definitely going to be a success, but I think that it at least demonstrates that the tools of wordpress + thesis are pretty valid. Wordpress is supposedly pretty good at search engine optimization, and thesis claims to enhance it even more, and so far, it seems to be true. Over the last two weeks my search engine visitors have increased almost every day.

[Daffy Duck]

Wordpress is a much better tool for creating web sites, particularly blogs, I agree.

But Wordpress is just a blog platform. SBI is a web site creator, a community, and most of all - an EDUCATION. They teach you about running a business online. Wordpress doesn't do that - Dreamhost doesn't do that - Thesis doesn't do that. These are just tools.

Now, everything SBI teaches you can find for free in books, other web sites, etc. But SBI does a nice job of pulling it all together in one easy place. Actually, I think one of the best things about SBI is the Action Guide, which is available for free. I tried SBI and after two months I left it too, but it was a good experience and I learned a couple new things.

Btw, Scott, your site looks great. Good info too. Nice job bud!

[James81]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Wordpress is a much better tool for creating web sites, particularly blogs, I agree.

But Wordpress is just a blog platform. SBI is a web site creator, a community, and most of all - an EDUCATION. They teach you about running a business online. Wordpress doesn't do that - Dreamhost doesn't do that - Thesis doesn't do that. These are just tools.

Now, everything SBI teaches you can find for free in books, other web sites, etc. But SBI does a nice job of pulling it all together in one easy place. Actually, I think one of the best things about SBI is the Action Guide, which is available for free. I tried SBI and after two months I left it too, but it was a good experience and I learned a couple new things.

Btw, Scott, your site looks great. Good info too. Nice job bud!

To be honest, the only thing that keeps me from buying SBI is the templates/lack of flexibility in page design they have. I would buy the "education" portion of it in a heartbeat if I didn't have to use their sh1tty templates and host through them.

[SatvikBeri]

Originally Posted by James81

To be honest, the only thing that keeps me from buying SBI is the templates/lack of flexibility in page design they have. I would buy the "education" portion of it in a heartbeat if I didn't have to use their sh1tty templates and host through them.

Dunno if you're interested, but you can find the education for free here: SBI! Action Guide

[Gene]

On my hosting account at Servint there is a one click install of a website building method named Soholaunch. In briefly looking at the software I thought of SBI without the business coaching, just the web building templates. Would anyone who is familiar with SBI care to compare them?

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

I just want to chime in and say that SBI itself says that it is not intended for building a blog. It does include a blog-like feature, but they do literally tell people "if you just want a blog, SBI is not for you".

I think Ken Evoy's take on "blogs" in HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY, HORRIBLY off the mark.

Look at the way I'm building up my online business (link to site is in my signature). It's going to be a combination of blog and "niche" site (the kind they want you to build with SBI), just like Steve's blog.

If you just write a blog and let the content fall away, that content DOES NOT work for you.

I will revise my content and make it easy to navigate through it, so that the value continues to get delivered (as Steve likes to say).

-Jesse

[fizzleboink]

Originally Posted by James81

To be honest, the only thing that keeps me from buying SBI is the templates/lack of flexibility in page design they have. I would buy the "education" portion of it in a heartbeat if I didn't have to use their sh1tty templates and host through them.

You can upload our own custom layout designs with SBI.

[sirkinm]

Regardless of whether SBI! is a good option, I definitely agree with previous posters that Wordpress is an excellent way to start a money-making website (doesn't even have to be a blog).

Here's my take on SBI!: I see a lot of adamant defenders of it, but not a lot of proof of income. The fact that they run a lucrative affiliate business makes objection info hard to come by -- a lot of the "reviews" on the web are attempts to get an affiliate sale.

I see some SBI! users who are very defensive. Personally, if I were an SBI! member and it worked, I would LOVE that others are skeptical. I would just keep quiet and laugh all the way to the bank.

It just seems like there's some cognitive dissonance going on: People want to feel good about their significant investment, even if they have some nagging doubts.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

Regardless of whether SBI! is a good option, I definitely agree with previous posters that Wordpress is an excellent way to start a money-making website (doesn't even have to be a blog).

Here's my take on SBI!: I see a lot of adamant defenders of it, but not a lot of proof of income. The fact that they run a lucrative affiliate business makes objection info hard to come by -- a lot of the "reviews" on the web are attempts to get an affiliate sale.

I see some SBI! users who are very defensive. Personally, if I were an SBI! member and it worked, I would LOVE that others are skeptical. I would just keep quiet and laugh all the way to the bank.

It just seems like there's some cognitive dissonance going on: People want to feel good about their significant investment, even if they have some nagging doubts.

There are tons of SBI'ers who are making a good amount of money from their websites.

For instance, I just added my first product, a $19.97 ebook, to my acupuncture website (an SBI site) just a few days ago on March 13th. So far it has sold 3 copies which translates into about 1 copy every 3 days, or 1 sale per 450 visitors.

If sales continue at about that rate, it'll be $150-$200 per month in profit, after Paypal and E-junkie fees, solely from that ebook.

There are a lot of threads in the SBI forums where a newbie comes in and asks "is anyone actually making any money?" and lots of people reply with their income levels.

From what I've seen, there are a lot of people at the $50-$500 per month level, and also many who have been building their websites for 3 to 5 years or more who are at the $5000+ per month level. And it is usually close to 100% passive income, made through automated sales and such.

---

On the defensiveness issue, I think it really is just that most SBI'ers genuinely want to help others by spreading the word about SBI. It really is an almost-foolproof system if you just "follow the Action Guide" and just keep building your website the SBI way.

And a big cause of the defensiveness is usually that people who trash SBI are just being overly negative about it, they usually didn't even use it to the point of getting to monetization of their website (the last step in the SBI method), and they are usually trying to sell a product that competes with SBI, which is the cause of the negative review in the first place.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by SatvikBeri

Dunno if you're interested, but you can find the education for free here: SBI! Action Guide

A subscription to SBI teaches you more than just the free Action Guide - though the action guide is a major component of the education and the system of SBI.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by sirkinm

Regardless of whether SBI! is a good option, I definitely agree with previous posters that Wordpress is an excellent way to start a money-making website (doesn't even have to be a blog).

Here's my take on SBI!: I see a lot of adamant defenders of it, but not a lot of proof of income. The fact that they run a lucrative affiliate business makes objection info hard to come by -- a lot of the "reviews" on the web are attempts to get an affiliate sale.

I see some SBI! users who are very defensive. Personally, if I were an SBI! member and it worked, I would LOVE that others are skeptical. I would just keep quiet and laugh all the way to the bank.

It just seems like there's some cognitive dissonance going on: People want to feel good about their significant investment, even if they have some nagging doubts.

There are going to be 2 types of users:

1) Those who have "cognitive dissonance" about the purchase they made. They probably don't make money.

2) The people who ACTUALLY use the product, and make money from it. Those people are too busy to buzz around the forums proving the system.

Ken Evoy is a long-time name in IM. His presence isn't going anywhere.

What I can't figure out is why SBI has such a terrible affiliate program and uses web publishing systems that are hard to use.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Manomanman

What I can't figure out is why SBI has such a terrible affiliate program and uses web publishing systems that are hard to use.

I think because it is meant to be "dumbed down" so that even a grandma who can barely check email is capable of using it.

They take out a lot of advanced functionality in order to get it down to the very essentials that ***anybody*** can use.

I think part of the reason is really that they just want you to focus on those - the essential parts of building an online business, at least following the SBI method. All you really need to do is build SEO'd content pages for the right keywords day after day, putting them into your growing snowball of a website.

And eventually some day you wake up and realize you get 1000's of visitors per day, and make $1000's per month, and have simply "made it" to your goal.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

I think part of the reason is really that they just want you to focus on those - the essential parts of building an online business, at least following the SBI method. All you really need to do is build SEO'd content pages for the right keywords day after day, putting them into your growing snowball of a website.

And eventually some day you wake up and realize you get 1000's of visitors per day, and make $1000's per month, and have simply "made it" to your goal.

I'm hoping my website "snowballs" within 6 months. I'm doing everything I can to speed that up. When my website goes galactic, I'll be sure to let everybody know.

[Karanime]

Yeah, I really agree with the SBI thing. I hate the way the layouts look. Definitely not professional. Looks like something my dad would have created, and he turns 71 this July.

Wordpress FTW! But, a word of warning, full customization with Thesis is a nightmare. It may be just because I wanted an incredibly complicated layout (Caffeine Riot | Ridiculously Caffeinated.), but that took me two months of "asking".

If you're pressed for time, it may be worth it to just use the Thesis money to pay a designer to give you exactly what you want. A lot of designers include Thesis in their blog design package anyway.

I also have to say that SEO marketing, while a nice catch-all, probably isn't the best way to market if you have something you're really passionate about. SBI is designed to get a site up and running quickly that does what it's supposed to, with just the bare skeleton of a web business. And I'm totally not cool with that. I'm a bells and whistles kind of girl. :P

I guess what I'm saying is, SBI doesn't allow for passionate entrepreneurs. If you're going to expand beyond their basic system, you have to do it yourself.

If you're sick of un-targeted Google results, you can get a plug-in similar to SBI's SEO checker and let it do the work for you, while you work on other, more targeted ways of marketing.

/<3

[Cado]

Originally Posted by Manomanman

I'm hoping my website "snowballs" within 6 months. I'm doing everything I can to speed that up. When my website goes galactic, I'll be sure to let everybody know.

You won't have to, I'll be there.

[Manomanman]

Originally Posted by Karanime

Wordpress FTW! But, a word of warning, full customization with Thesis is a nightmare. It may be just because I wanted an incredibly complicated layout (Caffeine Riot | Ridiculously Caffeinated.), but that took me two months of "asking".

/<3

I use Thesis. I've seen sites like Caffeine Riot that goes balls-out with customization (twitips is another site).

For what I'm doing (which is writing articles and getting people to read them), my site works well for me so far.

I may have it professionally redone some day, but for now, I'm happy.

-Jesse

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by Karanime

I also have to say that SEO marketing, while a nice catch-all, probably isn't the best way to market if you have something you're really passionate about. SBI is designed to get a site up and running quickly that does what it's supposed to, with just the bare skeleton of a web business. And I'm totally not cool with that. I'm a bells and whistles kind of girl. :P

I guess what I'm saying is, SBI doesn't allow for passionate entrepreneurs. If you're going to expand beyond their basic system, you have to do it yourself.

If you're sick of un-targeted Google results, you can get a plug-in similar to SBI's SEO checker and let it do the work for you, while you work on other, more targeted ways of marketing.

/<3

Yes SBI is of course not the only way to go. Same with free SEO traffic. It is just one type of business model, and there are dozens of business models in the online world.

There are plenty of people who sell products using only PPC traffic, and make plenty of profits doing so.

[Go Getta]

A very interesting thread.

I largely agree with the comments curtis has made.

Like everything in life, some things will work wonders for some and for others not too great. There's many variables and factors for this.

I would say that other hosting and blog platforms work well because there are many people who have had good success with them and I don't just mean monetary success, (although that certainly counts ;-) )

Equally, SBIers have also had success with SBI so it's fair to say that all the tools mentioned in this thread are valid and have proven to work for people. To say one doesn't work and the others do, is not really an accurate statement as it is us who work the tools in front of us.

Everybody has different needs, likes and wants so there will always be unhappy punters it's the way of the world.