SBI or maybe hostgator...

[rwarlick]

I want to sell physical products (ACTIVE income) and am just starting to look at web hosting/building the site. I plan on selling the items using traditional methods, pressing the flesh, etc as well as using traditional methods to build web traffic and sell online as well - web site on business cards, web site on post-it notes on car windshields.

My short term goal is to get the web site up to back up my initial personal contact and tell more about me, using PayPal plugin to do the payment processing.

It seems like the SBI method focuses on building content to attract viewers who wll then click on ads (PASSIVE income).

If SBI works for my short term goal - getting a web site up quickly, i guess it might be worth it learn about "niches" and passive income. I think my niche is health/fitness - is this too broad? Is something like health/fitness for double amputees better because it is more focused? Is learning and implementing tools to generate passive income and learning about "niches" worth my time NOW? I really want to get the web site up soon to print on simple business cards and place print ads, etc.

I've spent a few hours doing some research (hope it shows in my post!), talking with SBI rep, and poking around on this forum.

By the way, I just got fired from a job I really disliked!

Thanks, everyone.

Rod Warlick

[Curtis2011]

What exactly do you want to sell?

SBI teaches how to build content that ranks highly in search engines over time, and thus gets free search engine traffic (= no paper advertising necessary, unless you want to).

SBI is really two things: 1) Most importantly, it is an education of how to build a website that gets free traffic naturally, and 2) it is a bunch of useful tools, including hosting.

If you go with Hostgator you will get cheaper hosting, but not get the SBI education or the other SBI tools. The keyword tool that SBI provides is perhaps the single most useful tool that they give you, showing you good keywords with high demand (searches per month) and low supply (number of competing web pages for that keyword).

If you plan on setting up an e-commerce store, it is possible with SBI, but you may want to go with something like a Yahoo Store. You won't get traffic just by existing though, unless you have a pre-made plan for getting it (there are millions of websites out there that look beautiful but get 0 visitors per month).

Also, SBI doesn't have to simply be "passive" income from advertising. A lot of SBI'ers use Adsense because that is the only real monetization method that is explained well in the Action Guide (I think. It has been a while!). Also, setting up Adsense only takes an hour or two, whereas selling real products requires you to have a real product to sell (which many SBI'ers don't have!).

Once you have traffic, you can sell whatever your little heart desires

The most common types of monetization for an SBI'er seem to be:

1. Using Adsense or Chitika ads - relatively low income
2. Write and sell your own eBook/s - usually much better $$$ than Adsense, IF you are selling something that your visitors actually want.
3. Selling other eBooks as an affiliate, using something like Clickbank
4. Selling Amazon products as an affiliate
5. Selling physical products - not as many do this, but it has been done
6. Selling specialized products like personal coaching, or a video training series. I have seen a few threads in the SBI forums about these, but not too many.
7. Finally, there are many SBI'ers who own a local business that they use SBI to advertise.

I agree that many of these are passive income sources, but that really is the "dream" of most SBI'ers - to get a paycheck every month regardless of whether you are working or not!

Originally Posted by rwarlick

I think my niche is health/fitness - is this too broad? Is something like health/fitness for double amputees better because it is more focused? Is learning and implementing tools to generate passive income and learning about "niches" worth my time NOW?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Yes! - If you start learning now, it is very reasonable to say that you could be living solely off of passive income within 5 years (especially if you run an SBI site for 5 years!). I have only had my acupuncture website for a bit over a year now, and I can already say without a doubt that in 4 more years it will more than pay for all of my basic living expenses, and then some.

Any other questions?

[rwarlick]

thanks for the generous reply curtis.

i'm still researching this thing... looks like to get decent free traffic i need to have a separate web site for each product, since they're somewhat unique, not as simple as four tropical flavors of amazon rainforest chewing gum, which one web site would work.

with one web site per product i could name it "allthingsproductA.com" and have paypal buttons selling literally all things productA - if it was avocados, i could sell ceramic avocado guacamole dishes, real live avocados, avocado t-shirts, avocado soap, paintings of avocados, recipes for avocado masks, avocado candles, guacamole recipes.

is my avocado model valid within the sbi framework?

im getting the idea is to have specialized content and products relating to the content.

one thing, though, that's a bit confusing. one site the sbi rep sent me is "aloeverachangeslives.com". there are no products for sale on the site - most of the hyperlinks point back somewhere to the content. a few jump to a site called "foreverliving.com" which is obviously a store, i'm assuming owned by the same person. it's a store selling aloe vera items and more - herbs, vitamins.

why nothing for sale on content site "aloeverachangeslives.com"?

i feel like i'd be buying a suit without trying it on in the store first, and then hope it fits once i get it home. i'm trying to see if sbi is what i need before i buy.

rod

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by rwarlick

with one web site per product i could name it "allthingsproductA.com" and have paypal buttons selling literally all things productA - if it was avocados, i could sell ceramic avocado guacamole dishes, real live avocados, avocado t-shirts, avocado soap, paintings of avocados, recipes for avocado masks, avocado candles, guacamole recipes.

is my avocado model valid within the sbi framework?

This would be a bad choice because the person looking for a ceramic avocado guacamole dish, is a totally different demographic and type of person from the person who is looking online to buy a t-shirt, painting, or recipes involving avocados.

Ideally you should choose one focused theme and "dominate" it - as in, work for several months to get to the top of the search results simply for "avocado recipes" or something like that.

If you divide your focus up into too broad a niche, you may find it hard to dominate any specific keywords. It would be much better to rank on the first page of Google for one good keyword than to rank on page five or ten for 30 different keywords.

--- Sidebar ---

You may be surprised at how many visitors, and how much money you can make simply by focusing all your efforts on getting to rank #1 on Google for one single keyword.

If you choose a good niche, you could make a full time living simply by getting to the #1 spot for one keyword with enough searches per month.

[Crushable]

check out shopify, it might be useful to you