Made back money on site build it?

[Scipio]

Has anyone here made back the money that they spent on sitebuildit through website income?

[Lucidism]

I think I've read that Curtis and Rebecca have. I'm not sure about other members.

[gene2009]

I spent 130 bucks on my first site and i was back within over a months. Then i sold my 1st site. My profit was over 350 bucks. I think it's no bad resuilt for a guy who had never any site before

[Andrew Michaels]

I just barely broke even in year one, and mad several thousand in profit in year two.

I'm now in year three, and about to get a bit risky and turn it into my full time business.



My site is here.

Originally Posted by Scipio

Has anyone here made back the money that they spent on sitebuildit through website income?

[Lucidism]

Andrew - your site is awesome! Nice work.

[Rebecca800]

I made $10,000 in my first year with Site Build It. Well worth the $25/month

I bought my first domain (World of Lucid Dreaming) in March 08, worked on the site part time and began monetizing in July 08. That month I made $60. The next month was $340. After that it kinda snowballed... By Christmas I was making $1,000/month.

Around then I launched my 2nd website (Improve Vision Naturally) which quickly started generating $200-300 per month. I only sold two products on the site back then (eye exercises and eye vitamins) which today generate $500-800 per month. I very rarely work on that site, so the income is very very passive.

Around Christmas 2009 I started Sheltie Planet, and now that site has been monetizing for a month, delivering well on AdSense which is unusual for me. I prefer affiliate sales mostly. I can't offer any good figures yet for this one but I have my fingers crossed and am working hard at it!

SBI is awesome, I can't recommend it highly enough if you want to get started in online business. It has set me up on a new career for life.

[MattMacola]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

I bought my first domain (World of Lucid Dreaming) in March 08, worked on the site part time and began monetizing in July 08. That month I made $60. The next month was $340. After that it kinda snowballed... By Christmas I was making $1,000/month.

I LOVE the video on your lucid dreaming website - that's really amazing!

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

I just barely broke even in year one, and mad several thousand in profit in year two.

I'm now in year three, and about to get a bit risky and turn it into my full time business.



My site is here.

Andrew, nice site. But I suggest making your pictures clickable. It took me several seconds to find the link to your ebook sales pitch. Several seconds can kill your sales bad time.

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

I made $10,000 in my first year with Site Build It. Well worth the $25/month

I bought my first domain (World of Lucid Dreaming) in March 08, worked on the site part time and began monetizing in July 08. That month I made $60. The next month was $340. After that it kinda snowballed... By Christmas I was making $1,000/month.

Around then I launched my 2nd website (Improve Vision Naturally) which quickly started generating $200-300 per month. I only sold two products on the site back then (eye exercises and eye vitamins) which today generate $500-800 per month. I very rarely work on that site, so the income is very very passive.

Around Christmas 2009 I started Sheltie Planet, and now that site has been monetizing for a month, delivering well on AdSense which is unusual for me. I prefer affiliate sales mostly. I can't offer any good figures yet for this one but I have my fingers crossed and am working hard at it!

SBI is awesome, I can't recommend it highly enough if you want to get started in online business. It has set me up on a new career for life.

Let me give you a suggestion for the 4th candidate:

How to create a site that makes money

You really have a talent for that.

And Rebecca, could you tell us your conversion rate?

[AaronA]

What were the most critical lessons SBI folk have learned from the process? What do you think you've gotten from SBI that you wouldn't have gotten, or would have taken much longer, if you had started out completely on your own?

[Curtis2011]

Last month my acupuncture website made about $155 on Adsense + ebook sales. This month I estimate it will make about $200. It's about 16 months old now but honestly, I have been half-assing my work on it ever since month 3

My business website is relatively new and I haven't monetized it yet.

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Last month my acupuncture website made about $155 on Adsense + ebook sales. This month I estimate it will make about $200. It's about 16 months old now but honestly, I have been half-assing my work on it ever since month 3

My business website is relatively new and I haven't monetized it yet.

Curtis, could you tell us your conversion rate?

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Curtis, could you tell us your conversion rate?

Lately I have been selling about one ebook per 225 visitors to the website. That is how I measure my "conversion" although I'm sure there may be better ways.

As for Adsense, I have about a 2.5% CTR.

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Lately I have been selling about one ebook per 225 visitors to the website. That is how I measure my "conversion" although I'm sure there may be better ways.

As for Adsense, I have about a 2.5% CTR.

0.4% conversion rate is about 1/6 of the market average 2.3%. So Curtis, I think if you do it full-ass, you may make 6 times as much as you're making now.

[Lucidism]

I'm always surprised by how well ebooks sell. Even one out of 225 is higher than I would expect. I guess the ebook market is becoming more popular. Maybe this will continue, as products like the Amazon Kindle get more and more users.

[Curtis2011]

Originally Posted by aiyori

0.4% conversion rate is about 1/6 of the market average 2.3%. So Curtis, I think if you do it full-ass, you may make 6 times as much as you're making now.

Lol..

I really don't think a "market average" matters at all when you are talking about ebook sales. I'm sure there are people who gather very targeted niche traffic and convert it at 50% or more, whereas I remember reading a post by Steve where he talked about his "income per visitor" being at only a few cents per month because he attracts such a huge, diverse audience to his website.

The good thing is that all of my traffic is free, mostly from Google. And although I don't know how to increase my conversion, I do know how to increase my traffic by building more content.

That is exactly what I'm doing over the next several weeks. I have tons of new content planned out and already in creation. And if you are building a website the SBI way, then typically new content = more traffic.

With enough traffic... it's hard not to make money

[Rebecca800]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Let me give you a suggestion for the 4th candidate:

How to create a site that makes money

You really have a talent for that.

And Rebecca, could you tell us your conversion rate?

Thanks Actually my next website is in the works and is called Career Evolution (it's not live yet so I won't give you a URL). But it will be along the lines of how to make money for yourself - totally inspired by everything I've learned from Site Build It and Steve Pavlina and my own experiences over the last 2 years. Problem is juggling 4 websites now when I want to give my full attention to all of them!!

Admittedly I don't pay much attention to my conversion rates. I know roughly whether a sales page works but I really don't count stats other than how much $$$ value each page generates at the end of the month. You made me curious with this question though so I worked out some conversion rates of my favorite products during the month of April:

- Lucid Fiction ebook - 1.75%
- Lucid Dreaming MP3 - 2.00%
- Rebuild Your Vision program - 0.65%
- Site Build It - 1.27%

I also have a smattering of AdSense for which my CTR is 0.43% overall. I'm still playing with the layout and would welcome ideas to test run. The trick is also integrating it with my affiliate programs on the homepage.

Cheers

[Rebecca800]

Originally Posted by AaronA

What were the most critical lessons SBI folk have learned from the process? What do you think you've gotten from SBI that you wouldn't have gotten, or would have taken much longer, if you had started out completely on your own?

Steve asked me similar questions in our interview about SBI: Rebecca Turner Interview

[aiyori]

Rebecca,

Thanks for replying. A little bit off topic...I'd like to know if New Zealanders feel offended when people call them "Kiwi". I don't usually meet New Zealanders both in real life and on the Internet.

And your conversion rate is interesting, much closer to market average. I am looking forward to your 4th.

[Rebecca800]

Originally Posted by aiyori

Rebecca,

Thanks for replying. A little bit off topic...I'd like to know if New Zealanders feel offended when people call them "Kiwi". I don't usually meet New Zealanders both in real life and on the Internet.

And your conversion rate is interesting, much closer to market average. I am looking forward to your 4th.

Well I am British, moved here 3 years ago, so I get used to being called a "Bloody Pom" most the time! But no, they don't mind being called Kiwis, it's actually a friendly term and they even call themselves Kiwis. I have had to explain to some people though that it's not because of kiwi fruit! It's because of the flightless bird that is native to NZ... nothing offensive about that

[aiyori]

Originally Posted by Rebecca800

Well I am British, moved here 3 years ago, so I get used to being called a "Bloody Pom" most the time! But no, they don't mind being called Kiwis, it's actually a friendly term and they even call themselves Kiwis. I have had to explain to some people though that it's not because of kiwi fruit! It's because of the flightless bird that is native to NZ... nothing offensive about that

Thanks for your info.

[Harald]

Are you in Auckland, Rebecca? Because that does look a little like Auckland behind you.

[Rebecca800]

Originally Posted by Harald

Are you in Auckland, Rebecca? Because that does look a little like Auckland behind you.

Yep that was taken at a wedding by the harbour bridge.

[ouyang]

SBIers! Let me just hijack this forum post for a sec since it seems to be hot.

I'm looking into signing up. My Q is everytime you make a new site do you have to add a subscription or your 3 sites are all hosted on your one subscription?

I know it's not a huge deal as the profits seem to well make up for the ~$30.00 spent monthly. I'm also curious if you choose the wrong idea for a site, for example if I made plasticbottleswithribbonsandglitter.com and it turned out to be a big flop if I could just change my domain name and stay on the same subscription but just work on that site instead?

Thanks!

[Lucidism]

Every time you add a new site, you need to add a new subscription. However, as you gain more experience, you may want to start hosting your new sites on another service like HostGator.

I'm not sure if they let you change your domain on the same subscription. Surely you'd need to buy the new domain, but that's a small cost of less than $10/year at places like GoDaddy. Good question!

[ouyang]

Hey Lucidism, what a great clear and concise answer. Thanks for that.

[sam260689]

for example if I made plasticbottleswithribbonsandglitter.com and it turned out to be a big flop if I could just change my domain name and stay on the same subscription but just work on that site instead?

You could change your domain name, but SBI will charge you a $50 admin fee. I know because I chose a bad domain name to start with and had to pay that amount. They only give you one chance though. If you **** it up again you're finished lol

[Rebecca800]

Good point Lucidism... this worked for me personally. I used Site Build It to create World of Lucid Dreaming and learned intensively from that. My next sites were all created from scratch using our company host and my partner's design expertise. Not everyone has this luxury but they can compensate in different ways.

Many people with one successful SBI site have no qualms using it for their 2nd, 3rd, 4th site, etc. However if you have the tech savvy by that point there is nothing stopping you going it alone.

Having said that the downside is this: trying to replace all the SBI services off your own back quickly add up (its not really just a case of finding a cheap host). For instance, a newsletter mailout will cost $30/month. Wordtracker access costs $59/month for quality keyword research. Your design template may cost extra... we charge $250 for this service. All these features come free with SBI for $25/month. Plus there's Content 2.0 which I haven't managed to put a value on because it doesn't exist elsewhere.

Its a tough call but one you can make after you have your first really profitable site - and for that I definitely recommend Site Built It.

[ouyang]

They only give you one chance though. If you **** it up again you're finished

Hey Sam, thanks for posting - it's nice to hear your first hand experience. What you're saying is that the first time you mess up, the change costs $50 and if there were to be a second time that your subscription would have to be cancelled and another one started?

Rebecca, I want to personally say a big thanks to you. All of your contribution on this site about your SBI experience I have found very useful!! I've just recently gotten into the idea of SBI and have since found A LOT of your comments on here, as well as your interview with Steve.

In regards to your above post it's nice to see the breakdown of expenses. I'm wondering one more thing, when you started off did you have a goal of how much income you'd like to be making from the site? Did you meet this goals earlier or later than you thought?

Also the same above question is for any other SBIers out there, I know Curtis that you may be lurking around too so I'd love to hear from you as well.

[Bradshaw]

Originally Posted by Curtis2011

Lately I have been selling about one ebook per 225 visitors to the website. That is how I measure my "conversion" although I'm sure there may be better ways.

As for Adsense, I have about a 2.5% CTR.

Wow, Curtis. Do you realize how insanely good that is?

That is VERY GOOD. That is almost absurd. It is extremely good. Well done man.