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| Steve Pavlina Discuss ideas, articles, and podcasts from StevePavlina.com. New threads are automatically generated for Steve's latest blog posts. |
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@JohnR: I agree that SBI originally began with a focus on static sites, but SBI does support blogging now. This may have been added recently -- I'm not sure. They even offer a site-blogging feature, so your entire site can be RSS-enabled. Blogging isn't great for everyone, especially income-generating niche sites, because it's a lot of work to maintain. For example, can you really write something fresh and new about juggling every week? Most people don't have the discipline to build and maintain a successful blog long-term, but they can create successful smaller sites with a couple dozen good articles on a niche topic. Although I didn't mention it in my review because I thought it would be overkill for most people, they've also started offering Web 2.0 features like being able to add a wiki to your site. So as far as I can tell, they're definitely moving in the direction of more dynamic content. They continue to upgrade and evolve their service, so it becomes richer and more robust year after year. They seem very focused on doing what's best for building traffic and generating income for the average person. Most people aren't capable of building a hugely successful blog, so their primary focus seems to be on smaller, tighter niche sites that generate income consistently.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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You are still not understanding what we are saying. Most of us have NO PROBLEM with paying money if something is worthwhile. I know I don't -- in fact, I've spent (invested) over $3000 in ebooks, online courses, software, and equipment in the past 6 weeks to learn more about Internet marketing in order to eventually build my own membership site. Please, REALLY get what we are saying here. The title of your post is "How to Build a Successful Online Business." This genuinely excited me because that's exactly what I have been working on for the past two months! And yet at the end all you're doing is selling a sitebuilder product. You built us up with this fantastic title and first few paragraphs, and I was excited because I really hoped this would be another set like your How To Make Money From Your Blog series, which was invaluable. Then you dump a SINGLE product on us at the end and promote it as the "solution." Do you get the incongruity here? It is NOT about the money. Heck, if the sitebuilder product was free and just required me to opt-in to their mailing list, I'd probably be just as disappointed. What we are saying is that your title and lead-up is incongruent with your single suggestion at the end. Now, if you want to make this into a series and have a ton of content about how you built your business, what you did wrong and right, etc. and at the end of each post have a sentence or two about the sitebuilder product, I don't think we would find anything wrong with that. In fact, I agree with you that non-techies need more products like this! But the way you presented it, at the end, was classic slimy Internet marketer "give me your $300 and I will solve all your problems" stuff. I felt like you pitched me here -- sold me a line. And that made me sad, because I really love your blog and don't want to read a "pitch." -Erica
__________________ Are you a blogger? Do you want to become one? Download my FREE Blog Success Manifesto -- 30 tactical tips on how to get more blog subscribers fast! Last edited by ericabiz; 02-13-2008 at 07:33 PM. |
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Steve, It's good that they are headed in that direction, but I think you are confusing their ability to add a blogging component and RSS feed, with supporting a dynamic site that you build using Wordpress, joomla or the like. Here is a link to their hosting features page: SBI! - Compare . This hasn't changed since I looked closely at them. Look about halfway down that page and you'll see the section for php support indicating they do not support php. Just above that they indicate their support of XML and RSS. When I enquired about that with them, they said they absolutely do not support a dynamic web site that uses php, such as WordPress. You might want to ask them yourself before any further recommendations to your readers who I would think are largely into blogs. And there is a big difference in the effectiveness of WordPress's blogging capabilities as compared to using their system of adding a blog to your site with RSS feed. I am sure that they are continuing to evolve, but I think they continue to miss a large segment of the market. They are smart enough to see the writing on the wall though. Anyway, check it out and let me know. Cheers, John Landscape Paintings of British Columbia - John Rocheleau |
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@Erica: I guess I'm just not as jaded about blog posts or articles where the recommended course of action is a specific product or service. This article was about how to build an online business, and my recommended solution was for people to use a particular service to help them do that instead of trying to master every technical detail on their own. To me that fits the title of the article perfectly. I see absolutely nothing wrong with recommending a book, product, service, or offering general advice as the situation warrants. Today if a friend asked me about how to start an online business, I'd most likely tell them to look into SBI, depending on their level of technical knowledge. I think those who felt mislead by the title of this article were looking for me to somehow meet their own personal expectations and desires. I'm afraid I can't control other people's expectations though. In fact, more often that not, I'd prefer to write what people don't expect. If this article happened to bug a few people because it didn't go the direction they expected, well, that's what I'm here for!
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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| My 2 cents on the debate as articulated by Erica: I can't see the problem with how Steve wrote the article. I see what you are saying about the lead paragraphs not specifically mentioning that the recommendation was for a paid service--but the word recommendation was all I personally needed to clue me in that there was a product or service involved. On that word, I quickly scrolled down to see the link to SBI, then went back to read the article. While I think that a little more research should been conducted into SBI's offerings before recommending them to a professional blogger's readers, I don't think Steve was anything but clear and upfront. I fully expect him to plug good deals he believes in that offer affiliate arrangements as good as SBI's. it's up to me to see the marketing for what for it is, and be able to gauge the usefulness of the content for my situation. Just my thoughts, John Landscape Paintings of British Columbia - John Rocheleau |
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Hi, I'm a bit confused now! I really know nothing about setting up web site of any description and the difference between 'static' and 'dynamic' is unclear. Perhaps I'm being naive to think I could set up an online business without technical know-how but as I understood it SBI would organise most things and leave me free to create the content. I'd like to create a site that's like stevepavlina.com in essence but with different content obviously. But essentially a similar layout and with forums for interaction etc. Is SBI not suitable for that? What can you do and not do exactly? As a non-techie I can't understand the problem. DLH PS, As for the supposed mis-leading title: I always scan to the bottom of the page before reading the article from the beginning. So I'd seen the ad. and had a feel for the article anyway. I don't think it was deliberately mis-leading. |
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DreamLife, If my information is still correct that SBI does not support dynamic sites, then SBI is not what you personally are looking for. You said you wanted a site somewhat like Steve's. Steve's site--and all blogs really--is a dynamic site as opposed to a static HTML site. The difference is: a dynamic site is made up of content that you write, that is served up "on the fly" when someone opens a page in their browser. Dynamic sites use programming languages like php to "get" the content for a page that is requested. The php coding in the dynamic site gets your content from a "database" where all your writing is stored. It literally pieces the page together for a reader when they open the page. A static site on the other hand is composed of pages that you write that are stored whole and intact (except for images) in files on your server, just as you designed them. There are no databases, and languages like php are not used. If you want a site like Steve's, then you would be using a dynamic blogging platform like WordPress (preferred) or Joomla, etc. The main reason you want a dynamic site is because managing the content and design is infinitely easier and more effective. Ease of writing and publishing posts, and having a design that includes a sidebar that readers see on every page that updates every time you write a new post are a couple examples. As Steve says though, to get it right, you do need to learn a lot. You don't need to learn much at all to get a blog going using Wordpress, but to get it operating efficiently for traffic and search engine optimization, requires some serious study. So it all depends on your goal. If you want to run a site like Steve's, to share with family and friends, no problem; that's easy-peasy. If you want to make a descent income eventually with your site, and you want it to be the type of site you are reading now, then you'll have to invest the time in learning how. JIMHO, John Landscape Paintings of British Columbia - John Rocheleau |
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For questions about whether SBI is a good fit for your specific goals, take advantage of their questions form. They'll be able to give you more detailed and specific answers than I can. If you already have the technical skill to create a top-performing, income generating blog, I wouldn't recommend SBI.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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I'm in the exact same position as dream. I want to create a website that is similar to this, where I can just focus on content and not the technical side. I know absolutely nothing about the technical issues, and I would have zero idea where to start. It seemed like Site Build It was perfect when I was reading the article, and I was actually extremely excited to register and begin as soon as possible. However, John R's comments are making me a little worried. If starting a blog and generating income is not possible through Site Build It then I feel like I have literally no other options. I could use word press, but I would have no idea how to build traffic, or even where to begin finding information about that. I posted asking for some reccomendations on how to learn HTML/CSS coding, but even then, it's a very long process, I'm sure. Dream and I seem to be in VERY similar situations, so if anyone has advice for either of us, I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated |
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| Same here. Would love to hear feedback on whether a blog-like site for the non-technical is feasable on Site Build It for those who've asked via the question form.
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If you submit a question about blogging via their questions form, feel free to post the reponse here for everyone who's curious about that.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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I just submitted a question. I explained that I was interested in creating an online blog that would eventually generate some income. I expressed the concerns of not supporting "dynamic" websites. We'll see what they say. I'll post when I get a return e-mail.
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Here's what the reply was (only part): "Before you couldn't, now you can. Yes, you can absolutely do this as part of your Site Build It site. Site Build It has a wonderful module called "Infin It!" which enables you to add forums, message boards, blogs, memebership sites, stores and so much more -- I guess that is why they called it Infit It Think of your SBI! site as a C (Content) T (Traffic) P (Presell) motor. Infin It! enables you to plug third party resources into your SBI! site to amplify that motor with more content (ex., blogs or forums). And it enables you to harness that engine (i.e., get more dollars out of it!) by plugging in monetization models (ex., stores, membership sites). And here's the beauty of it all. Infin It! ("II!") lets you plug third-party resources (we'll call them plug-II!ns) into your site without sacrificing your brand, which you've worked hard to develop. Whether it's a membership site, blog with TypePad or Wordpress, or a forum, or a wiki or a shopping cart system, or whether you need to host content on another site (MP3s or videos, or a database-driven system such as a directory), you can make it part of your SBI! site. Infin It! opens up the SBI! architecture and lets you extend your SBI! site functionality with modules that are not “core” to C -> T -> P -> M. Remember that SBI is a power house when it comes to building a site that will generate targeted traffic which in any business is the most important thing." |
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Just watched the 30-something minute video. It looks to much for "I want to earn money without learning the technologies". Even just looking at the frontpage I thought jeez say hi to trowing away your money. If they earn so much couldn't they at-least hire a designer. If you want to build an online business and don't know what double clicking is or are too dumb to get FTP working (It really isn't that hard, come on) you don't have a right to own a computer. People who type website url's in to Google or Yahoo thinking "Yahoo/Google is the internet" or "Internet? Thats clicking the blue 'e'?". No doubt you are right that some people do earn money with this. No problem there. But.. Quote:
Speaking of that; if I ever searched for juggling and came on the example page they showed in the video... I would leave before you can say "CTPM". You plan a trip to a 'anguilla beach'. You land on the send you mentioned. How can anyone think "Oh yes lets browse here". It too ugly and chaotic to stay longer then 1 minute on. Quote:
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Technophobe? Why on earth do you want an online business then. Stay away from the mouse. Less crappy pages. Less crap that turns up in Google. Quote:
Another example; Coolest-kid-birthday-parties.com. Come on! This site looks like its build in 1995. And the domain name, jeez. Smart Travel Germany And Its Smart Travel Guide is one who, using SBI, at-least has some design capabilities. If you want to sell your juggling items then even Shopify.com is a better choice. Quote:
Even if it does work, I'd feel unethical to recommend this 'product'. I hear at-least someone say 'but what if I can make $2k a month with a juggling site using SBI'. Great, go for it. Personally I'd be a shamed to have a site looking like that! And i'd feel even worse making money of it. /Rant. Thank you |
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@Jcs: Great example of Why People Fail (see case #12 on p. 26-27).
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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Ha. That's wonderful By all means, if it works for people, great! It's just my personal opinion. If situations like I wrote didn't happen I would not have an income either. That said, I do feel better then some people. Why wouldn't I? I can charge one hour of pay explaining how to add 4-lines of code into dreamweaver. Wish I had the elitistjerks.com domain name And its not like all people who think this way fail Last edited by Jcs; 02-14-2008 at 12:23 AM. |
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You can't control your readers expectations? That reads patently false to me. If you write a slew of posts that are extremely helpful to a tech savvy crowd, then veer drastically off-course to write an article that is only helpful to the non-savvy, but compose the title and introduction in such a way so the advice seems to apply to everyone, that doesn't create false expectations? |
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When I see people struggling with something that's easy for me, I think to myself, "There must be a way to help more people like this." or "What could I add to my web site that could help people in a similar situation?" I think it's beautiful to see people trying to grow in different ways, stretching beyond their comfort zones. What some see as an ugly web site, I see as someone going after their dreams. A trickle of income from a basic site and an ugly URL may mean that there's a work-at-home-mom that gets to spend more time with her kids instead of working at a clerical job she hates. Every ugly web site has a real person behind it, doing their best to grow. Maybe I'm in a unusual situation, since I get to hear so many personal stories from people every day. When I see a web site, I automatically think of the person behind it and how this site is a reflection of their goals. There's no dishonor in being a beginner. I think it's something we should value, not discourage. Whenever you see someone struggling with something you've mastered, consider that it isn't a message intended to reinforce your ego superiority but rather an opportunity to help someone. If you take advantage of that opportunity, you'll feel much better about yourself than if you merely glare righteously at the other person. Don't take my word for it -- try it for yourself. Find someone with a screwed up web site, and just offer them one or two ideas to improve it. Just a two-minute email. Notice how that re-connects you with who you really are. Life isn't a zero-sum game. Helping someone else doesn't hurt you... quite the opposite.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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As maybe to explain more. When I'd get a support call and the person in question has an urgent issue. Now this person doesn't even know left-click from right-click. When you ask how much memory there is, in the machine, they don't know. Now, thats all fine. Not everyone needs to know these things. While they want the issue to be fix yesterday, they are unwilling to learn the technology they use. And remember this is by phone. On-site I'd be happy to do it fast and hopefully easy. Just like you bring your car in for repair without having to learn anything. |
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Happy to hear that SBI has changed and now supports wordpress and CMS systems. They should change the hosting specs to reflect that though. It's always best to check with the source so I'm glad someone did. Cheers, John Landscape Paintings of British Columbia - John Rocheleau |
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You are an inspiration to many of us. I like your honest, accountable, simple advise. I think SBI is taking technical skills and making it simple enough for an average yet ambitious person to succeed online. I am baffled by your comment though that blog is not a business. I can see that you have with your excellent content taken wordpress blog and turned it into a site that generates tremendous traffic. Am I wrong ? Again, I admire you for what you've achieved and I am truely your BIG fan. Thanks Shilpan Your online personal growth site |
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When I say a blog is not a business, I mean that a blog is merely a self-publishing tool. By itself a blog generates no income. A business is a for-profit venture. If you want to use a blog as part of a business, it's one useful component, but you still need to do income-generating activities that are not part of blogging itself. For example, putting income-generating ads on your site and optimizing the layout can take a lot of testing and experimenting. Finding good joint-venture partners/products or affiliate programs that work well for your site takes considerable effort as well. Then there are the strategic decisions of what to write about in the first place, whether to support comments, and other decisions that are important for business goals but otherwise non-critical if you just want to self-publish some content. Then you have accounting, taxes, business structure decisions, legal considerations, and so on.
__________________ Steve Pavlina www.StevePavlina.com (Twitter page, Facebook page) Get my book Personal Development for Smart People I'm a human alarm clock. I awaken people who are sleeping through life. Then I duck. |
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I quite liked the article. I skipped pass the SBI site part, but that's because I don't need it. I know how to design websites, and edit video and upload e streaming. I actually have seen that site before, it's so ugly :P I am amazed at how you don't have to put much effort into to design on the web to make money, which is quite depressing as I work as a web designer and have probably better skills than the guy that created SBI, but that's another story Still I took the parts of the article on board that was relevant to me, such as why online businesses fail etc. Anyway, thanks steve for the timely post |
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For all of you who are sceptics I'd like to mention Drupal. It is a content mangement system that is pretty easy to work with. All the coding is done for you so you just have to choose which modules you want to use from static pages to multiuser blogging and advanced adsense revenue management. I haven't used all the modules myself but I'm generally impressed and it's all free. Is Drupal right for you? | drupal.org AdSense | drupal.org |
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I have to say I read the article. I didn't feel misled, however I did have a negative initial reaction when I got sent to what looks like another site trying to promise success on the web, particularly when they charge. It seems to me that this was a follow up post meant to help those who were making mistakes. We have been getting a lot of good and free advice. I think this post was just plain different and everyone is just shocked at the change. I think it should also be recognized that people are different, have different ideas, lifestyles, skills, etc. Therefore people are going to need different tools to be sucessful in business. Steve regognized this when we was looking at how others were doing and the mistakes they were making. He probably did some reserach to find a tool to help those that are making technical mistakes and came across SBI, which in his opinion turns out to actually be a reputable sollution for those who lack technical skills. So while the post is perhaps useless to programmers and web designers, it is very helpful for others. You can't please everyone all the time. |
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To be fair, I felt a bit odd too, when I got to the end of this article. Hey, a sales pitch! But then again, I am quite sure Steve would not advise a product that he would not believe in, and he believes only in stuff he has tried and admitted to be good, so it must be good. It is also true that there are millions of people out there who dont have any technical skills. I think SBI is a good way for them to start. If you can tell php from html and static from dynamic enough to critique what SBI has to offer, perhaps you want to learn a bit more and customise the "not for dummies" site engines. But everyone, even the not-yet-web-savwy-people (emphasis on yet) deserves a chance to try making money online, and SBI might just be that chance. Although I have previously stated that internet - not my thing, this article in conjunction with "Kickstarting Business" podcast got me thinking about internet business - as an "completely on the side" project. I got one teensy tiny webshop idea myself and I had a nice chat with my mom, who is in retirement age. I asked her the million dollar question "what would you want to do if you could choose absolutely anything" and we figured that her interests could be nicely monetised in an internet blog, so for me this article has had a lot of value - and that is what matters, not the fear of someone else "making monies" on you. |
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People make mistakes, Steve also, why not? Steve, Plz change the heading of the post to 'Site build it' from 'How to Build a Successful Online Business' . That may serve your pourpose better. People who going to do 'online business' may not be so dumb that they need a catchy heading. Your previous post maybe an introduction to your new advertisement right? I am not telling you are a bad guy or 'Darkworker', but humens are silly.. silly creatures. |
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