I was looking at the sbi website pages and I mesured them on my screen noticed they are all only 7 1/2 inches wide.
then I seen other pages on sbi that are 10 1/4 and even 12 inches wide.

I found that with the sbi page builder you can not make a wide page only if you use this program.
OK I found a post on sbi, somone had said they used AJ's template, with something called front page 2003 to make a nice wide page.

well here is a copy and paste of the product below, Question is it good to use

Upload your own HTML, with CSS and 3 Column Design
SBIer AJ has created a complete package to help SBIers upload their own HTML, using a 3 column format with CSS.

What's included?
A 3 column template with all CSS files, and ready to add content. Also included is an ebook, that takes you from unzipping your files, right through to uploading to the SBI! servers. You also get access to instructional videos (for those who prefer video.)

You receive access to the complete template owner's area of AJ's site. This includes extra add-on's to spice up your web pages, plus full CSS templates with instructional videos. Once the original template package is purchased, you never pay for anything else. AJ also includes helpful and friendly support.

also they recommend using this editor, Arachnophilia its a free download
for window users more comfortable with automatic installation programs download the windows executable installation program Arachnophilia.exe (1.6 MB) containing the Arachnophilia executable Java JAR file

Note: I did not start My SBI page yet, was going to start building it today then decided to use these tools to do it.

here are the steps they want you to do to download this free program
the editor

Please complete all the steps in the list below (don't leave anything out):

Read "A note about Freeware"

Acquire the Arachnophilia executable.

For Windows users more comfortable with automatic installation programs, download the Windows executable installation program Arachnophilia.exe (1.6 MB) containing the Arachnophilia executable Java JAR file.

For all others, download the executable Java JAR file Arachnophilia.jar (1.5 MB).

Acquire the required Java release 1.5 or newer runtime engine.
NOTE: If you experience problems using the current Java runtime, install the 1.5 Java runtime and see if this solves the problems. Arachnophilia will work with either.


Click this link to download the required Java runtime engine (needed by those who don't already have a release 1.5 or newer).

Windows users may not want to select this runtime engine to handle applets in MSIE (this choice is offered during installation). Sometimes this reduces Java applet performance on smaller, older machines.

Install Arachnophilia

Those who downloaded the Windows install program:
Run the install executable you downloaded (Arachnophilia.exe), follow the instructions, be sure you have also installed the Java runtime before running Arachnophilia.

Those who downloaded the JAR file version:
Put the JAR file you downloaded (Arachnophilia.jar) anywhere appropriate on your system, be sure you have also installed the Java runtime before running Arachnophilia.

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Arachnophilia:
In most cases you will want to delete the Arachnophilia user directory located at (user home directory)/.Arachnophilia, after saving any custom macros you may have created. This step assures that you have the latest macro and menu configuration and the most recent documentation set installed locally.


Run Arachnophilia

Those who downloaded the Windows install program:
Click the program icon located at "Start ... Programs ... Arachnophilia ... Arachnophilia"
This icon can be copied onto the desktop or anywhere else you want.

Those who downloaded the JAR file version:
Open a command console (Linux: shell console), move to the Arachnophilia program directory, type "java -jar Arachnophilia.jar"
For convenience, this command can be made part of a shell script, and those using X windows can easily make a desktop icon.


If you have not completed all the steps in the list above, please do not write me to say the program is not working. Instead:

Complete all the steps in the list above.
Complete all the steps in the list above.
Complete all the steps in the list above.

wow this is going to be fun I am Clueless, better then paying 250 for the windows frontpage 2003
I only have to pay 50 for the other thing above AJ's, I am also clueless on. what ever it takes I will complete this mission I am on.
looked at thousand of sites, reading for weeks day in day out following SBI to a T the more I read the less I find I know but at the same time the more I learn.
any one use the tools above


any input would be appreciated,
Thank's in advance Gary

There is no logical reason why anybody should use a 3 column template.

I have read at SBI that 2 column templates are more successful. And it is much easier to use sitebuilder.
Nobody has to bother with all that uploading, dreamweaver, CSS etc.

This just makes it more complicated for people who don't know a lot about software, html etc. This all will give them a real hard time I promise.

Why should anybody go through all those hassles?

__________________
www.learn-german-for-free.com

well the thing is I will have a lot of content and if the page is wider it will fit better I think also I can get more adds on it and with more adds I can make more $$
I seen the SBI templates and they don't have to many
so I know this is going to be harder then I thought but, After I am all done I will learn something, if my brain ain't fried by then
only seen the sbi video's like 10x over so fare in the past 2 months I think.
I have the keywords and the money making part and everything else down to a science, I think.
just have to get this other stuff down.
thanks for your reply

I recently changed over from block builder to my own html, and I used AJs variable width template(he also has a fixed width 3 column). This expands and contracts depending on the screen size of user.

Things I learnt:

Always, always always cheek how your site looks in Internet explorer, this is the most unforgiving web browser.

Preview regularly while you are building the page with Arachnophilia, so if you make a mistake you know how to fix it. Even though you have to save every time to preview, if you make a mistake control/command (windows or mac) "z" will delete the last major thing you did.

I actually find it quicker and easier now than block builder, you get your template, customize it to you save it as template.html and copy and paste the coding for every new page. Then just fill in the title, keywords, description. For keywords in particular for me I found an advantage as analyse it says up to 5 keywords but often I could only fit 3 or so in the box, because my theme word "wedding anniversary" is already quite long.

I don't know if this would have happened anyway but my traffic stats are increasing very fast since the new look (99 uniques yesterday - personal best)( I don't know how it could affect it as no-one can see your site til they click on it). But maybe visitors are sticking around for longer? So the search engines are rewarding me? Who knows?

I haven't monetised yet apart from one affiliate link to SBI at the bottom of the page. I am going to be working on that this week (my traffic average jumped from 30 Jan to 62 uniques so far this month).

In conclusion to this really long (for me!) post:

Template good.
3 coloumn variable better than fixed (in my opinion)
Arachnophilia is easy to use (yes learning curve, but it took me a week and a half to upload about 80 pages, I did go quite hard out, and this includes the time of setting up template etc.)

All the best

Happy website building!

reply to missyb
I just down loaded Arachnophilia today,also the AJ's Stuff.
I thought I would go with the fixed width, because I was reading something that some stuff may not work on a page that expands, so I thought I would play it safe.
also in that 34 page booklet pdf I downloaded from AJ's it says to set Browser for previewing.
this is how fare I am so fare.
Great to have someones input on this thank's
80 pages in 10 days wow you must be working on that site all day that is Great, I would be lucky to just get up 10 pages or maybe 20 in that time frame

I use a template that AJ provided at one time and it expands full width and it uses xhtml.
It is very hard to use sometimes.
All of the stuff that SBI provides will work quite well with the expandable template.
But everything that they provide is all html and the full width template that AJ provided is xhtml.
It goes beyond SBI though your affiliate’s links may also be html.
Placing html on a page that is produced with xhtml will throw your validation off.

If I had to do it over I would use the fixed width template.

__________________
David

From
www.your-garden-ponds-center.com

I just want to add when transitioning over... it gets really boring!

But once you get in a rhythm its not too bad!

I just went to your website then right click the mouse on your homepage.
then left clicked on the word view source on the menu that pop up.
then on the page that came up I left clicked the mouse on the top tab edit.
then i left clicked on find on that menu.
then I typed in xhtml.
then click on find it did not find it that means your page is a fixed width.
not a variable width

here try what I typed above on this page you will find xhtml this is a variable with > http://occasionsandstyle.typepad.com/lagniappe/

also thanks for posting that David (xhtml), that is what gave me the idea to check the above
I am clueless just feeling around in the dark with a stick trying to put this stuff together.

I have no idea about xhtml or html.

But if you squeeze your browser in you will find that my site "sucks in" to fit inside the browser (there is also a minimum size) ...

And I assure you I used the variable template, not the fixed width (don't know any more ins and outs of it than - it works)

So I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat!

Well I don't know why either but, every other site shows that xhtml only the fixed ones don't I checked a few.
anyway I think your site looks great it is set up nice and the content is placed good.

here check your site out with this little tool you can paste the homepage in it with the www. only and the .com at the and without the forward slash.
it will show your traffic to your homepage and your keyword and your ranking here try it
http://statbrain.com/

Thanks for that, cool tool - I confess I am a bit of a stat watcher

Edit to add: it does over estimate my traffic a bit though...

Your Welcome.

I checked out the templates at AJ's site and none of them have the xhtml
they have something else in the top this W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional

anyway I decided I am also going with the variable width template.
there better there wider there nice
AJ's fixed width you can only max them out to 800 pixels and that = 8 inches wide not enough thats using them with sbi.
your 10 1/2 inches wide that nice more adds more content more traffic

I just did a google search on W3C DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional

here is what I found
http://htmlhelp.com/tools/validator/doctype.html

@missyb
Your site looks great. I like the white colour, somehow it looks so decent.

Questions: I am blockbuilder and have already around 140 pages.
If I would change my mind now and like to use AJ template, what must I do with my pages. Must I delete them one by one and copy the text using NVU (I use freeware html editor). And when does -analyse it- check a new page? (after you have uploaded it?)
How about the socialize buttons and the footer. Will that be done after you have uploaded it?
And is the template white like yours?
How much does it cost?
When you make a tier 2 page and want to put it in the nav bar, do you just put it in the CSS file?

__________________
www.learn-german-for-free.com

Don't delete them!!

After you buy the template, you have access to a ebook with step by step instructions. To get all white, you make all your background sections white #ffffff is the html name for white. The template has gray comes with gray columns. I choose to have a patterned background (around the web page) to make the white not so boring, but I like that people can read black on white easily.

What I also changed was the link color. The template comes with dark blue links, in my opinion they do not stand out are hard to spot. I used the standard link color even though links the same color as my headings look better. I have read in several places that standard boring blue links "get the click". And I would prefer to "get the click"!

When you make a new html page, you are creating a replacement page, to make this easy:

* view page source of existing page (home is index.html)

*copy and paste your title, key words, description, body copy.

*I tried to use this opportunity to make my pages better, adding images, proof reading etc (since you have to do each page one by one anyway!)

About socialize it. If you go to my website you will see in the left hand column a form of socialize it. This comes with the template, I just left it there.

About footer. I choose to not use the SBI footer as I get more flexibility with the template footers. Yes plural. The colored section right at the bottom is one footer, and the bit with links and common misspellings is another footer.
As my footer is an include it is easy to update should I want to do so.

Another advantage to template - includes. No where near as hard as they sound, this is also step by step explained in the ebook.

Something I have noticed people sometimes struggle with is getting the header on to the template.

As for the actual uploading:
There is two ways to do it. One is build all your pages and then spend half a day uploading in one go, but it means if there is problems with analyse it it can be a pain to fix. I built the page and uploaded as I went, for two reasons.

1. I could run it through analyse it (done after uploading, don't worry it doesn't replace existing page until you click build it) so if there were things that needed fixing I could do so.

2. Motivation - I was a lot more motivated when I saw html pages live, and when my website was half and half I hated it and it drove me on to keep at it! As I had not yet monetised I thought that doing this would be ok. If I had monetised, I may not have done it (it looks very unprofessional when people click on a link and the look keeps changing)

A final tip:
Do your privacy policy, or some other page that doesn't get viewed much, first to test it out.

So thats me waffling for ages I hope that this helps you!