SBI resource page.

webdev · #1 (**permalink**) 04-22-2007, 07:21 AM

Last night i went through the SBI action guide and let me just say WOW. I'm so glad to have found the action guide. I can't believe i was actually going to buy the SBI without going through the action guide. Big mistake. Their 10 day action guide show you how to use their brainstormer and master keyword list tools to choose the best selling keywords on your niche for your website. Every keyword you choose has to pass a simple test, that is, does it have enough popularity (how profitable is it) given its supply (number websites using it) and demand (number of people searching for it). The Three 3-tier website model is amazing, where you split your chosen words into pages that fit into the 3-tier model. I went through the first 4 lessons and going through the rest now

I can go on and on but you have to see the action to see how informative it is. Simply amazing.

http://findit.sitesell.com/brainstorm/brainstormer.html

click on the video action to see the 10 action guide.

lisa · #2 (**permalink**) 04-22-2007, 08:48 AM

Yeah it's a lot to read but that guide is the reason why so many people succeed versus other hosts. Two of my friends just bought SBI! and they about fell over when they saw that big action guide. LOL But the other is starting to see her first SE traffic and she is too excited.

There's also a video version at http://demo.sitesell.com

webdev · #3 (**permalink**) 04-22-2007, 01:25 PM

Yep, no doubt. its a lot of reading.

but its well worth it. I had question about the 10 day guide thou. Wouldn't it take a lot more time than 10 days to go though the whole process? how did you guys manage? I think at the end of the 8th day (i haven't seen day 8 video yet) they discuss about evaluating your traffic that's coming to your site but how can you build 30+ page content in such a sort time and have traffic to evaluate the results?

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 04-22-2007, 02:53 PM

Absolutely. And I would recommend taking as much time as needed. I think Ken called it the "10 day action guide" to help people pace themselves, but you can certainly take as much time as you need.

After you get through day 6 (I believe it is) you start building your site so any "days" after that are ongoing. So that doesn't literally mean that by "day 8" you will have traffic to evaluate. Look at it more like "step 8" and it may take you months to fully complete it. Again, it's all about pacing yourself. That's a good question though 'cause I bet others may get confused by that.

webdev · #5 (**permalink**) 04-23-2007, 08:10 AM

Ahh makes sense. SiteSell is the kind of help i need in order to get my site to sell. Its no coincidence that i stumbled upon sitesell after having built so many sites in last few months and struggling to gain any traffic. However, I wanted to get an idea on the process of how search engines will bring traffic to my sitesell site once it is indexed on yahoo, google and msn. With no inbound links, how are people going to start finding my site? Is it depended on the amount of content? Getting that initial traffic is very important. How is that initial traffic going to come?

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 04-23-2007, 10:31 AM

Here's what I did. After my fitness site had about 15 pages or so, I started submitting to a few of the free (and cheap) directories. (I did pay for the $299 Yahoo but not sure that's necessary anymore.) I also used SiteSell's Value Exchange program to find other SBIers who have sites similar to mine and we setup a mutually beneficial link exchange. I didn't swap links with many sites...maybe 3 or 4.

BTW, Value Exchange is free for non SBIers but you get more benefits when you own SBI!. See http://value-exchange.sitesell.com

I continued to build content throughout this whole time. My first traffic started trickling in from MSN (Live). Then Yahoo picked me up. After my SE traffic started coming in, I started getting a lot of traffic from people recommending me in fitness related forums. Again that comes from building a site that is unique and not the same as everyone else's. Then other fitness sites began to find me (I guess through the SE's) and these people would link to me without even asking for a link in return.

I've noticed many SBIers tend to get MSN (Live) traffic first because that's the easiest SE to get listed in. So once you get that initial traffic that's when you have to make sure that traffic stays. And that has nothing to do with SBI!, that's up to you and your content.

In addition, I submitted to ezinearticles.com. I have one fitness article that has had 20,000 views. Again, Google sees that lots of people are using my content so that's another bonus in their book.

Bulding lots of content is also key because once you get listed in a few directories, get traffic from Yahoo, a few links from related sites Google will begin to take notice. They'll also notice you are the "real deal" because your sitemap will continue to grow over time. So they can see "OK this is a real content rich site on this topic."

So it's definitely a cumulative effect but it has to start with the plentiful, targeted content.

Could you do it without SBI!? Absolutely but the average person needs guidance and it's so nice having all the tools in one place to remind you what you need to do to increase your traffic. Plus the SBI! forums are a Godsend because you can fellowship with people just like you having the same challenges, questions, etc.

webdev · #7 (**permalink**) 04-23-2007, 03:41 PM

Hey Lisa, thanks for sharing that information. It make sense that only after building few pages full of content using the "profitable" keywords, you can start seeing some traffic come in through search engines. Later, doing link exchange and directory submission may increase that number. Is it also natural to see that number increase one you have some intial traffic come in? How long before launching your fitness site you started seeing traffic come in? How many pages did you have at that point? When you had stable amount of traffic come in, what patterns did you observe with your traffic? Has there been a big fluctuation in numbers? What was the cause of this fluctuation? Sorry, i know im asking too many questions at same time but I’m shooting out what ever i can think of (otherwise i forget

) I think i'm almost ready to take on my new venture with SBI. I want to do as much research as possible so that i'm prepared and feel confident before i start.

lisa · #8 (**permalink**) 04-23-2007, 04:40 PM

I don't mind the questions. It's a $299 investment so you want to make sure you have all the facts before you buy. I totally understand and welcome any questions you may have.

I got traffic amazingly fast and I think faster than most SBIers. Not really sure why... maybe I just had a great niche where the competition was low... althoug there are TONS of fitness sites out there.

After 1 month I was getting like 300 hits in MSN alone (I had about 10 pages). I launched Adsense in month 3 and by then was up to about 500 hits. I probably had about 15 pages by month 3.

I launched the site in July of 2005 and up until December 2006 the site averaged between 1,000 and 1,100 uniques per day but starting this year the traffic has literally tripled in 4 months... Now I'm at 3300 to 3500 hits per day. It all started in January and the biggest reason for that was Google. Google suddenly started ranking me high for a lot of my keywords and that is the only reason the site is doing so well. And the traffic is not just coming into my homepage, it's coming into many different pages that I've optimized for different keywords.

On one account you can see that's good but I really need to start diversifying my traffic portfolio. I really haven't focused much on the site since I did earn my investment back and then some.

Just keep in mind that my traffic story will likely different from yours. Different niches, different content, different visitors, etc. makes a huge difference. I was reading Max's reply in another thread and he mentioned how "help sites" perform well and that is so true. I think a big part of the reason fitness sites do well is that weight loss is such a big problem and people are so eager to learn how to lose weight.

Problem solving or "how to" sites tend to perform best because when you help someone solve a problem, people reward you with credibility and they are more likely to tell others about your site. Again, I get so much traffic from stumbleupon these days it's amazing...and that's simply from people telling others "Hey, look at this site!" Word of mouth is HUGE... and that's what Google looks at too. If you have many different traffic sources coming from blogs, social networking sites, etc. then that shows Google people love your site and it must be valuable.

One-way links are so valuable in Google's eyes. And when I say one-way I mean people linking to you without a link back in return. Because that is saying this webmaster loved your site so much that they offered you a free link. That's what you want to shoot for!

But again.... it's got to start with you and your unique content. What does your audience really want? Sure you want to teach them about PHP but what can you do that's unique and that no one else is offering.

When building your site it's also important not to be anonymous. People like to feel that there's a human behind it and your style of writing plays a factor too. I get e-mails all the time from people saying it was so comforting to see a face and my style of writing made them feel like I was just having a chat with them in their living room. You want your site's tone to appear helpful and inviting. Not cold and distant. So many sites out there are like that.

Now you may say "What the heck does this all have to do with traffic?" A heck of a lot. You are building a brand... a brand of one... YOU. And how you talk to your audience plays an important factor. It's the difference between them returning to your site a second time and whether or not they will tell their friends about your site.

I want to stress, though. PLEASE don't use my story as a benchmark. It will vary from customer to customer and it all depends on how well you layout your content and follow the Action Guide.

webdev · #9 (**permalink**) 04-23-2007, 05:34 PM

Great response Lisa. I want to start with offering php help (in many ways like php starting guide, tutorials with demos, free meaningful plug and play scripts that people can use on their site, code snippets, or even personal help for free or for a fee...these are just some of the idea i have right now) . I want to build a library of reference of helpful tips for the people and for myself (programmers usually refer to online resources when they are stuck). I know almost all "php help sites" offers these resources to their visitors but many big php sites don't focus on beginners with no programming background and i want to write my content with that focus but at the same time i have pretty vast knowledge about programming and php and i want to write advance tutorials for experts too and i'm just having that conflict, how to start and what to focus on first? As with anything i think starting simple with beginners in this case would a good start and keep building further content on taht.

webdev · #10 (**permalink**) 04-24-2007, 08:07 AM

Today i have a more clear understanding of establishing a successful website and thanks to this forum, Lisa and SBI. Last night i bought SBI and oh man i so excited

This is going to be a good learning experience for me, i can feel it. One thing i need to watch out from is to not get swept in with expectations. I need to be patience and take things slowly

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