Of course, having discovered Internet marketing, he’s also discovered the Warrior forum, and accordingly spends endless hours there almost daily, pouring over posts and eagerly examining each WSO (Warrior Special Offer) that comes his way.

This is not a “knock” against the Warrior forum – it’s the biggest Internet Marketing forum on the net. It’s been around since 1997, and boasts almost 600,000 members. It is, without a doubt, a great resource.

One day, after listening to his questions about a certain IM related business model, I could resist it no more; “Dood,” I said, “get the *%@& out of the Warrior forum. Stop. Seriously.”

Why?

He was perplexed.

After all, the Warrior forum is chock full of genuine Internet Marketing gurus just dying to help people like him out by sharing their knowledge and expertise. What was wrong with learning from them?

There is nothing wrong, of course. But here’s the thing…

1. I have never met a successful or savvy net marketer who is not intimately aware of what his/her time is worth. Time spent sharing knowledge in the WF has a real purpose; build relationships with people so that you can sell them your products later. It’s not a philanthropic pursuit. It’s about money. Nothing wrong with that of course, as that’s the way business is done. For successful marketers in the IM space, time spent in the Warrior Forum generates a real Return on Investment. Let’s not lose sight of that. 
2. While it’s important, especially as a newbie, to spend some time learning the ropes before you get started trying to make money online, becoming exposed to too many conflicting opinions and business models can cause paralysis by analysis. You spend so much time agonizing over what it the best thing to do, that you waste days – even weeks – of time which could have been used constructively to build your business. 
3. At some point, you actually have to stop reading, and starting doing. And at this point, the Warrior Forum – and every other forum online – is a time suck, a distraction and a detriment to your business.

So, please stay out of the Warrior forum. Use it as resource, like it’s meant to be used.

In my opinion, paralysis by analysis is the biggest problems newbies marketers encounter – what should I do? Who should I listen to? Who is honest and credible? Whom can I trust?

This is one of the main reasons that I recommend SiteSell.com’s Site Build It! (this is not an affiliate link, but for the sake of full disclosure I did work for the company at one time). Its “all in one place” business building solution and extensive help is everything the “greenest” newbie needs to start earning a living online.

Highly recommended. Check it out!    

Because it was – pardon my French – one hell of a year.

2012 was, in my opinion, the year of the “Penguin.”

Never has an update caused so much consternation and had so much of an impact on so many.

Some Background Info on Penguin

If you’ve been in a coma for the last year, Penguin is the name of a Google algorithm update which targeted webmasters who obtained their rankings through deceptive, “black hat tactics”, or tactics that violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Google is officially on record as saying violations include participating in “link schemes” as well as keyword stuffing (which hasn’t worked for years) and cloaking (which is beyond the means of the average online marketer). Really, Penguin is all about links.

For the most part, this algorithm hammered just about every site that had engaged in any active sort of link building campaign, a tactic indicated by highly optimized anchor text. Back in the old days (circa 2011), if you wanted your web site to rank for “solar powered widgets”, you’d set up a link building campaign that featured these keywords in the anchor text, build your links (or outsource the task to the Philippines), and watch your rankings rise.

Not anymore.

On the face of it, penalizing sites obtained rankings in this manner makes sense, and should have improved the quality of Google’s search results.

Did it?

Well, that too has been debated by those far more qualified than I.

For instance, while this is an isolated, n=1 observation, this post from Jennifer Ledbetter (aka “PotPie girl”) demonstrates the sort quality that the change brought. And while recent updates have improved things somewhat, the quality of Google’s listings – in my opinion anyway – do not seem as robust as they used to be.

The problem is that Google has tacitly condoned link building for years.

On one hand, they condemned active link building, and on the other, they rewarded those sites undertaking the practice with high rankings. The fact is – and you will know this firsthand if you’re an active net marketer – the only way you could obtain high rankings for competitive keywords was to build highly optimized links for them. In other words, if you wanted customers to visit your site and purchase your products (or click on your affiliate links or whatever) you had no choice but to engage in the same practices your competitors did.

And if you didn’t do it?

Google`s message; “just create great content and people will come” used to work 5 or 6 years ago… but it does not work now. The only way you can obtain natural top SE rankings without links is by targeting extremely long tail keywords in a non-competitive niche.

Great.

How much of a business can you build with keywords that generate a handful of visitors per month?

Here’s an important point that I haven’t seen made yet; engaging in active link building does not preclude a website from containing quality content. Google’s premise is that sites that have obtained their rankings to some extent through manipulative means do not deserve to rank high. But the fact is, that’s not necessarily the case at all.

If I am a smart marketer (and there are plenty of them out there) I am going to start any venture by ensuring my content is unique, engaging and top notch. Then I am going to outsource a link building / SEO campaign to ensure it doesn’t languish alone and “unvisited” in some dusty corner of the Net.

Yes, I get it; high quality sites that initially obtain traffic via “nefarious” means will start to generate “genuine” links from enthusiastic visitors fairly quickly. Regardless, if the ratio of optimized to genuine links isn’t in Google’s sweet spot, your rankings will take a hit.

By penalizing the sites that have engaged in such practices for the only reason that it allowed them to compete in a system that Google itself created and allowed to flourish, Google has damaged the quality of their search results and pissed off a zillion online marketers.

This “open letter to Google” from Dave Davies at Search Engine Watch does a great job of clearly articulating the problem every webmaster who wants to play by Google’s rules faces, as indicated by the absolute ridiculousness of Google’s response.

Disarming the Penguin: The Google “Disavow Tool”

The “disavow tool” is an attempt to appease webmasters who have been penalized by Penguin, by allowing them to inform Google of the links which they would not like taken into account when Google assesses the quality of their sites.

Sound like a great idea?

I`m not convinced that it is.

For one, Google doesn’t tell you which links are the problem ones. You have to guess. Two, you may actually damage your rankings if you disavow links which are not actually hurting you. Google says this itself…

“This is an advanced feature and should only be used with caution. If used incorrectly, this feature can potentially harm your site’s performance in Google’s search results. We recommend that you disavow backlinks only if you believe you have a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links pointing to your site, and if you are confident that the links are causing issues for you. In most cases, Google can assess which links to trust without additional guidance, so most normal or typical sites will not need to use this tool.”

Third, if you use this tool, you have just identified yourself as someone who has used black hat tactics in the past, and who knows what Google will do with that information? Will they look more closely at your other, yet-unpenalized web properties? Will they put you on a black list of some sort?

Who knows?

Forth, it’s just plain impractical.

If you’ve undertaken the sort of unethical, mass link building tactics required to rank a highly competitive search term, you are going to have 1,000′s, even 10′s of 1,000′s of links out there. And unless your outsourcing team has a spreadsheet of all the links they have ever created, this is a huge, time intensive task with potentially no upside (i.e., removing the links may not get your rankings back).

Fifth, your drop in ranking may be tied to some other element of Google’s algorithm, which means any and all speculation on your link profile is a waste of time.

After the Penguin: Moving Forward in 2013

The question, foremost in the mind of anyone trying to make a living online in 2013 is, “where the heck do I go from here?”

Truth is, link building – at least how we used to know it – is as dead as can be. Genuine, quality links are much, much tougher to come upon, as they are always awarded on merit (i.e., your site must contain something or some content of such exceptional quality or uniqueness, that it warrants a link from a web property that is itself of such quality or uniqueness that Google trusts it implicitly).

So links will come much more slowly in the future.

So, what then?

1. Social Signals

In my opinion, social signals (Facebook “likes”, Google Plus 1′s, etc) are going to factor more and more prominently into the search engines’ algorithms going forward.

Think about this; the reason why engines like Google use link popularity to assess the quality of a web site is because they perceive that link to constitute a “vote” towards the quality and credibility of the linked site.

But here’s the kicker; of ALL the people surfing on the net, how many are in a position to vote for a web site by placing a link to it?

I do not claim to know this number, but my guess is that it is an infinitely small percentage.

In other words, the search engines’ algos (as far as they pertain to the “what others say about you” element anyway) are based upon a very small and specific data set that may or may not best reflect the needs of the average surfer.

How do the engines rectify this?

By implementing social signals into their algorithms. These signals effectively take the ranking of sites out of the hands of a very small select group of people (essentially bloggers and webmasters) and puts it into the hands of the huge mass of humanity surfing the net. In other words, social signals allow the web’s primary users to determine what is of greatest interest to them.

As such, some sort of social media strategy is critical moving forward.

To me, this is the most logical way for the search engines to evolve.  And don`t get me wrong; links will always play a role in a ranking algorithm; a link from the New York Times or CNN or Time magazine or any credible resource is always going to be a boon for your web site. But those links can only be obtained by creating superlative content… you cannot buy or obtain them in any other way.

2. Content Curation

The foundation of any web site will always be the same; great quality engaging content. Of course, creating this content is time consuming. That is why you should consider two things…

a) Curating your own content: In other words, making your content available for syndication across the web. Russell Wright`s curation course is the only program I have reviewed on this topic. It is good, but extremely complex.

b) Curating content for your own sites: Leverage your own content creating efforts by curating content from around the net. There are a zillion successful sites that do this to some degree; grab a snippet of content from here, a snippet from there, top it all off with a couple of sentences of unique commentary, and bingo! Freshly curated content. And, from what I can tell, Google seems to really like this.

There are some affordable software solutions that curate content for you. I purchased a developer’s license of Page One Curator. When it works, it’s a pretty good piece of software. Problem is, I have found it buggy as hell, inconsistent and accordingly, rather infuriating to use.

In fairness, I have not followed up with support on this, largely because I was less than impressed with their response to my initial request that the software wasn’t connecting to some of my WordPress sites as promised (their solution was to login and try to find incompatible plugins – how they were going to do this I have no idea, since they would not provide me with a list of such plugins (they didn’t have one apparently). The idea of some unknown support staff mucking around in the back end of my web sites was too much for me and I said no way.

I did not request a refund though, because the software works well enough for a couple of sites that I wanted to curate content for, and so, I still use it almost daily.  On a scale of 10, I would give it a 5.5 or a 6 – a shame, because with a little tweaking, this would be an amazing product. It is sold via ClickBank, which means you can request a refund if you are not happy (within the first 60 days or purchasing), so if you are curious, give it a try and ask for a refund if you are not happy (complete details on how to obtain a refund for any ClickBank product are provided here!)

CurationSoft is another tool that does much of the same thing, but because of the way it works, it is unlikely to face many of the technical issues that Page One Curator does. Again, it is sold via Clickbank, so the 60-day money back guarantee applies here too.

3. Reduce your reliance on Google and other Search Engines

I know what you are thinking… how the heck do you do that? There is no resource on the Internet that will deliver the volume of traffic that Google does.

The only way you can do this is to start investigating monetization options that either allow you to tap into other traffic generating opportunities (like affiliate generated traffic), or they provide you with enough margin that you can pay for traffic.  This usually means developing your own product or service. If you sell something for a decent price and margin, you can control the amount of traffic you get by simply paying for it. And you can offer affiliates a share of the profits for generated traffic.

Any visitors Google sends is gravy.

4. Use any and all traffic generating resources at your disposal.

No doubt, when it comes to traffic, Google is the 800 lb gorilla. But if you make use of FaceBook, YouTube, Pinterest, Storify and others, you diversify your traffic sources and further reduce your reliance on Google.

While things have no doubt changed dramatically since the Penguin update, there is still reason optimism, and plenty of opportunity who are willing to work hard and recognize financial independence cannot be obtained online in a matter of a few weeks or months.

It`s not the end of the world.

Here`s to a successful and profitable 2013.

That is, by any stretch of the imagination, a ton of traffic. But YouTube is much more than just a place to kill a slow afternoon at work. It’s much more than a place to lose yourself watching home movies of entertaining pets or old music videos from the 80′s.

It’s also a place that offers a great opportunity to make money.

Yes, you can leverage YouTube’s massive traffic and worldwide appeal to generate revenue for YOU. From my point of view, one of the coolest things about Youtube is that it’s entirely possible to use it to build a successful, profitable business or generate some decent “bonus” income without having a web site, selling a product, or providing a service of any kind.

How?

There are two ways I can think of right off the top of my head…

• Monetize your own videos. If you’re already putting up videos of your cats, dogs, kids, or whatever, why not monetize them?  I’m sure you’ve seen the “in-video” ads that appear over top of certain videos while you’re watching? These are Google “Adwords” ads (since YouTube is owned by Google).

  Adwords is Google’s in context advertising solution, and if your account qualifies for monetization, you can agree to have relevant ads placed on your videos. Google will then split the profits of  the ads with you, and mail you a check every month. While it sounds ridiculous, the “everyday” pet videos thrown on YouTube are incredible popular. For example, the one I posted earlier of the German Shepherd puppy has received over 500,000 page views (at the time of this writing). This simple video of a Dobermann guarding a baby, has received 4.7 million views. That’s nearly a million views per year since it was uploaded in 2007.

  Now suppose Google’s ads were displayed on this video. Let’s also assume a modest 2% click through rate and earnings per click of $.50. So… 4,700,000 X 2% X $.50 = $47,000! Not enough to live on when it’s divided up over 5 years, to be sure, but not bad for just throwing a video on YouTube.

• Create a YouTube “Affiliate” Channel: Many people review products on YouTube and include an affiliate link to the merchant in question. For those of you that are not aware, affiliate links contain a special tracking code so that if the person who watches your video decides to buy the product in question, the retailer pays you a percentage of the sale.

  People like to watch video reviews, and Google likes to give YouTube listings prominence in its search results.

  That`s a WIN WIN.

  Of course, you have to perform a genuine review; you have to own and be intimately familiar with the product in question in order to effectively point out its benefits and possible shortcomings. You also have to be entirely genuine and have your viewer’s best interests at heart, or you won’t make a penny. That’s because unless you have chosen a very specific niche/product, lots of other people will be doing the same thing.

  You just have to do it better, or alternatively, do it well, but come up first in the search results.

So there you have it; 2 ways to use YouTube to make money online without having your own website.

Yes, there IS a downside to building an income solely from YouTube; you never truly own your own business. If Google decides tomorrow to stop displaying ads on your videos,  for example, your income disappears. Or, if they stop directing traffic to your videos the same thing happens. For this reason, marketing with YouTube is best thought of as one part  of a more comprehensive plan. You really need to diversify (i.e., get your own web site) if you want to have a secure, dependable income.

One resource which I recommend consistently throughout the course of these video-related discussions is Dave Kaminski’s Web Video University (WVU).

I recommend it for a simple reason; it is a fantastic, thorough and extensive resource for anyone serious about creating high quality web videos. I know this because I’ve been a member of Dave’s program for over 6 months now – I discovered Web Video University after purchasing Dave’s Screencast Secrets, which is a program that teaches you how to use the combination of Camtasia and PowerPoint to create incredible screencasts. I was so impressed by the product that I signed up for WVU immediately.

I wasn’t disappointed.

You’ll understand when you see for yourself, but this product really is a labor of love. There are no shortcuts anywhere. All the material is meticulously scripted and presented and every possible topic you could possibly need to know about creating great quality video is covered. Yes, from green screens, to DSLR cameras, to ideal bitrate settings, to two pass flash encoders, to hosting your videos on Amazon S3 and delivering them in a custom player on your web site – all this and a ton more things are covered.

Of course, one thing I should point out before continuing is that this product is not for everybody.

Membership is $99/month (it sounds like a lot but it’s an amazing value – wait until you see the video) and you’re going to have to invest in Sony Vegas video editing software (for Windows machines) or Final Cut Pro (for Mac users). I bought the $120 version of the Vegas software, although the “pro” version Dave uses in the course is about $600. In all the exercises I learned, there were only a handful of occasions when not having the $600 software was limiting. You can download a 30-day free trial of Sony Vegas, but it’s hardly worthwhile if you do not intend to purchase it in the end.

Ultimately, if money is tight and all you want to do is put together some video you captured from your family’s Christmas vacation, make it into a movie and send to Grandma, this is not for you.

If, on the other hand, you want to use web video to leverage your business, your online presence, or to sell more product (either of your own or as an affiliate)…

Then yes – this is for you, because the success of any of these ventures is dependent on delivering quality video content to your audience. The better it is, the better you’ll do. Plus, you’ll earn a significant ROI (return on investment) for the money you invest in the course.

With that said, I figured it made more sense to show you Web Video University, rather than talk about it. Click the image below to watch the video (it’s lengthy – about 15 minutes. I recommend you watch it all!)…

Well, hopefully I’ve done my job and by this point you have a pretty good idea whether Dave Kaminski’s Web Video University is for you.

If you found this review and video helpful and are interested in learning more about the course, you can do so here! Highly recommended!

Sure, there are all sorts of tools that will automate the link building process (think SE Nuke or EdwinSoft’s Ultimate Demon) and these are fine for getting a base of low quality links. However, obtaining quality in-pointing links is a tedious, hands-on process, that often doesn’t bear fruit.

Webmasters of quality sites guard their links jealously, and won’t hand them out to any webmaster who comes calling, and certainly not one of a low quality website that can’t provide something in return.

Prior to the Panda update, I had a pretty relaxed attitude towards link building; a few blog comments here and there, some directory submissions, link exchanges with relevant sites, a handful of videos posted with their links pointing to the most appropriate pages, and so on.

Mostly I just focused on creating the sort of great content that garners links on its own.

That doesn’t seem to be enough anymore.

Today, in a post-Panda world, it seems to me that a much more aggressive link building strategy needs to be considered – which is why I’ve written so much about link building on this blog.

One of the strategies I’ve always considered but never put into practice is the Web 2.0 strategy; creating high quality material on Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, Hubpages, Tumblr, Weebly, etc, and then linking those sites either directly to your “money” site, or to each other in a complex link wheel, and then to your money site.

That’s after you build some links to those pages as well, of course.

And, since Web 2.0 sites have a ton of authority with the Search Engines (SEs), the links gained from pages hosted on them can have considerable weight – especially if those pages you created have received links of their own.

I’m not sure I buy into the “linkwheel” strategy: it is manipulative (as far as the SEs are concerned) and too easy to reverse engineer. In other words, to me it looks more deceptive than a straight link. There’s no reason to my mind why a SE would ignore a direct link from any Web 2.0 property to your web site, unless, of course, you have a zillion of them and your page is of extremely low quality. That’s a dead giveaway.

I’ve seen some webmasters argue it makes sense to link your Web 2.0 sites together to further build the authority of the sites in your Web 2.0 network, thus transferring greater “link juice” to your own site in the process. Who knows whether this works or not for sure?

One of the reasons I never bothered with this strategy is that is seemed like a LOT of work. I won’t post crappy content under my name, which means I’d have to create them all myself, and with my regular content creation duties and the sheer number of web 2.0 sites worth considering, I’d never be able to get it all done.

Obviously then – considering the title of this post – this is something I’ve reconsidered. I’m thinking that I should develop quality material on the top 5-10 Web 2.0 sites. Build them, let them “sit” for a month or so, and then add a link or two to my money sites.

Yesterday, for instance, I created my first Squidoo lens – it’s on the subject of body building supplements, and today I created a second one on job training (for my new job training and certification site). It was a fairly painless process, although I imagine it will become less fun each and every time I create a Web 2.0 page.

Since I’ve seriously been considering hiring a virtual assistant this year, this seems like a perfect task to outsource.

In the meantime, stay tuned for updates and results on the Web 2.0 experiment. I’m curious to see how it turns out.

I could go on, but you get the point. These are all link building networks – large networks of sites and blogs owned by marketers for the express purpose of link building.

Here’s how they work…

You sign up for the service of your choice.

You pay a fee, usually a regular monthly subscription which ranges in cost from around $50 per month and up.

This gives you access to the network.

Now you can post articles, blog posts, and sometimes, short 150 word “snippets” to the network, and include a link back to your site. The specifics of how many posts you can make per day, or how many different sites you can add to the network varies greatly depending on the service to which you subscribe.

For instance, with Build My Rank (which I wrote about some time ago after trying the free trial of the service), you are allowed to add 5 sites to the network, and make an unlimited number of posts. Each post must be a minimum of 150 words, and can contain one link back to your site. All posts must be unique and well written – no spun material is allowed.

On the surface, belonging to a quality network – which can contain sites with a PR (Page Rank) ranging from 0 to 6 (again it varies from service to service) – seems to make pretty good sense. Why bother hunting down blogs to solicit guest articles or make posts on when, for a small monthly fee, you get direct access to tons of such sites that will post your articles without question?

Well, here’s where we get to the part where I tell you what the gurus are not telling you about using blog networks for link building…

There are two main things…

First…

Belonging to a link building network is not something that you can expect Google to reward you for, should they identify the network. At best, the links you have obtained are worthless, and at worst, your site receives some sort of ranking penalty or is dropped from the index.

Additionally, when you subscribe to any network, you are at the mercy of the owners; if they are diligent in policing it, maintaining its quality and scanning the sort of sites they allow in, it’s possible your links may have value for the foreseeable future. If they don’t, well… you may as well flush your money down the toilet.

Second…

To realistically expect results from any blog network, you’re going to have to submit a ton of content to it.

If you’re subscribed to one of the better ones that doesn’t allow spun or inferior content, that means you are going to have to write it all yourself, or outsource it – and that can be expensive. In my opinion then, unless you’re a serious, full time marketer with a VA (virtual assistant) in the Philippines, or you’re targeting extremely esoteric long tail keywords, you are simply not going to be able to create enough content on your own to make subscribing a worthwhile venture.

If you don’t believe me, sign up for the free trial of Build My Rank (which I review here) and create the posts required for your 10 free links. Not as easy as you thought it was, huh? Now imagine having to write 2-5 of these posts every day for a couple of months (yes, really; SEO is a long term affair!).

If you still want to subscribe to a blog network after this little experiment, at least you’re doing so with your eyes wide open.

And that means I’ve done my job.

Normally these courses retail for just over $300, but until Dec 31, you can get them for a third of the cost.

I haven’t done a full review of Dave’s Web Video University (I plan to in the New Year) but I can tell you this; I maintain a membership to it because it is a fantastic resource. If you’ve spent any time on this site you’ll know I have no hesitations about calling things as they are; I never candy-coat things. Dave’s course is simply superb. He’s put a ton of work into his products and it shows.

So if any these courses appeal to you, grab ‘em up now and save!

One of the biggest detriments to online success I have seen over the years is an unwillingness to invest in your business.

This is especially true for newbie marketers, many of whom want to see if the whole “online business” thing is going to pan out for them before they put any of their money on the line.

I can tell you from experience that this simply does not work.

When I started out online in the late nineties, I knew absolutely nothing about the Internet, and even less about marketing, advertising, or any of the net-specific skills required for earning a living online. I figured I could sort of “learn as I earned.”

Not so.

Without any practical background in fields that have “carry over” to the ‘net (like the aforementioned advertising, marketing, or business), I simply floundered around for a couple of years, wasted hundreds of hours of my time, and never made a penny.

Until I got my hands on Ken Evoy’s “Make Your Site Sell” in ’98 or ’99 (the book hasn’t been updated since 2002, but it’s still a great resource and it’s available for free here!).

When I read it, lights went on, bells rang and sirens wailed!

Now I know what to do! And how to do it!

And I have never looked back since.

And yet, reflecting on it now, I kick myself for being so darn stupid.

What the heck was I thinking?

If I would have just handed over $30 or $40 two years earlier on a similar product (MYSS wouldn’t have existed then), I would have saved myself years of aggravation.

The point is, until you make an investment in your business, you are just wasting your time floundering. Playing around.

Your investment is both your “skin in the game.” Without it, you don’t have any real reason to put in the sort of effort you need to succeed, because you’re not really out anything but your time if you don’t (another big mistake; not allotting a value to your time).

It’s also your short cut to the knowledge you will absolutely have to acquire should you wish to ever become successful.

Imagine starting a brick and mortar business; do you think your landlord would allow you to stay rent free until you determined whether or not the business was going to be profitable? Until you “learn the business?”

Do you think your suppliers will let you borrow their products until you generate some business?

Making an investment qualifies you as being committed and serious.

It also means you have a reason to get serious.

Don’t agree?

Think you can learn it all on your own without spending a penny?

I’m sure you can, but how long will that take?

Not only do you have to learn every aspect of building an online business, you have to determine who knows what they are talking about, and who does not. Pick the wrong guru to follow, and it may cost you years of wasted time.

So you have to ask yourself…

Do I have the determination to stick it out through this entire process until I develop some system that works?

Or do I fork out a few dollars, skip the two-year learning curve, and start immediately down the road to internet riches?

Your choice; continue playing, or get serious!

For those who are serious, I recommend SiteSell’s Site Build It! For $29.95 per month, you have access to a complete business building system, plus all the tools you’ll ever need. Check out the site, review the proof, and make whatever decision you deem appropriate.

How Can You Recommend SBI! (Site Build It!) When This Is A WordPress Site?

That’s a question I received the other day from an individual who obviously found an incongruity in the fact that I actively recommend SBI! here,  whilst this site is built upon the WordPress platform.

To quote a great line from Samuel L Jackson in the movie Pulp Fiction…

“Well, allow me to retort!”

Suggesting that it’s somehow unethical to recommend SBI! when I’m not using it myself on this site, is a bit like saying…

“Hey! How come you recommend we eat apples, when YOU are eating an orange?”

See, apples and oranges are different. You can’t compare one to the other. If someone asks you for a hammer, do you hand them a screwdriver, and expect them to accomplish the task?

I can like both apples and oranges (as can you), and can eat whichever I like, depending on my needs. It doesn’t diminish the value of either.

So what’s the difference between SBI! and WordPress?

How are these “apples and oranges?”

Site Build It! is a system.

WordPress is a platform.

Think of it this way; WordPress is a tool with which you can build web pages. You can build static pages or posts, or a combination of both – whatever suits your fancy.

But as you’ll quickly find out, there’s a big difference between a handful of web pages and a web business – an online presence that actually generates revenue. Any elementary school kid can build a web site. Building a web business that generates a 3, 4, 5, or even 6 figure monthly income – well, that’s an entirely different matter.

Yes, SBI! is also a platform upon which a web site is built and hosted, but that’s where the similarities end.

Site Build It! leads you through the entire “A-then-B-then-C” online business building process. And it’s thorough; heck, it’s even taught at Penn state for heaven’s sake.

One thing I’ve always been clear about in my recommendation of SBI! is that it isn’t for everybody. Advanced marketers who are already successful online, probably don’t need what, to me, is SBI!’s biggest asset: The Action Guide (The Action Guide is an incredibly detailed “step by step”  journey through the entire business-building process. Everything from assessing the profitability of your niche to keyword research to PREselling is covered. Literally, EVERYTHING).

They probably also don’t need SBI! advanced suite of tools, since they would have purchased expensive “stand alone” versions to manage their existing sites. And they’d have the cash flow to buy the premium plugins needed to ramp up WordPress’ performance, if WordPress is what they have opted to use.

WordPress doesn’t.

With WordPress you’re on your own.

It’s not much different than someone handing you a copy of an HTML editor like DreamWeaver and saying, “there you go, go build an online business.”

You have the tool to build web pages, but you still don’t have a clue about how to assess your niche for profitability, perform effective keyword research, drive traffic, convert visitors into income, etc, etc (i.e, the stuff you’ll learn with SBI!).

It’s just a platform, remember.

Yes, but WordPress is free.

And you don’t want to invest in anything until you know whether or not this whole online thing is going to pan out for you.

I hear you.

I did the same thing in the late nineties. And you know what? I spent two years online and didn’t make a cent. I didn’t spend a penny, but I didn’t make one either. And I wasted 100′s of hours of my time. Until I read a beta version of Ken Evoy’s “Make Your Site Sell” in 1998 or ’99.

That’s when the lights went on.

So let’s talk about why I recommend SBI! to build an online business.

It’s because of the Site Build It! process. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it will show you exactly how to earn income from the Internet.

If you’re not interested in making money online, and you just want to throw up a few web pages to highlight your son or daughter’s (or grandson or granddaughter’s) little league soccer team, go ahead and use WordPress. It really is a great tool (I love it, just as I love SBI! for other reasons).

However, for me to recommend WordPress as a business building tool on its own… well, that would be irresponsible. Because unless you already know what you’re doing, well… it’s not the right tool for you.

It’s like handing you a hammer when what you need is a saw.

So…

If you know what you’re doing and you prefer oranges to apples, go ahead and use WordPress.

If not, and you’d like to build a real online business, one that makes money, check out SBI!

The lights will go “on”, I promise.

It’s a darn good feeling.

I love Internet Marketing. I love the experimentation, the testing, the rapidly evolving technology. It was in that spirit that I built this site upon the WordPress platform in 2009 – so I could see what it was all about, and so I could talk about it from a position of authority. And indeed WordPress IS awesome… but as a platform, not a business building system.

]]> http://www.no-bs-marketing.com/sitebuildit-sbi/recommend-sbi-site-build-wordpress-site/feed/ 0 http://www.no-bs-marketing.com/business-building-systems/sitesell-announces-annual-sbi-buy-special/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sitesell-announces-annual-sbi-buy-special http://www.no-bs-marketing.com/business-building-systems/sitesell-announces-annual-sbi-buy-special/#comments Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:04:33 +0000 admin http://www.no-bs-marketing.com/?p=2853

Yep, it’s that time of year again.

The time when SiteSell offers its buy-one, get one free door-crasher offer on SBI! (Site Build It!), the premier Internet business building solution on the ‘Net (heck, even respected universities and colleges like Penn State, The Citadel, and The University of Arizona are using SBI! to teach their students how to build a profitable e-business).

If you’ve been struggling to get your online business off the ground and generating income, here’s your opportunity to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress.

Not familar with SBI!?

It’s a suite of online tools and applications that allow you to build a vibrant, profitable online business. I agree; there are plenty of services that claim the same thing (but none that offer near the amount of functionality and sheer number of top notch tools for such a ridiculously affordable price).

So what really makes SBI! stand apart from its competitors?

In three words?

The Action Guide.

The Action Guide takes you step by step through an A to Z business building process so you never have to guess at what it is you need to be doing next. The guide, in conjunction with the online suite of tools, makes building a successful online business as easy as following a series of steps. Sure, it’s hard work – just like building any business – but if you follow the Action Guide, you will succeed.

Who’s SBI! best suited for?

Anyone can use SBI!, no matter what their level of expertise (I login to my girlfriend’s site and use the Brainstormer (a keyword research application) and Monetize It! tools often), but it’s for those who are new to Internet Marketing that will benefit the most.

Incidentally, my girlfriend Marilyn’s Flowers-By-Marilyn web site is tracking about 300 unique vistors a day right now, and looks like it’s well on its way to covering her car payment this month! Excellent news!

Is 2012 the year you start making an income from the Internet?

It could be; use the 90-day risk free trial and see for yourself!