Site Build It! … an interim report
November 22nd, 2008 Posted in Building my websites, Newspaper articlesCan you tell I like it?
It’s nearly a month since I started building my new website web-work-at-home.com using my new discovery Site Build It!
I really can’t rave enough about this product, it’s absolutely superb and I can’t believe that it’s not more widely-known.
It incorporates everything I’ve ever read about SEO best practice in a fully integrated console … the tools it makes available for the subscription fee are quite simply brilliant.
Let me talk you through it … and I’ll try to find a few negatives too just to balance out my full-on enthusiasm!
What I’ve been up to …
Site Build It! guides you through the entire process of building a website with detailed commentary, excellent video presentations and easy-to-use tools.
It’s suitable for complete novices and total experts … you can either use their templates or upload your own HTML.
You start with what I find the most tedious part of the process, but let’s be clear, it is the most important part of the website building process.
This is the niche choosing part, where you search keywords, sift, search again, find off-shoots of keywords and examine demand, supply and profitability.
I nearly went spare doing this, but persevered and now have three sound ideas as a result of it, though I’m only working on the one at the moment of course.
Once this bit is over - and my goodness it takes some time to get it right - the fun bit begins.
Where I went wrong with my other web projects is in putting the website building and monetization in front of everything else.
Site Build It! is absolutely immovable on this issue … no monetization until you’ve built 30 or more content rich pages based on high demand, low supply, high profit keywords.
The fun bit …
You’ve got to get the keyword bit right, it’s the foundations on which your entire website project are based.
As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’ve used Wordtracker’s and Google’s keyword tools, but didn’t really get on with them.
Site Build It! provides a superb tool which allows you to store all your keywords, listed alongside demand, supply and profitability figures.
For each keyword you can search the top 10 competitor sites in Google, Windows Live and Yahoo!, you can make notes for each keyword and study monetization options.
You can export this information as a spreadsheet, re-order keywords by most profitable, ones with least supply and profitability.
I would pay the fee for this tool alone.
For anyone who’s ever gone through the hell and self-doubt that is keyword and niche-choosing, it’s an absolute godsend, I can’t believe that somebody hasn’t made a standalone version available.
With this tool, you carve up your website into sections - determined by the high demand/high profit keywords for your niche - then you create pages around these headings.
Here comes the next superb tool.
When you create each page you use a tool called ‘Analyze It!’ which tells you if you’ve used your page keyword enough times, too few times or if you’ve ‘over-stuffed’ your page.
It won’t let you ‘pass go’ until your page is absolutely right for the search engines.
You can use the process with Site Build It! pages or your own HTML.
Once again, I’d pay the fee for this tool alone, it’s priceless if you want to get your website foundations just right.
Some negatives
I’m in danger of spotaneously combusting with enthusiasm about Site Build It! so in the interests of balanced reviewing, I’m going to throw in a few negatives.
Firstly, the templates are a bit basic.
I’m not hugely keen on my current template for web-work-at-home.com but I’m determined to make my first Site Build It! completely ‘by the book’ so I can assess it properly.
However, there’s a great support network based around Site Build It! (sorry, that wasn’t negative was it?) so you can get redesign work done really easily.
Here are two SBI site designs that I particularly like which don’t use standard templates:
I’ll get back to my template at a later stage, in the first instance the content is what’s important so I’ll entirely focus on this for now.
Time for another negative?
Errr … the product is very Americanised, but I would urge you not to be put off by that.
As a reserved Englishman(!) I looked at Site Build It! with suspicion at first … the language made me wonder if it was a scam, or too good to be true.
However, the more I read, the more I watched the videos I couldn’t resist giving it a try.
It was about £175 for one year - this includes your hosting and your domain name and absolutely everything you need for your website - and it’s refundable, so I thought ‘what the heck’ and paid my money.
I reckon it could be the best thing I’ve discovered web-wise.
That’s it for negatives I’m afraid.
Look, I tried okay?
I’m very impressed with this product!
More great things about Site Build It!
Site Build It! offers one good thing after another … you get built in forms with spam protection, social networking links built in, custom email with auto-responders built in, auto RSS feeds built in, submission to the four major search engines built in … in fact virtually everything I’ve ever recommended in this blog comes built in with Site Build It!.
The other great thing I’ve spotted - yes there’s another one - is the brilliant analysis tool you get which shows you how each page ranks for your keyword on Google, Windows Live, Yahoo! and Ask.
And do you know what?
I’ve only just started building my site.
There are loads of things still to come which I haven’t even looked at yet.
I’ll provide another interim report when I’ve got a bit further.
So far I’ve made about 10 pages and under Site Build It! guidance, that means I can create my RSS feed now.
The proof of the pudding …
A word of warning …
I’m only just starting the Site Build It! journey.
I’m 100% impressed so far but the proof of the pudding will be in the tasting of course.
I’m not going to get a proper feel for that for another couple of months, so you’ll have to bear with me on that one.
At this stage I feel that I found Site Build It! at the end of my yellow brick road.
It brings together everything I’ve learned whilst working on my website projects.
I feel that if this doesn’t do the job, goodness knows what will.
So keep checking in, subscribe to my RSS feed on web-work-at-home.com and make up your own mind.
If you’re serious about making websites, please give Site Build It! the once-over at least - don’t be put off by the language used.
There are loads of demo sites, videos and testimonials to check out before you even have to think about parting with any cash, so read, view, re-read, check out and make up your own mind.
In the meantime, I’m convinced … see you when I reach the 30 page milestone!
