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August 2009 - Posts
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I figured out something about SBI about two weeks ago: YOU CAN’T BREAK IT!
The
only thing you can do is NOT USE IT!
SBI is
set up so that even the most on-line rookie will do fine. In fact, one of the thing that my
instructor, Bernie, says is those who have never done much on the web before
usually get a site up faster with SBI than those who come to SBI with
experience. Those with experience
want to “tweak” SBI to make it work with what they are experienced with, while
those who never have done anything before just follow the
instructions!
Anyway, I’m a combination of both – I realized that I was getting caught
up in the details that I really didn’t need to worry about. So I pressed on. My site might have a whole new look down
the road, but for now, I’m just focusing on the content.
So,
this week we started talking about how to get traffic to the web site in
addition to the strategies that SBI does with the search engines. Pretty cool stuff, but I was more
excited about what happened without me knowing about it.
You
see, I had (as of the day of the class) 16 pages total. Without me doing ANYTHING to let Google
know about my site, I was getting traffic… possibly thanks to everyone here who
is also checking out my site as we go, but also there were a number of people
who “stumbled” on my site. As of
right now, I’m averaging 11 people a day looking at my site! That’s with my half completed and
changing web pages! Wow! I was blown away! SBI works!
So…
what am I doing… in addition to the work that I have done on tweaking the pages
currently written (poke around and see how they are looking – I’m really going
to recommend that you check this page:
http://www.food-safety-and-you.com/HowDoesFoodGoBad.html ) I’m back to writing
more pages.
If
you’ve ever thought about building a business website, regardless of your
experience, take a close look at SBI.
I’ve been blown away… what I’m learning here will change my strategies
and plans for the future! One of
the people who works for SBI told me that “Anyone who is willing to work and
knows or wants to know about something can build a successful web site”. And I believe that is true!
Thanks
for poking around – my home page is http://www.food-safety-and-you.com. If you haven’t done so,
please do my quick survey at www.tinyurl.com/FoodSafetySurvey.This is helping me put together my plans
for down the road!
Until
next week!
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Wow –
I’ve had a fun couple weeks and the work is finally paying off!
I’m
one of these people who once they start something, they like to get it as right
as they can (or as right as they can for that minute) and then move on to
something else, so I ended up spending a lot more time that I wanted to with my
home page for the web site: www.food-safety-and-you.com. First, I didn’t like the graphics that I
was using – they were too complicated and confusing, although cool. The problem was that I was using old
publishing software that would “scramble” my layout when I moved it over to
SBI. So, after playing with it for
a few hours, I went into the “forum” which is a online community help area of
SBI, and read through a number of suggestions. Finally, one person suggested free
graphic software which I downloaded and was able to figure out how to make it
work! And NOW I had a page that I
liked a lot more!
The next step was to start making the text of the home page look
much more appealing to the eye.
When you hit a home page, unless it’s exactly what you’re looking for,
people tend to “scan” quickly. So I
wanted to be able to let people’s eyes catch things that would make them stop
and spend some time on the page.
Again,
I went through the training classes, but there wasn’t a lot about some of the
things that I figured I could do, so I went into the forums again. Again, a lot of help there, and I also
found some web sites that would help me too. The next thing I know, I’m actually
understanding HTML, which I must say is NOT what I expected to be able to do
EVER! It’s not that complicated
once you understand the through process.
So, NOW I have a home page that I think works a lot better! If you haven’t checked it out, please do
so! Again, I’ll take any
comments.
Now I
started building pages. Even before
the class began, I started writing pages – I cheated, but you have to understand
that this have been a goal of mine for years, so I had pages written in my head
and rough drafts everywhere. So I
organized them and started building the pages. It’s pretty cool and not that hard. SBI has a way of making you build pages
“block-by-block” so you understand and make the spiders and people “like”
you. SBI also checks your layout
and gives you the best practice ideals so that the spiders who help you get
traffic find you! Between
understanding and building the pages, with a little bit of HTML, my web site was
starting to “breathe”.
Now,
it’s not done by any means. Not all
the pages are up, so some of the links aren’t set up yet and I’m still
formatting the pages as I get a chance to look at them. I didn’t follow the template that SBI
suggested because I didn’t know what I wanted these pages to look like yet, but
the template is becoming more and more useful now that I know what they should
look like!
So,
the adventure continues and we’re finally getting a product to show! SBI and my instructor, Bernie has been a
great resource – what’s been interested to watch in the class is how those who
came in with limited or no knowledge of the web and building a web site seem to
be right on track with the plan, while those in the class who had a background
in web design and marketing get hung up on the details and stall the process (a
little bit anyway). If you’ve never
built a web site before, and want a serious one that will make you money, then
SBI is the way to go – if you have built web sites, take off that old experience
hat and walk in with a fresh approach and you’ll learn a lot!
Anyway, this has been a lot of work but it’s amazing and how SBI
teaches you.
I
welcome comments – good and bad.
Check out my site: www.food-safety-and-you.com. Let me know what you think (remember
that the site isn’t finished so not all the links are there yet, but
coming).
Also,
if you haven’t done my survey yet, I would appreciate you taking a few minutes
to do it. It’s helping me determine
how the site will eventually end up going towards. Check it out here: www.tinyurl.com/FoodSafetySurvey
Until
next week (or so)!
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Oh Boy! got to start building!
Actually, It’s been a crazy week. My father decided to fall off a ladder while working on his house. He was in the hospital for a few days with problems. So, that was distracting. I’m also traveling for work this full week and next so I have to be living out of hotels and my car right now.
But, enough about “life”, here’s what’s going on with the web site. I’m at the point in the class where we start to make the site! This is where I thought we would be on week one, but a month later is when we started. The point is, SBI teaches you a foundation to build on – if you understand how the web works then you can build on it. So, moving slower than I wanted to initially, but what I have learned is so much better than I expected.
So, once I registered my domain name – www.Food-Safety-And-You.com (which my instructor Bernie suggested), I get access to the tools that SBI uses to make the web site… I got to say it’s pretty cool! SBI gives you tools that you can use to build your site on your own (yeah right) or you can use the templates that they give you (which are pretty simple but professional), or a combination of the two. I played around with it, but with time constraints, I chose to stick with a basic template that I could modify – I’ll come back to playing with all the tools later.
So now it’s building time. I got the home page up and I am heading to start to building more pages. I want to still tweak the site as I need to.
I would love comments or suggestions – please respond or comment to this blog below and I’ll read them… any ideas, comments, suggestions, or just tell me to jump in the lake if you want me to! I appreciate it.
If you have a minute and haven’t done so yet for me, please fill out my survey: www.tinyurl.com/FoodSafetySurvey It should take a few minutes and it will help me deciding which way I want to go with the web site.
It’s been a fun ride and I’m looking forward to the coming weeks!
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Oh, I am so embarrassed! I missed lesson 4! I just plain skipped it! I don’t know how or anything.
Thankfully, I caught it before Wednesday night, the night of my class. So I did Lesson 4, as we say in the restaurant business, “on the fly”.
Lesson four is about how you are going to set your web site up to MAKE money… gee, that’s the point I guess. But what is interesting with the SBI program is that you plan to make money, but you don’t make that your number one goal; I’ve worked on creating web sites where the whole focus was just to make money – so we started out with that in mind. But SBI is right: those who build their web site to make money only, usually have to “buy” their traffic – either by purchasing ads on Google, buying lists, etc – and they might even go for a long time before it pays off. SBI starts with Content (the info that people want), which drives Traffic (life blood of a successful website – PEOPLE LOOKING AT THE SITE), then you Pre-Sell (Give your viewers confidence that you know what you are doing, and have something valuable to them to take advantage of not shove down their throat), and finally, Monetize – MAKE money!
So, anyway, lesson 4 is about how to make money. I spent a hour looking at successful SBI sites – I was amazed to see all the different ways to make money that they incorporate. For me, I am going to do Adsence (working with Google to put ads into the web site), I am going to promote my speaking engagements, and I am going to work on developing affiliate selling of books that match up with my focus. During the class, I also got an idea for another way to sell involving membership site, but I’m not sure how that’s going to work out yet. So, I am asking for everyone’s help here!
If you read this, would you please do me a favor and take a quick survey for me… it’s 10 questions and you don’t have to register or anything… I just need some feedback. I thought it would be a good way to gauge to help me with figuring out what people want in a web site like mine.
Here’s the link – I appreciate it!: http://tinyurl.com/FoodSafetySurvey
I was able to refine my home page homework (that was due this week, not last week) and my instructor gave me some feedback – I tell you what, I’ve learned more for this guy Bernie than I thought! And we’re not even ½ through yet!
Thanks for helping me out with the survey! I appreciate it!
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