I’ve been watching several threads on SBI! for a while – including this one over at Lisa Irby’s 2CreateAWebSite.com. One thing I’ve noticed is that many of the questions folks have about SBI! are being asked over and over again.

And while the answers to these questions may seem obvious to seasoned net-marketers, they aren’t necessarily so to the people who have just recently considered turning to the Internet to supplement their incomes.

To that end, I’ve compiled a list of some of the most frequently asked questions about Site Build It! that I have encountered…

1) Do I have to pay the $299 annual fee every year? If so, why?

Yes, of course. (Remember, you can opt for the 29.99 monthly payment option instead, you do not have to pay $299 all at once).

Why?

Because SBI! isn’t merely a piece of software that you use to build a profitable web site. Since the SBI! package includes your hosting, domain name, autoresponder and so on, it utilizes resources and accrues costs on an on-going basis.

That’s why you need to pay the annual fee.

2) If I have to pay the $299 fee every year, how do I ever really own my business?

First, remember…

The ongoing cost for the resources your SBI!  site requires are costs you will have to address no matter what platform you choose to build your business. These costs are the online equivalent of “rent.” Your site occupies space on a server, much like your brick and mortar store would occupy a space in a landlord’s physical building. If you don’t own the building you operate your brick and mortar business in, does that mean you don’t own your business?

Hardly.

In fact, most retail businesses lease their locations.  Offline, your business is your product, your staff, your selection, whatever. Very rarely can a business not sustain a move to a new location. Online, your business is your voice, your perspective, your recommendations, your unique content.

But what happens if you don’t pay your monthly hosting fees?

Your web site will disappear off the Internet and, if you haven’t kept a backup of your material somewhere (which you MUST do), your entire business with it.

No different than if you fail to pay your rent in a brick and mortar business. Your landlord will evict you, and although you may  not lose your inventory, it serves no useful purpose if you don’t have a suitable location where you can offer it to customers.

So yes, your business is all your own, regardless of the costs required to keep it accessible to visitors.

If you don’t “buy” this, you only have two options…

1. Forget about doing business online.
2. Buy and maintain your own web server. Initial cost outlay aside, this isn’t as simple as it seems; your system needs to have double and triple redundancy power back up, your data has to be backed up and saved every 12-24 hours so your site can be rebuilt in case of an emergency (disk failure, your site is hacked, etc, etc). Plus, you have to keep the “bad guys” out of your server. If $10/month doesn’t sound like a good deal to host your site in comparison, I don’t know what else to say.

3) If I have to pay the $299 fee annually, wouldn’t it be cheaper just to buy some HTML editing software or build my web  site with a free application like WordPress?

Not really.

Regardless of what tool you decide to build your web site with, you still need to…

• Host your web site
• Pay the yearly fee for the domain name
• Pay the on-going monthly costs for add-on tools (i.e., an autoresonder is an absolutely essential tool for anyone serious about doing business online).

A domain name can be had for around $10/year. Reliable hosting will set you back $10/month (I don’t recommend spending any less – as with everything else, you get what you pay for!). A decent autoresponder like Aweber will set you back $20/month.

So what are we at now?

$10 + $120 ($10/month hosting X 12 months) + $240 ($20/month autoresponder for 12 months) = $370.

So that’s $370 per year for the basic necessities, due every single year you do business online.

And there’s two other things we haven’t yet addressed…

1. Site Build It! includes a HUGE array of tools (including autoresponders, on-page SEO tools, etc), so a comparable monthly cost (if you were to outsource just a fraction of the functionality) would be huge.
2. The tools – as extensive as they may be – are only a small part of the value offered by SBI!. In my opinion, it’s the business building process detailed in the Action Guide that is critical to your success. Sure, you can build a web site with any tool, but only SBI! delivers a completely documented A-B-C process. So if you factor your time into the cost of learning how to build a successful online business from scratch, the value becomes immeasurable.

And that’s why “cheap” is not necessarily the best option.

4) Why is SBI! so expensive?

Compared to what, exactly?

Niche Profit Classroom, for example,  starts at $67/month. Simple hosting, plus the cost of a domain name and a monthly autoresponder service costs $370/year.

Yes, you can use any number of free tools to build a website, but you don’t just want to build a website. Any 10-year old can build a website. You want to build a profitable business online. And that requires a certain set of tools, a precise process and a lot of elbow grease. Your $30 monthly investment has the potential of making you thousands of dollars that is virtually all margin.

I hate to say it, but if you’re actually serious about making a living from the Internet, you’re going to have to pull out your credit card sooner or later. And if you can’t afford $30 a month to invest in your new business, then you’re wasting you time; pick up the newspaper closest to you and start scanning the “help wanted” ads. I’m not trying to be harsh here, but if you need money TODAY – like right now – to feed your family and pay the rent, the Internet is not where you should be looking.

There are no short cuts to instant riches online, despite what various marketers may be telling you. Making money online is definitely a “race that goes to the tortoise” venture.

5) Does SBI! include a shopping cart? Can I use SBI! to sell products?

SBI! does not include shopping cart functionality, although you can certainly integrate simple shopping functions (like PayPal’s “Buy Now” buttons). Frankly, if you have 100-10,000 skus, SBI!’ is not the tool for you. You need a dedicated solution, and there are plenty of those (like Yahoo! Stores, for example).

With SBI!, you create a content-rich site that drives qualified visitors to your site. Once you PREsell them with your content, your unique perspectives and your knowledge, you can monetize them any way you like – and that includes sending them to a dedicated shopping cart site to buy your products.

For most people, the lack of shopping cart software is not an issue. Unless you are in the business of selling TONS of products, why on earth would you want to choose a monetization model that requires the stocking and shipping of physical products? (And the customer support headaches that accompany such an undertaking).

One of the main benefits of having a successful online business is being able to earn income “hands-off.” Affiliate programs, drop shipping, advertising revenue, creating your own e-products are all ways to monetize your traffic without actually having to stuff something into a box, drive it to the post office, and mail it to your customer.

Trust me: this is where it’s at. The heck with shipping and stocking stuff.

Special note: Site Build It! include a modules (called Infin It!) that allows you to create a subdomain and “map” it to third party shopping carts, forums and so on, so the additional functionality all appears as part of your main domain.

6) Is SBI! a scam?

It is most definitely not. Yes, there are some folks who insist that it is, but these comments are not genuine; they are not posted by frustrated customers, but by individuals with ulterior motives. Check out my article on the topic and see how easily I destroy each and every one of the allegations made about Site Build It!.

7) Do I recommend SBI!?

Yes, to qualified individuals. Yes, if you have some time and you are willing to work hard at your business. No, if you’re expecting to press a few buttons and generate instant riches, or you’re currently having a hard time keeping your kids fed (in this case, find a day job first, and then use SBI! to build an online business in your off time).

If you’re interested, here’s where you can learn more about Site Build It!

Do you have other questions about Site Build It!? Respond to this article and let me know what they are – I’ll do my best to address them.

Less than 10 years ago, it was “on-page” elements that were the major contributing factor to top Search Engine (SE) rankings. These included keyword density (how often did your keywords appear in the page’s text, anchor text and critical <TITLE> and <META> tags, etc) as well as keyword prominence (i.e., where on the page your keywords appears), and numerous other factors.

Then, thanks to a new SE upstart called “Google”, things began to change. Instead of copying everyone else, Google implemented a new and what turned out to be a brilliant strategy; it placed major importance on in-pointing links and used them as a critical element of its ranking algorithms (see this article for a full discussion on the fundamentals of links).

Now, you rarely see on-page factors mentioned anymore. It’s all about building links.

But frankly, on-page factors HAVE to play a factor in determining rankings. If not, every SE runs the risk of delivering its visitors with non-relevant results. In the case of Google, the most famous “Google Bomb” occurred when a search for “miserable failure” brought up George Bush’s biography from the White House.

Now, I can appreciate the humor in this, and some others might argue that Google DID accurately deliver the most relevant results for this term. Nonetheless, this demonstrates the risks you run if you place too much emphasis on in-pointing links. Obviously, some emphasis must be placed upon “on page” factors or two problems occur…

1. You deliver non-relevant results to your visitors; an SE lives and breathes on the strength of its results, so this is never a good thing.
2. You make it possible for people to easily manipulate your database (in the case of the example above, enough people linked to George W’s biography with the keywords “miserable failure” in the link text, that Google actually “saw” this as the most relevant result for this term).

So… back to on-page ranking factors. How important are they?

That’s an interesting question, and one I’ve been interested in determining. You see, for the last several years I haven’t done any major optimizing of the pages created on UltimateFatBurner.com.

All pages are based upon a popular, targeted keyword (usually a product name), and all the important elements of the page contain this keyword. Articles are written naturally, with the relevant keyword “peppered” throughout. Other than that, I don’t do much, mostly because the majority of pages rank well without any major optimization efforts (a large number of in-pointing links and significant “domain age” help this considerably).

That doesn’t mean, of course, that all the pages on UltimateFatBurner.com rank in the top 10 at Google for their respective search terms. Many don’t. It was in reviewing some of these pages the other day that I figured perhaps I had made a mistake. Why leave any “traffic on the table?”

Yes, an “optimization” experiment was in order.

So I downloaded the free trial of WebPosition 4 – SEO ranking software that has been around for ages (I used to own a copy of WebPosition Gold back in the early 2000′s) and put it to work, playing with a series of pages over the 30-day software trial. How did the Webposition optimization software fare?

Let’s take a look. First, however, a little background information…

1) On the fat burner review section of UltimateFatBurner.com, my main keywords are almost always “the name of the product”, or “the name of the product” plus the word “review” (my searches are not performed in quotations). I don’t get too bent out of shape about not having a top 10 ranking position for “the name of the product”, because most people now know that they need to make their search queries a little more targeted to yield relevant results.

However,  “the name of the product” plus the word “review” IS an important keyword for me, and I need to be able to deliver a top 10 ranking if I expect to see ANY traffic from the page. So for all examples illustrated here, I’ll be using these two keyword variations.

2) For this experiment, I will focus on results yielded at Google only. Two reasons for this; one-Google delivers the vast majority of my SE-driven traffic, and two-there’s no efficient way to properly optimize your pages for more than one SE at a time, short of creating numerous “gateway pages”, and that’s not a road I intend to go down.

3) Remember, the results noted are relevant to the time of this writing only (August 25th, 2009). Search Engines are always messing with algorithms, so things may have changed by the time you read this.

Moving right along to the results (testing began July 28th, and ran for the course of the 30-day Webposition free trial)…

1) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/accomplix-review.html

Search Term #1: Accomplix (no searches were performed in quotes)

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #20

Search Term #2: Accomplix review

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #4

2) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/anoretix-review.html

Search Term #1: Anoretix

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #6

Search Term #2: Anoretix review

Ranking: #7

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #5

3) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/gaspari-mitotropin-review.html

Search Term #1: Mitotropin

Ranking: #33

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #65

Search Term #2: Mitotropin review

Ranking: #5

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #7

Since Webposition indicated one of the problems with this page was that it contained too much material, I split the article up into two parts, and tried again. The keyword “mitotropin review” immediately dropped to #7, and “mitotropin” no longer ranked in the top 60. Hastily, I recombined the articles and re-uploaded. Now, “mitotropin review” is back to #6. Mitotropin, unfortunately, no longer ranks in the top 60.

4) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/lipofuze-extreme-weight-loss.html

Search Term #1: Lipofuze

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40

Search Term #2: Lipofuze review

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40

Again, the Webposition software indicated this page was extremely lengthy, so I split it up into 3 sections. This did not help matters however; this page still does not rank. It’s infuriating, since none of my competitors are actually providing a real “review” of the product; they either grossly exaggerate its effects to earn commissions, or they are putting it down to promote a product of their own. Ugh.

5) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/fenphedra-fat-burner-review.html

Search Term #1: Fenphedra

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40

Search Term #2: Fenphedra review

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40

6) Page: http://www.ultimatefatburner.com/leptovox-review.html

Search Term #1: Leptovox

Ranking: Not in top 40

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: Not in top 40

Search Term #2: Leptovox review

Ranking: #2

Ranking After Webposition Modifications: #1

Comments: Obviously, this is a pretty small test. There’s no way I can come to dramatic and long reaching conclusions from an experiment conducted on 6 pages over the course of a month. Nonetheless, there is some valuable data here, so let’s have a closer look at the results and see what we can come up with…

1) In half the cases here, using Webposition’s Page Critic SEO module had a positive effect on the rankings of the selected keywords, and in two cases (the Anoretix and Accomplix pages), a fairly dramatic one.

2) In two cases (the Lipofuze and Fenphedra pages), Webposition’s suggested modifications had no perceptible impact on the rankings for my two most important keywords. However, Google’s Analytics software indicates something different; a 50% increase in traffic to the Lipofuze page from the previous weeks.

The Fenphedra page, which hadn’t been drawing any traffic to speak of, showed an even more dramatic increase in traffic (from 0 to high of almost 30 referred visitors a day), starting right at the beginning of this experiment. Check out the verifying screen shot from the Google Analytics software (click here for a larger version of the graphic)…

And while 30 visitors per day may not seem like a lot, this is a pretty major improvement; especially if you can expect similar results from other optimized pages. Implement WebPosition’s recommendations on 100 pages, for instance, and all of a sudden, the numbers become a lot more impressive.

3) In one case (the Mitotropin page), Webposition’s recommendations actually made things worse (most of the damage was reversed when the original page was re-uploaded). Again, however, Google’s Analytics software revealed something different; despite the disastrous changes in rankings, traffic to this page was not negatively affected. In fact, short of a few blips, traffic to this page also increased, post July 27 (click here for a larger image)…

Bottom line?

From my small test, it certainly appears that on-page factors still do play an important role in Search Engine rankings, and it’s well worthwhile to optimize your pages.

And WebPosition’s SEO software?

Well, it certainly seems to be help. And even if the rankings for your specific keyword do not improve, the modifications to the page itself seem to make it more likely to rank well for related keyword searches. There’s very little downside here. For myself, I will be upgrading to the full version of the software.

What should you do?

It’s a no-brainer. Download the 30-day free trial of WebPosition, and try it for yourself. Make sure you have Google Analytics (or some other fairly comprehensive software) implemented on your site, so you can track the performance of your pages, regardless of rankings.

Give it a shot, and let me know what you think.

You may have seen a page peel (or peel away) ad already: a web page that has a corner edge waving gently, with a short message displayed (“Click Me”, “What’s Inside?” etc)  tempting you to move your mouse over to see what the heck is up.

This “mouse-over” action “peels back” or “peels away” the page to reveal a completely new message below, as if on a different sheet of paper (if you haven’t seen a page peel ad yet, you can do so here! You’ll need to use the Explorer browser though… this ad doesn’t appear to work in the FireFox browser).

As you can see, it’s a pretty funky effect!

Normally, page peel or peel away ads are displayed on splash pages and single page sales sites as an alternative to the more commonly used “popover” message. Based on Flash software, they can promote discounts, free special reports, free trials – anything and everything commonly used to obtain a visitor’s e-mail address so you can follow up with them after they have left your web site. The retailers of the page peel scripts, not surprisingly, claim they outperform typical “popover” ads.

I was interested in using page peel ads on UltimateFatBurner.com, to see if I couldn’t boost the number of subscribers to my newsletter. I was also curious to see how the page peel ads really measured up against the more common popovers.

I was already using Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software to create a slick “slide in” popover on the index page of UltimateFatBurner.com. However, I have a large number of pages that rank well with the Search Engines and serve as entry pages to the site. I figured I could use the page peel software on these pages. I’d offer my newly released free e-book, “Dirty Rotten Tricks; Supplement Company Lies That Cost You Money” as an incentive to subscribe to the newsletter.

I decided on PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 as the software I’d use to create these ads, made my purchase, and got to work.

The first thing I needed to do was have some custom page peel ads made (the software comes with a ton of them, but none of them were relevant to what I was doing). Once that was done, I implemented the page peel ads on 10 high-performing gateway pages (you can view one here with the Explorer browser), and tracked the results.

And how were they? How did the page peel ads compare to the regular pop over ads?

Well, see for yourself. For the three month period of Jan-Mar ’09 Google’s Analytics software reports traffic as the following…

1) Index page (where the slide in popover was displayed): 128, 501 page impressions

2) 10 top performing gateway pages (where the page peel ads were implemented): 290,796 page impressions

At the same, time, Aweber reports 359 new subscribers to the account associated with the index page and the popover, and only 331 subscribers from the peel away ads displayed on ALL 10 page peel pages.

This works out to about a .2% conversion for the popover, and a .1% conversion for the page peel ads (this includes a generous 20% handicap for possible FireFox browsers). So the page peel ads obtained half the results of the popover ad, despite being displayed almost twice as many times.

Not too impressive, huh?

True. But consider this…

The value of the tyical popover ad is that it cannot be ignored. It has to be addressed. The visitor absolutely, positively, unequivocally must act when that window slides in. She will see your marketing message, and she will make a conscious decision on whether to close that window off, or enter her e-mail address to receive whatever offer you are promoting.

That is not the case with the peel away ads. You are free to ignore them if you like. I thought they might receive a higher conversion rate because they still aren’t that common. I figured the curiosity factor alone would contribute to that.

Looks like I figured wrong.

Additionally, if a visitor doesn’t move her mouse to the flickering page in the corner, she doesn’t get exposed to your marketing message – which appears below the page that “peels back.”

Does that mean peel away ads are of little value?

No, I don’t think so. Obviously, any single page site with a mandate of making an immediate sale is probably going to stick with popovers messages (of the “unblockable” sort, like those generated by Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software, which I do recommend). I would be surprised if these don’t outperform the peel away ads in almost every situation.

But what if you have a large content site like I do?

Although I recognize the value of popovers, I find them annoying and intrusive, especially if the webmaster opts to have them display on all pages, over and over (I set a cookie, so my visitors only see my popover once every 30 days). So I only display one popover, on the UltimateFatBurner.com index page. But many of my visitors arrive to top performing content pages, and a great many of them never see the index page. Page peel ads offer me a non-intrusive manner to entice them to become newsletter subscribers.

Is it incredibly effective? Hardly. But considering I don’t want to irritate the heck out of them, it’s a worthwhile one.

Bottom line?

I will continue to run page peel ads on top performing content pages, regardless of their miserable conversion rate.

Before I depart, I would be remiss to leave without making a few comments on the PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 software I used for this test. First the good…

Thumbs Up: Instructions and installation guide are well-written and easy to follow. I’m not incredible technically-minded, but it was a breeze to install and get working. In Explorer.

Thumbs down: I couldn’t get the peel away ads to display in the FireFox browser, so I sent in a support ticket about a week before Christmas ’08 (I know they work in FireFox, because I can view them with it on  the PeelAwayAds sales page.) I didn’t receive a response of any sort until about 6 weeks later, when a staff member sent me a note and asked if the issue had been resolved. I explained it had not, and would like it so. I’ve never heard from anyone again. On top of that, I immediately began to receive fairly aggressive marketing messages for products of dubious credibility and ethics (i.e., “scraping” software). I unsubscribed from the customer mailing list immediately.

All in all, my experience wasn’t stellar – but who knows, one experience is not necessarily indicative of everyone’s. Nonetheless, I would not recommend this product if you think you’re going to require some technical support.

After a quick couple of searches on Google, I found this much cheaper option for page peel ads, but can’t comment on the software personally, as I have no experience with the product.