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How I Build a Site Against All Odds
To build a site about Bahasa Malaysia was not a great idea. That was what all the research tools warned me in gist - the niche is too small to bring in money. Word Tracker, Google Adwords, Yahoo etc...they all told me the same thing. There are roughly 10 times more online users who are interested to learn Thai, 100 times the number of online users interested to learn German and 900 times the number of online users interested to learn Japanese. Despite the number of Malay speakers is more than the number of Thai, German and Japanese speakers combined. Anyways I am not here to lament the pathetic state of Bahasa Malaysia, you have had enough of embarrassing stories about it from the media. As a Malaysian who live in Kota Kinabalu all my life, I should have known better not to choose this theme. But my personal experience tells me there are many people who want and need to learn Bahasa Malaysia. Initially my intention is to digitize all my teaching materials while I concentrate learning from scratch how to build website. It was only in the second year of running bahasa-malaysia-simple-fun.com as I shift my focus from "Can I build a website?" to "How to build a profitable website?", the gravity of my financially unwise decision dawn on me. Why don't I ask for a refund as guaranteed by Site Build It? Remarkably though I build upon mistakes and mistakes due to my past ignorance of technical stuff, this site receives a nice amount of organic traffic and even provides me little net profit...to be continued. Wan~~
This is the only corner where Wan strays away from the topic of learning Bahasa Malaysia. Sometimes it's nice to chat a bit. LOL. I'd like to confess that this poor website has been sadly neglected for almost a month because I was struggling to make my first e-book. However, my visitors keep increasing and so is my side income. ( NO, not kaya yet ) Then I receive this most interesting newsletter from the technical people who sold me the tools to run this website. Even if you are not going to build a site, it's hilarious. Here's the excerpt. ( Yes, they send me very longgggggggggggg newsletter every month ) Wan~~ April 21 2008
Here's what got me thinking about all this.... Blogging has reached lemming status. Without even thinking,many small businesses equate blogging with having a Website. This is obviously wrong for small businesses with something to sell (ex., services, e-book sellers, etc.). But it's also the wrong choice for infopreneurs (ex., those who earn affiliate and AdSense income, without selling anything directly to customers). How and why has blogging reached "lemming epidemic" status? How do bloggers actually do FINANCIALLY, where it counts? Should YOU blog? When? How do blogs compare to Theme-Based Content Sites, performance-wise in the short-and-long terms? Where did the misleading promise of blogging come from? Why do folks buy into it, despite all the evidence of failure? Remember that "Where's the beef?" commercial. Well, the "beef" of blogging vs. building is all here... Don't miss "The Three Fatal Flaws Of Blogging." They are compelling warnings away from this method of site building(which is all blogging is... another way to build a site). The Flip Side Of The Coin Blogging is a good choice for some people. If you want to be a fast-paced, rapidly changing area and constantly stay on top of it, blogging is a great choice. But you better have the time to keep posting... and posting and posting... Because as soon as you stop so does your traffic and the money you've been making. Some bloggers are not "really" bloggers -- the site discusses that, too. Naturally-great writers who use blogging software to create Theme-Based Content Sites are much closer to SBIers in nature, spirit and intent. For example, we recently wrote about 5 Pillar Affiliate Steve Pavlina and how he made $20,000 in his first month as a SiteSell affiliate. He didn't do that by "blogging" a zillion "what's hot or new" in the world of self growth. First, he doesn't write constant little updates in the world of personal development. He creates superb, original, and complete articles. That's meat in a carnivore world, yummy veggies if you're a vegan. And you, the "consumer of those goodies," reward that type of material by exploring more deeply, by returning, by signing up for e-zines, and finally... By monetizing because you have been honestly and completely PREsold. Should the average person follow this model? Absolutely. It's called Content -Traffic-Presell-Monetize... But do it with SBI! and not blogging software. Why? Because we don't just throw you a sitebuilder and hosting. That's where that detailed comparison becomes important... For most people, as Steve says in his review, the clear process and complete set of tools makes all the difference. Think Of The Millions About To Start A Blog... Save Them A Year Of Failure, AND Earn Their Undying Gratitude AND Substantial 5 Pillar Affiliate Income I like to stir things up sometimes. When I see someone wasting their time I just want to grab them and say... SSSTTOOOPPP! And the simple fact is that blogging is just NOT right for the majority of people who want to start a real e-business. o You're missing all kinds of key tools. o It takes too much of your time, under pressure. o Your traffic will not last unless you keep blogging. o You won't make as much money (several reasons for that). o You'll still need to learn how to market your blog. o You won't be building a deep relationship with your visitors and audience. So here's the obvious question...
You know why? Because people like "fast and easy." Somehow, "fast and easy to nowhere" doesn't seem to matter. But it should, to smart and serious business people. And as you, our partner-in-sales knows so well by know... THOSE are OUR kind of customers. Blogging is also the "hot way." There are so many bloggers talking about blogging who are talking about even more blogging, you'd think think that this simply must be the way. So combine the herd mentality and the easy mentality. That's blogging. This site gives you what you need to dispel the noise that simply fails to make sense. Beyond sense (cents), it fails to make dollars. It's all to easy, with all this noise, to think blogging is cheap and quick and will make them easy money fast. Tell 'em it ain't so. Yes, a blog goes up fast (but after zero planning for the long term, from keyword research to monetization plans). Yes, blogs get indexed fast. That is the nature of blogs. We see the same with Blog It! in Site Build It!. But content sites build traffic momentum. Take a two-month vacation from your blog and see what happens. Time sensitive information is like a 3-day old newspaper. Good only for wrapping fish. How does Google know that? Because it knows that visitors don't visit the old posts...
Compare that to your SBI! site. Huge difference. Build your site on a foundation of stone, not sand. Sooner or later there's gonna be a "shake out" and your business may come tumbling down. Please tell them! And more importantly, don't just tell those with blogs already. They may have to learn the hard way. Be sure to tell those who are just about to start their first blog, or their next one. I guarantee you that very, very few are making money, nor will they make any, with blogs. The site discusses that, too. And we're not talking short-term success like a blog may occasionally see in early days.... "SBI! builds long-term, enduring businesses like no Blog can!" So why the big buzz about Blogs?
The fact that major blogging software is changing to copy the 3-TIER structure ofSBI!, one we have used for years, speaksvolumes. But now they just become anothersitebuilder without all the tools and processto actually succeed.
Blogging is indeed easy. So is Yahoo!'s sitebuilder. So are a ton of WYSIWYG editors. But reinforce this message... "Easy to nowhere" is still a waste of time and energy. SBI!'s BlockBuilder? It TRAINS you. You actually build an effective page, for both spider and human. You can graduate to ANY sitebuilder, not be restricted to any particular one after that, and it all works with SBI! seamlessly. It seems pretty obvious which way leads to success when you stop to think about it, doesn't it? :-) ---------Pressure--------- With SBI!, go at your own pace. My daughter averages an hour or two per week, has the #1 site about Anguilla, does not know the news on the island (nor does she care), but her passionate content and great adventures win PREsold fans. What would someone with WordPress and regular hosting do with Anguilla? Nothing close to what works, that's for sure. And worse... The pressure's on. "Feed the blog or die." Keep those new posts coming. New ideas, new information, every week, maybe every day. No breaks. No time to take a month off. What happens if you leave an SBI! site for a month? Bob mentioned in his forum post... "I left one of my Site Build It! sites and basically ignored it while I was working on other things and, lo and behold, suddenly one day I realized my traffic had jumped and my AdSense was growing on that site."
Blogging is one particular way of building a Web site. It is time-sensitive and depends on extensive interlinking that results in some magical place called "The Blogosphere." But that kind of uni-dimensional approach leaves them open to Search Engine changes. Just like SEOers, bloggers recently wailed when their PR dropped because Google devalued a blog link. SBI! sites are far more diversified in every way... content, monetization, linking, etc. As a result, SBI! grows larger, stronger, stabler sites. That way, when the wind blows, your site stays up, stronger and more popular than ever since the others have blown away. How To Use This Powerful BlogBuster There are an infinite number of ways (I counted them all!) to use this powerful new site. Here's a great one by Mo from secsportsfan.com... "This is great. Will be nice to have this blog-vs- website-page to refer people to. In my sports niche, most sites are blogs. Lately, some of those folks have shared with me their frustrations with their low traffic. Great to have one place to send them that explains it well."
So do Search Engine rankings. Not many bloggers can show any kind of significant Search Engine results. And then there are all the key features like Brainstorm It!and Content 2.0 to point out, including this "close-the-deal comparison chart..."
"It invites you to build fleeting, newslike content, instead of evergreen material that is still good years from now." And as Amy pointed out in that same thread... "An SBI! site is like a piece of real estate, not a firecracker that only a few (if any) will hear." The point is... "Cheap and quick to nowhere" is not a business model. Any successful business requires persistence, learning the necessary skills, and implementing your plan over the long haul. This is what the SBI! process offers without needing tech skills or constant attention. And the result is a long term business that WILL succeed. Even after Hurricane Google. Here's some other comments from the thread...
Doug said... "My take is that if monetization is your goal, then you had better be in the top 1% of bloggers in a lucrative niche or you'll barely cover your costs."
Ilse said...
. And about that N.Y. Times article..
A Reminder To Use The Chart...
It puts WordPress and SBI! head-to-head, feature-for-feature and let's someone compare. It shows that there's just so much that's missing from WordPress. Once someone sees the difference, the choice becomes a no-brainer. Especially when you compare what you get for the price.
And as Amy points out...
...Until then, keep people out of the whirlpool that can only suck them down and out of what starts with such high hopes.
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