For the longest time, I hesitated creating my own website because I had no idea where to start. It had taken me 3 years before I finally took action and looking back, that’s 3 years of income I’ve thrown away.
I was recently introduced to Site Build It (SBI) by a friend and who uses it to build his niche websites. SBI is a step-by-step program that helps new marketers create and grow their websites.
If only I was told about this 3 years ago I thought to myself!
They claim to have a 6-step system to help you create your first website:
With so many so called ‘systems’ out there, I’m always cynical at tools like SBI and whether they really do what they say. The product had a 90-day refund guarantee so I figure I had nothing to lose and decided to try it out.
Step 1 – Introduction and Prepare
The first step was pretty easy. It was a simple induction stating what I’d be learning in the days to come. It lay outs all the 6-steps in video and text format.
The guide is split up over 10 days and on the 10th day, your website is complete and ready to earn money. In reality, you can do everything in a few days and have your site up and running. In a nutshell, you can go as fast or as slow as you like.
Note: all steps are accompanied with a video and tutorial guide making it impossible to get confused or lost along the way. I never referred to the guide as the on-screen instructors were clear enough, but if you’re not so savvy, there are plenty of support guides and active forums to answer your questions.
Step 2- Research
The second step of SBI is to research your niche.
Using their Brainstormer, Master Keyword List and Niche Choose It! SBI states that finding keywords and niches has never been easier.
Oh really?
Using Niche Choose It!
One of the core problems we all have starting our first website idea is picking the right niche. SBI’s Nice Choose It! aims to solve that problem by asking you questions and ranking your each niche based on your answers.
You start by choosing 2 or more niches you’re interested in, answer 5 questions and it scores all your niches out of 100:
Niche Choose It! aims to select the most appropriate niche based on factors such as the amount of free time you have to work on a website and how passionate you’re about it.
It’s by no means a foolproof method to picking the perfect niche, but does help beginners make their decision and get started.
Brainstormer
The Brainstormer tool helps you find keywords using Vertical and Lateral searchers:
Vertical – returns keywords that contain the seed keyword. For example, if your seed keyword was umbrella, all results will contain the world umbrella.
Lateral – returns keywords that relate to the seed keyword. For example, if your seed keyword was umbrella, it would return keywords like waterproof or windproof.
Seed Generator brainstorming – provides you with a list of potential keywords to that relate to similar niches (if you want to create more websites in similar niches).
If you already have niche ideas, this is where you investigate the profitability and demand of each niche to find the right one.
Step 3 – Structure
Whereas the second step is all about finding your niche, step 3 focuses on finding competitive keywords that are searched often and can make your website money. This is done using the Barnstormer and Master Keyword List tool.
For the sake of this article, I’ve decided to pick the Umbrella niche and searched for vertical keywords:
After about 2 minutes of brainstorming, SBI revealed the following keywords and metrics:
I was actually quite impressed with the results. I personally use the Google Keyword Tool Planner to search for keywords but beyond giving you the amount of searches per month, it doesn’t provide any great value.
SBI Master Keyword List on the other hand showed me the potential profitability of hundreds of keywords, and even provided links to Google and Bing to reveal which websites were ranking for each keyword.
This was very useful as for each keyword I planned on using, I now had example articles that I could use as a foundation for my own articles. (This is ideal if you struggle to write content as you can follow the structure of current #1 ranking articles).
It returned 792 keywords, and by pressing the Solid Potential tab , SBI lists the most high-value keywords that I could monetize in order.
You can select keywords individually and export them to an excel file which saves you repeatedly using the Brainstromer tool. I recommended this as the Brainstromer takes a minute or two to compile its list each time.
I ended up with 27 keywords that had potential for my new website, which meant 27 pages of content backed with example articles taken from Bing and Google.
I was very impressed with the Master Keyword List and something I would certainly buy as a standalone product.
Step 4 – Choosing your domain
After picking your niche, finding your keywords and coming up with a content structure, next up is registering a domain.
Selecting your domain name is pretty simple. You pick a name… and that’s it!
SBI does all the back end work of registering and hosting, they’ll send you an email with clear instructions to follow to claim your domain.
SBI also provide tons of resources to help your pick the right name to brand your domain. Once you’ve decided on a name, you select your domain name directly through SBI for FREE and within 24 hours your domain goes live.
You will receive an email immediately after choosing your domain name. A big issue marketers have is not knowing how to buy and link domains to their hosting accounts. If you’ve ever watched YouTube videos you know how hard this can be.
SBI does everything for you – and you don’t even have to pay for the domain!
Note: each account is allowed 1 free domain name.
Step 5 – Build it
The final and most interesting part of developing your first ever site is building it. If you’ve never used WordPress before, it takes a few months of constant use to get your website exactly how you want it.
Site Build It uses a drag and drop editor and allows you to easily change font, words, add and remove menus at the click of a button:
I read other reviews for SBI and most people didn’t give their website builder much respect, so I wasn’t expecting too much. A couple of times my web browser crashed and the builder felt clunky at times, but overall it was pretty easy to use and required no technical knowledge on my end.
I later learned that SBI had completely revamped their website builder and have made it much more responsive and easy to use. I don’t think it’s as good as WordPress, but for beginners SBI would be much easier to use as everything is drag and drop.
You’re walked through the process of building your site. First you select your website theme, then your edit your homepage and slowly move to first tier content and so on.
They recently updated the amount of themes they have too, with quite a few of them now having responsiveness for mobile devices.
Pro-tip: always use a responsive theme as at least half of your traffic will be using a mobile device.
Building your website on SBI is foolproof. Each step must be completed before you can move to the next section, ensuring everything is completed correctly. In the image below, I created my site design but didn’t complete the homepage, SBI will not allow me to build the second page until the previous task is complete:
Each page you create, you’re given a number of boxes to fill in, allowing you to create a meta description, allocate a keyword, page title and further advanced options to format each page:
Ideal if you have very little experience with SEO optimization or creating websites in general.
Once you’ve completed the build process, that’s it, your website is live and ready to make you money.
Should you get Site Build It?
It really depends on where you’re as an online marketer. Site Build It is aimed at newbie marketers who have limited experience in selecting niches, finding keywords, creating content plans, registering domains and building websites.
I consider myself an advanced online marketer and found certain aspects of SBI a little elementary, but hey, I’ve been living and breathing online marketing for a little over 3 years. If I were exposed to this software 3 years ago, I know I would have my introduction to online marketing a lot faster.
The Brainstromer and Master Keyword List tools are fantastic. In all my years of creating websites, I’ve never seen a simpler way to conduct keyword research and create content plans. It literally took me 15 minutes!
They offer a yearly plan for $300 and monthly packages for $17, which I think is a real great investment for beginners and marketers who want to get started. Each step of the build processes comes with video tutorial and lots action guides that walk you through every step:
If you’ve been telling yourself you want to make money online but haven’t made a penny or even taken action yet, I advise giving Site Build It a try. You’ll be glad you did.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Videos and written guides outlining each step
- Amazing keyword tools
- Registers domain and hosting for you
- Foolproof guide to help you set up your website within 10 days
Cons:
- A little basic for advanced marketers
- Website builder crashed a few times
- Takes 24 hours to register a domain