How to Build a Great Website!

This site keeps evolving in amazing and unexpected ways. I wrote an article about the Belichick "Spygate" scandal a few months ago. It's now (incredibly) one of (if not the) top destination on the web for that topic. Tons of traffic to that page. Just go google and type in any search terms involving the Patriots/Belichick spygate scandal and you'll find it. And when you go the article, you'll be amazed at the tremendous response to it. And, just maybe, that article will have an impact on how the scandal is resolved. Certainly, it has given many fans a voice they would not otherwise have had.

Site Build It (SBI) made this all possible for me to do. Thanks SBI. Before building this site, I tried a blog (actually a couple; and another website; and a Yahoo Store) that didn't work very well. Luckily I found SBI before I'd wasted too much time. And, it's worked out great. If you are thinking about starting a blog, rather than a web site, please click the "Blog or Build" graphic below to read about why you probably shouldn't.

Use the contact form at the bottom of this page to ask me any questions at all. Hope to hear from you soon.

4 Jan 08 Update:

Happy New Year!! I've been getting questions asking how many people it takes to run this site. The answer is 1. Me. That's it. I know I talk about "us" and "we" a lot on the site. And, it's true that I do get lots of help from visitors who submit content and I also pay people to do various things. But, I run it all myself. And, I'm building two other sites as well. And, I work full-time in addition and have a family and all the other usual stuff.

I don't say any of that to brag at all. It's not about that. I do say it to let you know that -- you can do it too. You can build a website about a topic (doesn't have to be sports related) you love and make good money off it. It's not hard to do. But, it does take time and work.

Anyway, feel free to Contact Me if you have any questions.

12/1

Another update. Traffic and income continues to grow, although it has decelerated -- to about 30% a month the past couple months. Not bad at all. In fact, pretty darn exciting!

12 September 07 Update:

Didn't plan another update now. But, just have to report that just since the last update (3 weeks ago), this website has more than doubled (again) both its traffic and income. Actually, just checked todays stats -- it's more like tripled.... This is an amazing thing to experience!

25 August 07 Update

This will be short -- I promise. But, I just wanted you to know that --- it's working! Really. Over the past month, traffic to this site has about doubled. Income has more than doubled.

To me, the internet is sort of like real estate. Except it is free! Now, of course, that means a simple web page, without more, is also worthless. But, the great thing is that you can "work" your free "internet land" and make it valuable.

You do that by building web pages that people visit. If people are reading your website, it has value to advertisers.

It becomes clearer and clearer each day to me that the income you make from a web site is directly related to how much traffic you have.

Actually, that's pretty obvious.

What's not so obvious is that increasing your traffic is mostly a matter of increasing the content on your site and the links to your site. Both of those factors (content and links) you largely control.

The internet is a wonderful thing because it will reward you for hard work. Pages that I wrote months ago are just now showing up at the top of the search engine rankings (i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc). That has happened because of other related content I have added as well as links I've obtained -- from readers and other websites.

And, I've only been at this for 10 months. Imagining what will happen and what is possible over several years is truly exciting.

Of course, you also need to work smart. You don't want to waste time creating information that is not in demand or obtaining links that are largely not relevant to your site.

But, Site Build It (SBI) provides all the tools you need to work smart. As long as you are willing to work hard and stick with it -- eventually you will succeed. There's just no doubt about it. I'm living proof.

It is a simple process. (Simple, not easy.) If you have a dream to make money through a website that you love -- you owe it to yourself to check out SBI. SBI is the real deal.

END OF UPDATE, now back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Hi. This used to be a very, very long page. In fact, it was way too long.

So, I pulled most of it off and saved it to a word document on my hard drive -- (all 7,000 words).

If you have an interest in reading the entire story about how I found Site Build It and started this website; by all means, please use the contact form below; tell me you want the rest of the story and I'll be happy to e-mail it to you.

Basically, I'm building this website, as part of my five year plan to retire from my day job, and do this full time. And, it actually seems to be working. Amazing. Truly.

Anyway, you can find out all about Site Build It (SBI) by clicking on the video link below. Or any of the links below that.

It is great company. Ken Evoy is an amazing person. He truly cares about whether his clients succeed and about what's best for them (us). Everything else flows from that. But, you will need to find that out for yourself.

I recently joined with a partner to buy another website. It is not an SBI site so it is hosted by another web host company. It has been eye-opening as I had no idea how much value I was really getting from SBI.

With the host for this other site, we pay more than twice what I pay SBI and we only get hosting from them. And, if there are problems, they don't fix them for you. They say they only provide the hosting hardware. If it doesn't work with your software, that's you're problem. So, we have to pay a programmer separately to fix issues when they arise.

All of that is covered with an SBI site as part of the $299 annual fee. Of course, you hardly ever have technical problems with an SBI site anyway. Their servers seem faster than anyone else's. But, if you do have a problem, they have fantastic support that responds quickly and helps with your problem. Usually they solve it for you. If not, they tell you what you need to do to solve it. All included.

Then there is the amazing SBI Forums where SBI website owners gather "to help and be helped." That forum is probably the most important part of my education. It's truly an amazing package.

Probably the best thing you can do is contact me for a password that will gain you access to the SBI forums. That's where you can read as many messages as you want from real SBI website owners, discussing real issues and learning (mostly from each other) how to resolve them. Lots of them. That's what it's all about. Finding ways to work through issues and problems and then grow.

You will learn the whole truth about building websites there.

It takes

hard work and

dedication

Just like any real business does.

In fact, I think building a profitable website takes more commitment than most businesses because the rewards take a long time to materialize. You start very slow. Most people quit. But, if you keep at it, as your site begins to gain traction, everything snowballs. And, then the rewards are greater than those of most, even successful, businesses.

At least that's the idea.

The "snowball" effect just makes sense. It's a big difference between being found on "Google" page 10, or even page 2, and being found on page one. And once you get there, you get more traffic and more good things happen.

The great thing is that pretty much anyone can do it. You don't have to quit your day job to do it. But, you do have to want it bad enough to stick with it. You have to want it more than you want to watch TV.

Will it work for me? I don't know. But, I think it will. It's beginning already.

Type "SEC Sports" into Google and see what you find. I still find that exciting. Try the same thing for most any SEC sport and you'll find this site on page one. [With the notable exception of "SEC Football" which I'm hard at work on....]

And there are many, many more. How bout "sec vs big ten"? That's a big search term, especially come bowl season. And there are literally thousands of other search terms people find me for every month.

What an amazing thing it will be if this really does work in a big way? The ability to live anywhere, and make a living, writing about things I love.

If you are gonna dream, why not dream big?

Here's some more great links:

Quick Information about Site Build It

Overview of SBI

Video's by SBI Owners

Something Special about SBI

Turn Your Passion Into Cash

Compare Your Options

Finally, if you have questions, (as surely you do), please use the form below to contact me.

Or, you can ask questions directly of SBI by clicking on SBI Questions.