Ken Evoy, Thank You..How I Made A Website About Fine China......and why you need a website, too
This page is a continuation of my My Story page, and also where I must thank Ken Evoy the brains behind my website. Well, I never thought that page would have such an impact. I get more feedback about the "My Story" page than about all other parts of this website put together! Many people write to thank me for the inspiration they get from it. What can I say? Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know. It means a lot to me that I have been able to give someone the courage to finally do something they've been dreaming of for a long time :-), just as I did with help from Ken Evoy. Good on you and all the best! I also receive many emails asking me more questions about this website and about SBI. Obviously there is a lot of curiosity about the system, and obviously I didn't do a good enough job when I told you about it, because the questions are always the same. It's been over a year since I last updated the page about SBI, the web tools of Ken Evoy, so I thought I would let you know how things have been going since. I also want to answer the questions that I am asked again and again, in the hope that I will cut down on writing long emails in the future :-). First up some hard numbersA few people weren't shy and asked straight out: "How much are you making and how long did it take?" It is Feb 2010 as I write this, and I have been with SBI for 3 years and 1 month. I now own three SBI websites: the Figurines-Sculpture.com (my first site - all about the world of fine china), the The Figurine Collective, and The Ballet Dancer's Guide. The last one is new and for my daughter - I haven't done too much with it yet. The main site is well established. The Figurine Collective is much smaller, of course, as it is younger, and is there primarily to promote my new figurines. I started it last year year and haven't spent as much time on it. I get up to 2200 visitors a day on the main site, and 50 visitors a day on the Figurine Collective site. My income from Google Adsense (those "Ads by Goooogle") adds up to about $800 USD a month and I also have income from several other sources. There are other affiliates like ebay, advertisers, and I make money from book and DVD sales. I don't sell those myself. I just tell people where they can buy them, and if someone likes the product and buys it I get a small commission. The sculpting tools are my own 'physical' product which I have made, store and despatch. I didn't understand how any of the above worked until I stumbled across the SBI tools of Ken Evoy. The Figurine Collective is very early days, and I am not in a position to publish the figures because there are other people involved. However, what I can reveal is the turnover from sales of figurines is very pleasing being many times more than the Adsense turnover per month. Of course, being a physical product, is obviously far less profitable than the Adsense turnover which is purely extra money and 'passive' income (meaning no more work involved once it is set up). Particularly pleasing about the figurines sales are the sales are all generated from online traffic (getting listed in the top ten of Google for the appropriate term) with no paid advertising at all at the moment, either online or offline. This science of 'winning keywords' through having great 'content' that Google loves, is the key to the skill of Ken Evoy, and what all his tools are geared towards. I had a website before Ken Evoy, but it never got found. Remember that 1960's TV series "Lost in Space"? My original site was "Lost in Cyber Space". This new site has been planned from the very inception to be "Found In Cyber Space". I tried a few other internet marketing so called 'Guru's' before Ken Evoy, but they turned out to be rubbish. Luckily for me I found Ken Evoy's SBI tools which don't just build a website (which is the easy bit!), they build a business. Ken teaches the philosophy of giving his customers a "double wow" and asks you to do the same to yours. The thing is I have lots more profit centers to introduce on the website, it is just a question of time in that my 'day job' is still making figurines. To give you an example, my ebay affiliate turnover is about $170 USD per month. Other SBI webmasters with as much traffic as me would report earning 5 times that amount from ebay. The thing is, I have only a few in-context text links to ebay on my pages and many of the other SBIers would have whole pages dedicated to showing merchandise. The figures I quote are in US Dollars, but that doesn't mean to say I only sell to the US. My traffic is split evenly between the US and UK, with about 40 other countries finding my website also. Remember too, my site has grown in terms of visitors by over 100% in the past year and will continue to do so without me having to do very much. That's the amazing effect of setting up your website in the correct way which Ken Evoy describes as the 'Snowball Effect'. If I could spend all my time on just the website, the profit and money figures would be growing faster. As Ken Evoy says, a website is something that requires a lot of work up front, but which pays off big time later. I have told my friends about Ken Evoy and SBI, and they are using the tools as well. For instance, one is building a martial arts website, and one has launched a local online wedding florists. The local wedding florist business is interesting because the business only needs 3 sales per month. The first thing people do is google for wedding flowers in their area. There are a couple of competitors, but sadly for the opposition, none of them have Ken Evoy's tools and knowledge and they are 'easy prey' for an SBIer with BAM! (brains and motivation!). Choosing to build a website meant I spent most of my time doing the initial work that doesn't immediately translate into money. The most important point to take away here is that my income is steadily growing, day after day after day, whether I work on the websites or not. It grows faster when I do a lot of work, but it still grows while I go away on long holidays. I earn money while I travel, I earn money while I'm sculpting, I earn money while I sleep. It's pretty hard to beat. What's also hard to beat is the feeling that you own your life and your time. There is no way I could ever go back to working for others ever - thank to Ken Evoy and his helpful tools. Do not be intimidated by the words Webmaster or "e-business" or website publisher...
It's all up to you, under your control. Is this really as easy as it sounds?That is probably the most common question. The answer is, yes and no. It depends how you define easy. It certainly isn't a matter of pressing a few buttons and the money starts rolling in. If that's what you meant when you said easy then the answer is no. The one point I stress in every email, whether people asked this question or not, is this: it takes time, hard work and commitment to build a successful website. Do not underestimate the amount of time, the amount of hard work, and the amount of commitment involved! But that's all it takes. It does not take exceptional writing skills, it does not take technical knowledge, it does not require that you know anything about computers or websites. Nothing. You will initially have to learn a lot, but that learning is part of SBI. You will be guided through the whole process. Anybody with a brain who's willing to learn and work can do this, no matter what their background. So if that's what you wondered, then the answer is yes. It really is that easy. You can do it. How much time do you spend working on your site?I'll focus on my first main site here (Figurine-Sculpture.com) or it'll get too complicated. When I started I still had a very busy sculpting schedule, so I could only work parts of the day and weekends. I usually wrote a page or two per week for the first 6 months. Then the UK china industry collapsed and I had to act fast to start a new company (The Figurine Collective Ltd) This prompted the start of the second site - as an aid to the selling and promotion of my new figurines. For the next six months I spent on average 20 hours a week on both sites. I only work 5 days a week as the weekends are family time. I am a mono-tasker, so I am either on sculpting project or a website project. Over the next few months I plan to do a lot less work on the site, maybe five to ten hours a week, if that, and much more sculpting product development. But because of the work I did in the period leading up to this, I will still see the same growth in income and visitor traffic. With the SBI tools, I have done some keyword research on a related niche which is potentially very good (much demand, but not much quality supply) I would love to work into a new website. That is firmly on my new wishlist. SBI sounds good but I have no idea what I could make a website about.That is absolutely not a problem. Most people who already have an idea change their mind once they start with the SBI tools of Ken Evoy. I had already attempted a website without Ken Evoy. It was murderously hard and got no traffic. It is still there in cyber-space and still gets no traffic. SBI came up with the keywords around which to base my sites, telling me the exact terms people google and want answers for. The first thing that Ken Evoy teaches you is how to select profitable keywords to write about and profitable topics to base a website around. There are no general rules. Everybody is different so this is an individual decision. SBI has brainstorming tools. You use them to generate ideas and to analyze them. You'll see if there is enough interest in a topic, how much competition there is, and if there is money to be made. For example, I wanted mainly to do information pages on 'How To Sculpt'. However, keyword analysis tools showed me demand was low (I did the pages anyway). However, demand for information on pottery marks was very high and potentially profitable, so I developed this section, where the links to ebay earn me nice passive regular income. To choose a topic for a website is the most important step in the whole process, so you shouldn't do it without SBI anyway. Don't know what to make your site about? Good! It says it costs $299 for the first year. What are the costs after that? Are there any financial catches?No catches :-). $299 is the yearly subscription fee. It works out $25 a month (no more than plain old website hosting without the extras). Ken Evoy just introduced a monthly subscription at $29.99 too. And there is of course their rock solid money back guarantee. Don't like it? Just give it back. You have no worries about this with Ken Evoy, because he is simply the most honest and straightforward person I have ever come across in all my business dealings. He actively practices the prnciples of 'good karma' and has even written a book called the 'Tao of SBI'. That fits with my thoughts entirely - "pay it forward" There are no catches whatsoever. SBI includes everything you need. There are no hidden costs. You can't go wrong by trying it out. The way I see it you have everything to win and nothing to lose. My suggestion: if you are serious about building a sizable income stream for yourself, get the yearly subscription. It works out cheaper, and if you don't like it you can easily get all your money back. I see no point in getting the monthly option, but apparently it is very popular. UpdateI just had two emails in a row expressing the same concern: "I can't write." I thought the same thing when I started. But as I already mentioned above, SBI teaches you everything you need to know to build a successful website, including how to write compelling content. Ken Evoy wrote a fabulous book called Make Your Content Pre-Sell. It teaches how to write for the web. The book has always been part of SBI, available for free for SBIers, but outsiders had to buy it. But since some time in 2006 it is totally free for non SBIers, too. If someone tells me they worry about their writing I send them this link: you can download your free copy here.  I think that's it, those are the questions that I've been asked a million times. If I forgot something I'm sure you'll ask and then I'll add it here. Otherwise, if you click the image of the lady above, SBI (Sitesell) have a form and/or a phone number where you can ask them any question you want directly. I wish you much happiness and success, and I'll leave you with this fellow: Ken Evoy, the founder of SiteSell and the creator of SBI. Here are some other peoples' experiences with SBI (SiteSell)"My 7 year old son (who has a strong entrepreneurial streak) is showing a keen interest in starting a site of his own at some point. What an incredible thing it will be to show my son how to build an online business!"~ Michelle Schill style-hair-magazine.com http://case-studies.sitesell.com/peterholland.html#WAHM "And now that SBI! is compatible with HTML editors, some of the more recently added pages of my site are uploaded HTML (for example, I wanted the pages in my creative marketplace, www.ArtellaWordsAndArt.com/shoppes.html, to have their own distinctive look)." "I feel very blessed for finding SBI! a few years ago. I took the slow-and-steady tortoise path by building the sites "block by block" the SBI! way. Today, I can tell you that one of the saddest and trying situations of my life was actually easier to handle because I did not have to worry about losing my job and income." "The web site has allowed me to seed the market, prove the concept and create incredible buzz among the public who now go into stores demanding the product. This is how I was able to level the playing field and run around the big corporations to get my product to market." "The site has made our working life flexible, enjoyable and profitable. We've changed our lives, thanks to SBI! sure it's hard work, but it's worth it to have the quality of life we want, living in sunny Tuscany." "SBI! will teach you things to help you build your business. Yes, you will learn to use technical, web-oriented, site building tools, but the most interesting things that SBI! will teach you are more complex than these tools. SBI! will make you aware of the power you have inside yourself to create something that really works because YOU are the "added value" to the process." "Building a web site with Site Build It! is ridiculously easy. Site Build It! takes care everything and lets you focus on great content to make your site sell. Trust me, writing good content is a big enough job without all the added hassles of worrying about technical issues on the Internet." "Site Build It! did not build my site... it did not build my business. I did. But it did help me to work smart. I picked a good theme, thanks to Site Build It!." "I dug into the SBI! Action Guide that came as part of the SBI! purchase. It was written in a very down to earth manner that even I could understand. It was prepared in a step by step manner which made it very easy to follow. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't "easy" - to the contrary - this was going to take some work, but the good news is I understood it all and each step was do-able." TRY IT! With no obligation to keep it. Instant refund with no questions asked. A poem about Ken Evoy:- Ken Evoy is karma kind Thanks Ken Evoy |