Site Build It! May Not Be A Scam, But It IS A Waste Of Money
One surefire way to not make any money online is to spend your earnings before they even make it into your bank account. This has been my number one fear in trying out various internet marketing products, even products that have been endorsed by people that I find very respectable. So when I heard that SBI (Site Built It) offers noobs like myself the opportunity to create a website for the small, yearly fee of $300 I have to admit that I was a little shocked. $300 can buy a lot of things for those just starting out trying to make money online.
For those interested in putting a little time and elbow grease into it, there is nothing that you should pay for as a beginner. You can get free domain names from Blogger, free hosting from Google (because they host Blogger) and free monetization methods from Adsense, Amazon, Commission Junction, etc. You may have to jump through some more hoops to get the rankings that you want and your site approved for the above mentioned monetization methods, but you can still get by doing everything for free in terms of your domain names and hosting. Free equals good.
When it comes to the tools that you have access to to make your site optimized for the right keywords or to analyze how your competition is doing things in the SERPs the tools that you need to use do require some amount of work but they are effective. Again, this is completely free to any person, irregardless of the amount of money that you want to throw around in trying to make money online.
Heck, you can even get tons and tons of information about how to make money from a veritable plethora, a virtual cornucopia of sources. Just check out this list of all the people offering quality information for free:
- Griz’s Make Money Online blog - a great resource for using free blogs (like Blogger) to earn a decent chunk of change online.
- Vic’s Make Money Blogging - this site is relatively dead, but its archives are a treasure trove of useful information about running an online business
- Court’s and Mark’s site about making money with keywords - these guys really help beginners understand how to pick and choose keywords that will get them ranked and earning some money. They teach a system that works.
- Frank writes about how to earn cash online - he offer free money making templates and ideas about how to generate that little bit of extra cash that you need
- Justin gives some solid information on SEO more than he talks about making money online, but good SEO means that you are going to make money online unless you choose some gawd awful niche like “coloring activities for blind aliens from Mars” - you don’t want to rank for a term like that because there isn’t much money in it (see it here!)
These are all sites that I have subscribed to and have found the information particularly good for beginners. There are some more sites that I find particularly useful, but I will build a more comprehensive list later. For now, just check out these sites and the sites that they link to.
So when it comes down to it, you can get an online presences, do keyword research, and learn about how to use these tools all for free. When you compare that to a $300 per year price tag you will see that going with SBI! is infinitely more expensive. Infinitely more expensive!
$300 In Hosting And Domain Names
But what if you want to do want to buy your own domain names and host your own sites (because you love Wordpress or you want to get into purchasing aged domains), how much will $300 get you? The answer is a lot more than one site and some internet marketing and SEO tools.
Hosting can run you under $5 per month, bringing the yearly total up to $60. This $60 yearly expense will allow you to host an unlimited number of domain names. The is a lot of domain names. That will leave you around $240 to spend on domain names or SEO tools. If you just go the make money online for free route and not spend any money on tools then you will be able to purchase 28 domain names for 1 year.
For the price of 1 SBI site, you could build 28 sites with the same exact amount of money. That is freakin’ insane if you ask me. Do you have any idea how many make money online experiments I could undertake with an extra $300?
Please, if you are a noob (like me!) and want to make some money online I recommend that you cut your teeth with a free blog on Blogger and learn through the school of hard knocks before you invest any cash. Remember, you can’t loose what you don’t spend!
Is Site Build It A Scam?
Websters defines a scam as “a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.” Under this definition I don’t think that Site Build It! qualifies. Just because I have my opinion doesn’t mean that others might also think that this service is pretty scammy in nature.
Here are some more people’s ideas on whether or not Site Built it is a scam:
- Site Build It Scam? by Jeremy
- How Not to Make Money with Site Build It - by Terry Didcott
- Dr Ken Evoy SiteSell.com Scam? - by April
- Site Build It Scam Controversy - by Archie
- Site Build It Scam Review - by Ad Tracker.
- Site Build It Scam Trolls - by Fiar
- Site Build It Action Guide - by Andy
- The Soap Opera of SBI Scam Review - by Simonne
- Fake Scam Product Reviews - by Tracey Edwards
- Make Money Online for Free - Not with Site Build It - by
- Site Build It is a Waste of Money - by Splork
- Site Build It Review for Beginners - by Medic
- Site Build It Scam? - by Wayne
- How to Avoid Site Build It Scam - by Jeff Lopes
- Is Site Build It a Scam? by Christy
- Site Build it Review or SBI Review or Whatever by Vic
- What Constitutes a Scam? - by Bruce
- How to Earn Cash Online with Site Build it - by Frank Carr
- Site Build It: The Scam - by Nick
- Can I Make Fast Money with SBI? - by Matt
- The Blog War - by Costa
- Site Build It Review - Positive or Negative? - by Neena
- Is Site Build It a Scam? - SBI Review - by Zania
- Site Build It is Unlikely to Make you Much Money - by Lorecee
- Site Build It Vs Steve Pavlina: Which is the Scarier Cult - by Personal Development for Dummies
- Lissie’s Site Build It Scam Review - by Cliff Edge Consulting
- Site Build It Scam - by Scooter
- Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Janetra Antigua Web Solutions
- Site Build It Scam Review - By Adam
- Site Build It Websites without the $300 - by Hijinks
- Ken Evoy Defends Site Build It - by Dennis Jr.
- Review of Site Build It - The Bashing - By Nick
- SBI - The Evoy Empire - by Vic W
- Is SBI Site Build It a Scam? - by Derrick
- The Great Site Build It Scam - by Max Wolfe
- Site Build It - Is Site Build It a Scam? - by Lin Burress
- Site Build It Scam - The SBI Cult VS Lis - by Xel
- Fake Site Build It Affiliate Reviews - by Carla
- When ‘Site Build It’ Zombies Attack - by RT Cunningham
- WTF Is it with Site Flipping - by Bill The Blog Entrepreneur
- Site Build It Review: Is SBI a Scam - by Ditto
- Don’t Buy Site Build It! - by Niche Writer
- Site Build It Scam: No Need for SEO Web Design by Norman Sheppard Web Design
- Site Build It is Not Worth It - by Damien
- SEO for Small Business - Buyer Beware - by Larry G
This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the Site Built it reviews out there (it was borrowed from Site Build It - Don’t Buy It by Griz). It isn’t even an original list - but if you are considering getting into it then you should definitely read some of these thoughts and opinions on the topic.
SBI Is Not A Scam
Noobs (that is internet lingo for “those just starting out, a beginner”) should steer clear of SBI. It isn’t worth the money and you will probably be better served by seeing if you can make it in this business by doing if with free tools first. 99% of internet marketing and SEO is hard work - so if you are willing to put in the effort you are going to be successful whether or not you have some hand holding in the beginning. Sure, I would have loved to have someone come alongside and tell me how to do everything perfectly from day one. I would be making a lot more money today than I am right now.
But I think the development of my character has been worth a lot of money. I have learned to work hard and to find information for myself. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I have the tools that I need to get the job done. I certainly wouldn’t have had the same experience if I wasted my money on Site Build It!
6 Comments
Why do you say SBI is a waste of money? I pay my $300 a year to SBI. I built my site CoffeeDetective.com on SBI. My income from that one site averages over $4,000 a month. That’s over $48,000 a year. The math works for me. ; )
If you actually use it and keep working with it, SBI is very far from being a waste of money.
Best wishes,
Nick
[Reply]
Steward Reply:
April 11th, 2009 at 6:20 am
Hi Nick,
Thanks for your comment. I am glad that your site currently makes you over $4,000 a month. That is really cool.
I think that the point of my article is that you could have 28 websites making $4,00 a month if you used your own hosting in your quest to make money online. I never said that you could not make money online with SBI, I was just commenting on how $300 a year does not seem like a good deal when you can be using free tools to do exactly the same thing.
From a business perspective, the overhead seems a little hight to me and that is why I think that when trying to make money online that SBI is a waste of money.
Steward
[Reply]
Molly Reply:
July 18th, 2009 at 6:47 am
But it says here your Daily Ads Revenue is more like $20.7(which is pretty good still, imo)
http://www.websiteoutlook.com/www.coffeedetective.com
[Reply]
Steward Reply:
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:27 am
Hi Molly,
I have taken a look at the websiteoutlook.com report for one of my sites and have to say that it is fairly inaccurate estimate of a sites earnings. It is off by around 80% of the actual value. Just an fyi.
Thanks for stopping by.
Steward
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Steward,
Consider the math. Most “less expensive” hosting packages confine you to just a small number of site pages. To really start making money with content online you need to create dozens and then hundreds of pages. My coffee site has over 600 pages. Now look at the price of those “less expensive” alternatives and they are suddenly more expensive than SBI. They all charge a lot for the “unlimited pages” option. In addition, SBI has a ton of other tools included, like blogging, e-newsletter delivery, reporting, form-building, automated RSS creation and so on. Unless you do it yourself, with Dreamweaver etc, SBI is by far the most cost-effective way to build a large content site. I have many sites, hosted in several places and SBI gives me the best ROI.
Nick
[Reply]
Steward Reply:
April 11th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I think I am considering the math. Take this “small” site as an example. I currently host on Dreamhost that gives me the ability to host unlimited domains and unlimited subdomains - it costs me just a few dollars a month (around $90 for the year). I currently host at least a thousand pages on my hosting plan and get thousands of visitors each month - easy. Right now, I think I use less than 1% of the available bandwidth and storage space on my plan.
Also, when I signed up, I got a free domain with the hosting plan. If I had wanted to, I could have not bought another domain and created hundreds of subdomains for free and all it would have cost me was the $90 for the hosting. I have a sinking suspicion that hosting just one site with 600 pages would be easy for my hosting plan.
As to a comment management system - Wordpress and Joomla are free, open source alternatives to whatever it is you are using. All the things that you describe as “free” features on other free content management systems or can be found for free with simple addons.
Steward
[Reply]
Indeed, one can use Wordpress or Joomla for free. The Wordpress platform is primarily for blogs, which makes it harder to organize hundreds of pages for visitors over time. Been there, done that. As for Joomla…I think it was designed primarily to get people to tear their hair out. It is the most astonishingly complex and frustrating platform ever devised. You want to send a beginner to Joomla? SBI is a great platform for people just starting out.
Anyway. It doesn’t concern me over much whether you agree with me or not. : ) But I am concerned when beginners are pointed in the wrong directions. And SBI is a fantastic platform for anyone who is getting started and wants to do it right.
Best wishes,
Nick
[Reply]
Steward Reply:
April 11th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Was I pointing a beginner in the wrong direction? What about what I had to say pointed anyone in the wrong direction?
I think SBI is over priced and does not provide anyone with anything they cannot do for themselves with a little elbow grease and time. If fact, I think they would be better served to start out doing it the free way as this will teach them rather quickly if they have what it takes to make money online.
If you think that this is bad advice to give a beginner then I would like to hear why.
[Reply]
I think it’s bad advice because I have been working with the SBI platform for over 3 years now and know that it is excellent. I also know many other people who have had incredible success with it. I also know that it works really well for beginners. I know it because I have corresponded with them and seen their sites.
I am also an author of various courses and programs. A while back I received an email from some guy telling me that one of my courses was over-priced and garbage. He was quite forceful in his opinion. The first thing I asked was whether he had taken the course. He hadn’t. So…game over. His opinion was worthless because he had never even seen what he was complaining about.
So back to you. I have been using SBI for 3 years and make over $4,000 a month from my SBI site. So my opinion counts. I know what I’m talking about because I have done it.
For how long have you used SBI? If you haven’t, how on earth can you have a useful or valid opinion on the subject?
If you opinion has no basis in fact, then your advice on the subject can hardly be good or useful, can it?
Nick
[Reply]
Steward Reply:
April 11th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I have never and will never use SBI.
Now to your point that my opinion has no basis in the facts - that simply is not true. I have outlined several facts that demonstrate that you can get more (defined as domain names, keyword research, content management systems, and information on how to rank well in the search engines) with less money by not using SBI. You, on the other hand, have made false claims about what cheaper hosting can handle.
Now to the claim that you have made that one cannot tell if a product is worthwhile if one has never tried it - this is not true either. There are tons and tons of products that every single one of us has made that type of decision about every single day. We are constantly reject products and services that we have never tried and may never try. For example, I will never charter a private jet. They are way too expensive, are not useful, and do a lot of damage the environment. Am I wrong to be so “judgmental” about private jets having never flown in one of owned one myself? No, people who make those types of claims don’t understand how analysis works and if they really thought about what they were saying they would realize all the implications of it and change their minds.
The main point of my argument stand uncontested - you could have built up your $4,000 a month site spending maybe $100 a year, if that.
[Reply]
Well, if others read this thread, let’s leave it to them to decide.
Who to listen to…the person who has done it and has first hand experience? Or the person who hasn’t?
By all means make choices for yourself based on whatever factors you consider relevant.
But don’t presume to advise others until you have actual experience of what you’re talking about.
Nick
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BTW - quite separately, I have been looking though your site. Other than this pesky SBI issue and the principles behind our discussion, I love your site and blog. Really good job. Great info.
Nick
[Reply]