SiteSell: The Blog

A Letter From An SBIer

Ken's Blog

I received a wonderful e-mail yesterday.  An SBIer sent it privately because he didn't want it in the SBI! Forums.

There were several strong lessons in it, so I asked him if I could make a post about it if I removed all identifiable information.  With his consent (and I use the masculine here to avoid the his/her awkwardness), here's the letter...

---------------------------------
Hi Ken,

Just wanted to share that I broke the magical barrier of $1000 per day with my earnings in October - that's almost 4 years since I found SBI. 

I don't feel very comfortable sharing that in the forums for various reasons.

I thought you might want to know about it, and assure you that Sitesell enables people to do some life changing projects.

The ________________.com site is my main earner - my record is 7800 daily visitors and the site earns on average over $300 per day in AdSense, over $200 per day with Chitika and over $200 per day with Amazon affiliate program.  The rest I earn with my other sites...

I am moving to a new apartment this month and I will have to take some credit of around $70,000.  I told the lady in the bank that I will pay it back in a few months and she just couldn't get it.  Most people pay such amount back in 10, 15 or 20 years.

I am also flying business class to Thailand at the end of the year and will do a cruise from Singapore to other nice Asian countries.

I've also motivated about 5 or 6 of my friends here in ____________ and persuaded them to start with SBI so you might see more people from ___________ posting in the forums.  We are quite shy though... 

I don't have to persuade my friends much - they just see how I live and the desire for freedom eventually wins in their minds.  It's sad to realize that all this time they believed that freedom is not possible. 

It is!  Thanks again for all the effort you put into Sitesell and the forums!

Best regards,
---------------------------------

What a letter!  Now, this is not a Case Study SBIer, just someone who followed the Action Guide, persisted and exceeded his earliest goals.  Before we get into the letter...

The "3-Stage-Think-Through" Strategy

Ken's Blog

SBI!, with 70+ modules in its system, provides everything you need to build a profitable e-business that has real equity.  SBIers generally pick and choose the feature combo that makes the most sense for them.  The others are there, if and when they need them.

That's why I wasn't surprised the other day when someone asked me in the SBI! Forums whether or not it's worth your while to spend some time and effort learning about an SBI! feature that you have yet to try.  My answer to this great question is simple...

Real-Time Web and the Kaleidoscope of Search

Ken's Blog

Google has been on record for quite a while now (no doubt prompted by Twitter) about the "real-time web."

Like I said years ago about Google, they won't get Image Search and Video Search and News search and Blog search working until they can figure out how to pull it all together and figure out which type of results any particular search (and search history patterns) is likely to want.  Along came Universal Search.

The same will go for this general trend to a "real-time Web"...

What Is the Real and Noble Purpose of Business?

Ken's Blog

There are two types of business models...

#1) Those who want to profit off of you by offering you a product that is worth less than the dollars you parted with in order to purchase it.

#2) Those who want YOU to profit off of them by offering you a product that YOU believe is worth more than the dollars you parted with in order to purchase it.  In so doing, they profit.

Google is the world master at the latter -- search, mail, youtube, analytics, all free (well, it could be argued that the "price" is the data you give them, but that's a price I don't mind). They earn their income through unobtrusive, relevant ads. And yet, there are people, gurus even, who say "Google is just a business so beware."

This worries me, but only for that person. It reflects a subconscious rejection of the second business model, an "us vs. them" mentality that replaces the second model with a hazy, vague anti-business mentality that somehow suspects all business and objects to a company making a profit, no matter how great its product is.

Let's continue to examine #2....

Top 10 Requirements to Succeed in School

Ken's Blog

My wife and I are off-Anguilla, helping our two daughters get ready for university.  Of course, "getting them ready" goes beyond furnishing the apartment, immigration, phones/Internet, registration, safety, etc.  It includes getting them ready for success.

This is the first great turning point opportunity in an adult's life.  It's not the only one, not by far.  Many great success stories happened well after a failed university experience.

But it is most definitely the first major opportunity.  So I asked my younger daughter Yuki to write her thoughts on the 10 requirements to succeed in school.  I liked the outcome so much that I thought it might be useful for you, if you have a child heading off to college.

Here are Yuki's top 10 (aside from my guidance and feedback, this is all hers)...

What Do You Do With the Twitterers Who You Find?

Ken's Blog

There are two good Twitter tools to find people related to your niche... tweepsearch.com and twellow.com. These tools search for your keyword within the username and bio, so they tend to bring back relevant Twitterers.  

And then what?  Here's how to "process your finds"....

Step 1) Do you recognize the Twitterers that you find?  Are they well-related and potential good contacts?  If so, follow them.

Let's say, for example, that your niche is about Anguilla.  You would follow the hotels, villas, restaurants, tourist associations in the Anguilla tourist industry, etc.

If you don't recognize any of the Twitterers, check them out (more on this in Step 2 below).

But wait, you're not finished with your "found list" yet.  Check out whoever they follow, too (hover your cursor over each square in the list of who they follow)...

Get Inbound Links to "Float Your Boat"!

Ken's Blog

SBIer Karen shared a creative link-building tip in the forums recently, exemplifying at the same time the "help and be helped" nature of the SBI! Forums!  She used Search It! to find links coming into sites with a similar theme to hers.  After identifying the best of those links, Karin e-mailed the site owners and politely suggested that they add her site to their list of trusted resources.

Karen had a good idea and then just ran with it.  Some people never quite get around to the link-building side of things, but what a difference it can make.

-----SIDEBAR-----
For those who aren't familiar with the Back Links section
of Search It!, go to...

http://searchit.sitesell.com/

And use this search to find who links to the Top 10 URLs
in Google's search results page for your Site Concept
Keyword...

(Step 1) Back Links > (Step 2) To (sub)DOMAIN From All Other Sites

The Back Links section of Search It! has an incredibly
useful set of 4 searches. Try them all.
-----SIDEBAR-----

In the old days, inbound links generated direct traffic on their own.  Now they are more important to "float your boat."  In other words...

How Widespread Is Google's Surfer-Tracking?

Ken's Blog

An interesting blog article from The New York Times caught my eye, but I think it misses the main point, at least from our e-business-oriented point of view.

I don't think Google really cares what you, or Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Web surfer, do online. Not as an individual.

I do think they use data like this, "aggregating it" as they say, to help them figure out which sites are good, as opposed to merely relevant. So they care when someone does a search.

I don't pretend to know Google's algorithm and anyone who does is speculating. But...

Get Creative With A Tip!

Ken's Blog

It's easy and useful to read the "pearls of wisdom" and tips that start in the SBI! Forums and end up in the Tips and Techniques HQ and the Monetization HQ as resource articles. That action alone is enough to give you an edge.

But it takes an acquired skill to get creative with a specific tip... to push it to the next level. The good news is that you can acquire this skill -- we are not born with it. Yes, some people may be naturally more curious and playful with an idea than others. But anyone can look at an idea, strategy, tip or pearl and ask themselves...

How Important Is the Meta Keyword Tag?

Ken's Blog

Good question. Google has never given a clear answer to this question, either side-stepping it or being vague.

First a bit of history...

The meta keyword tag used to be abused by early SEOers (along with the comments tag), who'd stuff this tag with the same keyword 50 times (easy to detect and shut down, of course) or with every word possibly related to the topic. (Bad strategy, how's an engine going to know what your page is about if you include everything plus the kitchen sink?)

Fast forward to today when tags are respected, and encouraged, everywhere else... blogs, Flickr, countless Web 2.0 sites, etc. And we're supposed to believe, according to some SEO sources, that the engines totally ignore this tag?

That makes no sense to me.  And I've learned to trust common sense over the no-way-they-can-know utterances of SEOers, no matter how "surely" they state it....