Site Build It Action Guide Update: Big Picture & Day 1

Three days into owning SBI and I'm feeling at ease...not the least bit overwhelmed. 

Thus far I have read the "Big Picture Introduction--Prepare To Succeed" and Day 1 -- Master The Basics.

As I have been reading and have come across links for articles to read, I'm bookmarking them into 1 of 2 folders:

~Read NOW

~Read LATER

After I read each article I will decide if I can delete the bookmark or  if I should re-file the article into a reference folder.  For example, one article has to do with building in-bound links...definitely something I can see would be of importance for future reference.

Also, instead of printing every page of the Action Guide, I'm reading until I come across something that I believe I'll need to have in front of me...such as the technical directions on how to work some of the research tools, etc.

A great piece of advice I read in one of the SBI e-zines about getting started is:  Put your SBI blinders on....meaning, don't let the books, forums, newsletters, etc, of other methods draw your attention away.  All we need to focus on is the education from SBI.  So, I took an hour yesterday to clean out my original Internet Marketing notebooks, articles, brainstorm lists, etc.  Also, I bagged up and stored my copy of Honest Riches by Holly Mann.  It served it's purpose, but I don't need it now.

There were several issues of a magazine from my niche topic that I had accumulated.  I tore out the pertinent articles I wanted to keep for future reference and created a file by subject.  It will be a while before I need to think about them again, but for now they are not a piled distraction.

Still doing well on my home and personal to-do lists.  It dawned on me last night that to be successful in all areas of my life comes down to the simple act of discipline. 

Won't it be great if it really is that simple?

Current Goals for Progress:

~Watch Video Action Guide for Big Picture and Day 1
~Read articles in the Read Now folder
~Stay organized:  Delete or sub-file by topic any bookmarks for articles I choose to keep

If I can accomplish these goals today, then I'll be set to start Day 2 tomorrow...Develop Your Best Site Concept!  Now that will feel like I'm getting some concrete poured for this business' foundation!

SBI: Today is The Day!

The clock is ticking, I'm working my way through today's "To-Do" list, and by this evening, I will be purchasing my SBI! Website subscription!!! 

It's time.  This is not an impulsive decision, but a well thought out, worked for and planned arrival along the path that started over two years ago.

Want to know why I'm waiting until tonight?  Past experience.  When I get excitied about beginning a new project, it's all too easy to "go to dessert first" before finishing my dinner...meaning, do what I have to do before starting on what I want to do.

Here is a link to an article on the 10 Disgusting Habits of Work From Home Internet Marketers .  I was never as bad as this list, but I did have a time when I felt obsessed with learning IM and my house and home office responsibilities definitely took a back burner.  This was when I was reading Honest Riches by Holly Mann.  Her book was actually a great way to begin my education on Internet Marketing...I'd still highly recommend it for those starting out in this big "field of dreams", but afterwards, if building a website is how you want to proceed, the information from SBI is far more in depth...perfect for the 2nd stage of the process.

This time, I'm in a great place.  My house and home office work are up to date...I'm healthy and exercising...eating smart and healthy...basically...I'm ready!

So...in a few more hours, I'll actually begin my "college course" towards building my online business.

Today is a great day!

Will soon be purchasing my SBI! Website

Having just finished viewing the last of the SBI Video Action Guide, I am on the cusp of purchasing my website subscription.

My original intent to review each "day" of the Action Guide fell to the wayside during the Christmas season and subsequent bought of illness...then being out of town.

Though I was "plugging" along with watching the videos, the vast array of content made for difficult material to simply "review".

The bottom line:  If you decide to purchase and use SBI, the knowledge you will learn along with the tools provided will more than pay for themselves.

Just today while reading the section on monitizing, I was ovely impressed with the additional powerful tools that become available after writing and publishing 30 pages of content. 

Did you know that there really is a formula for knowing when to begin monitizing on your website?  Well, there is!  And SBI teaches us why and when...among hundreds of other important lessons.

If you do read or view the Action Guide before purchasing SBI, keep in mind the phrase "read from 30,000 feet"...meaning, read for becoming familiar, not for learning.  There is an advantage to getting familiar with material before trying to study and comprehend, let alone apply it.

I'll openly and honestly say this, I enjoyed the basic knowledge I learned from Holly Mann's Honest Riches, but what she teaches is like elementary school knowledge when compared with all that SBI has to teach. 

SBI is serious business about seriously teaching you to build a serious web business...Seriously!

My plan, beginning tomorrow:

Feb 12:  Wrap up loose ends of office and home projects to stay caught up and on track.
               Purchase my SBI subscription.

               Print Day 1 of the Action Guide, put in binder and begin the study and process of building my web  business.

Though my progress to this point may seem slow, the fact is that I am moving on a solid path toward a defined goal, as opposed to flailing around with a mish mash of affilate programs, quickly getting nowhere.

At this moment I offer my praise and thanks to God for giving me the direction I needed to arrive at this point.  Truly, thanks be to God.

Affiliate Programs: Who can you trust?

As I wrote earlier, the first affiliate network I signed-up with was Pilmus, so I could represent Holly's book Honest Riches. Since I had found Honest Riches to be a legitimate course on how to make money online, it was easy for me to trust signing up with Pilmus to be an affiliate, as this is the company Holly has chosen to handle her affiliate program.

Having trust in the affiliate companies you sign-up with is extremely important since they are the ones you are trusting to send you your earned commissions! For those new to affiliate marketing you have two basic ways to proceed: sign up with a network or sign up with individual programs. If you sign up with a network, you can represent several of that networks offered affiliate programs. When you earn commissions, your payment is processed to that network, then all the commissions due you are combined into one monthly payment to you. In comparison, if the company you want to represent as an affiliate offers the program on their own, as opposed to thru a network, you can sign up and receive your commissions directly from the individual company.

How do you know which networks or companies to trust? Do your research, look for reviews and ask people you know and trust who they use and suggest. The way I've "met" people who's opinion I trust is through a few online work-from-home forums.

The final thing I've learned is if you use a product that you think is great and feel would be a terrific niche to represent, find out if the company offers an affiliate program. If they do not, then send and e-mail and ask how you might be able to represent their program. I did this once and the company offered a discount code that the customer could use, then it would track for the commission that would be credited and paid to me. When I first approached the company and they said "yes", that they would create a program for me, I sort of felt like the dog that chased the car, and the car stopped! It was exciting and a bit scary at the same time!

In closing, the main reason I feel that affiliate marketing is a smart way to begin when learning to build a legitimate online business is that it does not require you to house and ship any product. It does help to buy the product or have familiarity with the "thing" you are representing, but from there, all you do is promote and send interested buyers to the company! It's the smart way to start.

HubPage is NOT A Blog? Who would have known!

Remember a few posts back when I said I had begun to feel like some of the concepts and terms Holly had written of in Honest Riches had started becoming more clear to me? Well, I had a lot more clarity about to come my way. HubPages.com is a wonderful site. A site I am very glad I joined. A site I'm greatly looking forward to using. What I realized, however, is that HubPages is a Web 2.0 site. A site that is created by the content the subscribers produce and post. Within the pages posted (which can be thought of as articles or stand-alone websites) the pages can link out to many places, such as, for example a website or A BLOG. But, so you don't end up with the same misconception I did, I still had not signed up for a blog host...even with all of this.

One thing I'm not is a quitter! By this point in the game, I'm sure it was well after midnight, but since I felt pretty safe that the 3rd time would be the charm, and I couldn't miss now, I forged ahead and set forth to sign up for Blogger.com. OK, so maybe the name "Blogger.com" or "Bloggspot.com" should have been like a beacon for me before now, but no time for regret, for I'm on a roll now.

All was fine in the sign-up process, until I had to create my account with Google. For some reason I could not get the "verification letters" to be accepted in the "verify you are a real person not a robot" box. I tried 5 or 6 times to no avail, then finally thought to clear my cookies. After a quick trip to Internet Options and a clearing of the cookies, I found sweet success with creating my Google Account- and in turn, SUCCESSFULLY CREATING A BLOG! Whew!

I Wanted To Blog...

Blog, Blog, Blog...I had heard this term for so long, but what it actually "was" sort of still evaded me. Hey, since when did having a lack of knowledge keep me from jumping in.

The way I actually began writing this blog started when I was looking over the free surveys offered to me on GetPaidTo.com, the paid survey site I began using. When I saw an offer for signing up to a site called PayPerPost.com. Well, I followed the link and decided to look the site over. The site looked legit, but before I filled out the info, I did a quick online search for reviews or feedback on PayPerPost.com. Finding nothing negative, I decided to "go for it"! I was so excited, for I was finally signing up for a blog!

I felt a bit uncertain since this blog site wasn't one that Holly had mentioned in Honest Riches, but even if it ended up that my first blog would be one that was just for practice, I was ready to stop standing still and move a little deeper into the water...heck, I felt like I was still standing on the edge, barely dipping my toe in the pool. I was ready to make a splash!

Two Goals Accomplished: Legitimate Survey Site & Ordered Honest Riches

In my last post I outlined some of my goals to get me back on track...I've done well with 2 out of 6 goals.

I researched and found a legitimate paid survey site to work with: GetPaidTo.com .

Now keep in mind, I am only doing online surveys to make a little "seed money" for my Internet Marketing start up expenses. My main objective is to utilize Holly Mann's Honest Riches so that I can actually learn how to make a "pipeline" business online. Usually, in working, people are doing the physical work themselves, like carrying buckets. They must carry buckets, of "water" to actually "get" the water...or, they must do the work in order to make the money. To have a pipeline, where the "water" flows freely, whether or not you are there, is what I am trying to do. I want to create income streams that flow with or without my being "on the spot". So, to make that happen, I've achieved the 2nd goal of my list: I ordered Holly Mann's Honest Riches.

Ordering was really simple. Once my order was confirmed, I was able to download the e-book right to my computer in a PDF file. Because I like the safety of backups, I burned a copy of the book to CD, then, because I prefer to have a paper copy of books, I printed the book out. No short task, for the book is nearly 300 pages long.

Remember I said I had done well with 2 out of 6 of my goals? Fact is, I'm not giving up. The goals I have accomplished are things I've really been trying to do, so with those under my belt, I'm more motivated to get the rest of myself in order with the other things.

As soon as I get into reading Honest Riches, I'll let you know how I'm doing and if I'm learning anything!

How Seeking Honesty Led Me To Honest Riches

Have you ever sat down to do a Google search on your computer, and when you finished and got up, were shocked to see how much time had passed? That's what happened to me when I started my search for a program that would teach me how to build an online business. It seemed to take forever. My results gave me a lot of sites that were close to what I was looking for, but usually they felt all hyped up and fake. A lot of my results led me to several blog sites and things called Ezine articles that promoted online courses. One such site even said that it was set up almost like a college course, which I liked. But then, when it said that it also gave you 15 personalized, hosted websites to help you make money online, I said "good-bye". In my mind if they are giving me 15 sites, then who says my sites are going to be any different from the other 15 sites another "student" has? And another. And, so on. This sounded like they were not really teaching how to build an online business, but more giving some basic information then supplying you with an online vehicle pre-destined to make THEM money, via you, the student. All said and done, I spent about 2 hours typing in variations on the phrase "course on how to build an online business". In doing all of this I learned something that I now use quite a lot. In one of my results I saw that a course was being reviewed, so I clicked on the link and was able to read a more refreshing perspective of the course I was considering, as compared to only what I had read on the courses product information page. I liked that. Getting an individuals thought's on the product. Just when I was about to head over to Amazon.com to try and find a book to order on this, I thought about adding the word "honest" to my search terms. When I hit enter and my new page of results appeared, I nearly could not believe my eyes. An official site called HONEST RICHES. The summary text below the main titled link read (this is a direct cut and paste of the text):

"How to Make Money Online. Resources, information, recommendations & HONEST legit advice and methods. What it takes, what is involved and how to do it"

Once I followed the link and read some of the product review, I was so excited. Everything I read sounded exactly like what I was seeking…a book that would teach me what I needed to learn, and how to apply it. Because of my earlier disappointments that I've written about in prior posts, I didn't buy right away. Using my handy little "review" trick, I searched all different ways to check out Honest Riches. I tried to find something bad about it, looking for a negative review, searching RipOffReport.com, even searching for some sites that rank and compare online products and programs. (I'd love to post links to some of the places I did my research, but in all my excitement, it never dawned on me to save any sites to My Favorites folder for later use.) After another couple of hours, I was convinced that Holly Mann's book was legit, popular and well received. It took all my discipline to hold off on buying the book right then. In fact, I made a vow to myself that I would actually wait 7 days before making any decision that would cost money. This was on August 3rd, 2008.

You might be wondering that if this book was so wonderful and exactly what I was looking for, then why on earth, after all the time and effort I had put in on everything, would I wait to buy the book and get started studying? Well, everything about the book felt right, to the point that I wasn't having to convince myself of anything just to feel ok about ordering the book. However, by waiting 7 days to give myself a "cooling off" period, I wanted to see if my excitement and commitment to wanting to start this learning process and then follow through with it, would be as high and determined at the end of the week.

During the self-imposed 7 day waiting period, I decided to challenge myself a little. First of all, I wanted to do as much reading online to get a better understanding of what might be involved in building an internet business, sort of like my own "introductory course" to what I expected Holly's book to be about. Second, I wanted to try and make some money, either online or offline, that I could put towards paying any of my "start-up" expenses I incurred with this new endeavor. Between all of these projects, I was hoping that the 7 days would fly by!

By Sunday night, still the same date of August 3rd, I knew that I was definitely going to purchase Holly's book, but, I had made a commitment to myself that I intended to keep. So for the next 7 days I would keep myself busy and see what all I could learn on my own and see how much money I could make to put towards building my new business!