Wealthy Affiliate or Site Build It?

For some one just starting out doing affiliate marketing and possibly Network marketing, which do you recommmend WA or SBI?

Thanks
Mark

 

It depends what you want to do with it, Mark. I have never done the Wealthy Affiliate - I use SBI and have learned how to build a website (without having to know html) that gets free traffic from search engines... so I am happy.

But ultimately you will have to make your own choice as they are both great.

 

I'd recommend SBI. I'm a happy customer so that's why - chalk it up to bias based on experience.

I've heard good things about WA. I've only known a few people who have actively tried both and they told me that they felt that SBI was the better option, for whatever that's worth. Grin.

I do both my affiliate marketing and my networking marketing on my SBI sites.

Whichever you decide to go with, it takes a good bit of persistent effort. I wish you all the very best of success.

Blessings,
Angie

 

Mark,

I have not heard much about WA but I am a happy SBI user -- just over a year with SBI and generating a natural flow of free traffic to my website... and growing!

Whatever you choose to do, make sure it is something you are passionate about... and never, ever quit on your dream.

Heather

 

How about using a blog software like WordPress for free?

 

onera: How about using a blog software like WordPress for free?
Building a free blog and building a serious business for affiliate marketing are two entirely different things.

I think an experienced and successful online marketer would be able to take the free blog software and build a decent online income with it, but very few people who are new to online marketing can make a success with it.

There are too many things that you need to know and to do that you can and will learn by using a full program package. Why spin your wheels with a blog that will probably NOT get you anywhere in the long run?

Besides, Mark was asking about two specific options, SBI and WA. He clearly already realizes that he needs more to make a success at affiliate marketing than free blog software.

Blessings,
Angie

 

Hello Mark,

I do not have experience with SBI.
The ladies above seem to be very happy with it.

I have been a WA member since December 2007, and feel at home there. LWA is like an old friend now.

WA teaches various marketing methods and offers the tools free.

In any case, you can be successful with either, as long as you focus.

I hope this helps,
Victoria

 

I have known about affiliate/Internet marketing for two years. I have done some Bum Marketing, using blogger and writing articles. Now I want to get real serious and I need a real site. I bought Profit Lance years ago and it introduced me to affiliate marketing, but now I am looking for some more information on focusing on the SEO aspect and getting traffic. So....

Both WA and SBI sound great and I am trying to decide on which one to get. I'd like to see them both. I do not have a certain niche at mind at the moment (the work at home niche is to broad) and that is what I have been trying at since I learned so much I just went with it. SBI gives you one site to focus and direct traffic to, but doesn't WA have unlimited domains? Does that mean I can make a number of niche sites eventually with WA for the $400 a year?

Rod

 

Hi Rod,

I'm not sure what WA offers in the way of Number of Domains and amount of Hosting space included in their monthly membership. I think maybe getagrip can tell you.

SBI is one domain per package, but it's unlimited bandwidth so you don't pay more no matter how large your site and traffic grows. (I have one site with about 1000 pages and a few thousand visitors per day).

By the way, SBI is having a special sale that ends at midnight, March 28. You get two site building packages for $399 instead of 1 for $299. You don't have to activate the second package for up to 9 months.

I've heard good things about WA, but I'm a committed SBIer. I learned through SBI and am a very happy customer.

Blessings,
Angie

 

I've tried both and both are good - actually my very first website was created with SBI (didn't make anything with it but that's my own fault because I kind of gave up half way through). I think SBI is quite expensive but very good for complete newbies.

I only remained a member at WA for a month or two but I felt it wasn't for me because there's lots of marketing information to be found for free on other marketing forums such as the Warrior Forum.

I think if you want to get down to the real basics SBI is worth a go, however if you already have some knowledge of affiliate marketing WA is probably better

 

happywife: By the way, SBI is having a special sale that ends at midnight, March 28. You get two site building packages for $399 instead of 1 for $299. You don't have to activate the second package for up to 9 months.

hi Angie

That is a great deal, thank you very much for the fast response and tip. I'll check out getagrip but I forgot about things like bandwidth so maybe having the 1 site from SBI is much better off depending on what WA gives for bandwidth. I've never had my own actual site before and am just starting to do an online course for a degree in web site development, so I have a lot to learn about all that stuff. I do know how to "manipulate" html coding and that sort of thing but not to sure what all has to be done to get a site hosted.

I just hope I can find that one niche I can write without too much studying to do that will allow me to be able to branch off with sub-catagories and related niches. You said you have a site with a 1000 pages, that sounds like a great site! I'd love to see it.

Thank you again

Rod

 

Hi Rod,

I actually have 4 sites with SBI. My largest site (mentioned above) is chocolate-candy-mall.com. You're welcome to check it out.

The fact that you already know a bit of html will make it easy for you to build a site with SBI and customize it if you like and make it really sharp.

I knew NO coding or site building at all when I started with SBI a few years ago. They have an excellent way of taking you through it all step-by-step.

I considered my first foray into SBI to be my own online course in web development. Instead of a degree at the end of it, I have a website bringing in a regular monthly income.

Let me know if you have any further questions.
Blessings,
Angie

 

happywife: I considered my first foray into SBI to be my own online course in web development. Instead of a degree at the end of it, I have a website bringing in a regular monthly income.
Hello again Angie, that comment made me smile because I have been thinking the exact same thing myself. Although I do plan on trying to become an Internet Marketer full time I think I want the degree just to show people I "did that" if you know what I mean? But working as a web designer is ok, but working at home full time is much better

Speaking of school... WA calls itself a "university". They teach online marketing and ways to bring in income through affiliate marketing. Does SBI offer this as well?

I actually did check out that candy site of yours and it was great! My wife loved it as well. She joined an affiliate site for candles. But they won't let you do the selling on eBay or even your own eBay store. She made (and spent a lot of time) a Weebly.com site. I explained to her about SBI and she said it sounded great. I'd love to get her a site for her candles like you did for the candy. And if SBI helps get traffic and build your site some nice Internet presence. I think maybe SBI is the way.

Thank you again for akll your help.

Rod

 

Hi Rod,

Yes, I do understand the desire to have a degree, too. I've got one of those from my college days, and it IS nice to be able to say "I did that."

Yes, SBI definitely teaches you all about online marketing. Affiliate marketing is just one of the ways they show you how you can earn income. There are many ways explained and discussed both in the forums and in the material that cover the area of monetization.

If you'd like to take a sneak peek at the SBI private members forum, send me a note through one of my sites and I'll give you instructions on how you can do that.

I'm glad to hear you and your wife enjoyed visiting my chocolate site. I'd certainly recommend SBI to your wife as well.

This candle program she promotes? Is it affiliate marketing or network marketing? If it's network marketing, tell her to be sure to check their regulations about online promotion. She wants to be sure that they allow her to have her own website to promote the products. It's a terrible shame to put in a lot of effort and then find out you are forced to delete/remove all of your work.

Tell your wife to feel free to contact me if she has further questions. I'd love to take a little look at her weebly site, too.

Blessings,
Angie

 

DarthVendar: She joined an affiliate site for candles. But they won't let you do the selling on eBay or even your own eBay store. She made (and spent a lot of time) a Weebly.com site. I explained to her about SBI and she said it sounded great. I'd love to get her a site for her candles like you did for the candy. And if SBI helps get traffic and build your site some nice Internet presence. I think maybe SBI is the way.
Amen to what Angie said and just to add to that. I have both a weebly site and SBI and SBI gets almost 100% more organic traffic than my weebly site.

Weebly is nice if you just want a nice site to send people to with like a business card or something but if you want all that work to pay off residually with people flowing through the doors daily without you sending them there yourself.... then SBI it is all the way!

 

mountainmom5: Weebly is nice if you just want a nice site to send people to with like a business card or something but if you want all that work to pay off residually with people flowing through the doors daily without you sending them there yourself.... then SBI it is all the way!
I agree with you there, I don't think trying to build an online business through Weebly is going to work. To me that is just another form of blog or a personal use site. It's nice and easy to do but I am looking to make sites that bring in the traffic and convert to sales (and Adsense).

happywife: This candle program she promotes? Is it affiliate marketing or network marketing? If it's network marketing, tell her to be sure to check their regulations about online promotion. She wants to be sure that they allow her to have her own website to promote the products.
I apologize I misspoke when I referred to this candle site as "affiliate marketing" It's a drop shipping sort of thing, and they do let you sell on eBay you just have to buy wholesale and sell and send the product out yourself. Otherwise they instructed to build a site to host on. They have the pictures and stuff on their main site that you can put on yours. My wife said that when a person orders from her site the box that is shipped to the customer will say her business name/or web site name on it instead of their companies name but the candle will still have their label on it. Other than that I don't know anything about this company. I did want to buy 1 jar candle and maybe a T-Lite or votive candle and see if they are good candles.

happywife: Tell your wife to feel free to contact me if she has further questions. I'd love to take a little look at her weebly site, too.
Her weebly site is nessaslovelycandles.weebly.com
The site is not complete but she wanted to publish it anyways and as far as I know it functions ok. But you can at least see what she is attempting to accomplish there.

On another thought I came back to this forum after a good 2 years since I posted convinced I was going to get WA but now I am really interested in SBI. I have never heard of them until I came here.

My goal is I am interested in the Clickbank/affiliate marketing of the digital products. That is how learned about all this originally but the next thing I am wondering is if I do that I have no idea which niche I want to try and take on. I think the work at home niche is way to competitive but, me and my wife have "debated" on the idea that she is thinking selling a physical product is better than Clickbank's digital products and I "debate" back that if Clickbank doesn't make sales then they would not be who they are (or claim) and that is the #1 source of digital products. Profit Lance and others like it says that people who are in need of information are willing to buy it. I like the idea of selling the clickbank e-books and stuff. And as far as trying to promote the work at home niche a lot of those are not always a one time charge but like WA it's monthly or annually.

Any thoughts?

 

DarthVendar: I think the work at home niche is way to competitive
You are flat out right! My first SBI site was in that niche and I gave up.

DarthVendar: me and my wife have "debated" on the idea that she is thinking selling a physical product is better than Clickbank's digital products and I "debate" back that if Clickbank doesn't make sales then they would not be who they are (or claim) and that is the #1 source of digital products. Profit Lance and others like it says that people who are in need of information are willing to buy it. I like the idea of selling the clickbank e-books and stuff.
You are both right. The beauty of using SBI is that you can promote WHATEVER you want on the same site, as long as it is in the same niche of course.


If I don't have a good 'hard goods' affiliate program for a certain page, I can always link to Amazon and places like cj.com, linkshare.com, etc... and then to clickbank of course for any informational ebooks, and yes, people DO buy the ebooks.

DarthVendar: I have no idea which niche I want to try and take on
A lot of people don't have any idea until they work thru the SBI course. They help you find one. In fact, it may be better to NOT have a niche all figured out.

Angie usually has good answers as she has done more of these sites than most of us so stay in touch with her and you will be fine.

 

mountainmom5: Angie usually has good answers as she has done more of these sites than most of us so stay in touch with her and you will be fine.
Thank you very much for your help, I appreciate it. This forum has helped me a lot.

 

Hi Rod,

Yes, Viola is correct. You can certainly sell both digital and physical products on your site. You can also sell affiliate products, your own products, dropshipped products, or network marketing products.

There really is no limit to what you can do when you have your own niche site.

It can be difficult to choose a niche topic your first time around. Some people recommend you try to target a big money niche first off, but I tend to disagree.

I think you'll do much better in the long run if you build your first site around a subject that you are really interested in. Too many people give up early on because the process is a slow one. It takes a little time to build a quality site and and then have an income just trickle in.

All the hard work in the beginning doesn't seem to be paying off. If you add the fact that you aren't very interested or knowledgeable about your topic, you're nearly doomed.

At least if you enjoy your topic, you can usually find it a bit easier to persevere until you DO start seeing the results and begin to reap the benefits of your labor.

My first year I'd have to say I only made about .75 per hour! That's sad and shocking. But the gradual upward climb I was experiencing allowed me to know that my efforts were going to be worthwhile in the long run.

Last year (my third year), I'd say I made well over $20 per hour. To some, that still may not be anything to really brag about, but to me it's fantastic.

I have the luxury of putting those hours in any time I want, any place I want, and knowing that if I have a family emergency (like I experienced over the last several months), I'm still going to continue to make money even though I can't put hardly any hours into my websites.

I guess I've gotten a little off topic, but I'm trying to make the point that if I had picked a niche topic that I knew nothing about the first time around and had no real interest in the subject matter, I probably would have given up when I was only making pennies per hour.

But, since I enjoyed myself, it didn't really seem like work and it made it easier for me to be patient to reap the rewards.

Keep all that in mind when choosing a niche.

By the way, I looked at your wife's site. Her theme template is pretty and very appealing. Unfortunately, it doesn't really seem like the site is functional yet. At least I couldn't find any way to view the prices of the candles, or to make a purchase, etc. Let her know about that.

Once you start learning about proper website building, the first thing you'll learn that content and keyword research are the two most important steps that you have to get right if you want to be successful.

If you target the right keywords and write valuable content that people are searching for, you can monetize in just about any way you want. It's the first two steps that get you the free traffic. Without traffic, it doesn't really matter what you are trying to sell.

Blessings,
Angie

 

Hello Angie

Thank you for the reply. I'd like to mention here that I bought into SBI about three days ago. I am still watching the videos and am very excited! It seems overwhelming a bit but it's a great feeling to know that I am going to jump on the Internet marketing wagon.

Still not sure about a niche, may run some idea eventually on the SBI forum when I am done with the 1st 5 videos which will be soon. I'll run my keywords on a few select certain niches I have in mind and then see what others say.

happywife: By the way, I looked at your wife's site. Her theme template is pretty and very appealing. Unfortunately, it doesn't really seem like the site is functional yet. At least I couldn't find any way to view the prices of the candles, or to make a purchase, etc. Let her know about that.
She does know this, and I tell her not to worry about adding everything before she makes things clickable and sets up the paypal thing so people can buy. But my voice goes unheard oh well. I'll tell her that you liked the site. She wants to work with weebly for right now so I'll be doing the SBI site first.

Again, thank you and everyone else for helping.

Rod