Are you ever "two biscuits" short at the end of the month?

Much as I hate to admit it (I like to feel I'm making my own way in the world) since graduating from college and the parents' purse-strings in 2002, I've found that buying dog food, paying for vet bills, and supplying Kera's REQUISITE chew toys can be expensive. The basics alone can really add up, not to mention the little extras like the dog clothes, treats and gifts we both also love her to have. In fact, according to one estimate, the cost of caring for the average dog can be over $8,000 in the dog's lifetime. Add in more pets and the numbers pile higher.

Fortunately for me, creating this website has been not only a fun way to share Kera's pictures and stories with others, but it has also become a significant boost to my monthly budget's bottom line.

When I started this website in February 2004, I was not an expert on website design or dog lovers gifts, per se. In fact, my "day job" was in real estate and the only other websites I'd ever built were for that business and heavily dependent on my "techie" boyfriend (now husband) for regular updating and support. Every time I wanted to add or change something he would sigh, pause his computer game and drag himself over to make some time to help me out!

The truth of the matter is that he was the one that first encouraged me to build this website about dog gifts. As a computer-guy, he had a lot of online friends and activities, and I think he wanted me to get a hobby so I wouldn't bug him so much about his computer game playing! :)

I had learned a little bit about web marketing at a part time job in college where they had a big fancy multi-thousand dollar website that didn't have any traffic. My boss asked me to help the company figure out how to get some visitors coming to the site.

I started researching Internet marketing and found out there were a lot of different strategies out there that would drive traffic to websites. Unfortunately, my boss wasn't willing to invest in trying any of them. I, however, was intrigued by the concept and subscribed to several newsletters which kept me informed and increasingly hungry for Internet "insider secrets."

So ... I knew I liked websites and that there was money to be made there *somewhere* if I could only figure it out. Finally, I decided to invest in my future and upon the recommendation of some very convincing proof and case-studies decided to buy the SBI program. (SBI stands for Site Build It! and it is an integrated package that helps you build your site - based on high-quality CONTENT! - to generate large volumes of FREE search engine traffic).

Taking the Plunge...

I was really nervous at first when I decided to buy SBI. Back in those days the price was a higher than it is today and Ben (the fiancee) was nagging me about the cost. "Why do you need to pay for a hosting service? Why do you need a special builder program? We can do all of that for you."

What he really meant was that HE could handle all of that himself and I could watch from the sidelines while he rescued my pages from my misguided attempts at editing them!

The main reasons that I finally decided to bite the bullet and buy Site Build It! were that 1) SBI! had a money-back guarantee so I always figured I could buy it, kick the tires, and then send it back when I had convinced myself it was a rip-off and 2) truthfully, none of the sites that Ben had helped me make were getting much traffic or driving much business... They certainly weren't making me any money!

So, I took the plunge and bought the program. Little did I know my work was just beginning!

Slow and Steady Wins The Race

When I began, I didn't know what my site was going to be about, I just knew that it should be on something that I enjoyed spending time learning and writing about because the core of the success recipe was creating valuable content and articles for the site.

I used an SBI! tool called the Brainstormer to help me find a profitable niche in an area I was enthusiastic about. I plugged in a lot of different topic possibilities: jogging, real estate, dogs, computer games (I thought Ben could help me with that one), hydroponics gardening, and any other hobbies I could think of. It turned out that of all the topics I looked into, the canine-themed options had the most profitable keywords - The Brainstormer told me that there were lots of people on the internet looking for information on dogs, and many dog lovers who needed gift ideas were having trouble finding them! I was thrilled because I grew up sitting in the stacks at the public library reading every dog book I could get my hands on! Now I knew I would have a way to share my knowledge with others.

Plus I had recently acquired a puppy dog of my own so I knew I'd have great insights and stories from my own experience to spice up my articles!

Having decided on my topic, I set to work building my first webpages. I wrote one article for each profitable keyword drummed up by the SBI Brainstormer.

My goal was to write a new page each day, but I didn't sustain that pace for long. I plugged away diligently for several months and got the site up to about 100 pages of content.

After a while I tuckered out on writing and got busy with other interests and hobbies. Truthfully, I was being a little impatient with my site. Building a website is like building a business, it can take time to develop a reputation with the search engines and a healthy stream of traffic.

I was also a little jealous! It was frustrating hearing other SBI'ers success stories on the forums when I knew my own little site was just puttering along without much action.

Why wasn't I having that quick success that it seemed was happening all around me?

"Patience, Grasshopper."

A Step Toward Independence

It wasn't until a few months later when I noticed my website traffic gradually starting to increase. It was around October and November 2004 that I started to see my site rising in the rankings on the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. -- all stats tracked by SBI so you can tell what's working!) and my income making a corresponding jump.

I went from averaging under 20 visitors per day all summer to 34 in September, 47 in October and 90 in November. In December I took a big jump up to above 300 visitors per day (because of the Christmas rush) and now I've leveled off at about 225/day. That means I have over 10,000 visits to my site each month. Think of what that could do to boost your current business or career!

Lots of folks with a hobby they're passionate about build a site just like mine, but some people who already have "real" businesses up and running - like dentists, medical equipment salesmen, and vacation rental agents - drive new leads to their businesses almost entirely with their SBI websites! SBI is a powerful tool and it adjusts beautifully to meet your needs and those of your business.

When my traffic results finally started to climb, let me tell you - I was thrilled. Sure it had taken me a little longer, but I was finally seeing BIG RESULTS from all my hard work on the website!

Now, there's no need for me to envy my SBI buddies. In fact, we have a very supportive online community (courtesy of SBI) - where we trade tips and tactics to make sure that we all get the most out of our sites in terms of both visitor satisfaction and profit.

Like them, I'm making hundreds of dollars each month from visitors' clicking on ads displayed by my site, or buying some of the fine pet products I recommend. Monetizing your site is easy once you have traffic, but the key to creating that traffic is first paying your dues and creating high quality content on the site. This is the real bread-and-butter secret to the success of SBI! users, and it's what differentiates SBI from all the get-rich-quick scams out there that DON'T WORK! We keep it real!

We SBI! enthusiasts all subscribe to the philosophy that the visitors must be satisfied by the site's content - the content really has to over-deliver - in order to create relationships and build long-term trust with visitors.

Looking Ahead

So, that's my story. I've just recently been confident enough in my site to start sharing my success with a few close friends and relatives. They're all amazed by how much I'm making on my website each month with very little ongoing investment of time and energy.

I still build a few new pages from time to time and publish a newsletter, but I don't worry too much if I go out of town or get lazy for a few weeks and don't do a thing at all. The content is still there to attract visitors - now that I've done the work once, everyone who comes to my site can enjoy it again and again without a lot of ongoing effort on my part.

My plan now is to build a few more sites like this. I figure with four or five, I could probably make enough money so that Ben can quit his day job! :) He might not want to, since he works in the Technology field and gets to play on computers all day at work, but maybe one day I'll be able to convince him to come play on computers with me at home and he'll get an SBI site of his own!

If you're interested in SBI or maybe have some questions about how it all works, they actually have real live people (who own successful SBI sites themselves) who are happy to answer your questions by phone or email. Their customer service is consistently good, I've been impressed.

And of course you can always contact me through email or the visitor forums if there's anything I can add for you.

If you've ever thought about creating a website for fun or profit (ideally both!) then you owe it to yourself to check out SBI!. The package of tools they offer is really an all-in-one solution that solves the problem the majority of websites encounter: Building Traffic. It's no fun to put the time in to develop a nice site if no one gets to see it.

Trust me, if you've considered going into web marketing, SBI is an easy no-tech-experience necessary way to get started! Click here to take a step toward your future!

Sincerely,

Emily J. Cressey
Webmaster, Gifts-For-Dog-Lovers

P.S. I will mention that after I saw the success of my SBI site, I thought I had "cracked the code" and could do this again, no-problem, without the help of SBI! Well, despite locating a very profitable niche and creating a jazzy looking website (with Ben's help again...) I have found that the second site is not nearly as profitable as the this one, built with SBI! and my skills, alone!

P.P.S. I hesitated to put a page up here singing the praises of SBI til I really felt I had something I could brag about. Now that my site has taken off and traffic has been consistenly high, I'm singing SBI!'s praises from the rooftops and setting new income records all the time! If you have a business or idea that needs an online presence, you'll be hard pressed to find a better solution than that SBI offers!