1. I am recovering from a very serious illness and I finally feel like working on my sites again. It has been a difficult period (almost three years), but I’m ready to go. During this time, my income was decimated, so I’m basically starting over.

2. I have closed over 50 websites that I built over the last decade (non-SBI). I started about half of them before SBI was introduced and the other half to test ideas and to see if I could put together a system that was better than SBI (for my own use, only, not to sell to others). I tested many different ways of building websites and blogs, and some of them were successful, but all of them had problems. Problems that I’ve never experienced on either of my SBI-powered sites.

I am a firm believer in testing to see how well something works. I don’t believe what people say, until I test it for myself. That’s probably a character defect and it has caused me a lot of unnecessary work, but I’ve reached my conclusions based on my own experience, not from someone else’s untested claims.

3. The release of BB2 is coming at just the right time. I’ve spent the last three or four months brainstorming and planning and thinking. I’m going to rebuild both of my sites and I’m going to take the time to do it the right way.

When I built my first SBI site in April 2004, it was basically to learn how SBI worked so I would be better as a 5P affiliate. At the time, I was building a couple of large (1,500+ page) sites using a database created by Dave Winer (one of the inventors of RSS and an early blogger, as well as a very talented programmer and application developer) and which I had modified heavily by tweaking the programming and adding my own modules.

The sites I built were very successful until North Carolina passed the nexus tax law in 2009 and Amazon.com cancelled my affiliation. Several other large merchants also dropped me at the same time. I had been an Amazon.com affiliate for 13 years and all of my sites were heavily monetized through their affiliate program. *poof* *gone*

This happened just as I was getting so sick that I had a very difficult time thinking straight and trying to make the necessary changes. A few months later, I was so sick that I could not work, at all.

So, my first SBI site was something I built because it was a subject that is important to me, not because I thought it was something that would make a lot of money. I liked how SBI made it easy to build and manage the site and how it did so much for me behind the scenes.

I was heavily focused on other ways of building money-making sites, at the time. I’ve built social communities, forums, websites, blogs, and even an article directory (for awhile). I wanted to know, from the inside, how these various sites worked and performed — and what were their benefits and problems.

I was a 5P affiliate before there was an SBI. Before even Page Build It! So, I had the chance to watch as SBI grew and expanded and expanded and continued to get better and better, year after year. And, I noticed that the price has not increased, even though the product is many times better than it was all those years ago.

(Actually, I think the price did increase for awhile, but I don’t remember the details. I also know that the C2 module used to cost about $100 per year in addition to the SBI subscription. C2 is now included free. I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that SBI cost about $500 per year at one time. Can anyone else verify this, or is it just another hole in my memory?)

Despite inflation and all the new and improved modules, the price for SBI remains at $299 per year. (Or, you can get it for $29.95 per month. You save almost $60 per year if you pay for it annually. Plus, there’s no risk. SBI comes with a 90-day no-risk money-back guarantee. Sign up today and try it for yourself!)

I spend a lot more than that for coffee. (…and Reece’s Pieces…)

I’ve also observed, for about 13 or 14 years the high levels of intelligence, honesty, ethics, integrity, innovation, and good-judgement that are possessed by the people who make up the Sitesell team. I’ve observed how the company has adapted to a changing world, not by following every fad, but by evaluating each new innovation from a business standpoint and then deciding whether or not it would have a long-term beneficial or detrimental effect on all of Sitesell’s subscribers. (Known affectionately as SBIers.)

I have observed how deeply focused all of the people on the Sitesell team are on helping all of us to succeed. They don’t just say it. They do it. Much of it for free. The members-only Sitesell Forums are dedicated to helping and being helped, and I have observed more times than I can count or remember how SBIers help each other. Individuals on the Sitesell team offer their help, too, above and beyond their official duties.

Day in and day out, for years.

When I built my first SBI site, in early 2004, things were very different from what they are, now. (I also have to admit that I thought I was something of an expert in building websites and I didn’t pay as close attention to the advice I got as I should have.)

The brainstormer was impressive and was a FileMaker runtime database that actually ran on our own computers, before being rebuilt to run entirely on Sitesell’s servers. That was a big change. It’s even better now, and the improvements that are planned for next year will be important improvements, also. SBI comes with an impressive list of tools and many of them are scheduled for improvements in 2012.

I don’t remember there being an Action Guide, although there probably was. I know, if it even existed, it was nothing like what’s available now.

Until last year, I lived where there was no high speed Internet and I had a very, very slow dial-up connection. Last year, I moved about four miles away and jumped into the 21st century, complete with high-speed broadband. For the first time, I was introduced to video on the Internet and it changed my whole approach to using the ‘net. I discovered the video Action Guide and watched all of them, but remember almost none of it. My illness left me with some real memory problems, but that’s getting better, too.

I’ll be re-reading the Action Guide and re-watching the videos as I work though my site redesigns and expansion, next year.)

As I said, I closed most of my websites and I’m changing my focus. For a decade or so, I was wide and shallow — lots of websites with not too much depth to any of them. I spent a lot of time on various forums and commenting on other people’s blogs.

I actually believed the nonsense about having 100 sites producing $1 a day being a good way to earn $100 per day. Now, I know that this is ridiculous. That’s a whole lot of work to earn very little money. Now, I know that it’s much, much better to focus on a few sites and build them so that they attract thousands of readers and earn much more money.

Of course, there’s more to choosing and building an income-producing niche-focused original content website, but some of it can only be learned by doing what you think is best and then adapting and improving the things that don’t work.

And, I want to emphasize this — it takes work! To be successful, you have to plan, organize, and then implement. SBI makes it easier, but it DOES NOT DO THE WORK FOR YOU! If you don’t want to invest your work, time, and creativity into building your online business, stay away from SBI! Go waste your time blogging. Did you know that you can do that for free — sort of?

To be fair, there are some good reasons for having a blog. If there weren’t, this site would not be powered by WordPress. However, I have proven to myself that blogging has been mostly a waste of time — for me. When I get my other two SBI sites situated, I am seriously considering rebuilding this site as an SBI site, instead of a blog. Those plans are on the drawing board, but I have a lot of other things that must be done first.

I did not focus on my own business as much as I should have, but there were other, more important, things I was doing, at the time. Caring for Mom, primarily.

Now, I’m moving to narrow and deep — a few websites that will go as deeply as I can on their topics.

The planning is mostly done. The mind maps are created, the site blueprints are completed, copious notes have been written, and now I’m waiting on BB2 before I completely revamp my two SBI sites.

Even though I made some mistakes when I chose the niche for the first site, I’m going to work through the Action Guide and do my best to correct some of those mistakes and then proceed forward with a patched foundation.

So, 2012 is going to be a big year for me.

BB2 and the new site design features and templates are going to make it much easier to build the sites I’ve envisioned, but was unable to build (due to overextension on other sites and a debilitating illness).

This time, I’m going to stop fighting the things I didn’t like about SBI (the main one being no integrated blog module with commenting) and start fully using all the tools that ARE available.

(It turns out that blogging is fun for me, but doesn’t produce any real income, so the lack of an integrated blog or forum module in SBI no longer bothers me. In another year or two, John Dilbeck And Friends may be my last blog. I’m considering turning it into an SBI site, too, but don’t have any firm plans, at this time.)

I’ve learned, after a decade of blogging, that I don’t make my money on my blogs. I enjoy writing them, but the money is made on my websites, and that’s what I am going to focus upon next year.

So, in summation (finally!!), this old dog is going to try to learn some new tricks. I’m going to forget about using PHP and PERL and Frontier and Radio Userland to accomplish things and I’ll adapt to the tools that SBI offers. The new reusable blocks that make server side includes available to people who use the block builder editor will make it possible for me to do some things I’ve long wanted to do.

My first SBI site may never be a real moneymaker. It’s always paid its way and made a profit, however. My second SBI site is the one around which I’m rebuilding my marketing business.

If you hear that SBI is only for beginners who don’t know how to do the technical stuff, part of that is true. It is perfect for beginners, but it is also perfect for us old propellerheads who have been slinging computer code for decades and building websites for almost as long as the World Wide Web has existed. Some of us have proven to ourselves that SBI offers a better way of building the kinds of sites we want to develop.)

(If you need SQL databases, scripting, and other similar features, SBI is not for you. If you are unsure if you can do what you want to do with SBI, you can always ask your questions. Answers are free and there is no obligation.)

And the price? $300 per year, per site?

That’s a bargain.

I know.

You have to look at the big picture. SBI is much more than just a webhost.

SBI is an online business success toolkit, complete with detailed instructions that you can adapt to the niche of your choice. It comes complete with a set of tools that are unmatched in one service — anywhere. (Remember that there were no challengers in the recent $50,000 Sitesell challenge!) SBI offers a forum with a friendly, helpful atmosphere where fellow subscribers enjoy helping each other succeed.

Only for beginners? Not true.

Too expensive. Not true.

I spend several hundred dollars every month for webhosting, email mailing services, domain names, and other expenses related to my online marketing business. Only $60 of that is for my two SBI sites. By comparison, they are a bargain.

The best way I know to build a successful online business, no matter how much experience and technical skill you have, or don’t have? Absolutely true.

But, I’m just one of nearly 50,000 fans of Sitesell. If you want other opinions, just ask.

I intend to be here when there are 100,000 Sitesell fans on Facebook.

Perhaps you’ve been wondering if you can be successful at building a business with SBI. What do you know that other people want to know?

That’s part of the beauty of SBI. The Action Guide includes 10 steps (metaphorically known as days, although some may take much longer to complete), and it teaches you all about building a website, identifying your strengths and interests, and helps you choose a niche, before you decide upon a topic and domain name.

Most people put the cart before the horse when building a website, but SBI’s Action Guide teaches you a much better way of approaching building an online business.

If you’ve been on the fence about trying SBI, or if you’re skeptical because you have been burned by online scams and get-rich-quick schemes, I understand your reticence. I’ve been burned by a few of them, too.

I have never had a bad experience with Sitesell. Never. Not once. In over a decade.

I can’t say that for any other company. I won’t say that for any other company, even if they offer to pay me.

You never know what you can accomplish until you get off the fence and start working to build a better future for yourself and your family.

Will you get rich? I am almost positive that YOU WILL NOT GET RICH. Possbily, but the odds are stacked against you, by far.

Can you earn a few hundred dollars to supplement your income while you learn new skills, probably, if you follow the Action Guide and do the work. Don’t expect it immediately, it may take a year or two to start earning real money.

Can you quit your job? A few have been able to do that, but I’m sure the majority have not.

Maybe you don’t want to quit your job. Maybe you’re retired and want something interesting to do, and maybe earn a bit in the process.

(I’ll be 60 in 2012 and I’m thinking about my retirement. But, I don’t think there will be much difference. I already work at home, at my own pace, on my own schedule. I enjoy researching and writing, and continuing to build websites really appeals to me — and so does making extra money.)

Maybe you’re a work at home mom or dad and you’d like to supplement your income.

Maybe you’re a student or recently-graduated young person and you’re having trouble finding a job that will help you grow and learn more. Why flip burgers or do something similar when you can learn valuable skills that will help you earn more in the 21st century. Learn how to build effective websites that earn real money. Do it for yourself. Perhaps you can leverage your new skills into a better job. I know several people who have done that after they spent a year or so learning what SBI teaches.

Students, and their parents, invest thousands of dollars in formal schooling, some of which actually helps them in life.

Why not invest another $300 in something that will help you (or your children) learn real-world skills related to business and 21st century communications and marketing.

Did you know that one of the more famous SBI-powered websites, Anguilla Beaches, was built by Nori Evoy (Ken Evoy’s daughter)? Would you believe she was only 14 years old when she started the site? It’s true. Now, she’s a college student who already has a profit-making online business.

Maybe you’d just like to earn enough to make payments on a new (or newer) car or save money for a vacation.

All of these are possible. I personally know people who have done all of these, and some of them didn’t know any more about building websites than you do, when they started.

Get off the fence.

Do something.

Thousands of people took the chance and ordered SBI. The great majority of the ones I know are happy that they did. That’s why they continue to renew their subscription year after year and even purchase several subscriptions so they can build multiple sites.

But, slow down. Start with one. Give it a try.

Take it one step at a time, and learn from the people who have helped thousands of people like you.

What will it cost? $300.

What about all the options, upsells, continuity programs, bundles, and all the back-end products they’re going to try to sell you?

There are none. They provide optional coaching services (by the hour), if you need them to get past something you don’t understand, but they are optional.

There is no hard sell.

$300 per year. That’s it.

Order SBI today.

Do it now. Six months from now, you can comment and tell your story. Is it working for you, or not?

Try it for up to 90 days risk free.

You can’t find a better deal than that. At least, I can’t find a better deal than that, and I’m always looking.

Are you satisfied with what you’ve accomplished in 2011? If you said yes, say it again, proudly. Congratulations!

If you said no, then think seriously about how 2012 is going to be the same, or different.

I can’t speak for you, but for me, 2012 is going to be different.

Sitesell and SBI are going to help me.

I choose to invest time, energy, and money in myself and my future.

Act on your dream!

JD

I usually wait until I’ve received several such notices before I go to either approve or delete the entries. Usually, 80% of the entries are spam for sites that are not built using SBI. I’m not sure why anyone would think I’d approve those sites for the list, but I get regular submissions for sites built using other methods and most of them are built with WordPress.

So, I go look at each site and, if it’s built with SBI, I accept it. Otherwise, I delete it.

Designing and building websites

I’ve been thinking a lot about SBI sites lately, because Sitesell has been building a new site editor called Block Builder 2 (or BB2) and it is set for release in December. They have spent a couple of years and several million dollars developing it and it recently completed alpha testing.

(Unlike other sitebuilders, SBI offers 70 or 80 integrated tools that are part of the process and features of building sites the SBI way. This new BB2 has to integrate with almost all of them, and the central database had to be modified and expanded to work with BB2. So, this was probably a larger, more difficult project than the original creation of SBI about a decade ago. Updating and expanding a system that powers thousands of websites is not the same as building an HTML editor that just builds pages or adds blog posts. It’s a very big job.)

Beta testing starts this week with a couple of hundred volunteers, who will be added in groups over the next couple of weeks.

If you’re interested, here’s a pre-release sneak preview of using the new block builder 2:

Sneak peak of Sitesell’s new block builder 2 for SBI!

I’m one of those volunteers, and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it, soon. I have plans for a complete make-over and extensive additions to both of my SBI-powered sites, and you can bet that I’ll be talking about it over the next few weeks.

This new editor is going to make building sites and pages much easier than before and I’ll finally get to do some of the things I’ve done on other sites, but much more easily. This includes using Server Side Includes for things like links to particular pages, affiliate programs, Google Adsense ads, and more, using their new Reusable Blocks tool.

Even for an old-timer like me, who can dream in HTML, this is going to be a nice, easy way to build a site. For someone who is not technically-inclined and doesn’t like coding HTML, it’ll be wonderful. Once again, SBI helps people focus on the business of building their business, not endlessly tinkering with all the tech stuff.

Of course, there are lots of site builders out there, so this isn’t what makes SBI special. Sitesell continues to be focused on helping their subscribers create successful, profitable businesses, and not just websites.

So, with the imminent release of BB2, look and feel, and site design has been on my mind a lot over the last couple of months.

I think it is better to make sites simpler and faster, rather than confusing with lots of distractions. (You can’t tell that by looking at my blogs, because I add a lot of things to a blog that I would not put on a website.)

Meanwhile, back at the Squidoo ranch…

I noticed that one of the sites on my Squidoo lens (out of over 100) was now powered by WordPress, rather than SBI. It has been over a year since I’ve gone through the whole list to check, so I spent some time this morning going through each of them.

Out of over 100, six were now powered by WordPress, two were standard Linux-hosted websites, and three domains had been allowed to expire or put up for sale. So, a little less than 8% had left SBI over the last year.

I got to thinking that there seems to be a lot less churn with SBI sites over the years, even though a lot of people just can’t seem to wrap their minds around why I consider each SBI-powered site to be a bargain at $300 each per year.

For the last couple of decades, I’ve seen webhosting services come and go and I’ve used a number of them. I’ve watched as websites move from one service to another, and often I can see the change only because their name servers change.

Hosting sites and blogs at HostGator

For professional technogeeks and web designers, I recommend HostGator.

For the last ten years, or so, all of my traditionally-hosted sites and WordPress-powered blogs have been hosted by HostGator, and I’m very happy with the service and features I get there. I have a reseller account, so I can host more sites than I care to, all for about $25 per month. That includes several sites and three blogs. At one point, a couple of years ago, I was hosting many more sites with them, but I’ve closed those sites as I focus more on my main target market.

As I said, I’m very happy with HostGator, but I don’t go out of my way to recommend them, even though I’m an affiliate.

Why?

Over the years, it has been my experience that building websites and managing blogs is a pain in the rear. This is definitely NOT for everyone. If you are not technically inclined and if you don’t like tinkering “under the hood” all the time, then I urge you to avoid traditional webhosting services.

If you don’t love writing, day in and day out, all the time, don’t even think of building websites or blogging. If you don’t love the subject for your site enough to write a book, or even a magazine article about it, you WILL NOT enjoy an online business.

I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know how much work it can be. Especially, when some jerk decides to hack a site and either destroy it or break in and install malware. All of my traditionally-hosted sites have been hacked at least once, and most of them several times, over the years.

(Note: Neither of my SBI sites has ever been hacked, and I’ve never spent even a minute thinking about site security for either of them.)

HostGator is very good about watching for this and notifying me if someone has hacked a site and installed malware. They shut down the domain and then I have to go find and delete the cause of it.

If you’re looking for a good place to host a WordPress blog or you need scripting and databases for your business, I highly recommend HostGator. They are the only traditional hosting service that I’ve used for years with no complaints.

If you want an account with them, I’d be happy if you click my link and purchase your subscription to HostGator.

If you are unhappy about the amount of work it takes to build a site or blog and if it doesn’t open the automatic magical Internet dollar machine to make you rich overnight, don’t complain to me. That is a fantasy.

The reality is this: building websites and blogs and earning a profit takes lots of hard work and time. It’s not as hard as digging ditches, but it’s not nearly as easy as some people want you to believe.

Trust me. I know.

Weebly – Webhosting for real people

These days, I urge people who want a basic website — and who don’t want to have to roll up their sleeves and get under the hood — to use a service like Weebly. I’ve been using them for a little over a year with excellent results. I particularly like their sitebuilder and think most people can use it to build a reasonably good site. If you have the skills and the knowledge, you can build an excellent site using their service.

If you want to put up a brochure-like website for your brick and mortar business and you prefer to do it yourself rather than hire someone to do it for you, Weebly is a good choice. If you want to purchase a domain for your website, it makes sense to purchase through Weebly, because they’ll do the set-up for you. If you prefer to purchase a domain elsewhere, they have instructions on how to set up the DNS, but, unless that’s something you like doing, you’re better off buying the domain through them and letting their propeller-heads do the work.

—–Sidebar—-
Just in case you’re not familiar with the lingo, here’s the deal…

I hope that explains it. I’ve been doing this so long that I forget that this is brand-new to some people.
———-

If you want to build a site for something like a family reunion, big picnic, community event, or something similar, and you want a good place to do it for free, Weebly is a good choice.

If you want to combine a website with a simple blog (and don’t want to hassle with WordPress upgrades and plug-ins), Weebly is a good choice.

You can host a couple of sites for free at Weebly, or you can upgrade to their professional level (at about $50 per year) and host up to 10 sites. I’ve had a professional account with them for a little over a year and it has worked very well. No hassles, good price, easy to build and maintain.

You can start for free and test it, and then if you want the features that are available only for the paid professional level account, it’s easy to upgrade.

That’s the route I took. I have a couple of fully functional sites hosted by Weebly and five others in various stages of completion. All for the low annual price. I spend a lot more money on coffee every year than I do on hosting professional sites at Weebly. (grin)

I sometimes use their service to test an idea by building a site on one of Weebly’s subdomains, so I don’t even have to register a new domain to see if I like it, or not.

(I don’t know about you, but I have a lot more ideas for things to do than I have time and energy to get them all done. In the past, I’d rush to register a domain, build a site, and see how it worked. I’ve done way too much of that, and now I stay much more focused on my core mission. Still, now and then, mostly for fun, I like to try out an idea and see what I think about it. Some people watch TV, movies, or sports. I build websites.)

I have a couple of old sites that are currently hosted by HostGator that I’m slowly adapting and moving to Weebly, and I’ll be changing the DNS to point their domains to the new sites sometime this winter.

SBI – The place to go if you’re interested in long-term online business success

If you want to build an income-producing online business, my top recommendation is still Sitesell’s SBI, and that’s where I’ll be putting at least 80% of my efforts next year.

My two SBI sites have been sadly neglected over the last couple of years (along with all my other sites), but now that I’m recovering from the cancer that tried to kill me last year, I’ll be getting back up to full speed, soon.

So, that’s my round-about way of saying this…

As I looked at all of the sites on my lens that were built with SBI, I realized that there is a remarkably low rate of churn with SBI sites. Most sites that are built using SBI stay there, year after year.

I know from talking to friends and colleagues that people have real businesses based around their SBI sites. They earn good money every year, and there is very little temptation to leave. Some have added WordPress blogs to their sites, but this is an additional part of the site, not a replacement.

It’s kind of tricky to add a WordPress blog to an SBI site, because SBI doesn’t allow the use of databases and scripts. So, SBI added a feature called Infin It! a few years ago. This makes it easier to add an e-commerce store, blog, forum, or other feature that won’t run on SBI, and combine it with your main site using subdomains.

You need both MySQL and PHP in order to host a WordPress blog, so the way it is added to an SBI-powered site is this: You have to host the blog on another service, such as BlueHost or HostGator and then attach it to the main domain by adjusting the DNS entries so that the blog is a subdomain of the main site.

It’s a little complicated, but the directions on how to do it are well-written and quite a few people have done it. When it’s set up (a one-time thing), the store, forum, or blog is treated as a part of your domain, rather than as a stand-alone site on a different domain.

Personally, I prefer to keep my blogs separate from my sites, but that’s just my own take on how to do it. People who prefer to do it the other way can make that choice for themselves. I know several webmasters who have chosen to go the Infin It! approach.

Not as easy to spot an SBI site as it used to be

I noticed, today, that it is getting harder to tell a site that was built with SBI from sites built using other services. One reason is that people are uploading their own HTML using a variety of templates. This Upload Your Own HTML (UYOH) feature was added a few years ago, for people who wanted designs that could not be built with the original (and now ten years old) block builder.

So, a few years ago, I could tell at a glance if a site was powered by SBI or something else. Now, it’s not so easy. A couple of times this morning I had to look at the source code to see if the site was built with WordPress or SBI, and twice I had to go to BetterWhoIs.com to see where the domain was registered and what the domain name servers pointed to.

(I also noticed that some people do not have a good eye for design — not that I can brag about my own good taste. I know I’m not a visually-oriented designer. While some people don’t like the original SBI templates, they had the advantage of being simple and did not distract from the main purpose of each page — also known as its Most Wanted Response. This morning, I noticed that several of the sites were full of junk that just made it more complicated and less clear about what the owner was trying to do with the site. There were way too many distractions. Sure, that’s their choice, if they want to go that way, but I think they’re making a mistake.)

With the introduction of BB2, next month, it’s going to be even harder to recognize that sites are built and powered by SBI. There will be a lot of new templates, and BB2 offers many new features that allow for massive customization of a site and of individual pages. The new templates are all CSS enabled, and that allows for further, easy customization.

I won’t talk much about BB2 until I get my hands on it and see for sure how it works. Then, I’ll be talking about it. When it is fully-released next month, I’ll probably talk about it a lot, as I test what it can do.

I still believe in simple websites, but I think my sites will be a bit less simple than they currently are, although I hope I never make them as crowded as I do my blogs. And I know I won’t be junking them up with a lot of unnecessary doodads and thingamajigs.

If I go that route, please feel free to smack my little hand and get me back on track. (grin)

Now, back to working with Aweber the rest of the day

So, with that said, it’s time to turn my attention to building a new template for sending newsletters using Aweber. I have to complete that template within the next day or two, because the first issue will be published the second week of January, and that’s fast approaching.

The new editor of the newsletter is patient with me right now, but if I don’t get this done this week, I don’t think she’ll be as patient. I can hear her foot tapping as her impatience grows — and she lives several miles from me. (grin)

Happy Thanksgiving!

If I don’t write anything else here before Thursday, I want to wish all my friends a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I’m looking forward to setting my work aside for a day and spending time with my family. There is a poor unfortunate turkey who is going to be a big part of the day, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

(Yes, I recognize the irony in asking you to comment about whether comments are overrated.)

I have built multiple websites, blogs, forums, and social communities over the years. With the exception of the websites, I have tried to start discussions that would lead to more understanding and different viewpoints about topics in which I am particularly interested.

I have been a miserable failure in that endeavor.

It seems that the people who want to discuss the issues don’t want to buy anything, and the people who click and buy what I promote don’t want to talk about it. They just want to buy it and get on with their own activities.

Yes, a few kind and learned souls have added comments to the discussions that have added to the topics, but most commenters, I am now sure, are more interested in getting a backlink than they are in the discussion.

I’m testing my theory

So, as of today, as a test, I have turned off both CommentLuv and the dofollow plug-in. I’ll see for myself over the course of the next few months whether the readers and commenters on this site will slow and/or disappear, or whether there are real, live people who are interested in the topics about which I write.

I have updated item number 4 on my Comments Policy to reflect this change.

As far as I know, there is no way to set CommentLuv to leave the old links on the comments, so that means all of the CommentLuv comments are now gone.

That one part of the test may very well doom this blog to oblivion…

…if I am correct in assuming that people comment more for the backlinks than they do for wanting to take part in the discussion.

This is one more test in an ongoing series of marketing tests I have run over the last decade.

I enjoy the social aspect of blogging and commenting

I enjoy talking to real people who comment and add to the discussion at hand. I enjoy thinking about differing viewpoints. Some of them make me re-think my own understanding of a topic and some actually change my mind.

I really dislike having to moderate my comments.

I hate dealing with all the spam, and it is getting increasingly difficult to discern whether it is a real person commenting, or a hired wordslinger, or a well-programmed robot.

Will the readership of this blog drop?

Will disabling CommentLuv and going back to the no-follow default for WordPress blogs make a difference in the number of people who respond to my diatribes?

I’m betting it will.

I’m betting that the number of readers and the number of commenters will drop. Perhaps it will drop precipitously.

How will the test affect profits from this blog?

I’m also betting that it won’t make a bit of difference to the profit I can track back to this blog. It has never earned nearly as much as my tier-structured websites.

Now that I am adding Facebook comments to those sites, I’ll see if comments are as important as I once thought they were.

Blog or build websites?

Ken Evoy, founder of Sitesell, Inc., has been saying for years that building well-structured, niche-oriented websites will produce more profits than blogging, and I have been having an internal argument with myself about that topic since he first wrote about it.

I like blogging. It’s easy. It’s inexpensive. It’s fun.

However, for me, it does not produce profits.

Blogs are, however, good for when I want to express my opinions about something that has just happened or a new development, whether or not it qualifies as news. That’s what blogs excel at doing. Their reverse-chronological structure is ideal for late-breaking news and/or developments, so I’ll most likely continue to use this blog for that purpose — regardless of the outcome of this test.

I get an idea, do some quick research, and write a new post to the blog. Depending upon the topic and how much I want to say about it, this can take from a few minutes to two or three hours of work.

It’s different when building a money-making website.

I plan those sites carefully. (Sometimes it doesn’t look like it, however.)

I do weeks or months of keyword research. Then, I research my competitors for the keywords I intend to write about. Then, I research ways I can monetize the pages I write.

I’ve been planning for several months on how I’m going to revamp my Act On Your Dream! site, and it will take me a few more weeks to finish the plans and start writing the pages. I know going into this project that it will be profitable. Perhaps quite profitable.

I know how the site will be structured, how the various topics fit with the central theme, and how I will monetize each page, before I write it.

I have brainstormed and organized sections and topics for the site (using NovaMind mind mapping software) and I’ve almost completed building a site blueprint that I’ll finish before rebuilding the site.

I have prepared reader profiles and will write each page to appeal to that particular person. (As well as I can.)

Each page will have one most wanted response (MWR) and I’ll offer two or three secondary actions that I’ll encourage. For most pages, the most wanted response is for someone to click a link and go buy what I’m recommending. Failing that, I want the reader to subscribe to my newsletter (which I’ll resume writing). Finally, if they don’t do either of those, I hope they’ll click on an Adsense ad or look at another page on the site.

The pages will be simple so that readers aren’t confused by a plethora a links as they are on this blog. People said I needed a three-column blog theme with links to lots of things and RSS feeds from my other sites, so I tested it. It has not increased my profits.

I will be changing Act On Your Dream! to a three column format, but it will not look like this blog. I’ll test the three columns. If it increases my income, I’ll continue to use it. If it does not increase my profits, I’ll go back to a simple two column format.

Readers tend to look at more pages and stay on that type of site longer than they do on a blog. Bounce rates are lower, time on page is higher, the number of pages viewed per visit is higher, and profits are higher — all without commenting.

I like the social aspects of commenting.

This was especially true over the last three years when I was sick and mostly unable to work. The online discussions got me through some days when I felt horrible, had no energy, or was in quite a lot of pain.

Now that I’m better, it’s time to get back to work and earn my keep, again. It’s time to do my best and move off of disability and food stamps and back to being a productive tax-paying member of society.

I am grateful for the assistance I got when I was unable to care for myself, but it’s time to move forward.

I just don’t think that blogs will do that for me. I’ve tested them for years and that’s the conclusion I have come to, reluctantly.

Please sir, can we have a blog module on SBI?

I even asked Ken Evoy on the private members-only forum for SBI subscribers, if he would ever add a blogging-with-comments module to SBI, and he said that would not happen. Blogging just doesn’t fit into the structure of an SBI-style tier-structured website.

So, I tried for months to think of a way to trick the system, and never found one that would work. I was pretty hard-headed and stubborn about this.

SBI gets Face-It!

So, now, I can have my cake and eat it, too, and it isn’t nearly the treat I expected.

SBI now has a module that helps us promote our pages on social networking sites. Click a button and it’s active. It’s called Socialize-It! (Note that all the modules end with an exclamation point and that sometimes makes for awkward sentences.)

Actually, Socialize-It! has been around for awhile, but it’s changing and merging with Face-It!

Sitesell recently introduced Face-It! version 1, which makes it easy for us to add Facebook Like buttons to our pages, and we can optionally add Facebook comments to the pages, too.

I thought that would be great. Less spam, because someone has to be a Facebook member to comment and there is less anonymity, as well, and now people could discuss the topics I wrote about.

Each page can have lots of comments, and that will percolate through the Facebook system and bring more readers. The jury is still out on this, but I don’t expect it to bring a deluge of new readers. I’m open to the possibility.

You know what?

Now that I have comments on my SBI sites, it’s really a let-down. I’m disappointed. It seems to me that comments are highly overrated and just add work. I don’t see any change in income and there have been only a few comments, so far.

I think the main reason for this is that the readers of my tier-structured websites are not commenting because they are not bloggers who mainly want backlinks to their blogs.

So, now, we’ll see what happens when I de-emphasize comments on this blog.

By de-emphasizing comments on the blog and offering comments on the website, will there really be any change in profits and my workload?

Has Ken been right all along?

Have I wasted years of efforts in building blogs, forums, and communities? Would all that effort have been better directed to building more and better niche-oriented websites using SBI.

I’ve almost come to the conclusion that he was right, all along. At least, for me and the things in which I’m interested.

I freely admit that Ken Evoy is a much better businessman than I am. He is a millionaire several times over (before founding Sitesell and creating SBI) and he builds real businesses that employ people around the world. SBI has tens of thousands of customers, also around the world.

Not only does he have more experience, but I believe he has a better, more refined thought process about building a business.

I’ve been happy — and remain happy — with my little microbusiness that makes it possible for me to work at home in my home office, or out on the front porch, in these beautiful mountains of western North Carolina. I’m living where I want to live, doing what I want to do, and I’m not interested in building a multi-million dollar business.

I would enjoy, however, earning more than I have the last couple of years!

So, what will I do after the test is over?

That remains to be seen.

I’m going to let this test run until the end of the year.

Disabling the CommentLuv plug-in may have doomed this blog, already. If that proves to be true, then I’ll repurpose most of the content that I’ve written here and move what is appropriate to my income-producing websites.

I am already starting to plan for a website that will replace this blog, if it becomes necessary. Yes, it will be powered by SBI. Yes, it will take more work. Yes, I’ll happily pay another $300 per year to build and host it using the SBI system.

What do you think?

I welcome your opinions, thoughts, and observations.

Act on your dream!

JD

I’m a hard working guy and I spend most of my waking time working on my marketing business, writing blog posts, creating new pages on my websites, and interacting on some of the social networking sites, most notably: Facebook.

A couple of weeks ago, two of my friends were talking about a website where we can earn credit for what we’re already doing. Now, let me make it clear that we can’t earn money, but we earn value in our stock in this game, and we can earn eaves, which is what the site calls their virtual currency.

It’s like a social networking stock market and we earn by being active with our blogs and on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others.

When you join Empire Avenue, you get some money to purchase “stock” in others who are playing the game, and there are a lot of people doing it. I bought stock in folks like Guy Kawasaki and Mari Smith and other well-known social networking “stars.”

(Note: we are not buying ownership in each other. It’s just a game.)

Folks bought shares of my stock, too, and that gave me more money to invest.

I’ve been buying more shares in the people who invested in me, as I earn more “money” with which to purchase their stock. It’s been a lot of fun.

I’m also buying stock in people I’ve never met before, based on recommendations from others who are playing the game.

I used to enjoy investing in the real stock market, and the Empire Avenue game offers a lot of the same fun with no financial risk.

It also provides another way to expose people to our various social networks and blog feeds.

You can add multiple RSS feeds to your Connections tab, but each feed needs to be endorsed by at least five people before you start getting credit for your blogging activities. And, the credit you receive for blogging is limited, because it’s just too easy for people to cheat by adding the RSS feed of a robotic “splog.”

I’m not playing the game to try to win it; I’m playing for fun and to expose my sites to more people.

I generally buy some shares of the people who invest in my stock, but don’t promise a quid pro quo.

I’ve also bought shares in the stock of some of my online friends who are not playing the game, yet. I can say I’m the first to buy their stock, and I get it at the absolute lowest price, should they decide to start playing the game.

If you’re already playing the Empire Avenue game, I’m still a good investment, but I’ll be crossing the $50 per share price shortly. Invest in me now, before the price goes up! (grin)

Seriously, I go there a couple of times per day and spend maybe five or ten minutes investing in more stock. It’s a nice, short break from work, and still does a little to promote my work. Since I enjoy combining work and fun, this is a good match.

It’s a bit confusing at first, but I’m starting to find my way around. That makes it even more enjoyable. I don’t think I’ll ever spend more than 15 or 20 minutes there on any given day, probably less, but it’s a nice break, now and then.

While it’s not for everyone, it makes it a little more fun to think about myself as representing my marketing business and it’s fun when someone at Empire Avenue buys stock in me.

If you’re looking for a site to purchase advertising and want to expose your sites and blogs to others who are active in social networking, there are ways to spend real money buying advertising and credits. I haven’t done any of that, and don’t have any plans to do so, at this time. I don’t know what I’ll do as I learn more about the site and all that’s available there.

Empire Avenue also has communities where you can interact with others who share the same interests. I don’t have time for that, so I haven’t tried it.

Join Empire Avenue and try it for yourself. It’s free, and you can sign in through your Facebook account, or create a separate Empire Avenue account. It’s your choice.

What about you?

Are you playing Empire Avenue? What do you think about it?

Act on your dream!

JD

Last week, I finally got around to creating a new 21st Century Affiliate Marketing page on Facebook and I hope you’ll visit it. At the moment, about all that is there is a copy of the articles I post on this blog, but I intend to add additional information on the Facebook page in the coming months.

If you’re like me and spend a lot of time on Facebook, you can follow new posts in your newsfeed on Facebook, if you go to the page and like it.

I’ll be continuing to tie my various websites in to their own Facebook pages in the coming weeks.

Thanks for visiting and reading! I really appreciate it.

All the best,

JD

Along the way, a lot has been written about the company (Sitesell), the product (SBI), and the founder (Ken Evoy).

Some of it has been accurate and truthful.

Some of it has been inaccurate and misleading.

Some of it has been a scam to promote something else that doesn’t work.

So, if you’re like most of us, you’ve learned about affiliate marketing and how to approach it from different people here and there and, most likely, you have learned a lot of conflicting information and advice from a lot of different people.

I’ve been there.

Really.

I mean, I’ve really been there.

I’ve read thousands of websites and blogs, have joined and tested hundreds of marketing systems, have bought and read dozens of books and ebooks (really studied them), and have subscribed to hundreds of mailing lists and newsletters.

I can’t even begin to count how many times I’ve read one person recommend something as the very best approach, only to have that contradicted by someone else who says it’s the absolute worst approach and doesn’t work.

The truth is, that there are many different approaches to building websites, blogs, and an online presence and what works well for one person may be entirely ineffective for another.

We all have our own personal approaches, preferences, filters, and blinders, and I guarantee that you and I can look at the exact same thing and have different opinions about it. That’s basic human nature.

But, through research and testing, we can try various approaches and find what works best for us. Right?

Or, we can just try the “flavor of the day” approach and never really know what works and what doesn’t. Right?

It’s okay to do something on a whim or as a hobby. We all do them.

It’s a different thing if you want to build a business that can provide for you and your family.

I have a couple of websites that I’ve built just for the fun of it. I like to write about different things and I’d rather do it on my own sites than on a bunch of free sites where my writing is lost in mix of stuff from thousands of others.

So, I really do know, and appreciate, the difference between doing something for the fun of it, versus building a business with the intent to earn a profit.

I’ve tried and tested hundreds of approaches and have settled on a very few that I know work for me. Whether they’ll work for you, I can’t guarantee.

What doesn’t work for me?

MLMs and Network Marketing. I’ve spent thousands of dollars and hours trying to build a team and offer support and training in order to leverage their efforts into a profitable business. Huge.waste.of.time — at least for me. Maybe I don’t have the right personality. Maybe I chose the wrong merchants. Maybe I attracted the wrong people. Maybe I just suck at multi-level marketing.

I’ve watched others and some of them seem to be successful. I know a few, personally, who are successful with MLM — very few — count em on my fingers and have fingers left over.

I think, for many people, it can be a way to earn some extra money. For a few, it can be a really good business. For most of us, nope.

I could go on and on with many other examples.

Build a hundred sites and earn a buck a day from each of them. Nope. Doesn’t work. Lot’s of effort for no return.

Downline builders and traffic exchanges. I had some good results with some of them. But, I got tired of the whole “work at home” and “make money online” niche. For me, semi-successful. Don’t like the feeling of running on a treadmill to nowhere.

Yes, SBI is a system that’s designed to help folks make money by building an online business, but the focus is definitely not on the get rich quick schemes that are so prevalent in the “work at home” niche.

Over the years, I’ve heard lots of things about SBI and Ken Evoy that just aren’t true. Some of them are even malicious.

Yes, we can all have different opinions, but I just don’t see a reason to lie about something.

When I want to know about something, I want to know as much as I can learn about it. I buy the product or service. I read all the instructions and participate in the forums. I write support to see how they solve problems. I follow the steps and do my best to make it work. I join the affiliate program (if it has one) and try it out. In short, I do all I can think of to see if this is something for me, or not.

Many things, even those that look attractive, just don’t work. Maybe they once did. Maybe they never did.

A few things that I’ve tested really do work. And they work for lots of different people in a lot of different industries and niches. Those are the gems that make it worth sifting through all the duds.

SBI is one of the gems.

Mailing list services like Aweber and MailChimp are gems. I’ve used Aweber successfully in the past and intend to use both services effectively in the future.

Last week, I identified a new gem that is going to help me with SMS text message marketing to opt-in lists. EzTexting looks like a very good system and has passed my initial tests with flying colors. So, now it’s time to invest some money in it and put it to work in a real-world environment.

(Update: March 1, 2012. I am no longer promoting EzTexting as an affiliate, but I’ll probably remain one of their customers.)

Other gems include WordPress and Hostgator for my traditional websites. I’ve used the combination of a WordPress blog on a domain hosted by HostGator for years. That’s how this blog works.

But, I’m moving away from that particular combination. I’m also moving away from Hostgator and that style of hosting using cPanel and all the other traditional Linux/Unix hosting. I want to concentrate less on tech stuff and more on business and marketing.

For my small websites and simple blogs, I’ve started using Weebly. I have several sites that I’m transitioning to their service and my Dilbeck Marketing site/blog will be hosted there.

I’ve been testing Weebly for the better part of a year (mostly with one of my client’s sites) and I am very happy with their service. I like how they combine a tier-structured website with blogging and e-commerce features. I also like that they automatically serve a site using mobile formatting when it is appropriate. I’ve tested it with feature cell phones, smartphones, iPods, and other similar mobile devices and it works very well — and I didn’t have to do anything extra.

So, I test a number of different approaches, including many I haven’t mentioned. I’ve been doing this for a long time.

I won’t say bad things about the ones that don’t work for me. I generally don’t mention those companies, systems, or individuals. I believe this, “if you can’t say something good about someone, keep your big trap shut.”

My approach is to identify the gems and then discuss why they are gems.

Others, however, take a different approach, and that brings me back to my original topic: SBI urban myths.

(About time, JD!)

Yes, I tend to write long posts and go in multiple directions. If you can hang on, it can be a fun ride. (grin)

Some people write about Sitesell, SBI, and Ken Evoy and give a totally different view from what I’ve observed over the last decade+.

If I had to name one person that had the most to do with my online marketing success, it would be Ken Evoy. He has never lied nor mislead me in over 10 years. He has never tried to sell me something I don’t need just so he can make a profit. He has never given me bad advice. I like and trust him.

Ken Evoy was already successful before he founded Sitesell and wrote his first ebook, Make Your Site Sell!

He was an emergency physician. Later he became a very successful developer of toys. He developed a product for a very narrow niche that was successful. From that experience, he wrote MYSS to help others learn how to build websites and make profits.

That’s how I got my start in online marketing. I am forever grateful that I bought that book and met Ken (online). One of these days, I hope to meet him in person and shake his hand.

He learned from the experience of writing that book and helping the people who bought it, that there is a minority of people who really want to succeed in an online business, but most of us don’t have all the skills to make it work. So, he started developing Site Build It! which is now generally known as SBI.

I don’t remember exactly when I first subscribed to SBI to start building my Act On Your Dream! site. I started that site because it involves something that is important to me. I truly believe that anyone who is willing to set a goal and work to achieve it can become a very different person in as little as a year from now. It may happen sooner, or it may take longer, depending upon the goal, but I have seen many people do just that.

Act On Your Dream! is more of a philosophy and hobby than a part of my business. I’ve worked on it here and there and it’s been earning a profit for years, month in and month out, with very little attention from me.

Now that I’m no longer caring for Mom and I’ve kicked cancer’s butt, I’ll be putting more attention and effort into that site. I have a lot I want to add to it.

People ask me why I spend $300 per year on that site when I can host it free on my HostGator account (I have a reseller account). That’s simple. It earns a profit every year and I have never had one single technical issue with it. Not once. I can’t say that for any of the sites I have hosted by HostGator, and I know they are a quality service.

Act On Your Dream! just works. Now and then I add to it, but mostly I just ignore it for weeks or months at a time.

It used to be even more successful when I advertised products sold through the Amazon.com affiliate program. But (you’ve probably heard this already) all the Amazon affiliates in North Carolina (including me) were dropped when our politicians passed the ill-advised nexus tax law in 2009.

The important point is that I earn a profit from that site. It’s not an expense, it’s a reliable, sustainable profit center even though there is much I can do to expand and increase that profit.

I earn more from that site in a year than I have from all my blogs (except this one) and all my forums ever did. And I’m not even really trying.

My other SBI-powered site, Murphy Gold, will be my primary revenue producer and focus for the coming years. Even in it’s present form (just a tiny part of what it will be), it has been profitable from the very first month I started it and that was back when I was so sick I could barely do anything. Now that I’m feeling better, it’s going to start shining!

This month, I’ll send out invoices to my clients on Murphy Gold and will earn more than I will from all my other sites combined for an entire year. I don’t give out my income figures to anyone but the IRS, but I’m talking a few thousand dollars — and that’s just the start.

In the process, I’m helping real people in the real world. It’s going to be even more exciting as it picks up speed.

That is the central hub of the biggest project I’m working on in my marketing business. I’ll be earning a full-time income from that site within another year.

Am I unhappy that I have to pay $300 per year for a site that earns many multiples of that investment? Not a bit.

The best part is that Sitesell continues to add new and better features to SBI that I can use in my sites and they haven’t raised the price in years. SBI is a much better deal now than it was when I first subscribed.

I can’t say that about any other business that I’ve worked with in my online marketing career. None of them.

Am I a raving fan of SBI? You bet I am.

Am I tired of all the misinformation about Sitesell and SBI. You bet I am.

That’s why I write about them now and then on this blog.

I know it looks like that’s all I write about, and that’s true for the last year or so while I was so sick, but it won’t be true over the coming months. I’ve joined and am in the process of learning and testing a variety of other affiliate programs that I’ll tell you more about as soon as I know more facts.

Hey, JD!

What?

You said you were going to talk about SBI urban myths.

Yes I did. And I’ve been addressing several of them already. Here’s the link to more information about some of the SBI! Urban Myths as presented by Sitesell.

I’m going to stop here. I have a lot more I could say, but I’ll leave it for another day and maybe another site.

So, what do you think? Questions? Comments?

I always enjoy hearing from you.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. You do realize that this is about affiliate marketing, too, don’t you? I am an affiliate for Sitesell and I believe they have the best affiliate program on the planet. I haven’t tested all of them, of course, but of the several hundred I have tested, Sitesell’s 5 Pillar Affiliate Program is the best. I’m not surprised. They are very good at what they do.

Here’s part of what she said:

…You make a lot of reeeeally good points here. Like the learning curve with self-hosting services. That’s the biggest reason I’ve kept my blog(s) on Blogger rather than anything else.

I’ve tried hosting with HostGator and GoDaddy, but when I got my URL and hosting, then went to the dashboard of my services and realized I knew absolutely nothing about how to actually get a site up and running, my projects were dead in the water. I just don’t understand how it all works. My brand of geek is more the sci-fi and gaming variety of geek….

Delena, you bring up a very good point — learning curves.

When I first started blogging, it was as a hobby. Later, it became an integral part of my marketing business. It was much more effective when blogs were new and there were few competitors. Now, my blogs convert much poorer than my tier-structured websites. That’s why I’m putting much less effort into blogging this year.

Every time we encounter something new on the Internet, there is a learning curve. Some things are easy to use — like Twitter. But, there is still a learning curve involved in learning how to use each of them effectively for our business and/or personal purposes.

For several years, I tested every blogging platform and every social networking site I encountered. Most were a complete waste of time and diverted me from actually working my business. Yes, my business is marketing online, so it wasn’t entirely wasted, but it did not help in producing revenue.

If I were in a different business, all of that effort would have directly competed with actually working my business and that would have been a Bad Thing.

I’ve known lots of small business owners who wasted months of time and put up really lousy websites, when they could have paid a pro a couple of thousand dollars and would have had something that looked good, attracted visitors, presented good calls to action, and produced results.

On the other hand, lots of small business owners tend to be generalists and do-it-yourself-ers. Many are highly skilled in several areas. I’ve seen lots of excellent blogs and websites that they built themselves.

In many instances — perhaps most — we’re better off getting better at what we’re already good at, rather than trying to improve those things we don’t like to do or are not good at.

So, each of us has to decide for ourselves where our skills are strong and where they’re weak. Also, we have to consider what we enjoy doing and what we can’t stand.

Then, time, energy, skills, interest, and profit have to be factored into your own personal equation to help you decide what you should do yourself and what you either don’t do or hire someone else to do for you.

It’s a case of penny (dollars) wise and pound (time) foolish. The one thing that small business owners all have in short supply is time and that’s what is frequently squandered in a misguided effort to save a few dollars.

A blog can be a really good thing for a business and I believe that a website is a requirement, but I don’t think everyone has equal talents when creating and maintaining them. In many cases, business owners would be much better off hiring a pro to build and maintain their websites, and hiring a professional writer — who understands the psychology of marketing — to write the pages and blog posts.

I just don’t see much of this being done by most small business owners.

To me, it makes good business sense to pay someone $500 (for example), if what they do produces an extra $1,000 (or any amount over $500). Not only does it produce a profit on its own, but it frees up the owners time to do things directly related to the business (or have time for a nap or a day off now and then).

I’m way off topic for a blog about affiliate marketing. These days, I’m splitting my time between affiliate marketing and promoting local small businesses. I see some similarities and big differences.

For those of us who earn our living by publishing on the Internet, it can be a very wise investment of our time and energy to learn how to build good, productive websites and blogs. That’s a core part of our business.

For other business types, it can be a huge distraction filled with multiple learning curves.

For those of us whose geekiosity runs to tech things, this can be a good way to build a business helping local folks who don’t understand it.

(Technogeeks usually have poor people skills. It’s a stereotype, because it’s true more often than not. They are wise when they team up with a marketinggeek who knows how to sell. Apple would not have been the same if it hadn’t been for Steve Wozniak teaming with Steve Jobs, both of whom were geniuses in their own realms.)

For folks whose geekforce runs to other things, I think blogging on Blogger and building websites using tools like Weebly makes a lot of sense. I just don’t see any reason why you should have to face the hassles, uncertainty, and displeasure of doing the tech things you don’t want to do.

I do think it’s a good thing to invest in a domain name you own and can market. You can publish through Blogger to your own domain. (You may need to hire someone to set it up for you, if you’re completely baffled.)

You can have your own domain name with Weebly, too. If you register a domain through their service, they’ll set up all the tech stuff for you. If you register a domain through a different registrar, you’ll have to do it yourself, or at the risk of sounding like a broken record, hire someone to do it for you.

I think it is important to learn all you can about your business and effective ways to promote and market it, but I think there is a limit that you reach at some point. Promoting your business and the products and services you offer is important. Very important. Learning to market your business more effectively is a good path to more profit, but don’t waste time when you don’t have to.

Are all the learning curves stopping you from making a profit?

Act on your dream!

JD

I don’t remember how many weeks I spent on that project. It took awhile.

Now, the three blogs I intend to keep active are hosted on my domains and are powered by WordPress. You may be doing the same thing.

Over the intervening months, I’ve looked at a lot of plug-ins for my blogs and have tested a few. Now, I’ve settled into using about a dozen.

I’m still not thinking clearly enough to tackle real projects, but today I decided to update the plug-ins I’m using. All of them have been well-behaved in the past and I had few, or no, problems with them. That’s why they’ve survived the cut.

It’s been bugging me lately whenever I log into my dashboard and see plug-ins that need updating. Today, when I sat down to write a new blog post (on a topic that I have completely forgotten about now), I saw that nine plug-ins needed updating.

In a fit of uncharacteristic trust that computers and software can be modified without any side-effects, I updated all of them at the same time. After 30 years of programming and using computers, you would think I’d know better.

I was actually going to write about the topic of this blog — affiliate marketing — and that was shot down.

After the system did its thing and updated the nine plug-ins, my blog immediately started loading pages incredibly slowly. The pages have been taking two or three seconds to load, but all of a sudden, it was taking half-a-minute, if they even loaded completely.

So, I turned off all my active plug-ins. (At least, I was thinking clearly enough to stop, pull out a pen and paper, and write a list of all the plug-ins that were activated. I have about as many that are not activated, but which I want to test when I’m up to it.)

The pages loaded very quickly, on the order of a second or two.

So, over the next hour, I activated each plug-in separately and observed the load time of the home page and a long blog post. With each plug-in that I activated, the load time slowed.

I tried prioritizing them. I deactivated the lowest priority and activated those at the top of the list. Still too slow.

Eventually, I found a mix that more-or-less works. In the process, I lost some functionality I wanted, but have a blog that is functional and not too slow. It’s slower than I want, but it’s workable.

I know better.

Really, I do.

Did I back everything up before updating.

No.

Silly me.

Did I set aside a few hours, in case I ran into problems?

No.

Did I do the updates on an impulse, knowing I had to leave home and run some errands?

Yes.

Did I get the blog post written that I originally set out to write?

No.

Is it the fault of WordPress? Partially.

Is it the fault of the plug-in programmers? Partially.

Is it my fault? Partially, but I accept full responsibility for making and implementing the decision.

It is a never-ending cycle of upgrading WordPress and the plug-ins I choose to use. It is getting tiresome. I don’t find it interesting these days.

It’s getting in the way of getting real work done.

After a couple of hours of working through this, I’m actually a couple of steps behind where I was before I started. In other words, I took a couple of steps backwards today.

That will not get me closer to achieving my goals.

I didn’t write the post I set out to write. That won’t get me any closer to earning more money.

It has been a wasted opportunity.

Sigh.

I was reading Ken Evoy’s thoughts on his blog about SBI Owners Think and Do “Business” and had a few thoughts of my own to share.

(Ken mentions the Action Guide in his blog post. SBI subscribers have access to the Action Guide, in written and video form, and a lot more. If you’re not an SBI subscriber, you can click the link and learn from what I consider to be the best and most comprehensive guide to building an online business. You won’t have access to all the tools that SBI offers, but you can still learn a lot by following the Action Guide and using it to help you build your own business plan.)

(By the way, Sitesell keeps adding more and better tools to the mix and the price has not gone up. It remains at $299 per year and continually improves.)

When I started affiliate marketing over a decade ago, it was with the thought to make money online. I had another source of income, at the time, and I was looking to supplement it. Affiliate marketing looked like the perfect way for me to do that. And it was, for about ten years, most of which I earned 100% of my income from affiliate marketing.

I’ve tested lots of things. Blogging, article directories, building tier-structured websites, and more. I’ve tested affiliate marketing, MLM, money making systems, and others.

What works, for me — at least, is building sites with information about a particular topic and monetizing it via affiliate links and Google Adsense.

For the last two years, I’ve managed to survive, but not thrive, as my illness impeded my ability to think clearly, make plans, and follow through on my decisions. I’m hoping that this trend will start to reverse itself now that I’m off the chemo drugs and the cancer is no longer poisoning my body.

Today, I’m starting down a new path and I’ll be concentrating on rebuilding my marketing business and finding new ways to offer valuable information and reap the rewards in commissions and advertising income.

It’s time for Dilbeck Marketing to rise from the ashes — metaphorically speaking.

This time, it’s going to be different. I already know how to make money online. Now, I’m going to focus on building a business. One that earns more, and builds equity for the future.

I have a long way to go before I recover, so I’ll be taking baby steps until I’m strong enough to stand tall and walk on my own. Nobody said it would be easy. It’s going to take time and effort to regain my strength.

It’s going to take planning and execution in order to rebuild my business. It’s not going to be easy, but I’ve never asked for easy — just an opportunity to do my best.

As I played with the shiny red balls that bounced across my path, I’ve taken some wrong turns in the journey to building my business, even if they resulted in earning a little money. They were not part of my long-term strategy, and they distracted me from my plan. I’m going to remain focused on my goals and ignore these distractions, in the future.

What are your goals?

Do you want to make money online, or are you interested in building a business that will help supply your needs for the long term? Or, do you have something else in mind?

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

Act on your dream!

JD

Why do so many blogs have posts from “Admin” rather than a real person?

How can we tell if “Admin” is a person or a robot?

I was reading a blog this morning, and I’m pretty sure that it was written by a real person, but I could find no information on who that person might be. No name, no “About Us” page, no nothing.

So, instead of subscribing to the RSS feed (as I was about to do), I moved along and probably won’t go back.

If you’re putting so much effort into blogging or building a website, why don’t you put some effort into sharing who you are and what you’re all about?

That’s the question I’m asking myself this morning.

This evening, a little over 100 miles from here, my high school classmates are having our 40th high school reunion and I would love to go and see them. We’ve become reacquainted this year on Facebook and we’re sharing tidbits about our families and what’s happening with all of us.

That makes this year different.

In the past, I didn’t mind missing the reunions because I’d lost touch with everyone, even my best friends from high school. This year, it’s different. I’m reading their stories and they’re reading mine. We’ve reconnected — as people and not just names and memories.

40 years is a long time, and yet, in many ways, it seems to have flown by. In other ways, it feels like it’s been an eternity since I saw any of them.

Since I had to make the decision, this morning, that I couldn’t make it to this reunion, due to being weak and tired from this week’s chemotherapy, I got to thinking about other things I’ve done with my time.

I look back on the last 40 years and I like that I concentrated on computers and mastered them enough to build a decent career as a consultant, teacher, programmer, and administrator. It made it possible for me to move here to Murphy, NC, and I love living here in the mountains and out of the rat race. I invested over a decade in the big cities of Atlanta and Phoenix and was then able to bring myself and my business here.

I like that I have good friends who care about me as much as I care about them. That, too, takes time.

For the rest of this post, I’m going to concentrate on the last decade or so.

As you may already know, the last decade has been full of challenges for my family. For over seven years, I was the sole, full-time caretaker for my elderly mother as she battled cancer and the after-effects of the surgery. I cared for her as long as I could but she had to go into a nursing home for the last few months of her life. At least, I helped her live at home for a few more years.

This year, I’m fighting my own battle with cancer and the tide seems to have turned. I intend to win this war and get healthy and stronger. A year from now, I intend to be much better than I am today.

During all this time, my online marketing business allowed me the time to stay home and care for her, and now for myself.

(In my own case, however, I’ve had to file for disability to pay for all the medical bills and my living expenses until I can really resume working. These days, I’m able to do a bit here and there, but nowhere nearly as much as I used to do. Up until this summer, my online marketing business provided 100% of my income for most of the last decade. As soon as possible, it will once again provide the income for me to live my life as I like it.)

Just out of curiosity, I went to Alexa’s Way Back Machine and looked at the first few days of JohnDilbeck.com as it looked on October 18, 2000 — just over one more week from its 10th anniversary. (Actually, I registered the domain a few months earlier, on my birthday. In many ways, it looks much the same now as it did back then: JohnDilbeck.com)

Even in my earliest attempts, I was using affiliate marketing to earn a living. This site brought in thousands of dollars over the years.

Even my very first domain, Need-Sleep.com, was a money maker, primarily because I was one of the earliest Amazon.com affiliates. That look into the Way Back Machine shows my first money-making site as it looked about 13 years ago.

(I miss my HyperDimensional Book Nook.)

All my sites that depended upon the Amazon.com affiliate program for income took a dive when Amazon terminated all their associates in North Carolina following our legislature’s misguided attempt to bring in more taxes with their new nexus laws. Unlike some people, however, I relied on Amazon.com as only one stream in my income river, so although substantial, losing Amazon and other big retailers did not put me out of business. However, that, coupled with the massive downturn in the economy, really did put a crimp on my income. It’s a good thing I have no debts and my overhead is very low. Even with the lowered income, I was able to weather the storm and I’m starting to see my income rise, again, even though it’s only a fraction of what it once was.

Both sites were rather crude and certainly did not contain any eye candy to keep anyone entertained. Yet, both of them made money for me.

I only wish I had been smart enough to sell the Need-Sleep.com domain to someone rather than just letting the domain registration lapse.

I just looked and the domain is available. I almost registered it for old time’s sake, but decided not to. I’ve registered way too many domains over the years and most of them have been failures. Besides, now that I’m no longer a computer consultant working all around the clock, I no longer need sleep. (grin)

I won’t bother you with them, but I’ve looked at some of those old domains this morning and recognize all the hard work that I put into them and all the time that was wasted over the years.

If I had avoided all the shiny red balls that kept bouncing across my marketing pathway, and had concentrated on building websites with depth and authority, I would have earned more for my efforts.

As a consultant, I knew the value of being paid for my work and I charged accordingly. I don’t know why I forgot those hard-won lessons when I turned to Internet marketing.

I also know the value in paying for expert help when I need it, so why did I spend thousands of hours (and quite a bit of money) learning and relearning how to build “free” websites over the years? Looking back on it from my new perspective, I just don’t understand it.

Still, some of my websites did well enough that I earned a decent living, where I wanted to live, doing what I wanted to do, so that I could invest waste time learning all the new scripts, building forums, article directories, blogs, playing on traffic exchanges, learning I don’t do well with MLM, and learning another half-dozen programming languages.

What do I have to show for all that? A few dollars here and there. It’s true that I know more about all this stuff than I did, but it’s worthless knowledge, because I’ll never be able to recoup the value of the time I wasted in the process.

I’ve told you before — and some of you may be sick of hearing it — that I’m moving away from blogging (which I’ve been doing for over 10 years) and back to building hierarchically organized static websites. Over the years, even though I put more of my effort into blogging than I did into building content focused websites, very little of my income has come from my blogging efforts.

I got other things out of it, however. There was the social interaction, meeting new friends, and sharing new discoveries, but there was very little money added to my income streams.

I don’t have the exact numbers, but I’m sure my income from my best websites (which I sorely neglected over the years) outperformed my blogs by at least a ratio of 50 to 1, and maybe a bit more.

I was just looking at the first available page of my first blog (on the Way Back Machine), John Dilbeck’s Ramblings, and noticed that even the name shows my lack of focus. John Dilbeck’s Ramblings is no way to inspire confidence and help readers focus on what I’m writing about.

So, over the next ten years, I plan to focus most of my attention on two sites, Act On Your Dream! and my primary site at Murphy Gold.

Not so coincidentally, they are both powered by SBI.

I knew that SBI was a great way to build a site, but something in me, probably a personality defect, drove me to try all these other things and see if I was able to do better with them than I could by using SBI and following the Action Guide.

The only really good result from all my testing is that I have proven to myself that I’ve been spinning my wheels for many years and now it’s going to be much easier to follow what I learn from all the folks at Sitesell.

If I were starting over a couple of years ago, I would have slapped up a new WordPress blog and started rambling. Now, I’ve relearned what I learned a decade ago and I won’t make that mistake.

Ken Evoy makes the point so well on the WordPress or SBI page.

While I was playing and testing on WordPress, and making a hundred dollars here and there, my SBI sites were generating the income that gave me the free time to waste. (Two of my other sites were built based on the principles of Ken Evoy’s Make Your Site Sell! ebook, and they also generated income. They were built before SBI was available, or they would have been powered by SBI, too.)

I’ve given a lot of things the benefit of the doubt, and that includes blogging, building forums, creating article directories, and much more, and it just has not been worth the effort. If I were getting paid by the hour for all the work I’ve done on them, I would have made less than minimum wage.

What does that say about building a business? I could have earned more money with less work by slinging burgers at the local greasy spoon. Sigh.

Fortunately, a handful of websites pulled their load and earned much more than the others. That’s the direction I’m moving in, once again, following a very long detour.

So, what’s your time — and your creative talent — worth? Are you satisfied earning a few hundred dollars per month from your online business, or do you think you’re worth more?

If someone offered me $200 to be their consultant for a month, I’d turn them down, without even having to think about it. So, why would I settle for that as income from blogging all month?

Sometimes I just don’t understand myself. At least, I can learn from my mistakes.

What about you?

What is your time worth?

Act on your dream!

JD

I decided that I wanted the content in a large left column and the widgets in the right column. Since I put a lot of stuff in the right column (recent posts, recent comments, top commentator, links to affiliate sites, links to other blogs, several RSS feeds, and a few more things), I decided to have two right columns.

I still haven’t decided if I like how it’s set-up yet, or not. I may be changing things in the next few days.

Installing and activating the theme was easy, but then I had to spend a couple of hours adjusting the widgets to where I wanted them and modifying a few of them.

I think blogs are inherently difficult to navigate, so I wanted to make sure I had easy-to-find links to the pages, recent posts, and recent comments. That took only a few moments to set up.

Then, I left to do other things that really needed doing, like resting and taking naps.

In the interim, I was talking to a friend on Facebook about his new blog and how I thought it was hard to navigate. The only way to find other posts was to go to the home page and scroll down.

I wrote and suggested that he add at least the recent posts and comments, especially if he wanted to foster conversations on what he wrote via comments. I also suggested that he have “breadcrumbs” at the top and bottom of his posts that would point to previous and next posts.

Today, I came back and looked at both blogs where I’d changed the theme and noticed that they no longer had the breadcrumb navigation links. That’s when I realized that they were part of the coding of the previous theme I’d been using and it wasn’t included in this one.

So, I did some digging on another blog that still uses the previous theme and found the code to add the breadcrumbs to this and the other blog.

When I did it, it looked horrible. There was overlapping between the navigation links and the Title of the blog post. So, I had to spend some time modifying the CSS code so everything would look okay.

While I was at it, I decided to put the Adsense ads back at the top and bottom of each post. I’ll give it a month or so and see how it produces. If it’s profitable on these blogs, I’ll leave them. If not, poof, they’ll be deleted.

So, while it took only a few minutes to change the theme, it has taken five or six hours of tweaking and adjusting to get it to what I want, and I’ve only seen them in Safari on Macs, so far.

I had some good reasons for changing the themes, but I really didn’t expect it to take this much work to get them back to where I wanted them.

Just as I was about to call it completed for now, I noticed that the new theme was showing all the pages on this blog in a horizontal navigation bar right below the header, and then obscuring most of them. I didn’t like how that looked and I didn’t like that it showed some of the pages that weren’t the most important right below the header.

So, I took a few minutes and removed the code that automatically generated the list of pages and replaced it with hard links to what I consider to be the most important pages that should be shown in that part of the navigation menu. It was easy to do, but I almost didn’t see it.

I wonder what else I haven’t noticed, yet.

Have you had any interesting experiences when changing the theme of your blog(s)? Are you using free or premium themes? Do you have any advice to offer your fellow bloggers?

Act on your dream!

JD

Apparently, the reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, and it looks like that applies to this blog, too.

I came close to dying back in March, and things weren’t looking too good in May, either.

I’m happy to tell you that I’m getting better. I have a long way to go before I’m fully recovered, but I’m making substantial progress.

I wrote what I thought would be the last post to this blog in the middle of May, 2010. Since then, there have been some significant events in my life.

On April 1, 2010, my friend and surgeon resected my intestines, removed my gall bladder, and removed an 8-lb colon cancer. He was surprised to find the tumor in one large contained mass, rather than spread throughout my abdomen. That was a very lucky break.

Other, relatively minor surgeries followed.

A PET scan showed that I had suspicious spots in both thyroid glands and in the right lobe of my liver.

A biopsy of each thryoid gland showed that the growths were benign, not cancer. Happy dance!

A biopsy of the tumor in my liver showed it was benign. Happy dance!

However, a radiologist on the oncology team that would be doing the procedure on my liver called me at home from his vacation and said the biopsy report on my liver had to be wrong. He had seen the scans (two of them) and knew from the look and the growth that it was cancer. He didn’t want to rain on my parade, but he said — emphatically — that I should get the biopsy redone, and he would do it himself, if I wanted. I talked it over with my daughter and decided to have the biopsy redone. Dr. Moore did it using a slightly different technique and was right. It was colon cancer that had metastasized to my liver. At least, we knew it was something that had to be dealt with, as soon as possible.

In July, 2010, I went to Mission Hospital in Asheville, NC, and Dr. Moore performed a radio frequency ablation of the tumor in my liver. It is good that I was a good candidate for this, because traditional surgery on the right lobe of the liver is a very serious operation. Basically, what he did was this: insert three needles (that are connected to a radio frequency generator) into my liver so that they surround the tumor. Turn on the generator to cook the tumor (think of this as a microwave oven).

Because of the size of the tumor, he had to use three needles and the results looked good on the ultrasound right after the procedure.

I went for a CT scan and checkup with Dr. Moore earlier this week and got the good news. There is no sign of cancer in my liver, the “cooked” portion completely enveloped the tumor and some surrounding tissue, and there are no signs of bleeding complications. Very good news, indeed.

So, now the surgical interventions are all done and I’m on my second round (of 24 total) of chemotherapy treatments.

Now, instead of expecting to die from this (as it looked back in March), we’re working together to cure it. That’s a huge change in expectations and perspective in only three months.

I’m a long way from being my old self. I’m tired all the time and have trouble thinking straight, but I’m definitely improving.

So, instead of closing this blog, I’ve updated it to the latest version of WordPress, changed the theme, and spruced it up for another few years of talking about affiliate marketing.

I will not be posting as often as I did previously, but this blog is not going to just sit here, either. I will definitely be putting more effort into building evergreen, content-rich, hierarchically-organized websites than I will into blogging, but both have a part to play in my marketing plans.

I want to thank everyone who sent me their encouragement and support in the comments here, on my Facebook profile, and in email and phone calls. It meant a lot, and still does. I think your outpouring of support, encouragement, and prayers is one of the major reasons that I’m looking forward to conquering this cancer, instead of being its victim.

So, that’s enough about me. Let’s get back to talking about affiliate marketing.

(Now, I have to remember how I added that subscribe via email form on this blog. Scratching head…)

Act on your dream!

JD

This is the last post to this blog and I will be shutting it down in the next few days or weeks, as I have the time and energy. I’m closing my marketing business and I’m out of affiliate marketing.

It’s amazing how much of a difference two months can make in one’s life.

Two months ago, I went to the emergency room because I could not get out of bed. After 7 units of blood, I felt a bit stronger, but that lead to the discovery of colon cancer, which was followed shortly after with intestinal surgery, gall bladder removal, and today I learned that I need surgery for cancer in my liver and a biopsy for possible cancer in one of my thyroid glands.

For the foreseeable future, I’ll be putting my energy into kicking these cancers’ butts. I don’t intend to let them beat me, but you never know.

I don’t know for sure what will happen to this domain name. If you’re a regular reader and contributor to this blog, I’m willing to listen to your ideas.

It’s been a wild ride for the last several years, and I’m sad to see the ride coming to an end.

I plan to continue posting (now and then) to JohnDilbeckAndFriends.com and to my Facebook account at facebook.com/johndilbeck .

Thanks for reading, contributing, and making affiliate marketing just a bit more interesting as we shared ideas and thoughts about the subject.

Continued success to you.

All the best,

JD

This is the last year where blogging will be part of my marketing plan, however.

The plain truth is that blogging hasn’t been worth the time and effort in terms of receiving an income from all I’ve done. So, since I’m going to be concentrating on increasing my revenue next year, I’m going to focus almost entirely on what works for me and I’m dropping what hasn’t been fruitful.

There is a good chance that this blog won’t be here a year from now.

I’m turning my attention back to what does work for me – what pays the bills – and another thing I enjoy, which is building static, hierarchical websites focused on particular topics.

I’ve been building websites since shortly after the introduction of the world wide web and I have used lots of different tools to build sites that attract visitors and earn money from sponsorships, advertising, affiliate sales, and in other ways.

One site, that I’ve sadly neglected because of health issues that have interfered, still earns more in one month than all my blogs earn in an entire year — and I haven’t done much to that site at all in the last year.

That should be a lesson to me. Concentrate on what’s working and stop playing with all the shiny red balls that bounce by.

I enjoy blogging

I enjoy blogging and the social aspects of commenting on other blogs. These discussions have been fun and I’ve met some great people around the world as a result.

But, let’s face it. We talk to each other, but we don’t buy from each other. You don’t buy from me and I don’t buy from you. That’s the bottom line when it comes to a marketing business.

I’m still going to follow blogs and bloggers that I like and I’ll still have something to say now and then when Mitch or AussieSire, or several others I enjoy reading, writes something of interest, but I’m not going to spend nearly the time and effort that I have in the past on my own blogs.

I don’t like being poor

My goal in having an online marketing business is to earn a good living at it, not just barely get by.

This has been an unusually hard year for me, but that’s the way life happens. I’m hoping that it was just the bottom of a bad cycle and that things will start moving upwards, soon.

That’s another reason to concentrate on what’s working.

The majority of my income this year has been from a brand new site I started back in July when I had to replace the affiliate income I lost.

I’ve been playing around with promoting my adopted home town and the people and organizations here, but I turned that into a business this year when I launched Murphy Gold and its companion social networking site at Murphy Connections.

This is a more-traditional business structure.

Local business owners pay me to promote them and I write about the products and services they offer and other things they do throughout the year, such as special events.

Over time, even in a small town like Murphy, NC, this can be profitable.

Now that I have all the infrastructure in place, it’s time to hunker down and focus on that.

So, you’ll see less of me here. I’ll still drop in on your blogs now and then and I’m following some of them in email and RSS, but I won’t be saying much, unless you write something that really captures my interest and I think my comment may add value to what you’re saying.

This answers my question: WordPress or SBI?

I can clearly show on my profit and loss statement that SBI delivers much more income and more visitors who actually buy something than all of my blogs put together.

SBI takes less work, doesn’t have to be updated every time I turn around, and now with Content 2 being available to all of us who power our sites with Site Build It, it gives me an easy way to let others write pages for the site and comment on them.

That adds the social aspect to SBI sites that I’ve enjoyed on blogs.

So, there you have it.

I’ve been promoting SBI for years and telling you how much I love it, so I’m going to go back to using it and rebuilding my online marketing business.

Blogging has been a fun experiment.

Act on your dream!

JD