Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Back To Work We Go

Summer is coming to a close.

No more vacations. No more lazy days in the sun.

It’s time to go back to school and back to work.

This raises the question, “Do you like your work?”

Over the years, I’ve had a few jobs. I liked some of them and had a hard time dragging myself out of bed to go to others.

It’s incredible how much of a difference it makes if you like your work.

These days, I love to wake up and get started. First, I make a detour to put on some coffee, and then I go turn on my computers and printer. I log into the account I’ll be using (I have several accounts set up on my Mac and each is customized for specific tasks) and go get a cup of coffee while my computer loads the applications and documents most commonly used for the things I’ll be doing.

Total elapsed time, under five minutes, tops. No commute, no traffic, no outrageous gasoline prices. If I didn’t make coffee, I could be at work in about one minute.

You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about getting up in the morning. That’s not the way I work. As I write this, it’s a few minutes after midnight and I’m going strong. I had a nap this afternoon and I’ll be working for a few more hours, probably.

Work has been a bit slow this evening, because I was keeping one eye on the closing ceremonies of the Olympics while I worked. I was reminded of how much I enjoyed watching Michael Phelps win his eight gold medals. I was also happy to see Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh win their gold medal in beach volleyball, making it a history-setting back-to-back win in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

But, now the Olympics are over and I can return my full attention to what I’m doing.

It’s the time of year to get back to work. I love what I do. Do you?

I could make more money if I went back to consulting or being a systems administrator, but I just don’t need the stress and long hours, any more.

I enjoy researching products and services and recommending the best I can find to you and other readers of my blogs and websites.

I love working at home, on my own schedule. If I’m tired, I rest or sleep. If I don’t feel like working, I watch a movie or read a book.

When I feel like working, which is most of the time, I work on improving and expanding my websites, forums, blogs, lenses, and communities. I meet interesting people all around the world and receive very welcome commission checks from the few companies I recommend.

It’s not at all like it was back when I was paving roads and pouring concrete in the heat of the summer and cold of the winter. I never slice into the palm of my hand as I did back when I used to open about 200 dozen oysters at a seafood restaurant every evening. I don’t suffer from millions of stinging glass fibers as I did when I packed fiberglass insulation. Those were not my favorite jobs – not at all.

So, what makes it possible for me to work at home and make money using my computer and an Internet connection?

I’ve invested a lot of time and effort to learn affiliate marketing, and I’m doing better every year. This is a fairly easy business, but doing it as well as I can takes some effort and discipline.

If I’m not careful, I spend all my time building new websites, starting new blogs, and doing all the other things I can do half-asleep. Up to a point, this is a useful exercise, because I’ve been able to test lots of things to see how they work, or don’t work, for me.

I’ve joined hundreds of affiliate programs to learn how they work from the inside and have found that most return either very little or no return on my investment of time, effort and money. However, I’m determined to be successful at this and every time I learn something I don’t like about an affiliate program, I recognize what I do like about the programs that work for me.

As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite is the SiteSell Five Pillar affiliate program. Not only do they offer an outstanding product, Site Build It!, they also have the best affiliate program I’ve been able to find.

It has all I’m looking for:

  • An excellent product
  • Great support and training
  • An active and supportive forum
  • Lifetime commissions
  • Recurring annual commissions
  • High commissions per sale

So, I enjoy promoting Site Build It.

You know what I say, right, “If it’s not good enough for me, it isn’t good enough for you.”

I’m a very happy SiteSell customer and I use Site Build It! to power my Act On Your Dream! website.

I have big plans for that site and I’ve been doing a lot of behind-the-scenes work on a complete redesign and expansion of that site that I plan to complete before the end of the year. It won’t look much different, but I believe you’ll find it more useful.

Gee, John, get to the point, already!

Sorry about that. I do tend to get long-winded (or should that be long-fingered), don’t I?

OK. Here it is.

My life has changed for the better because of Ken Evoy, SiteSell, and Site Build It! I’m living my dream of working at home in the mountains far from the nearest city and doing what I want when I want to do it. That’s what I call freedom.

It all started when I found, and bought, Make Your Site Sell! a few years ago. I learned from that ebook what I needed to do to redesign and rebuild my websites so that I could make money via affiliate marketing. I was happy to pay for that book and I earned back my tiny investment hundreds of times since putting into action what I learned there. Now that ebook is a free download.

I liked Make Your Site Sell! so much that I became a Sitesell 5 Pillar Club member and started earning money by recommending it to other people who were looking for legitimate ways to earn money online.

Later, when Site Build It! was introduced, I bought a subscription and put it to work. One of these days, when I have more time, I’m going to buy another subscription and create another niche site.

If you’ve been considering purchasing Site Build It so you can learn how to build a successful online business, this is a good time of year to get started.

Did you know that over half of SBI! owners own more than one SBI site? Some own several.

But, SBI isn’t magic. It provides the tools and training, but you have to bring your brains, inspiration, knowledge, ambition, creativity, and motivation to the party. It takes a lot of work to build a successful business, even if you have the best tools available.

When you take it one step at a time, however, and follow the action guide that is part of the SBI process, you’ll find it manageable and achievable, even if you’ve never built a website before.

I’ve watched thousands of people on the members-only SiteSell forums go from that wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights stage to offering sage advice to others a year later.

If you’re willing to invest a year or two in learning the tools, following the guide, and building your site, you may become one of the success stories featured in the case studies or have your site featured on the results page.

Of course, not everyone succeeds, and SBI doesn’t do your work for you, so if you’re not willing to spend a year or two to build something that can provide profits for years to come, then this isn’t for you. It’s work, no doubt about it.

But, if you have a passion for something and love researching it and telling others, then you already have the personality and some of the traits that make building an online business easier and more enjoyable.

Between now and August 29, 2008, at midnight, you have a choice. You can buy a one-year subscription to SBI for $299, or you can get two subscriptions for only $100 more.

Sure, you can keep both sites and build them yourself, but you may find that it’s better to give that second site to a friend, spouse, parent, child, or colleague. By giving that site to someone else, he or she will become your lifetime customer. If they join the affiliate program, they’ll be on your second-tier, a part of your team.

You can change your business life, and that of someone close to you, for the better.

Just remember to do it before the special ends on August 29 at midnight.

SiteSell and Site Build It! have helped me change my life and it’s working for thousands of other customers, too.

Why not you?

Act on your dream!

JD

What is your top affiliate program?

  • Do you earn money – regularly – from an affiliate program?
  • Would you recommend it to your closest friends and family?
  • Is it fair?

I regularly earn good commission checks from several top affiliate programs and I want to tell you about them.

I created a new page on this blog, Top Affiliate Programs, and I’ll be telling you about the dozen or so affiliate programs I value highly and enjoy promoting.

Now, before you go look at them, you have to remember my niche is earning money while working at home with your own affiliate marketing business.

So, if you’re looking for tools and services to help you in your affiliate marketing, I may have something of value to recommend to you.

Perhaps your niche is something totally different. In that case, my recommendations may not be very helpful.

Affiliate marketing is a wide niche with thousands of merchants and service providers.

But, let’s give this a try, anyway.

What is your top affiliate program?

Please feel free to comment on this post and tell us about your marketing niche, the merchant or service you promote, and why.

Feel free to link back to your own website or blog, but don’t post any affiliate links. Any comments that contain affiliate links will be deleted. Promote your business offerings on your own site, not mine.

But, again, feel free to link back to your site or blog to a page that has more about your top ranked affiliate program.

I think that’s fair. Do you?

Without a doubt, my top affiliate program is SiteSell’s 5 Pillar Affiliates and the primary service is Site Build It!

You can learn more about it on my Top Affiliate Programs page on this site.

So, what’s your opinion?

What’s your top affiliate program. Please limit your comments to one program.

Act on your dream!

JD

Updated Site Build It! 5 Pillar Program lens on Squidoo

If you don’t already know it, I’m a huge fan of Site Build It!, Ken Evoy, and their 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.

I’ve joined and tested hundreds of affiliate programs, and the 5 Pillar Affiliate Program remains at the top of the list.

You can earn generous commissions from each sale, and recurring commissions from each annual renewal. This is true lifetime commissions, and the folks at SiteSell go out of their way to make sure you are credited for the sales you make.

It is a two-tier program, so you can earn residual commissions each time someone you refer to the affiliate program makes a sale.

SiteSell offers outstanding training, a regular newsletter for affiliates, great promotional tools, dedicated affiliate managers, and free members-only forums.

The 5 Pillar Program remains one of my highest paying and most reliable income streams.

Have you joined, yet?

It’s free, you know.

Come learn more about the Site Build It! 5 Pillar Affiliate Program.

If I were going to recommend only one affiliate program, this is it.

Act on your dream!

JD

What other webhosting company can show results like SiteSell can?

I was reading the members-only SiteSell forums and read Ken Evoy’s announcement of a revised results page showing hundreds of websites created with Site Build It!

Not only can SiteSell show hundreds of successful websites, they’re actually finding it more difficult to revise the page.

Why? Because there aren’t enough successful sites?

Hardly!

It’s because there are so many successful sites that they are finding it difficult to pick only the best for the results page.

A few years ago, when there were only about 60,000,000 active websites, an SBI webmaster could make the results page even if their site was only in the top 3% of all sites on the Internet.

Now, with the number of active websites somewhere between 100,000,000 and 160,000,000, you have to rank in the top 1% of all those sites to be listed on the Site Build It! results page.

What other webhosting company do you know of that shows hundreds of websites that rank in the Top 1% of all sites on the entire Internet? The really important thing is that the vast majority of those sites were created by normal, non-technical people who wanted to build a successful online business, and, in many cases, the sites they built are outperforming websites created by experts.

These are normal people, some of them probably a lot like you, who have followed the Site Build It! Action Guide and have built high-traffic websites in only a year or two that have risen to the top of the heap. Most of them knew little or nothing about building an online business before they subscribed to Site Build It.

If they can do it, why can’t you?

Seriously.

Act on your dream!

JD

Site Build It! – now you can hire a specialist to build your website for you

Until now, Site Build It! was for the “Do it yourself” crowd.

I’m part of that demographic and I love building websites of all sorts, but that’s what I do.

There are many thousands of us who want to learn all the skills that are necessary to build a successful, profit-making website around which we can build our business.

But, there are many millions who are part of the “Do it for me” crowd.

Maybe you are one of them.

You already have a business and you want a website that actually brings new customers and clients. You want your site to add to your bottom line, not subtract from it.

You know how to run your business and now you want to find someone who can build a website that gets results.

You already hire specialists in other areas, including your lawyer and accountant. Maybe it’s time for you to hire a specialist who will work closely with you to build a website that promotes your business and attracts new prospects to your business.

Where will you find a specialist who knows how to do this and won’t charge you more than its worth?

SiteSell Services now offers very attractive packages that include hosting using the un-matched Site Build It! system and a specialist who will work closely with you to target your niche market and build a website that will work for you night and day.

SiteSell Services is brand new, but it is based on a decade of proven techniques and technology combined to build websites that produce results.

From the SiteSell Services page:

Build a professional Web site with SiteSell Services, using a process and tools proven by tens of thousands of people. Each page is aimed at pulling in Web site visitors. More Web site visitors means more new business.

Your SBI!-built site will work. Built from the ground up, you reap the benefits of 10 years of SiteSell experience, all packed into a truly professional site.

Don’t waste your time and money. You deserve a website that will work for you.

Why don’t you spend a few minutes and see if SiteSell Services is what you’ve been looking for?

Act on your dream!

JD

Site Build It! Special Offer

October 24, 2007 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Sitesell and Site Build It, Webhosting 

It’s scary trying to build a successful online business when the great majority of websites do not succeed in attracting new visitors and making the sales you need for your business to grow.

Site Build It! offers the tools you need and a proven step-by-step process for building an online business that offers a much better probability of succeeding.

During the special offer, instead of paying $299 to subscribe to Site Build It! for a year, you can choose to pay $399 and get two subscriptions.

Keep one for yourself and give one to a friend, associate, or someone in your family.

(Note: even if you look at this posting after the Halloween special has expired, the above link will still take you to the SBI order page – and – if there is a current special, the image will inform you. How’s that for keeping you informed of any special promotions for Site Build It?)

Give the gift of Site Build It! to someone who is newly retired and wants something new to do or to a college student for building an in-demand skill for the real world.

There are so many possibilities.

Take advantage of this special and it may help you change your world.

Act on your dream!

JD

Sitesell announces Snippet Build It! for 5 Pillar affiliates

Yesterday, in the 5 Pillar #291 newsletter, Ken Evoy announced the introduction of Snippet Build It! This is a tool that can be used by 5 Pillar affiliates to build links to over 60 landing pages for promoting Site Build It!

Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and the rocks weren’t quite hardened, Sitesell was selling some of the best ebooks ever published. Make Your Site Sell! was the Bible of online marketing that helped me start building my marketing business. Now, it’s a free download and there is a lot of very valuable information in the 1,500 or so pages of this ebook. I still refer to it now and then.

In addition to outstanding ebooks, Ken wrote a number of courses that were delivered via email. I remember taking all of those courses as they were introduced and updated. I still have several of them in a 3-ring binder, and they are covered with notes and bright yellow highlights. Now, these courses are available as free downloadable PDF files. I still highly recommend my favorite, the Affiliate Masters Course, because it offers as much as some courses that cost around $100 and you can download it free. It was always free and still remains free.

Over time, to make it easier for Sitesell’s 5 Pillar Affiliates to market these products, Ken introduced Page Build It! – a tool for building customized gateway pages. Around the same time, give or take, the Build It! tool was introduced to make it easier for affiliates to build web pages (or just snippets of code) that combined text and graphics. This was a cutting-edge marketing tool when it was introduced.

Now, I hope you’ll excuse my memory, but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since these tools were first introduced, so I may not have all of this exactly right, but I believe the gist of it is accurate.

These tools for building pages and code snippets eventually lead to the first, less-than-impressive versions of Site Build It! But, Ken and the folks associated with Sitesell were not content with what SBI was and continued to improve it and add new features.

Now, several years later – a very long time in the online marketing world – Site Build It has become an incredibly effective tool for building online businesses. More tools are added all the time and older features are updated continually.

So, as I said, Ken announced yesterday that Snippet Build It! was available and I just now spent about a half-hour playing with it.

I am impressed!

What used to be the Build It! tool has been streamlined and greatly improved. Now, 5 Pillar affiliates can easily and quickly create links to over 60 different landing pages that tell the story of SBI and why it makes sense to use it rather than traditional webhosting.

It’s easy to go to the page, select either text or image, select the desired landing page, and build a link.

If you select text, and a landing page, you can type the text you want in the link and see the link created as you type. It makes it simple to try several phrases to see which one you like, and then simply copy and paste the HTML code to your websites, blogs, and other places on the web. The text links in this article were created using Snippet Build It! as a test of using the system and it is easier than hand coding the links as I normally do.

Not only is it easier, the landing pages are grouped by their order in the buying cycle, and this is explained in an excellent article that was also released yesterday.

Why is that important?

I’ve gotten into a rut of referring prospects to just a handful of the many pages that are available. Now, by using Snippet Build It!, it will be much easier to choose just the right page to link to, depending upon the point I want to make in an article or advertisement.

This combination of being easy to use and providing a full list of the available landing pages (and this number is growing all the time) helps me provide the information you may need in order to make your final decision to buy, or not to buy, a subscription to the Site Build It! system – or to become one of our affiliates and make money promoting the best way to build an online business.

In addition to text links, Snippet Build It! makes it easy to build graphics links using some new banners, buttons, and logos.

For example, the following is a link to the Site Build It! main page, and was created in less than five seconds:

The new graphics use less text and more people. They use more right-brained emotion and less left-brained logic.

Now, I’m a left-brained logic kind of guy. I rarely make my decisions based on emotion. I spend a long time learning about something before I buy.

Most people, perhaps you, make more decisions based on emotion and then later justify it with logic.

Site Build It! is great for right-brained people. It is an exciting system that has helped many of its subscribers build successful online businesses, and quite a few have left the corporate world and are now living their dreams and working from home. Of course, not everyone is this successful, but SBI offers the tools and training to make it much more likely to succeed.

Many people have said they were exposed to SBI and didn’t believe that it was as good as many of us believe it to be. So, they moved on and built websites using other services. After a year or two of butting their heads against the technical hurdles, they remembered Site Build It! With more experience, they were better able to judge the benefits SBI offered and some bought on the spur of the moment.

Rather than regretting the purchase, most of them regretted wasting a year or two trying to build their online businesses the hard way.

Yes, some people do not do well with SBI, and some people don’t like what they can’t do with SBI – so Sitesell offers a money-back guarantee. You can’t lose by trying it.

Oops, I’m getting off track. Back to Snippet Build It!

The new graphic images are more colorful and appeal more to right-brained people, in my opinion. I think they will be a welcome addition to the marketing tools offered to 5 Pillar affiliates.

But, nothing is perfect.

A few minutes ago, I offered my opinion about the new marketing tool on the members-only SBI forum.

I think it is a huge improvement over the older tools and I welcome the ease-of-use and organized listing of the more than 60 landing pages we can promote.

On the other hand, I believe we need a wider variety of graphics that are specifically targeted to each landing page.

But, you know what? I don’t doubt that Snippet Build It! will be improved over time and that we’ll see more and better-targeted graphics to go with all the other marketing tools that Sitesell provides its 5 Pillar affiliates.

It’s easy to recommend something when I know from first-hand experience how much it has helped me build my online marketing business. I’m working from home 100 miles from the nearest traffic jam and loving it.

I don’t believe I would be where I am today if it weren’t for what I’ve learned from Ken Evoy and all the many Site Build It! webmasters who help each other on the free, members-only SBI forums.

I’m a very satisfied SBI customer and have many plans for expanding my Act On Your Dream! website.

You know what?

At first I balked a bit at spending $300 a year to build a website, but after building dozens of sites and blogs over the last few years, and wasting more than what I would have spent to build several more SBI sites, the only one that has never given me any trouble at all is the one I am building using Site Build It! Over time, that becomes more and more important, because I’m getting tired of wasting my time and efforts on sites that don’t work or get destroyed by hackers.

I’m one of those hard-headed people that just has to do it my way and I don’t regret all the testing I’ve done. I’ve learned and I’ll be turning more to SBI in the future, except for some of my sites that require perl and php programming to make them work.

I just renewed my subscription to SBI for another year, and a long time before my subscription expires I will have earned back my $300 investment several times over. It’s not an expense, it’s an investment.

Just as Site Build It! is the best tool I know of for building a successful online business, the marketing tools that Sitesell offers its 5 Pillar affiliates continue to get better over time, too.

I am very happy that I found Ken Evoy and Sitesell those many years ago. I hope you’ll find it worth the investment of your time and money, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

Site Build It! Brainstorm It! V2 Launches

Brainstorm It! is a powerful niche brainstorming and keyword analyzer module that is only one of the tools included in your Site Build It! annual subscription.

Here is some information from a recent announcement from Ken Evoy (Who is Ken Evoy?):

“Yes. Brainstorm It! *V2* is now live!

Both vertical and lateral brainstorming have been greatly improved. Important new concepts like VALUE Demand and Real Supply provide stronger guidance for content development. “Pink messaging” helps get niche selection “just right.”

And there are a whole bunch of other improvements. It all adds up to the best keyword brainstorming and research tool in the world…

We did a ton of research before launching V2. It’s fair to say that it’s the best keyword tool in the world. And it’s included in the $299 price of SBI!, which, of course, delivers many more tools than Brainstorm It!…”

Site Build It! is a powerful system of integrated tools that help you find a niche, identify key concepts and keywords for writing about your chosen niche, build your website and promote it to the world, and interact efficiently with your visitors and customers.

Brainstorm It! is one of the tools that is used extensively in the step by step process for building your online business when you first start using Site Build It!. Later when you have established your online business, you can continue to use Brainstorm It! to help you find subjects you can write about to extend the valuable content you offer on your site.

I’ve used the new version over the last few days and have found lots of new ideas for topics to write about on my SBI site.

The fact that you can pay much more than the cost of an annual Site Build It! subscription just for a keyword analysis and brainstorming tool that doesn’t work as well is just one more reason for using Site Build It! to build your online business.

I am a happy and very satisfied SBI customer and I welcome these improvements to the tools I use to continue to build my business.

Act on your dream!

JD

New Site Build It! Results Page Is Online

Sitesell, Inc. recently updated the results page for websites built by their customers using Site Build It!

From a recent announcement by Ken Evoy:

“Results.sitesell.com is becoming a mini-directory of some of the most well-done, informative sites in the world. But it sure is getting harder and harder to to update it.

Picking the top SBI! sites for results.sitesell.com can be a real challenge…

It’s become so much work that we seem to have subconsciously put off an update for over a year! SBIers keep doing better and better. More and more of them are entering the Top 1% of all sites in the world.

So this year(!), we shook it up (requiring higher traffic numbers to “make the cut.”) There are a lot of new faces, but some old ones still in the lineup, too!…

We eliminate sites that don’t have the “real” traffic to justify their Alexa scores. We chop sites that are in categories that are overcrowded. We regretfully drop sites that have been in results.sitesell.com “long enough” (and bring in new ones). And we cut so many others for a variety of reasons. So what you see is just the tip of the top.

One way or another, all selected sites must be in the top 1% of all sites on the Internet. And you can imagine that’s a very nice place to be…

Each time we do this, the new sites stagger me. There is no limit to the niches you can conquer.

I think the most important point, though, is that most of these people are non-techs, just “ordinary” people who have been empowered to do EXTRAordinary things online.

They get the kind of numbers that any professional webmaster would drool over. And the more congested the Web gets, the STRONGER SBIers become. “Regular people” are leaving professional non-SBI! Webmasters and SEOers in their dust.

That’s the power of the Site Build It! process… ANYone can find real, verifiable, online success.

For YOU, our partner-in-sales, this is BIG NEWS!

Why!

Because this is all the proof you need to convince your visitors that SBI! is for real. Real traffic! Real success!”

A while back Ken Evoy gave us a challenge to find any other webhosting company (and SBI is much more than that) that can provide better results for their customers. I spent some time searching and never found a site that even came marginally close.

See for yourself, these are the results SBI webmasters are getting by building their online businesses using Site Build It!

Why waste your time and money using anything else?

Act on your dream!

JD

APsense – A Free Business Social Network

I’ve been looking for a good social networking site that is specifically targeted at helping us promote our businesses and meet other business owners and entrepreneurs.

Of the dozen or more I joined, each has it’s good and bad points, but most of them don’t work the way I do and I’ve had a hard time finding one with the members I want to meet and interact with.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I took some time to really look into APsense and liked what I saw.

So, I’ve decided that the majority of my business-related social networking will be done on APsense and I invite you to join me there – it’s free.

One of the things I like about APsense is that you get a profile page (as every other site offers) and a business center where you can promote business opportunities, advertise your products and services, collect testimonials, list resources you recommend, promote your business, and do other valuable promotional things.

When I got there, I searched the groups and found that several niches in which I’m active were not represented, so I created five new groups:

I’ve joined several other existing groups and started meeting interesting people.

If you want to try out APsense, come check it out for yourself.

Act on your dream!

JD

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