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How I Made Australia's Most Popular Chilli Website ........ And How You Can Do The Same With Your Passion or Hobby !
Do a Google search on "chillies Australia" or even "chillies New Zealand" and you'll find chillies-down-under.com at the top of the results.
It's May, 2008 as I'm writing this which means that chillies-down-under.com has been taken to the size it is and receiving the rankings it is, in 8 months. Thanks to Site Build It this has been achievable despite the following limitations on my time;
I do get people emailing me all sorts of questions about, how I got the site up and running, do I make money from it, how hard was it, and so on. As a result I've added this extension to my About Nigel page. So, lets get the hard numbers out of the way...How many sites do you own ?At this point, just chillies-down-under.com though I intend to start up a related sister-site in the next few months. Are you making any money from it ? Yep - at this point about $300 a month after allowing for a few incurred costs. I'm not exactly going to retire on that, but it's a nice amount of pocket money a month that I can spend on anything I like. Usually that's something to do with food or cooking. I have every reason to believe that in a year's time it will be a respectable amount that may enable me to move to working 4 days a week rather than 5. If it does, I'll update this page to let you know. What sort of traffic volumes are you getting ? Currently I'm at around 3,000 unique visitors a month and have just under 700 subscribers to the free newsletter. These numbers are increasing all the time. The important things to take away here are;
Is this really as easy as it sounds ?
That is probably the most common question. The answer is, yes and no. It depends how you define easy.
It certainly isn't a matter of pressing a few buttons and the money starts rolling in. If that's what you meant when you said easy then the answer is no. The one point I stress in every email, whether people asked this question or not, is this: it takes time, hard work and commitment to build a successful website. Do not dismiss the time and effort involved! The odds are that you are already putting in significant effort with your job or business. I know the effort it takes for me to get up at 5:50am to work my 7:00am - 4:00pm job and I rate that as much harder than any of the effort I have put into the site. And that's all it takes. It does not take exceptional writing skills, it does not take technical knowledge, it does not require that you know anything about computers or websites. Nothing besides turning it on and accessing a website; and both my youngest daughter and my dad can do that. You will initially have to learn a lot, but that learning is part of SBI - and it's not learning technical material, it's simply learning the mindset behind a good site.
You will be guided through the whole process. Anybody with a brain who's willing to learn and work can do this, no matter what their background. So if that's what you wondered, then the answer is yes. It really is that easy. You can do it.
How much is "not much" time ?I'll answer that in two parts;
It sounds good but I have no idea what I could make a website about.That is absolutely not a problem.Most people who already have an idea change their mind once they start with SBI. I had a completely different idea when I first started investigating this (No, I'm not going to tell you what it was - let's just say SBI revealed better options for me to explore). The first thing that SBI teaches you is how to select a profitable topic. There are no general rules. Everybody is different so this is an individual decision. SBI has brainstorming tools. You use them to generate ideas and to analyse them. You'll see if there is enough interest in a topic, how much competition there is, and if there is money to be made. To choose a topic for a website is the most important step in the whole process, so you shouldn't do it without SBI anyway. Don't know what to make your site about? Fine! You may actually be better off that way!
It says it costs $299 for the first year. What are the costs after that? Are there any catches?No catches - guaranteed.$299 is the yearly subscription fee. It works out $25 a month, but there is only the yearly payment option. And there is of course their rock solid money back guarantee. Don't like it? No sweat, just give it back. There are no catches whatsoever. SBI includes everything you need. There are no hidden costs. You can't go wrong by trying it out. The way I see it you have everything to win and nothing to lose.
June '08 UpdateIn the last few weeks I've had four emails from people with their concern: "I can't write."I thought the same thing when I started. But as I already mentioned above, SBI teaches you everything you need to know to build a successful website, including how to write compelling content. Ken Evoy wrote a great little book called Make Your Content Pre-Sell. It teaches how to write for the web. The book has always been part of SBI, available for free for SBIers, but outsiders had to buy it. But,apparently, since late 2006 it is totally free for non SBIers, too. When someone tells me they worry about their writing I send them this link: you can download your free copy here.
July '08 UpdateFurther to the June '08 update about concerns about writing, SBI have just released, for FREE, their book Make Your Knowledge Sell, which shows you;
In fact, if you have some knowledge on any subject you can write and sell your own e-book (electronic book) easily and this book will take you through the process step-by-step. You can download it for free here.
Or if you want to take the plunge I'll leave you with this guy, Ken Evoy, who put SBI together;
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