Read My SiteSell Review Here
Travis Giggy: Hello. My name is Travis Giggy, the founder of SmallBusinessVictory.com. Now, today's interview is very special, because we're talking to a guy who has been there and done that with his own Internet business. His name is Judd Burdon, and he works for a company called SiteSell, who offer a product, Site Build It. Now, Judd is an expert in online business-building. And in fact, he's done such an amazing job using the Site Build It system to create his own Internet business that SiteSell made him offer that he couldn't refuse.Judd actually used the Site Build It system to build his own business, AsphaltKingdom.com, from scratch, five years ago. And now it earns over 1.6 million annually, still, even while he's employed with SiteSell and employs several people. And because of his success, motivation, and sales ability, Ken Evoy, the CEO of SiteSell, made him an offer that he couldn't refuse.
So today, I'm going to talk about building your own business on the Internet with Judd. And I'm going to start with some basic questions, for those of you just getting started, and move to some more advanced topics by the end of the call. And if you listen closely today, you will have a blueprint for getting started with your own Internet business.
Thanks so much for being here with me today. It really means a lot that you took some time out of your schedule to help us out.
Judd Burdon: Thank you for having me a part of the call, Travis. I appreciate it very much.
Travis: Great. Judd, you said something that kind of really got my attention right before the call. You told me that you're talking to us today from a Caribbean island.
Judd: Yes. I'm actually living down in Anguilla, the British West Indies, the Northern Antilles. Anguilla is located about seven miles north of St. Martin. My wife, my son and I moved down here five years ago, from Montreal, Canada. I'm 29 years old now, so at the time, I was 24. And I ended up moving down to the Caribbean for one simple reason, and it was that I was tired of the snowy north, and I was ready to come down to the beach and spend some time down by the equator and the sunshine and the aqua-blue water, which we now experience every day. So, yes, I certainly live down in the Caribbean now and love every minute of it.
Travis: That sounds nice. I'm in the middle of snowy Colorado right now. It's February, and we might get up to about 28 degrees today. [laughs]
Judd: I understand. Well, I think I should just probably dig in here and kind of let you know how I came across SiteSell and how I essentially took upon the role. I know you just expressed that I was made an offer that I just couldn't refuse, which is the case, but that did not come on a silver platter. That was certainly something that I worked towards. I started online six years ago, with my own website, which I actually had no clue what it was going to be about. I just basically bought a package and figured that I wanted to build an online business. And at the time, I was thinking about building it for my local, offline, asphalt-seal-coating business.I used to seal-coat driveways and repair driveways for a living. I graduated high school and actually started seal-coating driveways. So, I essentially wanted to build an online business that was going to cater to my local business and drive local leads. And when I essentially got involved with the Internet world, I found a niche that certainly had significant traffic potential and turned it into a major success within a two-year period.
I sent along Ken Evoy, the founder of SiteSell, my case study - basically a letter about my experience with his company and the product, Site Build It - and I ultimately was able to create this online success from scratch, without having any technical background.
And with the letter that Ken read, he ultimately came back to me and said, "You know, Judd, you are one of the people that get it. You have tam. You have brain and motivation. And you've actually this system, and you've worked the Internet, at least upon the fundamentals and the way it's designed to be used, and you've made this happen. And you were a brand-new newbie when you started." And at that point, he basically made me an offer to run the sales program.
I'm the director of sales at SiteSell.com and continue to share my success and my case studies with people interested in starting their own online businesses, based upon a passion, a body of knowledge, or a hobby that they have. So that's basically how I started out, Travis.
Travis: You know, I haven't told you this yet, but I actually got started with SiteSell myself in 2003. They were the ones that gave me my foundation of Internet marketing knowledge as well. I owe a lot to SiteSell for the success that I enjoy these days. So, I am the biggest fan. And I am really looking forward to chatting with you about how we can help some other folks walk down our same path.
Judd: Excellent. I'm looking forward to doing that too. It's certainly what I do on a day-to-day basis when I'm speaking with people one-on-one, or if I'm speaking to a group of people. I can certainly say that I continue to love what I do every day, because I can pass on my learning and my knowledge that I've gained over the years and help other people achieve the goals and the kind of dream life that I've been able to live now with my family. So yes, I'm certainly interested in passing that along to anybody who is a part of, or listening to, this recording.
Travis: Fantastic. OK. So, Judd, what I'd like to do today is I want to cover all of the basics of online marketing and starting a business on the Internet. Starting very basic, at the beginning, and then we'll move to some more advanced topics. So, for somebody who's listening to this call, if they don't know what a website is, they might be a little off. If they've never worked with HTML, some of the terms later on may not make sense. But, I do know that SiteSell helps people who have no technical experience to do this. Correct?
Judd: Absolutely.
Travis: OK.
Judd: Absolutely.
Travis: Judd, aside from yourself, and aside from me, what is one of the most striking examples of the SiteSell philosophy making somebody real money, which you've seen in your time at the company?
Judd: I've seen a variety of different people succeed with their site. One that stands out is eLad. That site is only up as a case study page that you can actually go to right up at the top. You can send your folks a part of the list here... You'll send them the URL for the case study, I'm sure, once we're done with the call here. That case study will ultimately provide people with insights and information about real success, real people experiencing real success online. Not having to go from an eight to five office job - eight am to five pm - type work schedule... These folks are working from home, traveling the world with their laptop and a little Voice Over Internet box. They can do that in a free way.One of the people that I do know who has experienced tremendous success is a friend of mine, actually. He ended up getting involved not that long ago about four years ago or three and half years ago. Thierry Dehove is his name. He's from France; he's from Bordeaux, France. He was down here on the island of Anguilla where I met him when we arrived here. He was kind of lost in the web design world. He used to design websites for people. He was not an online business builder. He designed websites for people.
I told him that if he took his web design experience and his knowledge from a designer point of view, and actually applied it to a workable system that would focus in on all of the different things to build, manage and market his own business the right way - based upon the right foundation and the right structure, the right wire framing. He could actually turn that into a huge amount of income.
He's developed since then tropical-paradise.net and ilove-bali.com. He's developed a variety of different sites. But, he's basically turned his knowledge as a designer and the things that he loves to do - like kite surfing, like sailing, like water sports, like traveling to Bali and like going to Saint Martin... He's turned that into a business where he's earning over $35,000 a month within a four year period. I know that's a big number. It started at two to three hundred dollars a month, within the first year, and consistently grew, and continues to grow today.
He's a friend of mine. But anybody, whether you're a designer or whether you're a newbie, you can actually turn a hobby, a passion or a body of knowledge into income, if you have the right set of tools to make it happen. Thierry made that happen.
Travis: Yeah. I've seen people who are not what I would call smart, and definitely people that are not what I would call educated, can make it. So people, it is a great place to start. It's all in here. Right at the beginning, what is marketing online? What does it entail? Why is it necessary for your online business?
Judd: Yeah, it's amazing. It's a simple word, Internet marketing, when we actually step away from that. What does it ultimately mean for somebody who is interested in developing online income and just sitting there wondering, what is Internet marketing? What does that mean? It's quite a simple answer. Basically, it's as simple as this. It's the marketing of products or services via the Internet, via the World Wide Web. Whether you've got a product, a service or some information to sell and eager to hug it, you can actually market that through the World Wide Web. It's marketing through the Internet. That's what online marketing is. It's a short answer, but that's what it is. [laughs]
Travis: OK. What kind of things can I sell? What kind of a business can I build on the Internet?
Judd: As I mentioned earlier, and these are things I've been really sticking to. I say this to a lot of people, whether they're friends, family members or people who are newbies to SiteSell. Having a passion, a hobby or a body of knowledge that we experience throughout our lifetime can all be marketed through the Internet. You can actually monetize the passions, hobbies and body of the knowledge that you have. You can create content that's in demand and actually monetize from it. For example, Thierry, the gentleman who built tropical-paradise.net, he is an avid kite surfer. He loves to kite surf with a big kite in the air and a surfboard on his feet. He turned that hobby, that passion, into income by creating information that's in demand around the kite-surfing sport down in the Caribbean. So, that's an example I can provide.
Travis: How do you take information that you are passionate about, that you love, and make money on it?
Judd: There is a variety of different ways that you can actually make money online. It really depends on the area that you are looking to develop an online business. I'll give you a few examples. My asphaltkingdom.com site - I'm making money through a site that ultimately speaks about the niche of asphalt maintenance; repairing driveways, that's it. I don't deal with concrete. I don't deal with roofing. I don't deal with landscaping. My website is about asphalt maintenance.The way I make money - which SiteSell certainly helped me open my mind and see a wider vision of how to make money through the site and the different verticals where I can make money. One of the ways that I am making money is by selling equipment and products to maintain parking lots and driveways. Whether it's a seal-coating spray system - a spray machine that actually applies asphalt sealer... I also sell the sealer that is applied with this machine, so I have built that residual side of the business.
Now, as per my introduction, I live down in the Caribbean. I am not shipping equipment and products from Anguilla. The cost would be huge to ship from the Caribbean to the United States and to Canada. So, what I decided that I would do is build a site, create information that's in demand and let people come to the site. I didn't even have product or equipment for sale originally. Instead, I put contact forms at the bottom of each of my pages and allowed people to contact me about what it is that they were looking for.
Ultimately, I generate the traffic, get the traffic to my pages and get them to contact me pertaining to what they were looking for. At the end of the month, I would analyze the inquiries that came in through that contact form. I found out what equipment and products that I needed to sell via the website. I ended up finding companies that I joint ventured with or partnered with, up in Canada and in the United States, that would deal with the inventory, the shipping and "all the headaches" of actually being there in a physical fashion to be able to ship those products and equipment, ongoing.
At my end, right now during this call-in, I'm looking out at of a 12 foot by 10 foot window that's looking at the Atlantic Ocean - the sea down here in the Caribbean; on the south side, we have the Caribbean Sea. I'm looking out my window while we're taking phone orders through Asphalt Kingdom and via our shopping cart on our website. All I do is email my suppliers with the orders, and they process those orders and ship the equipment and products to my clients. It's amazing how you can monetize. That's one of my monetization models.
The other ways that people are monetizing is by promoting other people's products and equipment. So, if I decided that I wanted to build a website right now on selling mahogany canoes, I could build an informational website about mahogany canoes, and all kinds of information about the different styles of canoes, the different bench seats, the different paddles, the different leather strappings on the ends of the canoe, et cetera.
I could build a site on that, and find another company that actually manufactures these mahogany canoes, and if they have an affiliate program set up, that would enable me to sign up to the affiliate program and get paid a commission for any sales that I drive to their website that convert. So, people are monetizing through affiliate marketing as well.
I mean, there're so many different levels of monetization in the online world. And SiteSell will guide you through the Monetize It module that comes with SBI, Site Build It, and it will ultimately teach you ways that you can monetize through your passion, your body of knowledge or hobby that you have. It's pretty impressive, because I have not seen that anywhere else with any other company. And that's why I'm still here today. [laughs]
Travis: Very cool, actually. A couple of business models that I didn't hear you mention, but I assume that Site Build It deals with this as well - selling info products, like just informational books.
Judd: Absolutely.
Travis: And also, paid forum memberships. How about, you get your basic eBay and AdSense traffic monetization. I mean, there's a ton of ways of make money on the Internet, right?
Judd: There's so many different ways to make money in the Internet. An example, again, to the tropical-paradise.net, that kite-surfing website. Thierry has a kite-surfing lesson page on his website. People fill out a form, and they submit that form. That kite-surfing lesson, that inquiry that just came in does not go to Thierry. It goes to a kite-surfing school in St. Martin that he gets paid a 15-percent referral fee on.So, being able to actually refer business to some product, whether it's a school, whether it's an actual company, whether it's a person that is looking for additional business pertaining to their architectural business, they can certainly pay out referral fees.
The bottom line is people and companies are looking for extra business that wouldn't have been there otherwise. And whether you have an e-good to sell, an eBook or an e-course or an e-guide that you want to sell yourself because you have that information that people are looking for, or whether you're looking to promote somebody else's product or service or e-good, you could still monetize from that.
I'm sure we'll get into this a little bit later, but monetization comes later. Making money comes later on down the path.
Travis: I'm glad that you said that. I'd like to segue right now into, there're all of these guys that spout a bunch of hot air, and how, "In three months, you could be living down in the Caribbean, taken back and never have a worry in the world." But, I know that's not the case. You live in the Caribbean, and you're living the dream. You probably work your ass off as well. You worked really hard to get to the position where you're at. So, I know that's one of the reasons why I connect so well with Site Build It. Can you explain to me really quickly what the Site Build It philosophy is of starting a business online?
Judd: Yes, absolutely. I want to get into that. One of the things I want to share while I answer that, though, is so many people are focusing on the money, originally. They're looking, "I want to make money." Of course we all want to make money online. Everybody understands that. Making money is the real key to spending the time and investing the time to make it happen. But, the way and the choice and the actual structure in which you develop your online business will affect the way that you're actually going to make the money. If you don't have a structure and a path, a yellow-brick road to follow, you're going to end up building a website based upon what you think will work. And building something based upon what somebody thinks will work versus the actual statistical foundation and information that will allow you to know whether or not there is traffic potential are two different things.I did not choose to build a site that was going to be selling asphalt equipment and products, and directory-listings and asphalt seal-coating strategy guides and courses. I didn't choose to do all that. Site Build It, when I was working the program, the basic foundation, the keyword-research tools that helped me analyze my idea, helped me determine what areas and verticals I should move into that showed good traffic potential, period.
So, whether you're doing a math formula, or you're learning a new sport, or you're learning a new business, you can't come up with the answer before you've done the actual calculation. It won't work. You've got to start at the beginning and work your way up.
So, Site Build It's actual formula, called the CTPM formula. It's so important, and it's one of the best formulas that can ever be used in any business, whether it's online or offline, because it allows you to build a long-term sustainable business that will be a solid structure.
So here it is. C is content. If you're able to brainstorm your different ideas, your passions, your hobby, body of knowledge, whatever it is that you may be interested in. If you can brainstorm that and determine that that idea shows good traffic potential, pertaining to keywords and subject matters that people are typing in to Google every day, then you're going to be able to create content that's in demand, relevant to those keywords, rather than building content that you "think" will work. That's the C, content that's in demand.
Once you've built content that's in demand, and pertains to those keywords or search terms that show good traffic potential that will build targeted traffic, which is the T part of the equation. Once you've got the targeted traffic in the visitors to the website, your next goal is to presell them. Nobody likes to be hard sold, whether you walk into a clothing store, or into a car dealership, or into a furniture store, nobody wants to be hard sold. People need to be presold.
People need good information that they can actually read and get a sense, or feeling, of what that site owner is ultimately looking to sell you down the line. Create the credibility factor by preselling quality information that educates your visitor. Once you've presold the people, and now you've built the rapport with your visitors, you can then monetize. You can then refer them where to go to buy something, or to purchase your e-guide, or your info product, or your asphalt equipment, or whatever it is.
But, that formula, the CTPM formula, if it is not followed, the chance of failure is huge. SiteSell does not focus on chances of failure. SiteSell focuses on success. Following that formula step-by-step so that at the end of the day you have a sustainable, long-term business that was built on a piece of land that was surveyed properly, that the foundation was poured right, and that can hold and support that home on top of that foundation. I think that makes sense as to the formula, doesn't it, Travis?
Travis: It makes perfect sense to me, but I would actually... I think that what you just went over is so important, that I want to make sure that it's very clear to everybody else, whether you use SiteSell or not. This is the formula for success at building a business online, and it all starts with the content. Right?
Judd: Yes.
Travis: And it starts with building content that is in demand by people, which is one of the things that SiteSell helps us to figure out, is what type of content is actually in demand by people; is that correct?
Judd: Exactly.
Travis: So, if you have any understanding of how the Internet works, content is king on the Internet. If you build up a sizeable foundation of quality content, the traffic will come. Is that right? Is it like the kind of, the "build it and they will come" sort of philosophy?
Judd: Yeah, build the content and they will come, exactly. If you just build a pretty site, they won't come. You've got to build the content that's in demand. You've got to find the subject matters, the keywords, the search terms that show good profitability in regards to traffic, a lot of searches, and low competition rates. Once you have those keywords, you develop the content around those subject matters. You're creating information that is in demand.
Travis: That makes sense. So, you build the content that brings the traffic, and then you presell the customer in order to make an easy monetization of that person down the road. Does that sum up the SiteSell philosophy?
Judd: Yes, CTPM. Absolutely, it completely summarizes the SiteSell philosophy. Now, along that CTPM path, you need to be able to have the guidance, and the support, and the systems to be able to actually make that formula work. We can dig into that later if you want, Travis, or I can dig into it right now. Would you like me to dig in?
Travis: Yeah, let's dig.
Judd: So, basically, when you have that CTPM model in front of you, that equation, if you write it down on a piece of paper in front of you. Under each letter, CTPM, content that's in demand, I want you to draw five different spikes, lines, off of the C. I want everybody to come up with five different ideas, passions, a hobby that they may have. I don't need one; we need five. Where you can actually imagine taking those five ideas, and using a system to analyze each one of those ideas, to determine which one of those has the best traffic potential online. So, Site Build It's Brainstorm It Module is designed to be able to analyze your ideas, to give you a clear path as to which idea you're going to be moving forward with. Again, that will prevent you from moving forward with an idea that you "think" will work. You're now building it off that foundation.As you're now going into the actual construction side of things, with the Site Build It Program, you end up having what's called the Site Build It Block builder. There're two options. You can use the block builder, for people who don't know HTML or coding, because you certainly don't need... I don't even know that. And I've built a very successful business. I've used the template block builders that Site Build It provides.
For people who are a little bit more web-savvy, they can use HTML editors that are offline, like FrontPage or Dreamweaver, and upload their pages. So either-or. You can be a newbie or web professional and still use that actual page construction module within Site Build It.
Now, along the way, you're also going to need to make sure that the content that you're developing, that's in demand, is optimized. Now, I'll cover a little bit of optimization. Optimization is a word that ultimately... I'll give you a summary. Optimization is where a page is designed for both the search engines and the readers.
So, when you create a page of content on the Internet, it has to flow and have the keywords in certain places of the content, and that structure needs to be search engine friendly. Search engines have software, also known as spiders, that go into a page and basically give that page a rank in their search engine, based upon the quality of the content and the quality of the optimization.
Site Build It's page builder has the tool called Analyze It, where you build a page of content. Imagine writing a page of content about mahogany canoes, Travis. And then once you're done, you feel comfortable with the page of content that you've created, because mahogany canoes was a good profitable keyword - high demand, low supply. At the bottom of Site Build It's page, you click the Analyze It button, and it pops up a screen in front of you that gives you a full analysis of the page and what changes to make. "Your first paragraph includes the keyword once, but not enough times. Please add it two more times to the first paragraph, not more than three." So, it's going to actually give you a report, a doctor report, of that page and tell you what changes to make so that it is search engine friendly.
Travis: This is the same information that I pay my SEO $2000 a month to do, by the way. [chuckles]
Judd: Right. Site Build It will allow you to create unlimited pages with the Site Build It program, and you can analyze each page to make sure it's fully optimized for the search engines. It will tell you, "Your text link in the page is not including the keyword. Please include it once, not more than twice." So, now you're done analyzing it, and each of its little reports is showing "good, good, good, good, good." At the point that you've finished that, you click the Build It button and your page is live on the Internet. This is not difficult stuff. There's no coding. You push the Build It button, it's now live on your website. You do that for each one of your pages. So, in the Brainstorm It tool, you've got all your lists of keywords. You categorize those keywords. Site Build It will train you in that area and guide you through their action guide that is in written and video format, and it will teach you to develop content about each one of these keyword categories.Once you click the Build It button and it's live on the Internet, that's not all it does. It also submits your pages, ongoing, to match the algorithm changes that are going on at the search engines. I know those are some techie words that I just gave out, but you need to be able to submit pages to the search engines, so that they're looked at first over somebody who is not submitting. It allows their software, their search engine spiders, to find your page faster and give you a rank in their search engine on a much quicker basis.
So, that's ultimately a structure kind of overview of Site Build It from the CTPM side of things - presell through content, monetization comes down the road. That certainly gives you an overview, Travis.
Travis: Yeah, that's a fantastic overview, Judd. If you don't mind, I'm going to dig in on a few of those individual points that you just made so that we can make sure that everything is very clear.
Judd: Excellent.
Travis: You talk a lot about the need to presell my potential customer. Why do I need to learn how to presell my customer?
Judd: If you don't, you're going to be feeling as though you're showing up at that shopping-mall-styled site with a buy-now price, a photo and a short description. I bet that anybody who is listening to this recording has rarely bought something from a site unless it's been very, very branded, like an eBay. Even on eBay, you're going to buy something that gives you great information about what it is that you're going to bid on. You're not going to bid on something that shows a price and a photo, even if the price is really, really low. You're going to do one of two things. You're going to leave that auction, and you're going to find some other auction that's relevant to that with good information, or you're going to have to get in contact with the person that had the short little buy-it-now ad type thing.Preselling is crucial. On Asphalt Kingdom I have 1100 pages of content. I don't want to scare anybody. It took five years to get there, and I also have a fulltime copywriter who now writes for me. But, I did it on my own. The original 125 pages of content that I created myself were all pertaining to profitable keywords. I took those keywords, developed content and added the feeling that people want to continue reading about and go deeper into that sales process.
On my Start a Seal-Coating Business page, for people who want to go out and start their own seal-coating business, we provide a package. I'm not going to provide them with a picture of a package and a $5975 price. I'm going to presell them by talking about why that package is going to have impact on their life every day, not only during this economic crisis but also prior to that.
How people can go out and start their own asphalt seal-coating business, the values of starting it, the products and equipment that they are buying, the actual profit margins that they can earn by doing this business, or they can contact us through our free expert advice line, our toll-free line, or ask us a question. Preselling is crucial to develop that relationship that creates trust and credibility and allows them to click the next button. In the online world, it's all about clicking the next button that brings them closer to the point of conversion.
Travis: You know, Judd, when you say the word "about" I can catch your Canadian accent. That's the only word you say where I can catch that. [laughs] OK. You know what? I think that is very well explained, and it's very clear in my mind. So, I'm going to move on to the next question.What's the difference between search engine optimization, building content, and getting the free search results - traffic versus Internet marketing?
Judd: That's a great question. Search engine optimization - I did speak about that earlier in the call. Optimization is where a page or a website is built around keyword-focused words and built for the search engine spiders, or software, which are really looking to fulfill the searchers' search with the best result. I know that was quite a run-on sentence. [laughs] Ultimately, optimization is, you are building web page that is going to be designed both for the search engines and for your readers. There is a variety of different variables that affect optimization, which I explained. The Site Build It tool using the Analyze It system will make sure that the web page is fully optimized for the search engines and for your readers.From the pay-per-click side of things, this is the beautiful thing about Site Build It. Asphalt Kingdom... I don't want to keep talking about me, me, me, but it's a case study that has worked. It is real, and it's happening. The thing that I need to explain to everybody listening to the recording is this. I have not paid one dime in pay-per-click fees since I started with Site Build It.
The reason for that is that when I started with Site Build It, I was coming out of the seal-coating business in the month of November. Snow was about to fall, and I was broke. I was paying my employees more money than I was earning. I had no money saved for the winter months that I was going to be off. And I was starting from scratch the following spring, getting on the truck in spring, try driveways again.
I had no money to invest into paid campaigns. Pay per clicks is essentially where you are paying for placement in the search engines. Site Build It, as I was working the program, taught me that I didn't need to invest in pay per clicks because they focus in all of the organic, free, search engine optimization elements that one needs to build a successful online business that generates traffic.
So, I chose not to invest in the pay per clicks. I could have. I could have had a $300 or $400 a month budget and got some instant gratification, quick traffic that yielded me with low conversion results. My furrow line, my return on investment from the pay per click side of things, from what I continue to hear is that it's not giving people the results that they're looking for.
So, I made a simple choice. I made a simple choice that I was not going to invest into pay per clicks and spend the time doing that research.
But instead, I was going to focus in on continuing to develop more and more content with my time. I spent my time developing content that would impact my business down the road in a positive fashion. Once a page is built, the traffic of that page will only continue to grow which means that the sales on that page only continue to grow.
So, I invest my time into things that are going to provide me with long term - when I say long term money, if I build a page now, my page is indexed within two months, so I have a rank within two months. So, a two hour investment developing a quality page of content, with the contents in demand, can give me a return of $5000 a year. Multiply that by 1100 pages over time, that's a significant amount of money.
Travis: That is a very good use of your time. Different sorts of tasks as an entrepreneur that you need to be wary of is the $10 an hour tasks where you could get some Indian outsourced person or a personal secretary to do for you. Then there's the $1000 an hour tasks like writing the kind of content that you're talking.
Judd: Correct. I actually have a good tip - you can leave this on or off - but I found a copywriter through elance.com and I can get 25 pages of quality content developed for me. My time is spent more wisely with business development now, based on the position I'm at in my life and the level that I'm at. So, rather than going and writing 25 pages, which I don't actually enjoy doing, personally. I had to do it at the beginning to make it happen. Long story short, I went to Elance and I hired a copywriter there. I basically posted my project, found a copywriter that essentially bid on my project - $750 for 25 pages of content. I also taught the person how to log in to my site building account and upload the pages straight to my site. So, I sit back and pages of content are developed once I send that copywriter the key words that showed good demand and low supply. I send her the subject letters and she then writes it up.
Travis: That is a pretty good deal, 30 bucks a page.
Judd: Exactly.
Travis: OK, so if I did not have access to a tool like Site Build It, what technical expertise would I need to build an Internet business like the one that you own?
Judd: When I look back and I actually went out and I looked at different hosting companies and different solutions that are out there, it's mind boggling to the amount of things that one needs, a number of variables - the tools, the marketing packages, the autoresponders and newsletters. All the different things that allow you to manage and market your business more effectively. You would need a domain name, you'd need hosting, you'd need point and click page creation tools, you'd need to figure out HTML, content management tools, traffic details, web mail, RSS feeds, site maps - all stuff that scares somebody from a, "Holy cow, if I was to buy all of these services separately or have four different companies providing me with four different pricing models plus four different customer support groups, you could spend all day just managing and trying to figure out what bills to pay and how to contact support."Whereas, Site Build It, I manage a site that has over 1147 pages of content, earns $1.6 million a year, and that site costs me $299 a year to run. It includes the hosting. It includes the domain name. It includes the management, marketing tools and keyword tools, page analyzers, auto responders, newsletters, blogging, RSS feeds - everything that I need to build, manage, and market my site most effectively to search engines.
Travis: I have spent the last 10 years on the Internet, and I only have a passing knowledge of a few of those things that you mentioned. But, I understand the importance of them. I can't believe we can get all that in one area. That is pretty cool by itself. Let me move on to a slightly different vein here, and I want to ask about some common mistakes that people make. Maybe we can help somebody avoid some. If you wouldn't mind, Judd, go over a few of the common mistakes that Internet marketers who are just getting started make.
Judd: I said one earlier which is really the most critical one for somebody who is just starting an online business or just about to start an online business. So, for anybody who is listening to this who has started an online business and is sitting there going, "I don't know how I am going to generate traffic," chances are that you have built an online business based upon what you really think and feel will work, and that's OK.That's OK, but if you are going to build something based upon something that you feel and think will work, you are better off to back up and have the tools to be able to prevent you from making timely and costly mistakes down the road.
What I mean by that is if you can take your idea that you've got, that you have started, and actually brainstorm that idea to come up with the subject matters, the keywords, that will allow you to develop your content around, you will stop yourself from a very time-consuming headache and mistakes down the road. You will be sitting there a year from now, looking back saying, "I understand why I am not generating traffic. I understand." It all comes down to creating that content that is in demand that is based around keywords that are profitable in regards to traffic.
Now, for anybody is just looking to start an online business and a complete newbie, I really, really can only advise to, like I said earlier, draw the five different lines off of that CTPM formula off the C, draw five different lines and have five different ideas, six ideas, seven ideas, whatever you would like.
Jot that down on a piece of paper, and analyze each one of those ideas to determine which one has the best traffic potential. That will prevent you also from going down a road that eventually, you will get lost on.
The goal here is to follow - I use the analogy for "Wizard of Oz," but, off the yellow-brick road. I mean, if there is a yellow-brick road that can be followed, and once in a while, it gets dark and the leaves cover that path, with Site Build It, you have the support team and the community forums, and the action guide that will redirect you and bring you back on that path so that you can carry on, so you are guided down that path.
The other mistake that a lot of people are making is that they are investing their time on things that really won't impact their business in a positive fashion from a traffic perspective.
Instead, somebody with an e-commerce site, e-commerce meaning doing business online and processing transactions, let's say somebody is selling t-shirts, custom t-shirts on their website, they will focus in on adding more and more t-shirts with different colors and different designs, and they are going to say, "Well, we are going to generate more sales by having more t-shirts, more variety of t-shirts, different styles."
That is not how you are going to continue to increase your conversion rate. That is not how you are going to increase your traffic. You are going to only potentially offer more products to the same visitors that are there, which is at a standstill, which means your revenue plateaus and sits there.
Instead, focus on developing content, lots and lots of content that is in demand, relevant to all the different t-shirt styles, relevant to the different kinds of restaurants looking for t-shirts, hotel chains looking for t-shirts. You need to expand upon the topic and find verticals that show traffic potential. I think I am making sense here.
Travis: Yeah. You make perfect sense, and these are the kinds of things that aren't necessarily obvious to somebody. Everybody hears, "Hey, I can make money on my passion on the Internet," but there is no road map anywhere. There is no yellow-brick road, although a little site that I know of, SiteSell, will show you step by step how to do it. Judd, what are some things that I can easily spend way too much money on if I didn't know what I was doing getting started?
Judd: [laughs] There's a variety of different things that you could spend too much money on. One is hiring a web designer. Why are you spending money on a look and feel, on something that looks pretty and will really not impact your pocket? They can build a pretty site, but actually building a pretty site that works is two different things. A lot of people spend too much money on web design. The number of people that I speak to in our sales program that have actually experienced other companies ripping them off, from a design perspective, is massive.I know a lot of web designers won't like to hear that, but the bottom line is that if you're looking at starting an online business, you need to have that foundation to look from, and then, if you're a newbie, use a blog builder or a template that SBI offers, or if you choose not to choose SBI, use another blog builder, but make sure you do the foundation core research and get on that yellow-brick road. And that's why I keep saying SBI. I don't know of any other system that does this.
But, start with a blog builder. Build out your pages yourself. Invest the time yourself into building and managing your site. And then, down the road, if you find that you're getting a great ROI and you're developing money and you're monetizing, then reinvest into the look and feel and hire a web designer to massage the look and feel of the business. Don't put the cart before the horse. That's one of the things people are spending way too much money on.
Another thing that people are spending a lot of money on is - we've chatted a little bit about pay-per-clicks. I have a lot of calls that come in about people saying, "I've got a $5000-a-month pay-per-click campaign." And this ranges from a 25-year-old work-at-home mom who has kids in the background who can't afford the $5000 a month in marketing from the pay-per-click perspective, and she just hasn't found the formula yet. She hasn't found that yellow-brick road.
The only way she gets traffic is by paying for it. Paying for it means that you're out-of-pocket before you're actually making money in your pocket. If you're going to invest into pay-per-clicks, which I personally don't, again, but if you're going to invest, make money organically through your site and then invest a little bit into PPC and see what kind of return you get on your investment. So, that's another area.
Another area that people are spending too much money on is from an e-commerce perspective. Somebody starts building a website that's selling t-shirts - let's stick go back to the t-shirt concept - and they want to add a shopping cart and a merchant account. Merchant account essentially means that you've created a business opportunity, an account online, that allows you to accept credit card payments.
In order to accept the credit card payments, though, you need a gateway. And a gateway is essentially the gateway that allows you to collect that money through a shopping cart. There's a variety of different shopping carts out there.
But, imagine doing this. You have a t-shirt site. There's no traffic. You've now invested into a merchant account, which can cost anywhere from $300 to $700 for a one-time setup fee. It usually runs about $24 a month for a merchant account. Plus, you've set up a shopping cart, let's say with HomeShoppingCart.com or another shopping-cart service. That's another $34 a month. Now, your site still doesn't have traffic. So, imagine investing that money into something, in a risky fashion. Again, you're out of your pocket, and you're still not generating traffic.
Well, it would make sense to me that people take that no-risk approach. Develop a website based upon that formula, see if you can, and sign up with PayPal, or a non-risk, third-party merchant solution that does not collect a...
You don't need to set up a merchant account with PayPal. All you do is set up an account. It's free to set up an account. They will not charge you a monthly fee. They will charge you a cost per transaction. So, there's a cost per transaction when you're dealing with PayPal.
So, why not implement a PayPal shopping cart or a PayPal shopping solution on your website in a no-risk fashion, when you collect payments or you have people order something? OK, so you lose three and a half percent or four percent. But, it's no-risk. You've collected the money first, then the money comes out of your pocket, so you're safe.
At the point that you've killed that model and you're generating income through that PayPal shopping cart, then invest into the fancy merchant solution with your own branded shopping cart that shows your logo and fancy stuff on it. But, until then, I would take the no-risk approach. Build traffic. Build content that's in demand. Generate the traffic. Presell. Then monetize.
Travis: That advice right there is hundreds of dollars, Judd. I hope people are paying attention. And it's really simple to implement a PayPal shopping solution on your site too. It's just as simple as signing up with PayPal and copying some code and pasting it into your web page.
Judd: Travis, the good thing news is that Site Build It has a tips-and-techniques area and resource headquarters. As you're walking through the action guide that's driving you down that yellow-brick road, there's actually a stop along the way that talks to you and shows you exactly how to set up and how to implement PayPal on your Site Build It site and the steps that you need to take to do that.
Travis: Wow. Fantastic! So, it's come a long way since just the easier SiteSell back in 2003. You guys are doing some amazing stuff over there.
Judd: Thank you.
Travis: Judd, why don't you tell me a little bit about SiteSell? Why we should use SiteSell? Recap what we've gone through today, and let's see how we can help somebody, aside from yourself and myself, get successful on the Internet.
Judd: Here's what I'm going to offer. And Travis, we didn't even speak about this earlier, but here's what I'm going to offer. I may get swamped off of this, but I'm happy to be doing this. I run the sales program at SiteSell. We have a team of other advisers who are all Site Build It users that have experienced success with the product. I do not hire somebody to be a part of the sales program unless they've experienced the product for a minimum of two years and they've experienced true success.But, I want to offer everybody who is a part of this call to be able to contact us directly to be able to get a free personal consultation pertaining to their situation, and we will be glad to advise them on direction and the different tasks that they can take to start with Site Build It on the right foot. And I will offer that.
Travis: Wow. That's amazing, Judd.
Judd: Travis, you can send everybody the URL, once we're done with the call, as to where they can go to ask the questions by email or set up the calls by email.
Travis: Fantastic. What would you guess that that consultation's worth? I mean, if I were to guess, it'd be a couple hundred bucks at least.
Judd: The consultation, I've had people go out and spend $35,000-40,000 for this, $35,000 or $40,000 with web designers and pay-per-click campaigns, and they got nowhere. They were ultimately sitting there in debt. The consultation that I remember having this one gentleman, at the end of the call he said, "You could've saved me $30,000 or $40,000. You wouldn't have only saved me $30,000 or $40,000; I will be making more money now." And so, to have that kind of feedback is incredible.I'd say that the consultation, you can't put a price on it. It's not going to save anybody a couple hundred dollars. It's not going to save anybody anything other than this - it's going to save people from making timely and costly mistakes. Our goal is to get you off on that yellow-brick road - I keep saying "yellow-brick road, " but it is a great analogy - get you off on the right foot on that yellow-brick road so that you can skip along the right way, versus stumbling and falling and not knowing where to go next and getting lost.
So, the call's worth it, from a time perspective, a cost perspective, but it also allows me to get our team insights, be able to provide people with great insights, so that we can get feedback from both you, Travis, but also the people that are part of the call, as to their feelings about the personal consultation that we're providing. And I know that you'll get tremendous feedback.
Travis: That's a really fantastic offer, Judd. Thanks for doing that for us.
Judd: It's a pleasure.
Travis: What if, for some who-knows-why reason, SiteSell strikes you the wrong way? Are there other companies out there that do the same thing as SiteSell?
Judd: There are other companies that do not do the same thing as SiteSell. There are other companies out there that will host your website, where you can rent some space and pay for space out on the Internet. There're other sites that will provide you with search-engine marketing and things along those lines. The only difference is that a lot of these other websites - and I prefer not to name any names - but just be cautioned of the pure content, the actual energy in which the content that you're reading is trying to convert you. Look, be cautious of the fluorescent-highlighted stuff that is trying to get you to pay that $599, or those companies that are getting you into a room with 300 other people and they're trying to set you up with a pre-built website for $6000. Be cautioned by those companies.Instead, look at those companies that are going to provide you with the right formula, and they can back that formula up with an all-inclusive, encompassing package that allows you to build, manage, and market your website successfully and effectively.
Travis: I would also say be very wary of the gurus who tell you that they can make you an overnight success and that they've had a system that will make a millionaire next month.
Judd: Exactly.
Travis: Because there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?
Judd: No. No. And the analogy that we use here at SiteSell as well is it's all about planting a seed and watering that tree the right way and taking your time watering it. It doesn't all of the sudden appear. You've got to really take your time and treat it with respect and love and admiration. You also have to have the BAM - brain and motivation - to be able to commit to it and make the decision. We don't want anybody joining the Site Build It program if they're not motivated to actually make it happen. It doesn't make sense to start something that you're not going to be passionate or you're going to enjoy and work towards with a goal. Don't bother starting.I know that anybody can do this, but it all comes down to making the choice. This is the choice and the time. Making the choice and taking the time to commit, and it can be done; I did it.
Travis: If I did it, I think anybody can. [laughs]
Judd: Yeah.
Travis: I kind of see that while there are other solutions out there, but actually I don't think other solutions in the world that offers the all-encompassing strategy that SiteSell does. I know people that will provide you a separate web hosting and a separate responder and a shopping cart, and a form builder, and an SEO advisor. I don't know of a place that combines all of this stuff into one place, especially for the low price.
Judd: Two hundred and ninety-nine dollars annually gets you everything included. There's no upselling, there's no extra costs along the way. This is an all-inclusive $299 to get everything you need to build, manage, and market your own online business.
Travis: I pay more than that for a fraction of the functionality.
Judd: Right.
Travis: Judd, I'll put a link to the free consultation and how to get more information on the website where this interview is downloaded at. Do I understand correctly that the "Make Your Site Sell" eBook that I got my start with six years ago is now free?
Judd: That is absolutely correct. I can provide you with the link and I'm sure you'll post that link as well. There's actually more than just that eBook. There's "Make Your Knowledge Sell," "Make Your Net Auction Sell," there's a variety of different eBooks the founder of SiteSell, Ken Evoy, has written. And just to explain, some people might have this question, why are we saying SiteSell and why are we saying Site Build It. SiteSell is the company and Site Build It is the product marketed by SiteSell, created by the founder, Ken Evoy.There's also - just as a quick, I want to get this in on the call. SiteSell also has two different other services that they provide. One is SiteSell Services, which you can also provide a link to. In the case that somebody is wanting to have their website built from a specialist through the Site Build It system, we actually have in-house specialists that specialize using the Site Build It program to develop somebody else's online business. We've got that package.
And we also have e-learning, which is a package that is available to anybody who would like to purchase Site Build It and follow a 12-week curse via an e-course. So, actually, it's electronic learning. You're learning over the Internet, getting taught by a professor, a Site Build It professor, that guides you through it step-by-step.
If you're not that type of person who actually wants to sit down and go through the action guide themselves; if you want that extra little boost, you can always do that, and it's very inexpensive to do that. The e-learning package in addition to the Site Build It is only $299 for a 12-week course.
Travis: Judd, I can't thank you enough for your time today. It's been really enlightening, and you're a fountain of knowledge. I really appreciate this.
Judd: It's my pleasure, and I look forward to speaking with people who have listened to this recording.
Travis: All right, fantastic. Thanks, Judd.
Judd: Thank you, Travis. Bye-bye.
Travis: If you want to learn more about this all-inclusive Internet business building process and learn how to take advantage of the free Internet business consultation, just visit InternetBusinessVictory.com. That is all one word, InternetBusinessVictory.com. Thanks.