My Friends’ New Best Healthy Snacks Website

I have been working with my dear friends Lynn & Lacey for several months – they are doing a great job learning how to build websites.  They definitely have the “BAM” (Brains and Motivation) to create a wonderful lifestyle for themselves building successful websites.  They are building two sites from scratch, but they recently purchased an established SBI site and are working hard at transforming it and creating more keyword focused pages.  I had the pleasure of spending the day with them recently and we designed a new “look & feel” for their new site.

The site is Best Healthy Snacks.  This is what it looked like when they bought it -

This is what it looks like now  -

A slight improvement?

My husband Charlie keeps asking Lynn & Lacey when they are going to add Reese Cups to their site – that is his favorite snack!  Um, maybe I need to send him over to learn about Healthy Snacks!

I would wish Lynn & Lacey (they are an awesome Mother & daughter team, by the way) good luck with their new site, but they won’t need it – they have BAM and the power of SiteBuildIt and they know as long as they follow the action guide, success is a given!

My Success Story – What a Long, Strange Trip Its Been!!

Recently someone posted on the SBI forums (which is a really great place to hang out!) that she was tired of being “broke and depressed” and asked for motivational stories to help uplift her.  I’m not sure why I was inspired to post “my story” – maybe because I have known the “broke and depressed” feeling in the past – all too well.  I decided to share my story with her and I did.  I was hoping it might give her a bit of inspiration but I almost didn’t post it because it was so long.  I was totally unprepared for the response I received – it seems many people were inspired by what I wrote and felt motivated by my story.  A friend said that I should post it on every website that I own.  Well, I’m not ready to go that far yet – but I thought I would put it here to share with anyone who is interested…

Ten years ago I had just turned 40, I was married to my college sweetheart – we were happily married and working on 20 years of marriage & had a 5 year old daughter. We were pursing the American dream – I had a high paying corporate job – I’m an RN & I worked for a health care corporation & was responsible for several states. It was suppose to be my dream job – the one I climbed & climbed that corporate ladder for – working tirelessly to advance my career – long hours, weekends in my home office …..

When I reached that “dream job” it turned out to be a nightmare. I hated it – all of it. I was always in the car or on a plane. I spent most of my time dealing with really nasty people who didn’t share my caring and compassion for employees, patients or anything else except the bottom line.

I decided to leave the job and take a little time off to spend time with my family before my daughter started to school. It was in the glory days of eBay – where you could list anything & sell it for top dollar. I had started collecting vintage Barbies and knew I could make enough money on eBay to take a little time off and regroup.

I did and I loved it. I realized that my greatest desire was and had always been the freedom of doing my own thing, working from home.

After I had been doing this for a few months, my husband had a massive stroke two days after his 42nd birthday. He was left totally disabled with severe disabilities. When he was finally able to leave the hospital they wanted to put him in a nursing home, they said I wouldn’t be able to take care of him at home, even though I am a Registered Nurse.

I told them there was no way they were going to put my 42 year old husband in a nursing home and I brought him home. For four months I slept on the floor in the living room to take care of him in his hospital bed. At first it took two people just to sit him on the side of the bed – one to hold him up and one to hold up his head. We had some wonderful home health care therapists and within a few months he was able to start learning how to walk again. The hardest part was that he also had aphasia, which means his ability to speak and communicate and process and understand communication was severely impaired.

I went back to work briefly – but mostly for four years I supported us by selling on eBay. It was hard, but I felt like I needed to be at home taking care of him. During this period I use to have dreams where I was just crying my eyes out and my family & friends were all around & not even noticing I was crying. I would wake up crying. No one knew or understood how difficult my life was and how utterly alone I felt. It did feel as if I had the entire weight of the world on my shoulders.

Finally I had to go back to work – he was doing so much better and the eBay income was becoming less and less. Fortunately I was able to get a great job – but I didn’t want to be there – I wanted to be at home!

Three months after I went back to work, my husband passed away, unexpectedly, almost 5 years to the day of his stroke.

Thank God for the job – it had provided a little life insurance on him and  I was able to make an easy and comfortable living while I went through the shock and grief.

He died in early November and I don’t even remember that Thanksgiving and Christmas. Early in the next year I found a new resolve to do whatever it took to be able to be self-employed, working from home, doing my own thing. I knew it wasn’t eBay – but I also knew it was possible to earn money from websites and I resolved to find out how. I knew if other people could do it I could too.

I started researching and found SBI. That was the day my life changed forever. I started my first site in March 2006. I knew right away that I had found what I had been looking for for a long time.

For the first couple of years I worked full time and worked on my sites on nights and weekends. I was thrilled with the success and loved having the extra money. Then everything changed again.

I never thought I would remarry, but I met the most wonderful man. He was so perfect for me, it was like I ordered him from a catalog. Fortunately he feels the same way about me. From the very beginning I called him my “Dream Man”.

For the first six months after we met I didn’t touch my websites and they doubled in traffic & income! He was three hours away, but we were together every possible moment. One month we talked on the phone for 15,000 minutes!! (Thank Goodness for the “friend & family” plan!)

In a little over six months we got married and he moved in with me.

I was renting a house and I wanted so bad to buy a home, but I felt like it needed to wait a few years to get all of our finances in order. However, after we had been married for a few months, the lady who owned the house called and said she needed to move back to it and gave use 60 days to move out. At first I was so upset – I felt like I was being “kicked out” of my home – but we decided to see if we could go ahead and buy a house. Not only could we, we bought my dream house.  By the time we closed on the house, my SBI income easily paid the mortgage.

So now I had my dream man and my dream house and life was goooood and I was so happy.

Then my employer went insane. After two years of working essentially unsupervised and achieving stellar results, the corporation underwent a huge change & I was back working with mean, nasty, micro-managing people.

My websites were doing good by then – but not enough to replace my income – what I was making would barely cover my bills. But I decided to take a leap of faith and quit my job to work on my websites full time.

That was just over a year ago. Today, 10 years since the beginning of my story, I just turned 50, I am married to my dream man, we live in my dream house and I have my dream job! In my first year I made more on my websites that I did the year before from my salary. I am now making a six-figure income from my websites and I have never been happier.

I’m here simply because I never gave up. I’ve made just about every mistake you can make, but I never gave up. I’ve had Google drop just about every site and I have had lots of things not get the results I was hoping for, but I never gave up. When I look back at all of the mistakes I have made and what I knew when I started versus what I know now I wonder how I ever had any success at all – but thanks to the awesomeness of SBI I did.

So what have I learned about my journey?

First it is absolutely true that the only way to fail is to quit trying. I think the main reason I have been successful is that I have found so many ways to fail. So many things I have tried that didn’t work – but every once in a while I’ll find something that does and sometimes it will work in a BIG way – like a page that earns $800/month!

One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein – “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Which means not only that you have to keep trying, but that if you aren’t getting the results you want you have to try something else! When you are new at this you will probably have to try A LOT of different things. That is why the forums are such a blessing – they give you unlimited access to other people who are trying different things too. You get ideas. Eventually you will get your own ideas.

The reason I am where I am now and how I not only survived the tough times but grew and flourished is simply that I kept putting one foot in front of the other. There were times when I didn’t think I could take it anymore and there were times I didn’t know where to turn or what to do, but there is always a “next logical step” towards where you want to go. Most people aren’t going to go from A to Z in one step. But if you are always on the lookout for the next logical step to get you there, you will arrive much fasted than the person who spends all of their time looking for the magic pill to get them there without taking the actual steps.

I can so relate to being tired of being broke and depressed because you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel – but it’s there – just keep moving forward and before you know it you will be basking in it!

So that is the story of my last ten years – if you are still reading I hope you will find hope and inspiration!

Blessings -

Suzanne

12 Months = 6 Figure Income

On October 31, 2009, I not only celebrated my 50th birthday (ouch), I also celebrated my one year anniversary of being self employed. I can tell you I was much more excited about the anniversary than the birthday!

I am amazed at how fast the year passed and also by how much I have grown and learned.   I have done so many new things this year just for the sake of learning how to do them and I have continuously worked on building my websites, always working to make them better and better.

I am so excited when I realized that in the last 12 months my traffic and income has more than doubled and I am now earning a solid six figure income! Yes – from my websites! Yes – working from home! It is the biggest dream of my life – freedom – has come true. Now I have personal freedoms and financial freedom as well! I am so grateful for my success.

One thing I didn’t except to happen is that I have gotten fairly involved in helping other people create their own websites. They are so inspired by my success and I feel blessed to be able to “give back” and share what I have learned.

Everyday I become more and more impressed and so grateful to Site Build It. It is the reason I was able to make my dreams come true. If you aren’t living your dream and it involves personal or financial freedom or both, I encourage you to check it out for yourself.
Here are my favorite links:
Sitesell Results – Lists a mind blowing number and variety of the top Site Build It sites – including two of mine!!
SBI Video Tour
SBI Summary Site – Includes information on the newly released SBI 2.0
Affiliate Sign Up – Become a Site Build It Affilate and earn commissions while you learn about SBI

Please feel free to email me if I can ever help you – I love to share my dream!

Technorati Tags: Best Business Tools, Business Building, Site Build It!

An Exciting Change in Plans

I have had a change in my plans over the past week or so – a very good change!  Last weekend I made the decision to go ahead and leave my job so that I can focus my full attention to building my online businesses.  My goal was to first completely replace my salary (and then some!), but the frustration of staying in a job that I no longer enjoyed and the great desire to be self-employed won out after a really bad week.

I am a strong believer in always maintaining a positive attitude and I know that I have the ability to create whatever I desire in my life.  I have been unhappy in my job for a while now and I tried so hard to maintain a positive attitude and make the best of things.  I finally decided that all of the drama and negativity I was experiencing was a great big SIGN that it was time to go!  Because I have worked so many years at remaining positive and happy, drama and negativity are not things that I normally have to experience.  I think that they are such a big difference from where I try to live, that it really bothered me.  I kept thinking that if I could just remain positive and happy everything would be fine.  I think it was a sign – or a kick in the you-know-what to just do what I want to do already.  You know what?  Ever since I made the decision, I have had total peace and I am so happy and excited.  Here is my other sign – since I have resigned from my job – my web site earnings have been more than my take home pay from my job!

So in these uncertain economic times, I am thriving and I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off of my shoulders.  Now I will have the freedom I crave to live my life on my own terms and I will have the time to do what I really want to do – which is work on my sites.   I am so grateful to have my growing and thriving online businesses to become my life’s work.  I am also grateful that because I chose nursing as my first career, I can always get a decent job – which makes it much easier to take this leap of faith!

Wish me luck!  I am working out a 4 week notice and have 3 weeks left!  My last day is on my birthday.

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It’s Never Too Late to Start Over

I have spent the last month or so revamping two of my sites.  They are both sites that have been up over a year, but have never received a great deal of focus.  I knew I wanted to do them, so I went ahead and started them so they could begin "the aging process".

After a complete review of the sites, I came to the conclusion that it is a miracle (and a complete testament to Site Build It! (SBI!) and long-tail keywords) that each site is currently receiving around 100 visitors a day!  They aren’t breaking any records, but they are at least paying for themselves.

I started analyzing each site by looking at the keywords.  (One of the great things about SBI! is that all of the keyword tools are built in – you don’t have to go searching all over for them or trying to figure them out for yourself.)  It is so funny to me now that with each site I had the exact same initial reaction – that it was hopeless – there was nothing I could do and I should just forget about the sites.  On each site, I came back the next day, used one of my favorite free tools (FreeMind – free mind mapping software ) and ended up with an awesome plan that I am really excited about!

The first site I did was my Trendy Plus Size Clothes site.  I have begun to excute my plan by adding more pages and in just a month my traffic has gone from around 100/day to up to 143/day.

My point?  One of the most wonderful things about having an online business is that it really is never too late to start over.  No matter how good or how poor your site may be doing you can always step back, regroup and move forward.  If you are using a great tool like SBI! (and following the directions!) you will never get so far off course that you can’t get back on track.

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The Way of the Tortoise

I have been so focused lately on my goal of replacing my salary with income from my websites, I have set some very big to do lists for myself. Most days I do not come anywhere near completing the list and I have been feeling very "guilty" lately – like I’m not "doing enough" to move rapidly towards my goal.

A few days ago, I was showing some of the work that I have been doing on my sites to a friend and she was amazed that I had done so much.   I was thinking about that today – I didn’t think I had done enough, she was amazed at what I had done. Then I read a post by Dr. Ken (Evoy, the founder & owner of SiteSell) about the importance of taking steps every day toward your goal – no matter how small the steps are – the important thing is to keep moving forward.   I learned about the way of the tortoise from Dr. Ken – it is an advanced place you reach once you accept that for most of us there is no get rich quick and there is never going to be. It is the place where you stop dreaming and chasing every idea and commit to the journey.   That is the way of the tortoise. You don’t just set a goal, you commit yourself to the destination. Then you roll up your sleeves, put on your blinders and take whatever steps forward you can take everyday.  The way of the tortoise is mature, focused, committed, confident, persistent and resilient.

With a different "tortoise perspective" I realize that I have done a lot and I am very proud of what I have done and accomplished.  I am taking steps everyday and with every step – no matter how small – it is one step closer to my next goal.  I have decided to give myself a break and instead of mentally beating myself up for not meeting the day-to-day goals I set (which are probably a bit unrealistic), I am going to do my best to be satisfied with the steps I do take.   I KNOW I will get there and I have to accept that I will not get there tomorrow.  But as long as I continue in the way of the tortoise, I will get there.   In business and in life slow and steady wins the race everytime.

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What is your Passion? – Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about choosing a subject you have a passionate interest in as the topic for your website.  Today I wanted to mention the flip side of that – you may have a passionate interest in something and you have no idea how to "live your passion".  Often, a website is the only viable option.

You may love to cook or collect thimbles or have a passion about astronomy or Greek mythology.  It is very difficult for an "average person" to make a good, independent living pursuing those passions, so they become relegated to hobbies and we continte to trade our hours for dollars as a "wage slave".  However, a person with a passion for any of those things (and just about anything else you can think of) and some BAM (the SBI acronym for Brains and Motivation) can make the best website on the planet on that topic and replace those wages doing something they love.  Not only are they living their passion, they are contributing to their passion and creating both financial and personal freedom for themselves.  Sounds like a win-win to me!

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What is your Passion?

We are constantly told that in order to achieve true happiness in life we must "follow our passion".  The same is true when choosing a topic for your web site.  If you are going to be committed to developing a site that will possibly sustain you for the rest of your life, you definitely need to follow your passion.

What is your love?  What do you never tire of?  What do you want to spend years learning about, writing about, teaching others about?  Ask yourself those questions and you will be on the path to choosing the theme for your website.

I have many passions and interests in life – most of them some people would think are silly or trivial.  They are things like vintage Barbie dolls and fashion and makeup…  But that is what I love.  I have come to the conclusion that I was "wired that way" and I am not going to fight it.

I have been a Registered Nurse for 24 years and I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing.  I have had a very successful and varied career.  I also find it very easy to explain medical things in language that non-medical people can understand.  The medical section of the web is one of the fastest growing and profitable areas.   People who know me ask me all the time why I am not doing medical websites.  When I first started on online adventure, I had a paid job as a medical writer for a very big website.   It was fun at first, I learned a lot and I enjoyed being a part of a big, successful site.  After the newness wore off, I did not enjoy it at all.  It became another job.  After about a year I decided that I did not need another job and I quit.  I had the skills, talents and abilities, but I did not have the passion.  There is no way I would want to do that for the rest of my life.  I am glad I have chosen topics for my websites that excite me and continue to interest me, day after day, year after year.

I always encourage the people I am helping building their businesses to go with their passion.  I tell them not to worry about "how to make money" with that topic initially.  For an example – here is a list of Site Build It’s most successful sites – I am always amazed and delighted by the wide range of topics.  I believe that everyone has something to contribute and can have a successful site – as long as they stick with their passion.

I should add as a footnote that the reason I have started this site is that I have discovered that I have a passion for sharing with and teaching others what I have learned and helping them build their own successful sites.  Here is some more to read about making your living while following your passion .

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Going to the Next Level

Today I have 5 established web sites, 1 stand alone established blog and I have recently started this site as well as 4 "micro-niche" sites that I am just getting started as an experiment.  Since this time last year, my income has doubled (a very good thing ) – but it has been flat for the last six months.  My own experience is that my income will take a huge jump in one month (sometimes doubling) and then go up and down from that baseline until it jumps again.

Since my goal is to double my income as soon as possible, I have been thinking about what steps I need to take to facilitate this.  In order to double my income, I need to double my search engine traffic.  I have been adding content to all sites on a fairly regular basis and I do think that is the only way to build a sustainable, grow-able site, I know that I need more incoming links for most of my sites.  I have been thinking about all of the ways I could accomplish this and have determined that writing and submitting articles to article directories is the best option for me.  I have written a few articles in the past and they have resulted in good links and traffic.

For some reason I end up putting off writing articles – but starting today I am going to be focused on writing and submitting articles.  Some people outsource their articles, but I have been very unhappy with the few articles that I have outsourced and I have ended up rewriting them – so I am going to write them myself.

Here is my starting point:

Site #1 – July 2008 unique visitors 25,045 – Home Page Page Rank 2.0 – This has always been the most profitable until recently.
Site #2 – July 2008 unique visitors 15,318 – Home Page Page Rank 3.0 – Currently the most profitable – making over half of my income.
Site #3 – July 2008 unique visitors 3.312 – Home Page Page Rank 0.0
Site #4 – July 2008 unique visitors 3,171 – Home Page Page Rank 2.0
Site #5 – July 2008 unique visitors 3,077 – Home Page Page Rank 1.0
Blog – July 2008 unique visitors 812 – Home Page Page Rank 3.0

I will be tracking my actions & results here.

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Site Built It! News – Upgrades and Upcoming Special

This week, SBIX News announces behind-the-curtains SBI! infrastructural upgrades and the "back-to-work" Hi-Ho $100 Special.

Site Build It! Xpress ("SBIX") is for SBI! customers only . It boils down the near-infinite Net marketing and e-business noise into "only what you really need to know."

Stay tuned for the Hi-Ho Special coming in the next day or so – it is one of the few times during the year when you can get a discount when you purchase 2 SBI! sites.   (Site Build It is so much more than a website – it should be called a business in a box!).

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