I'm analyzing site sell it! as part of a business homework assignment. Does anybody know anything about the loyalty of their customers? For example if there was a similar service, would customers be willing to switch? I'm also curious if their customers tend to be their long term, or if they tend to disappear with time as they move to more normal (inexpensive) hosting and non-bundled tools.
Joe the customers (over 100,000) tend to very loyal as the services offered are great and produce results (over 60% of sites in top 3% Alexa). When something works people stick with it. People are so happy with it they produce their own home made videos: The "I Love SBI!" Site More data for you: Case Studies Proof The hosting is not expensive and is included in the yearly fee. The bundling of tools makes getting a site up and maintaining it very easy. For this reason experienced marketers choose SBI as it saves time, and time is money. Good luck with your assignment! KJ
I know when I look at the services bundled together (hosting, keyword research, bulk e-mail service) the price seems to be quite reasonable. I'm However curious what existing customers to think of their services. Many affiliates (and affiliates promoting affiliates) seem to muddle the water with financially motivated hype. ...if I could get access to their user forum I could get a much better idea. I'm not sure I want to spend my money on them to scope them out though. They definitely know how to build hype.
For me its not the price matter.There a lots of thing more important than price such as support,installation etc
Mentos, are you a site build it customer? If so can you elaborate on what you think of their services and where they are lacking. I may spend this semester in my business class creating business plans for something that would compete with them.
Well good luck with that buddy. You can't grow to over 100,000 customers and over 50 staff if you don't offer quality. The only way to fully evaluate the business is to sign up for $299 do your research then get a full refund. Here is just ONE of the Tools called Brainstorm It: It's a keyword tools with a lot of functions. First choose lateral or vertical function/singular or plural we will choose 'computer parts' vertical plural It uses Wordtracker for the most up to date keywords but provides its own software to sort spam sites from REAL competition and REAL supply GIVEN THE real PROFITABILITY which is far superior to the KEI index used by some to measure this For any keyword found you can click on the www link and it will bring up 3 browsers google, msn, yahoo on the same screen with the top ranked sites for that keyword therefor you can immediately start researching the competition, what ads are displaid etc. This is a massive time saver. There is a place to make notes on each keyword in a convenient way to ad value to your research You also use the Search It function on each keyword. This is another massive tool for research: it has no less than 20 features for doing intense research about everything about your competition and keywords and subject areas (sorry I have limited time it would take over an hour just to type all the functions) Suffice to say that there is no other tools on the internet that is so thorough-it would be hard to even use all of the functions. There IS very helpful faq's and help sections so you don't get weighed down. That is just for research there are other tools for example mods for building websites. I will let another SBIer describe this I gotta go. Regards. KJ
Experienced marketers don't choose SBI, they run the other way. The only folks who stay with them are the ones who don't know any better, or who promote it for the $100 or so commission. Every new site you build costs another $300. That's like having to buy a new copy of Dreamweaver every time you build a new site. No thanks. I'll buy the tools I need once and use them over and over instead of buying the same tools over and over, but only using them once, every chance I get.
I used to have a site there. Hated it. I bought a site from SitePoint that was hosted there. For someone who doesn't know marketing it may be OK, but to me it was a real pain in the butt. I like using FTP or something similar to edit my sites (and i'm known on occasion to just edit files directly through SSH if I'm coding in PHP or javascript stuff). To me, the SBI interface was just a complete pain. To create a "new" page on my site, I have to go through this kludgy annoying interface on their site to ensure that my page is "ok" to publish and that all of the images, etc. are on the server. Everything to my knowledge has to run through their web interface. And the price is high considering I could host the site on a dedicated server that I already have - SBI was something like $400/year to renew. That being said, if that's all you have and all you know I guess its not too bad. But to anyone experienced, I'd avoid it. You sort of have to dumb yourself down a lot to figure out their user interface. It would be very nice if there was a way to turn the account into sort of an "expert mode" that got rid of a bunch of the BS that you have to weed through just to make a simple change on a page on your site.
Lets talk about reality. In the info business the biggest threat is information overload. I have had access to many tools and you have to learn how to use each one. I have learned to to make pages and upload and manipulate files, how to redirects, keyword research, jv's, make ebooks, squeeze pages, commerce systems.....the list keeps going! How much of my time was spent on learning technical stuff? How much time was spent on atually completing money making activities? Very little. The argument is not whether if you are experienced you can go out and find a combination of tools and do it all yourself it is this: What is your best chance of actually mking money online? SBI frees up time to put into creatively marketing your business instead of getting bogged down in technical stuff and lets face...making no money. However, as much as I agree that you can go out and find tools etc the would also point out that some of the tools such as brainstorm it and search it and absolutely worth ten times the yearly price of the whole program. Perhaps you did not explore all of their uses? For SOME people SBI offers the BEST way they are ever going to make money online. KJ
I sense an argument brewing. Let me sum it up, site sell it offers a very thorough service that helps the inexperienced build profitable websites that make money by making it easy for them. However for the experienced that know the advanced ways site build it holds them back because it's simplified for the new users and is also kind of pricey. Site Build it is intended for the new user and they don't (& shouldn't) care about the experienced folks. If I try to compete with them I will obviously have to buy a copy to try. What else? Other than that site build it spends just over $100 on every sale (~30% of revenue) what else should I know about them?
IMHO you seem to have the concept. However... there are quite a few SBI'rs that have been around for several years... If you wanted to contact them individually through the link provided in an above post they might explain why they have stayed with SBI themselves. I am of the opinion that SBI does so much... for the inexperienced AND the experienced. If you choose to do everything yourself and not purchase SBI, there a lot of tools that are offered out there that can be purchased individually and only when you need them... that could save you money.... I guess. you might think you know how to build a successful website for less... so you try.... and you think you will save money... but what about your time? That is worth a lot of money to me. Especially when you invest so much time in trying to figure out how to drive traffic, maintain traffic and maintain a quality site in the SE's eyes. SBI provides an all inclusive package, provides you with up to date market information, and gives you the option of browsing through information they have collected for market trends so you don't have to waste time doing the research yourself. Their forums offer 24/7 access to other members for friendly help/other information/support/comments/ etc. They provide easy to use tools if you need them... if you don't... then don't use them... build your pages however you want - no big deal. So the best analogy I can think of is this. You are going to travel to Jamaica and have the option of going to an all inclusive resort or purchasing your vacation piece meal. You weigh the pros/cons.... an all inclusive resort offers free food, free booze, free entertainment, free water sports - but it might seem pricey upfront. If you choose to purchase piece meal... it seems cheaper because you aren't paying up front for booze, food, activities... but you end up paying for it in the back end- one way or another. So which do you choose and why? I personally choose to pick the all inclusive resort.... I don't want to worry about paying for booze, food, water sports etc... I want to have access to it all when I need them and have it there if and when I want it .... at the drop of a hat...... I don't want to worry or waste my time on figuring out where this is or where that is... how much is this or how much is that.... all the research etc. So maybe that answers your question.... on a different level.... but as I mentioned in the first part of this post.... you already have the idea! Good luck on your project!!!
Nice travelgirl. I think you hit it when you mentioned time. The time one can spend on finding, purchasing and learning to use all of the right tools to start your online empire is massive. Weeks, months, years can be spent just learning everything and during that time you're making no money...and time IS money. In the [url="http://aff-masters.sitesell.com/cgi-bin/adb/adb.pl?code=135492&src=7998]Affiliate Masters Course[/url] it says 'don't count your hours as zero cost simply because they do not cost you 'out of pocket'. Assign your time a dollar value--it will put your affiliate business on a solid, professional 'business footing'. Perhaps if some people realized how much their time (spent learning all the different programs) had actually cost them in lost dollar$ they would be much more willing to look at a solution that would save them time (m$ney) and would make them m$ney sooner. Sometimes I think (for guys anyway) the idea of 'learning it all myself' is gratifying at the expense of actually doing something simple but that actually produces profit. I know I am generalizing here and maybe just talking about myself but I have observed this tendency. Food for thought. KJ
I am using SBI!! All webmasters must try SBI atleast once!! But experienced webmasters will be tired and sick of using it!! Because site creation is a tedious job.. But u will learn a lot of internet business and how to build a successful site!
There is some groundbreaking news on Sitesell They are now offering monthly subscriptions instead of the usual $300 upfront business. To join from $29.99/mo follow this direct link.
i used to be a part of sbi, but i got my money back for a few reasons.. i liked a lot of features they offered, so dont get me wrong, but i didnt like how i was very limited to a design and layout. i know people may disagree, but i think that creativity is something that brings a website a certain feel and gives it emotion, if you wanna say.because of this, i switched and bought dreamweaver cs4..limits completely endless with dreamweaver cs4. sbi is very good at producing success though, no doubt in my mind.