INFOPRENEUR TO E-GOODS Best-Kid-Games-Online.com Would you attempt an internet business without SBI? Since November 3, 2003, I have to answer that question with a resounding NO! It took many hours of research to come to that conclusion however. I'll give you a brief look how I came to that "fateful" day and what has transpired since. Although I had been involved in sales for a good part of my life, I have a very analytical mind-set. Perhaps this is why I've gravitated to areas such as commercial real estate sales, which is a more analytical kind of sales. I've been fairly successful in all my endeavors but I continued to have a gnawing in my gut. My problem was that I wanted something that everyone wants: more money with less sweat. Now don't get me wrong. I don't mind sweat, but if push comes to shove, I would rather work hard and create something and let it continue to work for me. "To Analyze or To Analyze, That is the Question" I have to be honest about myself. My analytical mind isn't always a good quality. There have been many times where I analyzed something to death. Sometimes, and I'm not exactly sure why this is, my "analyticalness" actually keeps me from doing things well. I continuously have to keep an eye on this monster in me so that it doesn't cause me to sit and not get anything done. Another fact about me is that I am very computer literate. I had to be better than the other guys in commercial real estate as it was a dog-eat-dog atmosphere. Since then (mid-80s), I have use computers to help me accomplish what I wanted. They are wonderful tools. Auctions, Here I Come! All that being said, in the fall of 2003 I was placed into the internet business game. My sons had quite a few video games of one platform and they wanted to move to another platform. The PS2 was moving to one son, so that the other son could get an xBox. We thought about it and of course our minds drifted to eBay and I was suddenly one of the millions of people who are called eBayers. On September 3rd I signed up for my eBay and PayPal accounts. This started my quest for knowledge about doing business on the internet. We easily auctioned off our surplus games although we don't know if we actually made any money. At this point, I didn't want to sell everything I could see in the house. And I didn't want to go to all the flea-markets and swap-meets and attempt selling everything I could lay my hands on. Instead, with my ever-present object of not sweating more than I absolutely had to, I started looking at other auction possibilities. I looked into the drop-shipping market. Needless to say, I researched that area to death and eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn't for me. Auctions Are Out! What's Next for Me? So I researched everything else net-biz-wise. And I mean research. I would get home from my day job at 5pm and around 5:30 I would search and read, search and read until around 2 or 3am ... every day ... seven days a week. I knew there was an answer. I knew that billions of dollars were being spent via the internet. I didn't want it all. I just wanted to be a part of it. This went on for a couple weeks ... maybe 200 hours or more. It was at this point, on September 23rd, it dawned on me that I had bought the ebook "Make Your Site Sell" sometime in 2000. I broke it out again and realized there was an update, MYSS 2002, so I upgraded that same day. While it was more than I could comprehend in 2000, I started eating this stuff up. It's about the time I was also devouring the SiteSell web site. I signed up for most of the free Masters Courses and ate them up too -- I still can't believe you give these away! I couldn't get enough. Around midnight on the 23rd I wrote Sitesell my first question about SBI. You answered me the next morning. (I have to say parenthetically, that I owe you and Dr. Evoy a deep and heartfelt "Thank You!" Without the answers you gave me, and the little nudge to step out and do it, I could still be sitting on the side lines analyzing this or that!) October 4th - Purchased Site-Build-it! It is after you answered many questions and prodded me more and more, that I can now look back and say October 4th was one of the most difficult days I have ever had. I just finished reading another email answer from you that told me the price for Site Build It was increasing soon. It hadn't for a relatively long time. Understandably, not getting much support from my family (my youngest son kept saying, "Dad, don't believe them. Everything on the internet is hype!"), I quietly made the decision and purchased the SBI package. Wow ... what a relief I felt! I knew the work was just beginning but I really appreciated Dr. Evoy's often-repeated thought, "You aren't here for the quick dollar. You are growing a business." It was true so I took it to heart. I now had a purpose ... a direction. I was finally on a well traveled road trod by people I began to trust. It was an awesome feeling. Dr. Evoy continuously reminds us in the Action Guide, "Make Your Site Pre-Sell" ("MYSPS"), to not skip any step. He says that to skip any of the planning stages would be almost like business-suicide. So I didn't. My Three Important Questions There were three main questions for which I needed answers. The answer to the first one, "What kind of business should I get into?" kept me from moving forward in 2000. Now however, I had the blueprint, the step-by-step program that is outlined in MYSPS (aka the Guide). Thank goodness for it. Download a free copy of Make Your Site Pre-Sell here. Don't let it scare you as you read it though because so many of the tasks are nearly automated in Site-Build-It. Although I am analytical, when it comes to anything about computers, I want to jump ahead and save steps and hours. I didn't this time. I trusted the people that wrote this Guide. It always gave me solid evidence that it was the way to go - that I didn't have to research every little thing before doing it. Looking for my first answer, the Guide said to find an area of expertise or an area that is close to your heart or that you know a lot about. I had gone through the Elementary Education program at University and had taught at a private school for a while, so I started to look further into that general area. We had also home-schooled our boys for close to six years. I chose to research that subject. Finally I was on My Way ... But How Do I Do That? Simple - Follow the plan. The plan is to use the SBI Manager to determine several critical things about the market. I needed to find what people type a particular phrase or word into the search engines how many times that word or phrase was included in web sites get a relative ranking of each of these terms These words, terms and phrases are called keywords. Keywords serve double-duty. Keywords are used by people in Search Engines to locate what they want. Therefore, we want to use them so they can find us. For our use, they are like a hound, pointing us in the right direction. This task alone, if I didn't have the SBI Manager to do it for me, would have taken many hours! But in no time, I had over a hundred keywords. The Manager gives me a relative "profitability" number, which is the relationship between Supply and Demand. In other words, a high Demand and a low Supply produces a higher profitability number. This was wonderful! I analyzed all the keywords that had to do with home-schooling. The SBI Manager also gave me a listing of a good dozen sites for each keyword. I reviewed each site for two very important items: whether they could possibly be a merchant for my affiliate program or whether they could provide information that I could use to create my content. These steps were an eye-opener to me. It showed me, according to my standards that I had set, that I didn't see enough profitability in the concept for a sound profit-making business. (That is not to say that others could and have done it.) Think what would have happened if I hadn't had SBI to guide me? I would have started a site that would have turned out to be a hobby. If that's what I wanted, that would have been fine, but it wasn't. The Concept of "Kid Games" was Born The SBI Manager analysis did point me in one direction however. The analysis led me to where I am now, kid's games - not a topic I would have chosen on my own. Also, the keywords I chose are not the ones I would have chosen on my own. My task was to find a relatively open niche that I could fill. For example, I did not choose "kid's games" as a keyword for a reason. It was saturated. In other words, the supply was more than what the demand dictated. "Kid games," on the other hand, was wide open. Again, it is a relative number but the keyword "kids games" rated about a 10 while "kid games" was over 2,000. That's a pretty major difference for sure. It seemed I researched keywords forever but I couldn't have done it without the Brainstorm & Research tool of the SBI Manager. This is the most awesome tool of the entire SBI arsenal. It's simple to use too. I entered the keyword "kid games" and the tool gave me over a hundred related keywords. And it all happened in about 15 minutes! Out of all these, I discarded about a third of them, but that's to be expected. Words like "games," "adult," "kid," "child," etc. were discarded because they were too broad a term. I knew this because when I search by those terms, I got all kinds of unrelated web sites. The Skeleton of My Site is Being Formed Eventually I chose six to ten main keywords that I wanted to use as my tier two or hub pages. Those I chose were board games, educational games, kid party games, etc. The particular variation of the keyword I chose was the best choice when you consider both the profitability factor and what I call the usability factor. Some of the keywords that have a high profitability ranking are just plain unusable. People use all kinds of combinations of words with which to search but not all of them would be worthwhile to use. We must use our chosen keywords in the content of our web page (because that is what people are searching for). When you write compelling but search engine friendly copy and are trying to use a keyword phrase like "free online beginner spelling games for kindergarten/ grade 1" it makes it fairly impossible to not sound strange! If the keyword is also just plain poor English it wouldn't sound well in your page copy, would it? (FYI, this keyword phrase was just used today and I copied and pasted it for you.) To illustrate what I mean about demand, supply and profitability, here is a group of keywords that I culled out of the 100 produced by the Brain (my fond term for the Brainstorm & Research tool) when I ran "kid computer game" through it: Key Word Demand Supply Profitability computer game 580,000 865,000 8 computer games 580,000 500,000 9 computer game magazine 15,288 856 27 computer game review 4,474 1,500 9 computer game download 4,163 2,600 7 computer game online 2,066 2,200 5 kid computer game 2,149 47 58 kid computer games 2,149 16 160 child computer games 1,211 30 52 child computer game 1,211 240 11 downloadable computer game 1,768 467 9 play computer game 1,327 790 6 old computer game 1,284 1,030 6 computer golf game 1,237 670 6 computer strategy game 1,225 600 7 Can you tell which keywords I chose? Yup, I used the three with the highest profitability ranking as the main terms. Let's look at this table again - What does it tell us? It says that in one month 2,149 people searched by typing the keyword "kid computer games." It also says to us that there were 47 sites that included the singular term and 16 that had the plural on their site. If the SBI idea is to find a niche, then I think I found one. Let me ask you a question. Why wouldn't I want to use the high demand words, "computer game" or "computer games"? You're right, because the supply is through the roof - especially relative to demand. If I wanted to set up a hobby site, it wouldn't have mattered at all. October 30th - Best-Kid-Games-Online.com was Live! I finally got through most of the Make Your Site Pre-Sell "days" (it's structured into a series of [non] 24-hour days with many sub-tasks) and was now ready to choose my domain. I learned so much in SiteSell's literature about how Search Engines rank sites. A factor in their formulae is the domain name. My domain name must primarily reflect my mission and purpose and my main keyword concept should be in it. Hence, Best "Kid Games" Online. "Best" was added as a qualifier and "Online" was added to be more descriptive. As it turns out, both words help in my rankings and I know that because I track the keywords. I am getting visitors because both of those terms are in the domain. So, on October 30th, with only my main page, I went live on the internet. And I was nervous. November 14th - Applied to Google Adsense Aside from using SBI, do you want to know the next most significant thing I did? I applied and was accepted into the Google Adsense program. I didn't think I would be accepted and I was going to wait but timing is everything as they say. It just so happened that I had written Judson Burden again about a question I had. When I got his reply, I was amazed because he asked if he could call me. I said, YES! It was a great conversation where I asked a gazillion questions and received great guidance. One golden piece of advice he told me was his success with Google Adsense. He encouraged me to give it a try. SiteSell developed a web page devoted entirely to Google's Adsense program. Read it here! I applied on November 14 and to my amazement, I was accepted the next day. I had heard that sites larger and more popular than mine were not being accepted, so I wasn't expecting this. I wasn't expecting being accepted because I only had about 4 or 5 pages completed. Most were keyword focused content rich pages, so perhaps that was the deciding factor. I copied the Adsense image from the Phonics Programs page from my site. As you can see, they do an excellent job of placing very targeted ads. This further gives my visitors more choices. This could be good or be bad, depending on what you want your visitors to do. As I explain below, Adsense was primarily a vehicle for me to get in the Google database. Why was Google Adsense a Turning Point for Me? It was turning point for me because up to now I was the ONLY one going to my site. On the 15th, I was getting six visitors. Not a big showing to say the least. On the 21st, I was averaging 290 visitors. The only difference was Google Adsense. Let me explain more. It takes time to get indexed in the search engines (SE). First of all, your page must be submitted. There are very particular rules you must be aware of in this process. If you mess up, the SEs may penalize you. But don't worry, SBI takes care of all of this for you. Second, your page must be spidered by each specific engine. The SE sends a small computer program (a spider) to crawl through the entire internet. It looks at each site (in time), searching through your content and your links in and out of your site. It looks not only at your keyword frequency but also how they are used. It does not do any good to write gibberish, as you will get penalized. This "spidering" is required before your site is indexed into the SE's listing of sites. They do this to determine the ranking of your site compared to everyone else's site. Remember, the searcher is the SE's customer and the SE wants to provide the most relevant sites to those customers. Third, your page is indexed into its database according to all the factors in their proprietary algorithm. I believe there was one reason I was getting more and more visitors each and every day after I was accepted into Google's Adsense program. It was because this is what triggered Google to spider my site and include me into its database. Once your site gets into the database of the Search Engine's they spider often to re-evaluate your site. The following screen shot of just a couple days ago shows that most of the engines spidered me on January 28th and re-indexed me two days later. It also shows how SBI takes all the hard stuff and makes it so easy. I don't have to worry about how or when I submit my site as you can see. I Wanted More Control Over the Design Right about this time also, I wanted to get more control and variety in the way the web site looked. To do this, I picked up the Dreamweaver program. Since I couldn't even tell you the difference between a heading tag, a body tag or a skin tag at this time, it was slow going. But a week or so later I took advantage of SBI's HTML Editor Compatibility Module whereby I uploaded my own HTML-built pages. Keep in mind however that the real beauty of SBI is that you don't have to know anything about the technical part of building a business online. They take those worries out from under you so that you can concentrate on what is really important. Tweaking the Old, Trying the New I enjoy tweaking and trying new things on my site. I enjoy tracking each and figuring out which is good and which isn't as good. I've tried Pay-Per-Click advertising with 4 different companies. I tried the Pay-for-Inclusion method. I've tried the "Get 10,000 Visitors for X Dollar" method also. I've advertised in e-zines for subscriptions and paid for e-zine subscriptions from various companies. Some were great and others were worthless to me. If you visit the "How Did I Do It?" page on my site, in time I will fill you in on a little more detail. I will also give you a few of my building a business recommendations. If you have a question, you may also write me here. Where Am I Now? All in all, out of 16,000,000 web sites that Alexa.com tracks, you can see where I am now. I am coming up in the world! I am also beginning to make money on the site. I know it isn't much but in December, my first full month online with only 1/5 of my site up and running, and only a mere 21 days of going live, I made nearly $300 -- and that means by next month, I will more than have covered the full year cost of SBI!. Now $300 does not sound like that much, but it is much more than the doubters in this family (ahem!) had thought would happen! Not me though - I knew it would work. And it's just the beginning. What every SBIer always talks about is how traffic and income just keeps building and building and building. Monetization Models I'm finding as many different ways to monetize the site as possible -- SBI! even provides incredible information and tools here -- there is even a special HQ devoted to this. At first I listed too many games for sale and not much content. Needless to say, that was a mistake. While I was starting to get traffic, I didn't get many sales. It seemed that as I added more relevant content and cut out some of the product, my sales went up. The SBI model wins again! :-) Here is how I am currently monetizing my web site (not in any particular order): eBooks: ClickBank is a treasure. They say they have a listing of over 10,000 ebooks. I found several kid related ebooks which are great sellers. If you have a chance to work through them, do so. You generally get from 20-50% commission on each book you sell. Plus, ebooks are a great seller these days. As of now, I am selling: How to Add Your Games to Your Site: this is a good seller because I actually bought it and put it to use. I found her while searching for my site. She complements mine and is often two or three positions above me. Why not take advantage of her standing? Wow Dad! - I found this ebook through ClickBank and is a great addition. Little Kid Crafts for All Seasons, 52 Toddler Play Ideas and 24 Hour Science Projects are three others that complement my site nicely. They also give it more depth of content and answers many questions my visitors have. Until you produce your own ebook (which will be my next step), I strongly suggest adding digital products as yet one more way to monetize all that juicy traffic. They are great additions, too, to the content that is so important to us. Google Adsense: See the SiteSell.com Web site on the Google AdSense monetization option. It' the best analysis of the program on the internet. At first, I placed the html on every page, but then I backed off and placed it on just a few. Again, as SBI! says, find the right blend of content and monetization. Affiliate Merchants: I have carefully added affiliate partners, again following the SBI! process and strategies. I've developed relationships with particular sites about which I thought highly, like BrainBuilders.com and Reflexive.com. Affiliate Networks: I also have ongoing relationships with the major affiliate networks, like Commission Junction, Linkshare, ClixGalore and RegNow. Hundreds of merchants are members of these networks. It is sure nice to have one place to go to check your stats. [Note: I have to visit the networks and merchants often. I have to determine which are my good performers and which are my poor performers. i want only good performing merchants as I have a finite amount of web-site real estate and I want it populated with merchants and product that perform well.] [Caveat: Sometimes it may be necessary to keep a poor performer. My visitors, by not seeing this product or merchant listed, may think I are missing a vital part of my site. If that's the case, it could be well worth keeping. As is often the case, perception is reality.] Owning my Market: I have great confidence in SBI. So much so that I thought when my site became THE game web site, I didn't want those who wanted to make a quick buck to take advantage of what I had built. I already explained why I chose the domain I have now but there were many options to choose from. Because of this, I registered 5 other domains that were closely related to mine: - bestkidgamesonline.com - best-kid-games.com - bestkidgames.com - kid-games-online.com - kidgamesonline.com Although they cost $8 a year to register them, it turned out to be a great business decision. First of all, other people can't use them. But more so, it always amazes me how many people type those site URLs into their browser and guess what? Because I use the free forwarding feature, all those visitors end up at my site! The decision to purchase those have been covered several times over. Value-Exchange: I am pursuing a "value-linking" strategy by actively seeking web sites that complement mine without being a direct competitor. With the changes that frequently occur with the way Search Engines operate, one of the consistent themes is to have quality links. Value-Exchange at sitesell.com is the REAL way to do this (it avoids all the problems of other link-trading programs, saves me hours of time, and is included in the price, just like all the other modules). On a related note, the idea that your visitor's perception of you can impact your bottom line is an important one. I wanted to show my visitors that I was honest and trustworthy. How do I go about doing this? I was a newbie and had no track record. Well, I visited every one of my competitors and noticed a common denominator. Many were members of kid-safe, family-related associations. I promptly joined them and posted their logo on my site. It's surprising how many visitors I get from my listing in the association's roll-book. I recommend you research which associations are leaders in your field. It builds trust in you personally and in your site. Where Am I Going in 2004? Continue doing what I have been doing: I will continue to tweak and perfect the items listed in the last section. eBooks: I am now finalizing my first ebook. Dr. Evoy says that people go on the internet to find information first and foremost. This is the primary reason for my book -- I want to solve my visitor's problems and answer their questions. If I do this in a way that satisfies them, I will gain a long-time repeat customer, not just a visitor that comes and goes. There are so many ways to market and sell an ebook, once you have the traffic. One is to use one of the E-Com solutions mentioned in SiteSell's "Best of Breed" Resource section -- just copy-and-paste -- it's plug-n-play. I'm choosing ClickBank. The main idea is to provide my visitors with a painless way to purchase and download it. Five Pillar Club Affiliate Program: Because I've spent all my time on Best Kid Games Online so far, I haven't spent time pursuing SiteSell as an affiliate. Nor, of course, is there any obligation to do so -- SiteSell's affiliate program is completely independent of SBI! But I know a good thing when I see one. Like everything Dr. Evoy does, the 5 Pillar Program is truly "state of the Net." I recently wrote my "About Me" pages and will actively promote an affiliate relationship with SiteSell.com in that context. Game!News eZine: It's true that a web site's worth is found in its mailing list. Because of this, I will spend more time and energy on developing mine. Along this line, the first week of February I finally sent out my first newsletter, the Game!News eZine. A newsletter is an important tool in developing a sense of community. These are the people that liked what they saw when they visited my site. They liked it enough to part with their email address. That's a big thing and it's something that must be treasured. The newsletter will help cement these relationships. Stickability Issues: Looking at my visitor statistics, I'm finding out that a majority of my visitors have been one-time visitors. I want that to change and there are several ideas I am beginning to test. Free Online Games: One of the methods I am using is uploading games to my site so that visitors have a reason to come back over and over again. I find this is working, but it could be backfiring for me. I am getting many repeat visitors on my 18 free game pages but to date, it hasn't paid off monetarily. I need to tell myself to just wait...just wait and see if this stickiness translates into the community of visitors that use my site for their purchases. I have a tendency to want the changes to happen NOW! Of course, one of the real beauties of the Net is that it's so cheap to test. If something does not work, drop it. If it does... monetize it! BKGOnline Blog: Since I like the idea of community, I am toying with the possibility of starting a blog or a Message Board -- SBI! makes this a snap, too. A blog is short for web-log which is essentially an online journal by which you and your visitors can communicate. This is a difficult decision though. At what point do I want to cut down the time I spend on this site and begin moving forward with another one? I've come an amazing way in a short time. I'm building something that is real, that is mine, that has value and generates income. And it's just the beginning. I've invested in three more Site-Build-It sites. I'm researching the keywords now ... we'll see where we go next. Rob Oskins www.best-kid-games-online.com