DAY 6 -- Build a Site That Gets the Click

SBI! Modules Used Today -- SBI! SiteBuilder (All Pages, One Page at a Time, WebFTP), Libraries (Graphic, Link, Tracker, Form Build It!, Content 2.0)

Put on your hard hat. You are entering the construction phase of your SBI! journey. An integrated, simple-to-use set of tools is in place, waiting for your ideas, commands, and dedication (the "Brain And Motivation" part). Please have your post-domain-registration e-mail (Subject = "Site Build It! Is Ready for You!") handy. You will need its username and password information.

Your DAY 6 goal is to create a site that pleases both your human visitors and the Search Engines. This is where you start the C  T  P  M snowball rolling by writing content designed to "get the click!"

The essence of "building income through content" is to...

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Deliver valuable content to your readers...
And tasty content to the spiders.

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Your site must be a Win-Win-Win proposition for three parties...

1. Your visitor
2. The Search Engines ("SEs")
3. YOU!
   
   If you plan to monetize your traffic by putting advertisements on your site (ex., Google AdSense ads or ads from advertisers that you locate) or through affiliate programs, there are actually 4 Wins...
4. Your advertisers or merchant-partners.

Let's look at each win...

Win #1    Your visitor must get what she's looking for... the best information. OVERdeliver with original, high-value info. Remember what your visitor seeks... she is not looking for your business.

Your job is to provide quality info that reinforces in your visitor's mind that you are an "expert" she can trust... and one who can grant her wish or solve her problem. If you don't do this, she simply clicks the back button to the Search Engine and says... "Who's next?"

Win #2    Search Engines are in business, too. Their product is the quality of their search results. Let's say, for example, a Web surfer searches for "salami." A Search Engine wants to deliver the most relevant "salami sites" on the Net.

If you do anything to hurt their product (i.e., the relevance and quality of their search results), sooner or later they will hurt you. But when your site provides what searchers want, you add value to a Search Engine's product.

As a result, searchers will trust this SE to find the best information next time as well. That is the big win for Search Engines. A growing loyal base of users makes it easier for them to attract and keep advertisers, their real customers!

Bottom line? There's only one time your site should deliver "bologna/baloney." And it's not when people are looking for "salami."

Win #3    YOU must win, too, of course. How? Succeed at the first two wins...

• OVERdeliver to your visitor. This ensures repeat visits, confidence and trust and likability ("PREselling")... and evergrowing monetization.
• Please the Search Engines. Do it right and they will never ban you. Better than that, as your site grows, and as humans respond positively to your site (something they track more and more efficiently, in hundreds of ways), they reward you with higher & higher rankings.

And finally, depending upon your monetization plans...

Win #4    Your advertisers and merchant-partners must win, too.

For example, let's say that you plan to participate in the Google AdSense program. By focusing each page clearly on one topic, Google will be able to deliver contextually relevant ads. That makes Google's advertisers happy.

What about your merchant-partners with affiliate programs? They want sales. The best way to deliver them is through top content that gains your visitors' confidence. Then use "in-context" text links to recommend and direct those visitors to places that you believe deliver superb products with great value.

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The "winning" formula boils down to...

"Find-Click-Click-CLICK-kaCHING!"

Music to my ears!

• Find... Your potential visitor must find you in the Top 10 (no worse than Top 20) of the search results for your keyword. Otherwise, you simply don't exist for that word because most surfers will not investigate past the 20th position. Game over.
• Click... Your potential visitor must read the Title and Description that the engine uses in the search results, and she must find them sufficiently compelling to click to your site.

  If your Title and Description are boring or tacky, your potential visitor will probably not click to your Web page, even if it's listed at #1 on the Search Engine Results Page. "Who's next?!" Game over.

  And yes, the SEs notice that, too!

  If you don't know how to make the Search Engines show the Title and Description, don't worry. SBI!'s block-by-block SiteBuilder takes you through each and every part of building an effective Web page, even obtaining a proper SE listing for every page.

  The site- and traffic-building tools that you are about to use will quickly scale you up to full-professional level. This may seem like a total mystery to you now. But we will demystify it all, one simple step at a time.

  If you are already a Net-savvy pro (ex., an experienced Webmaster or marketing pro), relax. So far, SBI! might seem like it's for "newbies." It's not. Only SBI!'s SiteBuilder is for beginners.

  You will basically continue to do what you've been doing, using your usual HTML editor, graphics software, etc. Get ready to work a bit differently. The difference?

  You are about to become more successful, with less effort and tool-management overhead. Once you have adjusted to working the SBI!-way, plugging what you do into the "SBI! back-end," you'll repeat the words of other super-savvy pros...

  "Why would I want to do this any other way?"

• Click... Your visitor finds high value content, learns to like and trust you as someone honest who delivers, and so follows your recommendations with interest. Another click!

  If your pages deliver poor, low-value info (or even worse, one sales pitch after another), you will indeed get a click -- on the Back Button to the Search Engine's results page. Game over.

  As you see, the "game can be over" quite easily. That is why 99% of small businesses fail.

  And do I need to say it again? Yes, the SEs notice human behavior, both negative (ex., quick returns back to the SE) and positive ones (ex., in-pointing links, mentions in influential, related forums, etc.). They are the "Big Brother" of the Web... they see all.

  So play this game right. More on this in DAY 7.

• CLICK-kaCHING! Ahhhhhhhh... Your visitor arrives at your money-makers. That might be your order page, online store, contact form to retain your services or become a warm lead for your Network Marketing business, or your merchant-partner's site in a "feeling smart about myself" and open-to-buy mood.

  They are ready to click that monetization button, whatever it may be, even if it's as quick and simple as clicking on a Google AdSense ad.

  What if you sell a local service? Surely a local business can't "work?" Yes, a simple contact form on a great site has doubled the sales volume of the Case Study dentist from California. His new clients come from as far away as Las Vegas! Now that is PREselling!

  And the ultimate offline local business, asphalt-sealing, has gone global. No matter what your monetization plans are, C  T  P  M "works."

  For more details about monetization models, visit the Monetization Headquarters (MHQ). Explore the ones that you included in the Monetization Mix you developed during DAY 4.

Find-Click-Click-CLICK-kaCHING!

If you get the Find-Click-Click right, the CLICK-kaCHING! is in the bag!

Ready to build? Every good architect works from a blueprint. You already have a Content Blueprint.

Now let's quickly review the most visitor- and engine-effective Site Blueprint. This is the "physical" structure of your new site...

Step 1  - Plan your site's structure and content pyramid-style.

Think Pyramid

The easiest way to begin site construction is by first visualizing the end result. See your theme-based content site as a pyramid...

The Pyramid

TIER 1... Home

The home page crowns the pinnacle. It's a Keyword-Focused Content Page ("KFCP") that focuses on your Site Concept keyword. Your home page should never link out of your site -- it's too early. (The only possible exception would be for Google AdSense or other ads that "make it worth your while.")

The home page's #1 job is to link down to 5-15 KFCPs. These are your TIER 2 pages.

TIER 2... The Hubs

They are called TIER 2 pages because they are on a second TIER below the home page. Each TIER 2 page should...

• be a good "hub" page, working well as both a good link from the home page, as well as naturally linking to several TIER 3 pages (which are related but more specific in nature, often a subset of the TIER 2 page).
• focus on a keyword that has a high profitability score.
• fit with your monetization plans.

Links on TIER 2 pages can go in four different directions...

1. Links Down    Link to related TIER 3 pages. Each TIER 3 page should be related to or a subdivision of its TIER 2 (ex., "Anguilla Villas" TIER 2 page links to a variety of individual Anguilla villas pages, each of which is a TIER 3). Again, the more good content you have, the more favorably you are viewed by humans and SE spiders. And the bulk of your content will be, should be, TIER 3.

   Some SBIers make the following mistake...

   "TIER 2s are a good thing because they can be reached directly from the home page. So I'll make hundreds of links from the home page to all my pages!"

   Wrong, wrong, wrong!

   The hub structure-and-function of TIER 2s is important. Do not mess that up.

2. Links Up    Link back up to the home page. This provides both the human visitor and the SE spider with added value.

Every TIER 2 should have the above two types of text links. The next two are optional, according to circumstances...

3. Links to Money    Link to a monetization option (i.e., where you make money). This could be as simple as placing Google AdSense ads on a TIER 2 page or blending in-context text links to affiliate merchant-partners into the content. Or it could be links to a sales page for your e-book or Contact Us page to sell your service.
4. Links Out    Link to outstanding, related, non-competing content authorities in your niche. These non-affiliate links provide you extra credibility as a true content site in the eyes of editors from directories (like Yahoo!), reviewers from Google AdSense, and even with the engines.

Don't use many of them, though. Convert as much of your traffic into income as possible. And do make these links pop up into a new window so that you don't lose your visitor completely.

Three quality outgoing links from TIER 2s are enough. And these do not have to be part of any "link exchange" -- do it to provide value to your visitor.

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TIER 2 in a Nutshell    TIER 2 pages, because of their position in the "middle of the pyramid," naturally send links both up and down the TIER structure.

They are the pivotal part of your site. Structure well.

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TIER 3... The Leaves on the Tree

If your home page (TIER 1) is the tree trunk, TIER 2s are the branches. TIER 3s are the vast majority of pages, the leaves, that actually make up most of your site's content.

TIER 3 pages are KFCPs, too. A TIER 3 page fits as a sub-category, or a sub-thought, of its connecting TIER 2 page. The topic of each should relate to the topic of the TIER 2 page that links to it.

TIER 3 pages may not be as profitable as the TIER 2 page that linked to them, but there are a whole heck of a lot more of them. Create enough of these and the traffic adds up pretty fast, thanks to geometric progression (i.e., 1 x 15 x 15). In other words, TIER 3 pages "make it up on volume."

TIER 3 pages can link in 3 of the 4 directions of TIER 2 links. They don't "link down" since there is generally no TIER 4. There are a few special considerations...

Make sure that every TIER 3 can be reached by a link from a TIER 2. And link back up from your TIER 3 to...

• its TIER 2, and
• the TIER 1 (your home page).

Text links at the bottom of each page are fine for this.

The net result is a clean, 3-TIER approach that yields an easy, navigable site for both your visitors and the Search Engine spiders. Your TIER 2s are only one click away from your home page. And it takes 2 clicks to get from your home page to any TIER 3 (requiring a visit to a TIER 2 in transit). Simple.

As the spiders gather up your TIER 1, 2, and 3 pages, the computer programs that analyze them are getting smarter and smarter... and more theme-focused. How does that affect you?

1. They'll analyze all your pages in their databases and decide upon the overall theme of your site. So none of your pages should be off-theme, or you'll confuse the spiders. If you have a great idea for a highly profitable Keyword-Focused Content Page that is off-theme, save it for your next niche.
2. Search Engines look across all your site pages and penalize page duplication. Do not do tricks like "gateway pages" (i.e., duplicate pages that merely replace one keyword with another, the rest of the content being identical). Seek to please.

Now let's put some "content meat" on the "bones" of your 3 TIERs...

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The Content of Your Site as a Pyramid

Build the content of your site like a pyramid, too...

Start with your home page. It must introduce the "big picture," the Valuable PREselling Proposition ("VPP"), of your theme/concept.

From there, each of your TIER 2 pages must focus on a specific topic that is related to that theme/concept.

And at the final level, each TIER 3 page must be a sub-category of its corresponding TIER 2 page.

A strong home page...

• establishes your VPP in its introductory paragraphs, while quickening the pulse of your readers. It answers your visitor's "what's-in-it-for-me?" question. It makes or breaks that all-important "first impression."
• keeps it fun, bright, and intriguing while building respect.
• brings out the appropriate emotions/response in your theme's audience.

That covers the humans. What about the spiders?...

Your Keyword-Focused Content Page must ultimately score in the Top 10-20 search results for your Site Concept keyword. More on this in DAY 7. Suffice it to say that you will win the "SE war" for this word last because it is likely the most competitive keyword in your MKL.

But win it you will. OK, moving down the TIERs...

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Your TIER 2 and TIER 3 pages must...

1. OVERdeliver great content to humans.
2. Convince the Search Engines that they are the best, most relevant pages for their Specific Keywords.

Every Page of Every TIER Is a KFCP and Must Please Visitors and Spiders

Yes, the TIER 2 and 3 approach is similar to that of your home page! While the home page focuses upon the fundamental Site Concept keyword, each one of the other pages focuses upon one keyword from your Master Keyword List.

If your site were a house, it would have one front door, 5-15 side doors, and hundreds of back doors. In other words, humans will find-and-enter your site via any page... TIER 1, 2, or 3.

So each page must meet the specific needs of a visitor who is searching for its Specific Keyword. OVERdeliver with high-value content. This convinces the reader to click and read more of your pages, to sign up for your e-zines and RSS feed (more on this in DAY 8), and ultimately to...

CLICK-kaCHING!

Text links to your monetizing sources must flow naturally, in context.

If visitors find your home page (which will be the most common entry point as your site matures), and if you captivate them with a solid VPP and strong voice, they will click to a TIER 2.

Remember the four directions of links on TIER 2s?

• Down (to TIER 3) -- this is good. You have an interested visitor.
• Up (to TIER 1 home page) -- also good.
• Monetization -- best! CLICK-kaCHING!
• Out -- no more than three of these non-affiliate links per page -- no need for further discussion.

Lead visitors naturally (in context) to a monetization outcome either on your TIER 2 or related TIER 3s (ex., your sales page for an e-good, online store, Google AdSense ads, affiliate links, etc.). Make these links an integral and important part of your editorial content.

TIER 3 pages are the "end of the road." Your Most Wanted Response now is to get the monetizing click. Naturally, if your visitor links back up to the related TIER 2 or to the home page, that's fine. But do focus on working monetization into these TIER 3 content pages.

While TIER 3 keywords are generally not as profitable as TIER 2 ones, there are a whole heck of a lot more of them! For example, you might have 15 TIER 2s. If each of those links to 15 TIER 3s, you have thrown a "net of 225 keywords over the Net!"

Think of your monetizing links as a service to your readers. You offer them as recommendations or tips or "Top 3," etc. -- this is value-added service. So don't just save them for the end, where you impassively list them. Weave them throughout each page, where relevant.

TIER 4?

An ideal niche site, neither too broad nor too narrow, well-researched, should not need to go deeper than 3 TIERs. You should be able to cover it all with 3 TIERs. If you need 400 pages instead of 225 (15 x 15), it's better to go wider (20 TIER 2s with 20 TIER 3s from each), rather than deeper into a TIER 4.

But in general, once you are at this size, you should be reducing to "update and maintenance mode." Use your new-found building time more profitably by building another content site, either one in a completely new niche or that expands your current theme. But "carve out" new sites carefully. If a new site is too close to the first one, it's better to keep that content in the original.

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Pyramid Summary

Your TIER 1 home page links to 5-15 TIER 2 pages (not more, usually, because your NavBar starts looking pretty congested -- if you do end up with more, be sure to use the Navigation Headers option in the Navigation Options tool, discussed below).

Your TIER 2 pages each link to 5-15 TIER 3 pages. (Confused? Click here for a short TNT HQ article that will help clarify things for you. TIERs without tears!)

Net result?...

A site can vary in size, between 31 (1 + 5 + 25) pages, and 241 (1 + 15 + 225) pages. After 3 TIERs and 200+ pages, it gets tougher to get pages indexed at the engines. You won't find many Search Engines that will spider all 241 pages!

At this point, you should pretty much own this little niche. And you'll have exhausted all profitable topics for your site's theme.

Your time is better spent and yields greater returns if you turn your attention to your next theme-based content site, while you leave this one on auto-pilot, except for the occasional update. Or use Content 2.0 and let your visitors add content for you! See Step 6 for more information.

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Now that you know "what" you are building, let's cover "how" you are going to do the actual site-building...

Step 2 - Begin with block-by-block SiteBuilder OR upload your own HTML?

Do you remember what the "It!" in Site Build It! stands for? Check "it!"

"It" does not refer to building a site. Nothing is more generic than the actual nuts-and-bolts of site-building. There are literally hundreds of sitebuilders available, all of them promising to "get your site up in hours."

The last thing Site Build It! delivers is hosting a site. SBI! provides the process and software, a truly all-in-one package, to deliver success. To do that, naturally, SBI! does "have to"...

• provide top notch hosting.

  You can get the same quality hosting from hundreds of other excellent Web hosting services. It's a commodity.

  We would outsource this, except all of the SBI! software (the tools that make you successful) must integrate into a 100%-controlled technical hosting environment. SBI! software cannot be used with any other host. It is just too complex.

  It is also what makes SBI! totally unique.

• show you how to build a high-performing Web site composed of properly built Web pages. Most nice-looking sites, even those by pros, are filled with invisible rot, doomed to zero traffic. SBI! builds sites that work.

Hosting is hosting, nothing more to discuss except to assure you that ours is fast and stable, as good as any online. This DAY 6 step discusses site-building. To build your site, you have two choices...

• use SBI!'s SiteBuilder, or...
• use your own HTML Editor and upload your pages into the SBI! system.

Experienced Webmasters/Pro's

Are you an experienced Webmaster or e-marketing pro? Do you really know HTML? Have you mastered a graphics program? And, most importantly, do you understand how to pull all of the components of a Web page together to make it work? If so, it's time to start building your home page!

Please open and read the confirmation e-mail that you received after you registered your domain (Subject = Site Build It! is Ready for You!). Use the username and password enclosed to login at...

http://login.sitesell.com/

Finished? Click on this button...

... It takes you to the Let's Start Building page. Read it carefully. You never see this page again!

Read the page. Convinced you want to do your own HTML? Here's what to do...

Click on the Upload My Own HTML button. This takes you to the Upload Your Own HTML module.

From here on in, do what you have always done. Use your own site-building and graphics tools. You'll adjust somewhat to fit into the traffic-and-money-building SBI! back-end technology.

But you can create whatever you like, just like regular FTP-based Web hosting, while following C  T  P  M, using the SBI! tools that "wrap around" your site, all while building a trafficked, income-for-life site.

Important: If you will be uploading your own HTML, much of the discussion of individual SBI! tools below (ex., Home Page Builder, FooterBuilder, building a TIER 2 and TIER 3) are not for you (although parts such as "Design 101" are). Instead, here's what you need to know...

After you access the Upload Your Own HTML module for the first time as shown above, go there anytime by clicking on the Upload Your Own HTML Page button in Site Central...

During your first visit, be sure to click on the question mark just to the left of that button for "starting info."

After you arrive, systematically click on every help link to learn how to integrate your own HTML into the SBI! system. Yes, again. I guarantee you'll learn something new.

It is simple to integrate your own HTML. But take your time on the help to get the most out of SBI!.

After you have built a page, you can edit it, of course. You do this either through Quick Re-Upload It! (minor changes) or through the Page Manager, by clicking on the file and choosing "Edit" from the pop-up menu as shown...

The Inexperienced... Let's Build from the Ground Up

SBI!'s "SiteBuilder" is for the inexperienced. It assumes you know nothing.

SBI!'s block-by-block site-building process is a Web-bike with "training wheels." It starts by assuming zero knowledge. And then...

• Block by block, it shows you, hands-on, the structural essentials of a solid Web page (the significance and optimal use of Title, Keywords, Description, Headline, Text, Graphics, etc.).
• Block by block, you build an understanding about how to build a good Web page that works for both your human and spider visitors.
• Analyze It! trains you in the basic concept of getting all of your "on-page Search Engine criteria" correct.

SiteBuilder hammers home the fundamental concepts of page-building. It's the perfect Web-bike with training wheels. As soon as you have your balance (5-10 pages), you can either keep using it (many who learn to use it efficiently do just that) or you can take the wheels off.

The transition to using a best-of-breed free-or-cheap HTML editor (either WYSIWYG or text-based, your choice) is seamless and simple...

Click on the Upload Your Own HTML Page button (see above) and get your "transition template." Read all the help, as outlined above for "HTMLers."

The Basic Philosophical Approach of SiteBuilder...Simplicity/Training Vs. Flexibility/Habits

That wraps up the discussion on the two basic options. This TNT article explains the difference in philosophy between them. Experienced or not, read it to deepen your understanding of this important branching point.

OK, time to get block-building! Please open the confirmation e-mail that you received after you registered your domain (Subject = Site Build It! is Ready for You!). Use the username and password enclosed to login at...

http://login.sitesell.com/

Clicking on this button...

...takes you to the Let's Start Building page. Read it carefully. You never see this page again!

Select SBI!'s SiteBuilder or your own HTML editor. Here, I see, you have selected to use the "training wheels"...

SBI! takes you straight to the Look & Feel module.

And so will I, but let's talk "Design 101" first...

Step 3 - Create a professional "Look & Feel."

You only get one chance to make a good first impression! So design a clean, welcoming and easy to navigate Look & Feel ("L&F").

The ultimate goal of your Web site is to get the monetizing click. Your content and style give visitors a confident feeling that you are indeed an authority on the theme that your site has chosen. "Words" get that job done. But...

A great L&F sets a positive, receptive mindset. It won't make the sale, but it does set the stage for C  T  P to work its magic and lead to the M.

SBI! offers powerful, easy-to-use tools that give you the freedom to create the sharp, professional L&F that you want. If you are not a designer, here are some pro-level "keep the glitz down" tips when using SBI!'s L&F tools....

1. Limit your color palette.

   The use of too many color families is a tell-tale sign of an amateur. We amateurs love to snazz it up! But it distracts the visitor and "feels amateurish." So pick two to three complimentary colors.

   Use a splash of color (spot color) for extreme accent points. Experiment with colorful elements within your site photos and other graphics. But limit the colors in the underlying images and background that make up your L&F.

   The same holds true for font coloring.

2. Limit your special effects.

   Even though the "cool" factor is alluring, effects such as drop shadows, beveling, and glows should be used for impact, not as the basis of your design. Don't be tempted to apply all the effects just because they are there.

3. Design for the whole site, not the particular element.

   Although you will be working on each element (Logo, Left Hand NavBar, Background) individually, it is the whole L&F that your viewers see. Each L&F element may look great, but what's the overall effect?

   As you work with SBI!'s L&F tools, get the big picture of the finished result by using the L&F Preview button frequently. Ensure that the L&F elements complement each other and deliver the overall mood and impact that you want your viewers to experience.

   If building a profitable Web site is your top priority, reflect upon the above points seriously. Do not design just to please yourself. Well-known design and usability gurus recommend minimalist designs, including simple, clean left-hand navigation.

   Why?

   Because they "work."

   Clean design and simple navigation are Search-Engine-friendly. The spiders can't see the design of course (not yet!), but they do love easy-to-follow navigation! Humans, of course, are struck by both design and easy navigation. And ultimately, the engines track human response. So...

   Simplicity rules!

OK, I promised to take you to the Look & Feel module right after "Design 101." Here we go...

Let's Explore SBI!'s Look and Feel Selector Module

When you first choose to build your site using SBI!'s SiteBuilder, you are automatically sent to the Look and Feel module. Once you complete your L&F, you move on to build your home page (next step below).

Don't worry about getting your L&F spot-on perfect the first time. After you build your home page, you can access the L&F module anytime via Site Central by logging into Site Central at this URL...

http://login.sitesell.com/

Once you are at Site Central, click on the Look and Feel Selector button under All Pages in the section called SiteBuilder...

Whether you are reaching SBI!'s L&F module for the first time or if you've been there and done that and are arriving via Site Central...

Come with me...

Click to visit SBI!'s Look and Feel Selector module.

Read the on-page instructions, all of the Help & Strategies, and explore a bit, scrolling down the page.

If you are using SiteBuilder, there are two ways to create your L&F...

1) Predesigned Theme    These are the ten themed L&Fs (High Tech, Health and Beauty, Business and Finance, etc.). There are as many as 11 different templates for each theme. Select and save the one that best fits with your Site Concept or theme.

2) Style: Custom   You will find this "11th L&F" by scrolling all the way to the bottom. This option delivers two new levels of "customizability"...

• Use Additional Themes    These L&Fs have been pre-built for you to plug into Style: Custom. They offer a wide variety of sharp designs, each of which is customizable.
• "Total Free-Form"    Create your own Logo, Left Hand Image, Background, and NavBar button, either using your own graphics program or SBI!'s built-in design tools. You are, as they say, "limited only by your imagination."

Fully explore your L&F options and all the help. Do this before you start designing. The time spent will repay you many times over.

Select and save the L&F that best meets your capabilities, and that fits with your theme, and audience. A Predesigned Theme may hit it "just right." If not, take the extra time to plug one of the Additional Themes into the Style:Custom option (the best compromise). If you have some graphic skills, design your own!

When you complete your L&F the first time, SBI! once again takes you automatically to the next stage of construction...

Step 4 - Build (and edit) your home page.

What should a home page be? Let's see what Google thinks. Google is a multi-billion dollar company with an ever-growing array of products. Let's look at their home page...

So... what should a home page be?

S-I-M-P-L-E.

SiteBuilder provides you with a simple form to build a simple home page...

Simplicity is important because the home page's job is simple. Get your visitors in. Get your visitors out.

Deliver the VPP, set your voice, focus on your message, and do it all so that your Site Concept keyword has been used optimally within the page, and...

"Get out." Visitor captivated? Great! Link them down to one of your TIER 2s.

When you build your home page, the SiteBuilder system automatically lays the foundation for upcoming site navigation...

• Graphical NavBar in the left margin, and
• Table of Contents (text links to each TIER 2 with a brief description) -- this appears below the content you enter when building the home page.

This simple and redundant navigation guarantees excellent human and spider penetration.

After all, it's fine and dandy to build a site. But if you don't build it so that the engines list most of your pages and rank them highly, you're losing a lot of business. Good, targeted business.

Have you written a solid first version of your home page? Great! Keep moving forward. You can edit it at any time.

Live with it for a while. As your site grows, you'll get ideas to improve your home page. If you're a perfectionist, don't be. You are always better off building new content than tweaking old.

Using Analyze It! To Get Your On-Page Criteria Right

(The First Step in Ranking Highly at the Search Engines)

Just before you build your page, always click on the Analyze It! button for an "on-page Search Engine criteria" analysis of your page. It checks your page according to 30+ rules. If your page misses one or more of them, Analyze It! tells you exactly what to do...

Make the recommended changes and then Analyze It! again.

The essential strategy is simple... Get the on-page criteria (i.e., what Analyze It! recommends) within an acceptable range for the Search Engines to rank you well and then move on to the next page. A good ranking is necessary for pulling in free, targeted traffic. But...

Don't sweat the small stuff. If you've done your homework and built a list of profitable, niche-related keywords, achieving top rankings won't be a difficult task. Don't tweak endlessly to get a high ranking, no matter what you read elsewhere (hey, didn't I say to block outside "noise"?).

I have been saying that Analyze It! takes care of the "on-page criteria," the key points that the engines need in order to know what the page is about. While "on-page" used to be considered the "be all and end all," the SEs are placing more and more emphasis on off-page ranking criteria.

"Off-page?" Yes, that's what happens off the page.

There are hundreds of ways to measure human reaction to your site, both before, during, and after they visit. And Google tracks them all, resulting in an overall evaluation of not just relevance, but quality!

If you obsess over getting everything exactly right, you are wasting time. Your ultimate success will be determined by delivering more and more, better and better content to humans. Google will recognize positive human response to your content.

At first, getting the "on-page" elements right will win you some traffic from your easiest words. But you'll need to develop off-page criteria (ex., in-pointing links) to start ranking for the next range of keywords. As traffic builds, and as you build more good content, the entire process starts to snowball.

When that happens, your site will feel like a boat rising at high tide. Pages that did not rank highly before will start moving up, without tweaking (assuming no gross on-page mistakes). There will be more details about on-page/off-page criteria in DAY 7.

Home page built?

Fantastic!

That first step where you actually do something feels so good.

You now have full login access to SBI!'s Site Central. This is your "mission control." You can click to every SBI! module and its guru-in-your-ear Help & Strategies. It is your new home as you build and grow your Web business.

Editing Your Home Page

What if you want to edit your home page? Super-simple!

Log back into Site Central. Click on the Edit SiteBuilder Home Page button in the One Page at a Time section...

That will take you to Edit Your SiteBuilder Home Page, with all your data saved from your last time here. This page is nearly identical in appearance to Build Your Home Page, except for the "pop a page under" info...

SBI! automatically updates your sitemap and pings (informs) Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask. SBI! takes care of the tedious tasks while you focus on building your business.

Excellent progress. Our thoughts now turn to building your first TIER 2. To prepare for that, let's take care of building a footer, then loading up two libraries. Footer first...

Step 5 - Build (and edit) your footer.

A footer is a small snippet of information that you insert at the bottom of all your Web pages (or most of them).

SBI!'s FooterBuilder makes this as simple as choosing a few options. Do it once and bingo! It automatically appears on all your pages (except those you exclude). Come back anytime and edit the settings.

FooterBuilder builds an image out of the selections and text that you specify in FooterBuilder. This keeps your page's keyword density unchanged (if you make changes to your footer later).

An example will quickly demonstrate the Footer's functions. So let's set up a copyright notice (a standard element on most sites).

1. Set your site page defaults

   For our purpose here (copyright notice), let's leave the default settings as they are. This automatically puts the footer on all pages unless you specify a certain page not to include it (i.e., you opt a page out).

   

   See the "Powered By Site Build It!" checkbox? Select this to let visitors know how you built your success. Clicks go through your SiteSell 5 Pillar affiliate RR URL, earning you a commission when they purchase SBI!.

2. Build your footer

   We start by choosing a background color. Generally, this should match your page's background color, no border around it.

Next, we select a simple sans-serif black font ("Avant Garde"). Then we decide if/how to divide the footer off from the rest of the page. Last but not least, of course, we type in our copyright message.

Click on the Preview It! button at the bottom of FooterBuilder. Like it? OK, click on the Build It! button and you are done.

OK, Build It!. Your footer is loaded up, ready to go. It will be automatically inserted on the bottom of all your pages as you build them.

Now that the footer is "good to go," let's introduce you to the four libraries at your disposal. You will load two of them up as final preparation for building your TIER 2s and 3s...

Step 6 - Load up two SBI! libraries. Save three for later.

Site Central Libraries contain collections of graphics, internal and outbound links, tracking (inbound) links, forms, and Content 2.0 invitations, submissions and comments...

You use these libraries during the course of managing your SBI! business. You will "meet" all of them today, although you will only use the Graphic Library and Link Library now. Let's start with the ones you will use first...

1. Graphic Library

   This is simple. Load your library with images you will be using on your site. Create or buy your own graphics. Put them on your desktop. And then use this tool to upload them...

   

   Enter a name for the graphic. Enter enough information to reliably remind you what the graphic is showing. In three months, you will want to remember it, although you can always click Preview in the Graphic Manager for any graphic in your library.

   Here's another option if you need to edit photos before adding them to the library...

   At the top of the Graphic Library is a link to Picnik It!. This allows you to upload a photo to Picnik, a Web-based photo-editing application. Edit it there and then click on a button to save the photo directly to your Graphic Library.

   Try to upload all the graphics you'll need to get started. Once you have them in your library, they'll be available to you when you use SiteBuilder's Graphic Blocks while building and editing pages.

   If you forget to upload a couple you need to get started, don't worry about it. You can also upload to your library, one at a time, while using the Graphic Block. Mass-uploading now saves you one-at-a-time action later on.

   And, of course, you can always return to the Graphic Library and upload a bunch more anytime.

2. Link Library

   Same idea. Load your library up with links that you will be using on your site. This is especially important if you have joined some affiliate programs and know the URLs you will be using. You'll also need to add a link here for each TIER 2 and each TIER 3 page that you create.

   Just copy-and-paste a URL. Once again, give the link a name to remind you what it's about...

   

   Enter all your income-generating links right away, taking a moment to test each one to ensure it works. Once you have them in your library, they'll be available to you when you use Text Link Blocks while building and editing pages.

   As is the case with the Graphic Library, you can always add more to the Link Library later, both here and through a Text Link Block directly. But it's very convenient to select the right link from the drop-down menu in your Link Block as you build, right at the moment you need it!

3. Tracker Library

   The Tracker Library is composed of URLs that link IN to your site. These links start from off your site and send a surfer to your site. This is the exact opposite of the Link Library, which has URLs heading OUT of your site (in addition to internal links from page to page on your site).

   In this screenshot, you can see that the owner of anguilla-beaches.com has set up three URLs to track an advertising campaign at Yahoo!. By using Tracking URLs, she can track how many INbound clicks she receives...

   

   The same could be done for e-zine ads, e-mail sig files, even offline billboards!

   You will cover how to use the Tracker Library and track clicks on INbound links during DAY 9. For now, just remember the bottom line difference/purpose of the two URL-containing libraries...

   • The Link Library enables you to track the Click Throughs.
   • The Tracker Library enables you track Click INs.
4. Form Build It! Library

   Use Form Build It! to quickly and easily make/edit a variety of Forms... from contact information to registration to reservations, even surveys! Set single autoresponders or offer a course in real estate composed of 7 weekly mailings!

   The possibilities are endless. But your first form (during DAY 8) will likely be the humble "Contact Us" form...

   

   Right now, your focus is on building more and more content. This is what attracts visitors and keeps them at your site. Once you have a solid content base, turn your attention towards deepening your relationship with your visitors. This is where Form Build It! (FBI!) plays an important role.

   More during DAY 8, not today.

5. Content 2.0 Library

   Once you have several pages built and are receiving a steady stream of traffic, it will be time to use Content 2.0. You will build forms that invite your visitors to contribute their opinions, experiences, knowledge or passion to your site, in the form of new content pages and/or comments about other C2 pages.

   

   Back on DAY 3, you considered which of your keywords would be a good topic for an invitation -- something provocative or with wide appeal. That keyword will be the basis for dozens, perhaps hundreds, of contributions to your site -- all of them original content created by your visitors.

   For now, though, add more of your content and work on getting your traffic levels up. When you think your site is ready, on DAY 7 or DAY 8, Content 2.0 will be here to put your page-creation into hyper-drive.

Step 7 - Build (and edit) a TIER 2 page. Link your home page to it.

OK, let's see if you have everything ready...

Master Keyword List fully brainstormed?

Look & Feel and home page built?

Footer done?

Graphic and Link Libraries loaded?

Your first keyword picked for a TIER 2 page?

Check, check, check, check and check? Wow! You are ready! Let's go...

Are you sure about your TIER 2 keyword? It's important. It must make a great hub, have good profitability and fit your monetization plans. Find the best combination of these features for each TIER 2 (click here to skip up and review if necessary).

Always keep your eyes open for TIER 2 keywords. Make notes in your Master Keyword List if you spot others that would be "right for the job." You'll use them as you build up your site.

Remember... you likely will not pick the absolute 5-15 highest profitability keywords for your TIER 2 pages. Some will be too close to each other in meaning. Others may not easily lead to a TIER 3. Another may not have a good "monetization fit." So pick the ones that have good profitability, and that also make the most sense to create the strongest site overall.

Building TIER 2 (and 3) pages differs from how you built your home page. How?

It's time for the long-awaited block-by-block SiteBuilder... your "training wheels e-bike." Using SiteBuilder, you stack Headline Blocks, Text Blocks, Graphic Blocks and so on until your page is done.

As you do this, you learn the place and importance of every important element of a Web page that works (in every sense of that word)... From Title to closing paragraph and bottom-of-page text links back up to its TIER 2 and home page.

Then, with the click of a button (Analyze It!), you get a training report that covers how well you mastered "on-page" placement of your Specific Keyword. Make corrections and re-analyze it.

Once you've done this 5-10 times, writing an excellent content page that also sets the on-page "keyword hooks" for the engines becomes second nature.

At that point, if you like, you can take the training wheels off. Don't feel obliged, of course. As you will soon see, many SBIers become very efficient at using the block-by-block builder. Right now, though...

Take the time to click for help on every question mark, for both SiteBuilder itself and for each block. The "guru-in-your-ear" help gives you the exact how-to details at the exact time you need them. DAY 6 is where...

... the "guide" hands the reins (the whip?) over to...

... the "guru." OK, that's not "the boss."

But he wants you to think it is!

To get started, login as usual and click the Add a SiteBuilder Page button in the "One Page at a Time" section of SiteBuilder...

That brings you to SBI!'s block-by-block SiteBuilder. Note that the "preliminaries" (below) have already been filled in to speed this up.

Complete all "preliminaries" according to the online Help & Strategies. When you want a page to be TIER 2, indicate "Yes" in the Navigation Options section and name the NavBar button, like this...

That automatically creates a NavBar button and adds a text link from your home page to your TIER 2.

Then add the first block. In the bigger screenshot above...

You can see that Page Information, Navigation Options and Other Page Options are done. The first block, which should be a Headline block, has already been added and completed, again according to the help for that block.

Keep adding blocks by clicking on the To insert a block here, choose block and click INSERT drop-down menu. Select the block and then click on the Insert button. Follow the online help for each block until you know them all.

Pay special attention to the Help & Strategies about keyword placement in both the "preliminaries" and in each block. It's important for getting your "on-page keyword placement" correct.

Once you finish your page, click on Analyze It!. After the page analyzes well, click on Build It!.

"How Will the Engines Know About My Page?"

When you build a page, SBI! sends it to the WorldSubmitter. WorldSubmitter updates your sitemap file (once per day) so that Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask know about your new page ASAP.

At this point, you are back in Site Central. Now is a good time to show you how easy it is to edit a page...

In the "One Page at a Time" section's Page Manager, click on the page (a SiteBuilder or an uploaded HTML page) you wish to edit. This opens a small pop-up menu with options to edit, preview, or delete the page. Click on the Edit option...

The same block-by-block SiteBuilder page comes up, with all the data the way you last entered it. Make the changes, analyze it, preview it and build it. And that's it!

Rebuilding a page like this automatically sends the page to the WorldSubmitter. It updates your sitemap file once per day (i.e., whenever you add, delete and/or modify a page).

When should you edit? When you want to...

• fix typos.
• improve your Search Engine rankings (rarely -- as long as you pass the "Analyze It! test," it's better to create new content than tweak old material).
• improve your page... add graphics, polish the text, add or delete links, update, etc.

TIER 1, TIER 2... It's time to build more pages. After your first TIER 2, you can build some TIER 3s that link from the TIER 2. Or build more TIER 2s first, then some TIER 3s.

It does not matter how you build your site out, really. "The boss" likes building out four or five TIER 2s, followed by building two TIER 3s linking from each TIER 2. Something about "spreading the content around," I recall.

But work as you like. We'll get to the actual building of TIER 3s next. But first, the previous two paragraphs imply that you have a navigation plan.

You do, right?

Right?

Right!

Before we cover TIER 3, it's time to "talk nav"...

Step 8 - Organize your site's navigation.

You not only know which of your MKL keywords are going to become TIER 2 pages, you know the button order on the left-side graphical NavBar. And you have identified at least a few good keywords that will be the focus of content for TIER 3s from each of those TIER 2s.

Your key goal is to provide the easiest, most effective navigation route for your visitors and for the spiders. You want them to move to the right pages, in the right order.

Let's take it from the top...

SiteBuilder automatically builds two forms of navigation, one that will appear on most or all pages of your site, and one that appears only on your home page...

1) Graphical Left-Margin NavBar

Usability studies and experts consistently conclude that it's best to keep things simple and predictable. A Left-hand vertical graphical NavBar is what people expect. So SBI!'s Home Page Builder creates this NavBar. Each button leads to a different TIER 2 page.

And each Navbar button uses an alt tag which matches what the button says as an image.

2) A Text Table of Contents ("TOC")

SiteBuilder automatically builds the TOC under the text that you entered in the home page building form. This TOC uses the Title of each TIER 2 (as a link) and its Description to let your visitor know what each TIER 2 page delivers.

What about a NavBar from TIER 2 to 3?

Nope! There is no Table of Contents or NavBar to TIER 3 pages. It's better to lead humans and spiders to those pages by creating good, in-context text links within the body of each TIER 2 page.

This is the most natural, "feel-good" way to lead them smoothly through a site. Of course, if you can't fit all your TIER 3s into the text of the TIER 2, and if a text-TOC makes sense at the bottom, then do that. Nothing is carved in stone.

Graphical Left-Margin NavBar, Text TOC, or Both?

You can choose to display either the Table of Contents text links, or the Graphical Left-Margin NavBar, or Both. For the reasons stated above, choose to use Both.

To choose which you want, or to re-order the Table of Contents and/or NavBar, or to create headers for your NavBar (not the Table of Contents), click the Navigation Options button in the All Pages subsection of Site Central.

Style Navigation Headers

If it is time to move your NavBar buttons into categories, start with the styling options in Style Navigation Options...

Once you are satisfied with how your headers will look (using both the live preview on the right, and the page preview at the bottom, add the headers by clicking on Click and drag me to create a new Navigation Header and dragging it as many times as you want. Drop them in the locations you want by letting go of your mouse or trackpad. Then edit each header name. Preview the NavBar to make sure it looks the way you want it to.

Re-ordering Your Navigation

As your site evolves, certain pages will establish themselves as being more important, less profitable, and so on. Perhaps the pages you originally envisioned as belonging on the top of the navigational heap no longer warrant such heady status.

When you see trends in page views, profitability, and click-throughs that do not reflect your current navigational organization, it's time for a little re-organizing. And when you have a lot of navigation buttons, you can create headers to group them into categories, making it easier for your visitors to use your site.

If you do not want Navigation Headers at this time, scroll down to the table that displays each of your pages and their particular order within your site's navigation.

Re-order your TIER 2 pages the way you want by dragging-and-dropping. Note that you'll see the TOC Titles if you choose either Table of Contents text links or Both. You'll see your NavBar buttons if you choose Graphical left-margin NavBar button links.

Once you have all your headers, you are done! Click on the button at the bottom and SBI! rebuilds your entire site according to your new specifications.

Step 9 - Build (and edit) a TIER 3 page. Link to it from a TIER 2.

Good news! You build and edit TIER 3 pages in the same way as TIER 2s. So what's the difference? The choice you make in the part of the "preliminaries" called Navigation Options.

If you want a page to be TIER 2, you indicate "Yes" and (optionally) name the NavBar button, like this...

That automatically creates NavBar (f you named the button) and text links from your home page to your TIER 2.

TIER 3s are created when you indicate "No" instead...

This one difference is what separates TIER 2s from 3s. You otherwise build the page identically.

TIER 3s do not appear in your Graphical NavBar or home page text TOC. "So how do visitors ever find them?" Good question...

"Write a link into its TIER 2." Open the TIER 2 and re-work the content to create the link to the new page, using the Text Link Block tool.

Presto! You have a TIER 3 page that visitors can reach.

Step 10 - Upload a favicon file and other custom files.

You can give your site a little branding boost by adding a favicon, a small image that appears in the address bar at the top of all browsers, and in the bookmarks/favorites section of all browsers, and in tabs for most browsers (Safari does not display favicons in its tabs). You add the favicon using FavIt!, which you will find just below Page Manager, in the WebFTP section of Site Central.

To create a favicon, you need a graphics program that will build an image in the .ico format. If your graphics app does not have that option, you can use a Web-based system to build your favicon. See the help for FavIt! for some of the better ones...

http://help.sitesell.com/webftp/favit.html

Planning to offer free downloads of e-books and reports, MP3 or other audio files, or Excel or Word documents? Want to have a few videos on your site. You can upload all of those files using Special File Manager, also found just below Page Manager, in the WebFTP section of Site Central.

For more on all the types of files you can upload with Special File Manager, and how to use it, see its help...

http://help.sitesell.com/special-file-manager.html

There are also other types of files you can upload, if and when you need them.

See the help for WebFTP for an overview of the various tools.

http://help.sitesell.com/webftp/index.html

Almost done!

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Moving forward...

Brainstorming 202

As you build your site, use your Master Keyword List to decide upon the most profitable topics (i.e., keywords) to write about. Every now and then, as your current selection of good keywords gets a little lean, you might want to brainstorm and research more related keywords...

The three "Ultimate Brainstormers" are especially useful for that.

As time goes on and you continue working the process, your Master Keyword List gets more focused... as you drop the less interesting and less profitable words, and brainstorm new ones. While it gets more focused on what works, it can also find new directions that you had not originally foreseen.

As your site starts to reach its reasonable limit of 200-300 pages, new Site Concept keywords will have occurred to you. Brainstorm those new Seed Words. Develop your next great concept as the current one reduces your time requirement to maintenance levels.

And so it grows!

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Content 202

When you love your topic, learning more about it is a pleasure. Nothing beats "being there"... personal knowledge and passion shine.

But research can add depth. Search It! (or reach it from Site Central) is a researcher's dream. Use the unmatched Reference Library For Content in Search It!...

Check out the Images-Video-Sound category as well for those little extras (use judiciously).

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Making The Transition

Many SBIers have built 200+ page sites using the SBI! block-by-block SiteBuilder. They become very efficient at storyboarding and building Web pages using as few blocks as possible.

Others, however, once "trained" in the fine art of building a Web page that works, find block-building "a tad clunky." And true enough, riding a bike with training wheels can be clunky if you are trying to use SiteBuilder in the same way as a word processor.

You may want to use an HTML editor that delivers more of that "word processor"-like experience. It would give you increased productivity or extra flexibility.

The Help and Strategies in the Upload Your Own HTML Page section of Site Central walk you through this process. It's a clean and seamless changeover.

No need to redo all your SiteBuilder pages! No loss of SBI! effectiveness. You'll simply plug right into the SBI! system, getting the full benefit of all it offers...

• continue to have your NavBar (and TOC, if you use the TOC tag) updated automatically,
• integrate tools such as MailOut, Form Build It!, RSS/Blog It!, etc. (more about them later),
• and, best of all, you can use a template that is based on your current Look & Feel.

Once you have "found your balance" using the training wheels, do not feel you must keep using SiteBuilder. A block-by-block building process is the best way to teach those new to HTML and page-building (and those with bad habits, too!) how to build a page that fires on all cylinders, cylinder by cylinder.

Once you have it, feel free to keep it (those who storyboard well and enjoy that), of course. Or graduate to another HTML editor. There are some excellent free and very cheap ones in the SBI! Resources HQ.

This TNT HQ article will help you make a smooth transition from SiteBuilder to using the Upload Your Own HTML module.

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Hey, that brings you to the end of DAY 6. Phew!

A big DAY but an even bigger accomplishment! You have built the first pages of what will become a solid theme-based content site that your visitors and the Search Engines will love!

Congratulations!

What's that? One last question?...

"So how will my target market find my site and business?"

That's not one last question. It's the first question for "tomorrow."

Let's see how as we...

Advance to DAY 7.