How I Made A Website About The Outback...

...and why you need a website, too

B. Bradtke, founder and editor of the Outback Australia Travel Guide

This page is a continuation of my About Me page. I never thought that page would have such an impact.

However, I get more feedback about the "About Me" page than about all other parts of this website together!

Many people write to thank me for the inspiration they get from it.

What can I say? Thank you so much for taking the time to let me know. It means a lot to me that I have been able to give someone the courage to finally do something they've been dreaming of for a long time :-). Good on you and all the best!

I also receive many emails asking me more questions about this website and about SBI. Obviously there is a lot of curiosity about the system, and obviously I didn't do a good enough job when I told you about it, because the questions are always the same.

It's been over a year since I last updated the About Me page, so I figured I let you know how things have been going since. I also want to answer the questions that I am asked again and again, in the hope that I will cut down on writing long emails in the future :-).

First up some hard numbers

A few people weren't shy and asked straight out: "How much are you making and how long did it take?"

It is mid May 2007 as I write this, and I have been with SBI for 19 months.

I now own three SBI websites: the Outback Guide (my first site), the Kimberley Guide, and Tropical Permaculture. The last one is brand new and I haven't done much with it yet.

Both the Outback and the Kimberley Guide are well established. The Kimberley Guide is much smaller, of course, as it is younger, and it doesn't have anywhere near as many readers yet. I started that one a year ago and haven't spent as much time on it.

I get about 2500 visitors a day on the Outback site, and 500 visitors a day on the Kimberley site.

My income from Adsense (those "Ads by Goooogle") adds up to about $1800 a month and I also have income from several other sources. There are other advertisers, and I make money from book and DVD sales. I don't sell those myself. I just tell people where they can buy them, and if someone likes the product and buys it I get a small commission.

The Outback site makes about $1700 a month and the two sites together generate well over $2000 in monthly income now. (All figures are US dollars.) It's still not what I used to earn in my much hated day job, but since I'm alone it is enough for me to live on.

(2008 update: my Kimberley site now also sells a downloadable guide book I wrote. Overall traffic and income from other sources has grown and as of April 2008 I am making over $4000 a month.)

If I had spent all my time on only one site my income would have grown faster in the beginning. A website is something that requires a lot of work up front and pays off big time later.

Starting two new sites meant I spent most of my time doing the initial work that doesn't immediately translate into money. But it also means that another one or two years down the track I will make a lot more than if I had only one site.

The most important point to take away here is that my income is steadily growing, day after day after day, whether I work on the websites or not. It grows faster when I do a lot of work, but it still grows while I go away on long holidays. I earn money while I travel, I earn money while I'm fishing, I earn money while I sleep. It's pretty hard to beat.

What's also hard to beat is the feeling that you own your life and your time. There is no way I could ever go back to working for others in a permanent job.

Is this really as easy as it sounds?

That is probably the most common question. The answer is, yes and no. It depends how you define easy.

It certainly isn't a matter of pressing a few buttons and the money starts rolling in. If that's what you meant when you said easy then the answer is no.

The one point I stress in every email, whether people asked this question or not, is this: it takes time, hard work and commitment to build a successful website. Do not underestimate the amount of time, the amount of hard work, and the amount of commitment involved!

But that's all it takes. It does not take exceptional writing skills, it does not take technical knowledge, it does not require that you know anything about computers or websites. Nothing.

You will initially have to learn a lot, but that learning is part of SBI. You will be guided through the whole process. Anybody with a brain who's willing to learn and work can do this, no matter what their background. So if that's what you wondered, then the answer is yes. It really is that easy. You can do it.

How much time do you spend working on your site?

I'll focus on my first site here (the Outback Guide) or it'll get too complicated.

When I started I still had my day job, so I could only work on the weekends. I usually wrote a page or two per week for the first 6 months. After I quit my job I, um, went for a long holiday.

After the holiday I started my second site. For the next six months I spent on average 20 hours a week on the Outback site.

(All up I work six or even seven days a week if I'm home, but only for about six hours a day. And I'm not always home. I travel a lot.)

Since January 2007 I have done a lot less on that site, maybe five to ten hours a week, if that. But because of the work I did in the previous year, this was the period where I saw the biggest growth in income and visitors. And it keeps growing. So far I've done hardly any work on it in 2008, but it just keeps growing.

Now my focus is on getting the other sites to that stage, too. (And I'm about to start my fourth website.)

It sounds good but I have no idea what I could make a website about.

That is absolutely not a problem.

Most people who already have an idea change their mind once they start with SBI. I had two ideas when I started and dumped them both. SBI came up with the topics for all my websites.

The first thing that SBI teaches you is how to select a profitable topic. There are no general rules. Everybody is different so this is an individual decision. SBI has brainstorming tools. You use them to generate ideas and to analyse them. You'll see if there is enough interest in a topic, how much competition there is, and if there is money to be made.

To choose a topic for a website is the most important step in the whole process, so you shouldn't do it without SBI anyway. Don't know what to make your site about? Good!

It says it costs $299 for the first year. What are the costs after that? Are there any financial catches?

No catches :-).

$299 is the yearly subscription fee. It works out $25 a month, but there is only the yearly payment option. And there is of course their rock solid money back guarantee. Don't like it? Just give it back.

There are no catches whatsoever. SBI includes everything you need. There are no hidden costs. You can't go wrong by trying it out. The way I see it you have everything to win and nothing to lose.

Update June 07

I just had two emails in a row expressing the same concern: "I can't write."

I thought the same thing when I started. But as I already mentioned above, SBI teaches you everything you need to know to build a successful website, including how to write compelling content.

Ken Evoy wrote a fabulous book called Make Your Content Pre-Sell. It teaches how to write for the web. The book has always been part of SBI, available for free for SBIers, but outsiders had to buy it. But since some time in 2006 it is totally free for non SBIers, too.

If someone tells me they worry about their writing I send them this link: you can download your free copy here.

I think that's it, those are the questions that I've been asked a million times. If I forgot something I'm sure you'll ask and then I'll add it here.

I wish you much success and happy travels, and I'll leave you with this fellow: Ken Evoy, the founder of SiteSell and the creator of SBI.

If you have broadband just click on the little picture and he will personally show you around SBI via the SBI TV. (Still on dial up? Go here for the print version instead.)

Successful SBI Sites | Case Studies | Video Tour | Test Drive SBI

So let me say it once again: what are you waiting for?

"100% of the shots you don't take don't go in."

Wayne Gretzky

You only have one life.
Make the most of it.

Try SBI - because if I can do this, you can!

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Mark Twain

P.S.: Do you have any questions left about SBI? Want to know how exactly it could work for you? You can ask any questions here.

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