On August 11, we broke into the top 100,000 of all websites for the first time, which is when Alexa formed our traffic graph. Yesterday, August 13, our daily traffic ranking was 70,158. That's the top 0.0997%!

Just in the first two weeks!

How Did We Do It?

This is so exciting for me that I need to share the secrets. Note: I do not have a "magic bullet"!

If I had a magic bullet to internet success, I certainly wouldn't share it with anyone. I'd keep it to myself! This website, as you can see from the content, took an enormous amount of hard work on my part that can't be replaced by any kind of get-rich-quick or succeed-instantly bogus "magic bullet."

So I know that other people will only be able to use these-- mostly free-- resources to succeed if they have something of value to offer, and are willing to put the brains and motivation ito making it work. Which makes the 'net better for me and everyone.

But that "something of value" might be your knoweldge about and enjoyment of cigars, wine, or beer. It could be your passion for race-car driving, or your interest in 1970s television shows. It could be anything.

And, if you want, you can even turn that anything into an income-- maybe a big one, or maybe a small, supplemental one. Or, just enough to enable you to work from home and get by.

The truth is that with all the hard work I put into this I would have had no idea how to put it together and how to make it into a successful, traffic-driving website if it were not for the free resources at the bottom of this page.

Note: If you think you have nothing out of which to make a successful website, but wish you only did, you must read "The Affiliate Master's Course" below. (It's a must-read anyway!)

The Road Here

In 2004, I was desperately trying to figure out a way to work from home online. Needless to say, I ran into tons of scams and get-rich-quick schemes, tried some, and none of them worked. Get-rich-quick is not for real, and doesn't exist.

I discovered Google Adwords, which a lot of people have had real success with and actually gotten rich from, by advertising as an independent affiliate for other companies. By the time I got into it, however, the market was so crowded it was very difficult to get an edge in and succeed.

However, my research into succeeding with Adwords and affiliate marketing led me to "The Affiliate Masters Course" by Ken Evoy, I stumbled upon a totally differnt mode of thought. This enormous but very readable e-book was about building a quality content site that would drive traffic, and could be monetized through product recommendations (or advertising). It's an anti-sales book. The idea is to set your site on quality content, and that drives everything else.

Ken Evoy must be a marketing genius. He advocates the "tortoise" approach-- to take the time to prepare thoroughly. But the clincher is that he tells you exactly how to do it.

Obviously being prepared is best. But how? How does someone prepare to build a website if they know nothing about web designing? How does someone do adequate market research for their topic if they don't know the first thing about marketing? After reading this book, it was like I had really completed a "Masters Course," but in a fraction of the time, from home, and without the student loans.

So I was inspired to make a web site. I did. I used a somewhat pricey, pretty good web host that offered templates to avoid the web designing and an editor that got rid of the need to know html.

What happened? My effort bombed. In part, I was so caught up in my own idea that I didn't follow a lot of Ken's advice. My topic was too broad. I didn't properly research the demand for the keywords around which my website was centered.

But I also didn't have the resources to make it easy. The preparation that Ken advocated was difficult and time-consuming to do manually. There's keyword research software out there, but Ken's preparation is much more than that.

So I just wasn't able to keep up with the effort. The effort I had to expend in putting a page together, figuring out how to customize it with offline software, and then integrate everything together, far exceeded my ability to maintain my motivation to create content.

Finally...

Barely over a month ago, I decided to read "The Affiliate Masters Course" again and take it seriously. But this time I also took seriously the recommendation to check out SiteSell's product, Site Build It! (SBI!), which integrates every detail of the type of thorough planning and development that Ken advocates to guarantee traffic.

I browsed the website, and it was awfully convincing. SBI! isn't really web hosting. It's a total-success-package. Their proof ? Using Alexa rankings, 35% of all SBI! sites are in the top 1% of all websites. 53% are in the top 2%. And 65% are in the top 3% of the 'net.

The numbers are impressive. Plus, in order to make up for each of the special functions and services SBI! offers by using other services and products, it would cost thousands of dollars. SBI! costs a mere fraction of that. They offered no-questions-asked refund of the money at any time, and the guarantee appeared sound, since SiteSell is registered with the Better Business Bureau and has a pristine record.

So I went out on a limb and purchased it. As it turned out, SBI! is everything that SiteSell claims it is. It's an everything-in-one package that you truly can't find anywhere else.

It's difficult to put into words how much easier it is to create a website with SBI!. The templates they offer are fully-- and easily-- customizable, and you can create your own with almost infinite options without using offline products. But you can use any offline you product you want, if you know how.

The look and feel that you presently see on this site was made simple deliberately, to maximize readability instead of flashiness. But the point is that I made it and changed almost 30 pages of this website automatically over the course of 15 minutes. And you can do a lot more with it than I've done in the same amount of time.

The simple fact is this: why was it that in 2004 with a regular hosting company, I'd only built a few pages over the course of months, but this time around I've built about 30 pages-- great, content-rich pages-- in one month? And how did I crack into the top 0.1% of web sites two weeks after releasing it to the public?

For no other reason than this: SBI! has made it so unimaginably easy to do everything technical that I've been able to devote myself to content, and to produce it fast enough to keep up my motivation to continue.

I highly recommend, if you have a website currently, or would like to make one, that you check out Site Build It! And it isn't just for newbies like me who don't know web desiging and html. There are tech-savvie webmasters whom I know from the SBI! forums who are thrilled with SBI!. One is drawing in 15,000 new visitors a day to his site!

More importantly than everything else, it is difficult for me to believe that there is, in existence, a company more devoted to the success of its customers than SiteSell. The amount of help and voluminous free information of top quality is mind-boggling, and the owner stays in contact with all the customers through the forums.

... And that must be why SBI! customers, like me, do succeed.

Have a question about SBI!? Don't just take it from the SiteSell sales page, ask a real SBI! customer by phone or email here.

Free Resources

Lastly, here is the cream of the crop of success manuals and other resources. And these are all free!.

For Everyone

Value Exchange

A free-to-join network of people looking for quality sites with which to exchange links. Search by keyword for sites like yours, and get results only from people who are looking to exchange links with sites just like yours! Convert weeks of searching the web to just minutes.

Search It!

This free resource is a one-stop collection of every important research tool for webmasters on the web. There are dozens of free search tools that are available on the web, but who can find them all? Search It! takes the best of all of them, and organizes them by category into one interface. This way you only need to bookmark one page, and you have access to obscure tools that you probably wouldn't have known about. For keyword research, competition information, trade marks and other legalities, and more.

"Make Your Links WORK!"

Links are a major criteria for how you're judged in the search engines-- especially Google. That includes your out-bound links as well as your in-bound links. Yet it isn't about quantity. It's about quality. You can get penalized by search engines for having too many general or low-quality links on your site! This free e-book explains both the kinds of links you need for success, AND how to get them.

"The Affiliate Masters Course"

Ken Evoy's masterpiece gives you a web-business education worth a real masters course, but without the student loans-- free, in fact!

For Experienced Webmasters

The Webmaster BUSINESS Masters Course

This is for tech-savvy webmasters. You know how to build a website. But how do you make it shoot to the top? Download it free!