Home Business Diary

Whether to concentrate on creating a blog, like this one here at Squarespace or build a full-blown website with a service like SBI (SiteBuildIt) is a question I'm hearing a lot from my clients.  Which is the better platform for your network marketing strategy?

The best strategy, as always, is the one that works for you.  There are advantages to both an SBI site and a blog. I have both and I use them in slightly different ways. There are, of course, other blog platforms and other web hosting platforms, beyond these two, but since these are the two I use, I will stick to discussing what I know best. 

I am affiliated with both these sites. I join the affiliate program of anything I use and like well enough to confidently promote, assuming such a program is available. This is part of the monetization process you hear about.  I'd rather earn money from those programs I know are good, than to affiliate with something I know little or nothing about.

Blogs

A blog has several advantages, especially for a beginning internet marketer. 

It's a little less intimidating to set up than a site with SBI.  The learning curve simply isn't as steep, especially with the help of the tutorials at Renegade University - soon to be updated to include the new features recently added by Squarespace.

Here at Squarespace, I like the way the tracking features are set up. Even as a newbie, I was able to access and understand where my traffic was coming from, which articles were the most popular, and what keywords were used to find me.  Seeing the information presented both as numbers and in graph form helped me make sense of things and better optimize the site.

The overview is all on one page so I can see general information and then search for details if I want.

The blog is relatively inexpensive.  A small monthly fee and you're good to go.  You can try the system out and see how well it works for you over a period of several months without fronting a big expenditure.

I was already seeing traffic results within five weeks of starting my blog.  It took three months with my SBI site and it can take up to twelve months to build significant traffic on SBI.

SBI

My SiteBuildIt website has the capability of growing with my business.  Even though it costs more annually, there are so many built in features, the investment is very reasonable. 

As a total novice when I built my first site with SBI, it took about six weeks for me to get the first thirty pages up and running.

The time was well spent.

SiteBuildIt Tools 

First, I used the tools which helped me identify and then narrow my niche by showing me the numbers, need and monetization possibilities for possible niche variations: ie should you go for network marketers or internet marketers as your niche?  Should you do a travel site about one island or a chain of islands?

Once the niche is chosen, the system generates everything you could possibly want to know about the best keywords to use for that niche.  Statistics on how many people search for a given keyword, how many sites already exist for that word, the top sites using that word, variations on the keyword or phrase, and more.

By the time I was ready to pick a domain name, I had been thoroughly coached on what the site would be about, how it would be set up, and the long term vision for monetizing it.

When creating a new article for my SBI site, the page analysis tool checks to see that I have placed the main keywords properly.  It looks to see that the keyword appears in certain areas like the title and headlines. It  checks to see that you haven't used the keyword too often (known as keyword stuffing) which can cause the search engines to penalize you. It also checks to see that the keyword appears often enough - otherwise the search engine spiders would not be able to identify what the page is about and you would not get your article indexed correctly .

Using keywords can be kind of tricky, and to have access to this instant analysis helped me to develop a feel for proper placement which saves me lots of time now.

Recently, I moved some pages around on my blog, and that messed up some links I had on my SBI site where I keep an index of all my articles.  An email was sent directly to me notifying me of these broken links.  (It's on my to-do list!)

In addition, SBI has webmail, autoresponder capabilities, research tools, limitless pages, forums, built in forms, and a lot more.  One estimation I got was that to purchase all the features included in your SBI package individually would cost about $5000. 

I have yet to use all the resources available to me at SBI, but I know they are there waiting as my needs expand along with my business.

Marketing on My Blog and on SBI

I use my blog as a less formal way to market my business.  This is my personal choice, but it helps me in choosing where to post a given article by giving the blog and the website their own "personalities."  The blog is a place to write about the personal aspects of my business. 

If you are wanting to know more about me as a person, Home Business Diary is the place to go.  Here, I give my own opinion, good and bad about the way things are going in my business.  People are more likely to leave comments here and that creates a dialogue which adds to the overall experience and allows them to get to know me better.

As I work with clients, and become aware of the need for "how-to" articles, they go on my SBI site, How to Market Guide.  I think of it as more of the nuts and bolts side of the business. 

I won't be posting about Mike Dillard's Houseboat party there - but as soon as I am able to download the photos, it will be a blog report. 

The steps I've gone through in creating an eBook, however, will go up at the SBI site.

The Blog or SBI: Which One Should You Build First?

I built my first SBI site before I did anything else.  Like I said, it took me about six weeks to read all the materials and instructions and then apply them.  It was like an intensive course in search engine optimization. 

By the time I built my second SBI site, it took only a matter of a few days. 

In an ideal world, I would recommend creating a blog, which is easy to set up and maintain, and then work a little bit each day until you got your SBI site up. 

Since the SBI site takes longer to build the traffic numbers, you want to get it going as soon as possible so that it can begin attracting prospects to your business.  By the time your SBI site kicks in and is generating serious traffic, you should be ready to take your business to the next level and put some of those SBI tools to good use. 

Meanwhile, you can get the more immediate benefit of your blog traffic.

If you are not the type of person who can easily divide their focus between creating a blog and a website at the same time, then choose one and concentrate on that until you have a strong foundation built.  Once you have a good thirty or so articles posted, you can turn your attention to the other platform.

Do You Need Both a Blog and an SBI Site?

In a word, no.  You don't have to have either one, for that matter.  You can establish a presence on the web through social networking sites, ezine articles, Squidoo, BetterNetworker, Hubpages and so on. 

Still I recommend one or the other in order to have a central location to point all those other articles to.  To have a "one stop shopping" resource is very helpful for your readers. 

That way, when someone discovers you through an individual article out in cyberspace, they can come to your central site and find many more articles on the topics of their choice. Now they have the opportunity to find out what you have to offer and whether it is a good fit for their needs.

I have both the blog and the website because they give me two different ways to approach my readers. The Squarespace blog is the place to interact and share opinions.  The SBI site is a teaching platform, resource center, with how-to info and reviews on marketing tools, books and coaches.

Each has its purpose.  Each has its personality.