My friend's son and I were talking the other evening about getting her website up and working (she's also my client that has the store). I guess someone was supposed to do it for her but they never finished it and totally screwed up her shopping cart. He had the prices wrong and everything. Someone had tried to make a purchase online and it wasn't pretty. So, her son is going to take the project over and he asked me about SBI. I told him that I looked into that as well but it looks like it's geared more towards people who are creating money-making sites specifically, not a true business site. The software looks pretty cool (it helps with SEO and all kinds of thing) and maybe you can create a business site with it. It costs $300 per year for the software, hosting etc. And that's $300 per site! (not that she would need more than one but still)

BUT, I told him to wait and we could sit down and look at some other options together. I told him all about creating a Wordpress site and that we don't really need anything fancy right away. Basically, my point was try some other things out for FREE before you decide to pay $300 per year for something that may not even be what you need. Also, I wanted to research the possibility of her hiring a VA to build a site for her. I really don't know what website design costs because I've never looked into it that closely but I still think that it would be money better spent.

Anyhow, I know I'm getting long winded but I'm almost in panic mode with thinking about all of this. The reason? I went in to see her this morning and she asks, "Did James tell you about that website builder he's going to try out? It's only $300 per year." (or something to that effect) So, before he jumps the gun on this (If I'm not already too late). I wanted to get some opinions on this.

• Has anyone every heard of or used this Site Build It?
• If so, what did you think about it and do you think it would be right for a normal business site?
• Do you think $300 for what they offer is too much?
• Do you think that it would be much better to build a Wordpress site or hire a professional?

I know she's willing to spend the money (obviously) but I just don't think she's spending it the best way she could since, after the first year, she'll be done with most of what it's being used for except for maintenance type tasks.

All opinions are greatly appreciated.

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

Hi Stephine,

I worked with a client who had a site in SBI, some of the things were a little quarky and take some getting used to but for the novice, it is pretty user friendly.

For what SBI offers the price seems reasonable to me and comparative to other solutions in that range, at $300/year that is $25/month, I have seen other solutions which over much less for a lot more cost.

As far as which solution is better, honestly, I think that if you know what you are doing WordPress offers a lot more flexibility as far as customization is concerned, if I remember correctly there were a lot of features that you were not able to easily change if you were able to change them at all unless you wanted to pay SBI to do custom programming. I think it really depends on your clients needs and how she will use the site.

Hope that helps a bit. good luck, Kim

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Kim Beckers
Online Business Manager

Thanks so much. I actually figured out the monthly as well (I was thinking about using it too at one time) but I was afraid it wasn't the right thing to use for us considering all the hype surrounds money-making websites. So, this makes me feel much better. I'll back down then and let him do what he wants ... lol If it doesn't work out, they can always cancel it I guess.

Honestly, she really doesn't need anything all that fancy, at least starting out, but she will need some sort of shopping cart set up (I think he may be planning on using Pay Pal). So as long as she can get out of it what she needs, then that's what matters. You can add pages and stuff to it, right? I really want to get her involved in blogging and such. She's a retail location in a very remote area (a 4 seasons resort type area) so I think the key is for her to try to promote the area. If she can entice people to the area, she'll get people into her store (our whole area thrives on tourism). She's just adopted a trail and completed her master naturalist certification so I think it would be a great idea for her to blog about stuff like that.

If she provides good information and her fun personality comes through in it, she will pull people to her website at least and, hopefully, to the area which will benefit all of the businesses around here. At least that's my theory....lol

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

I used Site Builder for a client and did NOT enjoy working with it. I agree with Kim that Wordpress would give your client much more freedom. A lot of hosting companies include Wordpress with their basic price that is much lower than the price you mentioned above.

Wordpress also has an ecommerce pluggin that is free and works really well.

Sincerely,
Deirdre Shockley

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Deirdre's Virtual Office

I have not used it but I know someone who works with it all the time and they really enjoy using it. My son built my website for me as a school project, I have been getting a lot of help from students from the University of Cincinnati they will do work for free a lot of times.
Diane Clark

Hi Stephanie,

I actually have several Site Build It sites. And am convinced my business wouldn’t be anywhere as successful as it is without it.

You said…
“it looks like it's geared more towards people who are creating money-making sites specifically, not a true business site.”

I earn income in a number of ways, but the most successful is an online store where I sell physical products. So I think that qualifies as a true business site.
You’re right, there are less expensive ways to go, but none I’ve seen has all the tools that Site Build It has. And $299 seems pretty cheap to me for what I get. The biggest plus for me is the help getting growing free search engine traffic. And they keep adding new things all the time. It’s a huge collection of tools. For info on that, see
http://tools.sitesell.com/ (I hope the link is alright. Not an affiliate link or anything. Moderators, please remove if it shouldn’t be here. Just wanting to help clarify what Site Build It is.)

SBI isn’t really for creating a site. It’s for building an online business that gets targeted traffic.

As I said elsewhere, I’m just getting started with looking into building a VA business. When I get a little further, I know I’d use Site Build It for it.

Just my experience,
James