About this Website...

A few years ago now my wife Maria and I were thinking of starting an internet retail business. I'd even started looking at the business packages that a website company that we'd used in the past was offering, and planning what the site would look like, how we'd advertise...

How it all started...

Quite by chance a business acquaintance mentioned in an email another website company that he knew about, and I decided to take a look. Well, it wasn't very long before I discovered that I'd been going about things the wrong way.

This company was different, but what they told me made sense. They explained that the first thing that we'd need to do was to attract free traffic, and how they'd be able to help with this, and everything else.

They stressed that this wasn't some sort of easy 'get rich quick' scheme. To be successful we'd need to invest time and effort. There'd be a financial investment too, of course, but the cost wasn't much more than we'd been paying the other website company just for hosting and the use of their sitebuilding tool.

When they compared the price of their basic package with the cost of other companies' products that we'd need to buy separately to get the same service, it was thousands of pounds less.

There was web hosting, of course, and an easy-to-use sitebuilding tool, but also keyword research, search engine optimisation, traffic reporting... the list seemed endless. We'd get all of this for about the price of an average daily paper, we could pay either annually or monthly, and there was even a money-back guarantee if we decided that it wasn't for us after all.

So I decided to give it a try. I suppose that you could say that it's been hard work, but it's also been fun, and actually quite addictive!

Of course, I made mistakes, but I learned from them, and a lot more besides. When I started, and despite my computing background, I knew absolutely nothing about HTML, CSS, JavaScript or search engine optimisation. I didn't need to, because all of that was taken care of for me.

That first website didn't turn out in quite the way that we'd anticipated. Maria and I never did start our internet-based retail business, and the site makes its money mainly from advertising.

Successful? In terms of its Alexa Traffic Rank it's regularly rated well within the top 2% of all websites worldwide.

However, the story doesn't end there...

About this website...

When I joined SiteSell I became part of a friendly and supportive online community of like-minded people from all walks of life, and from all over the world. At first I received lots of help and advice from the SBI! (previously known as Site Build It!) forums, but as I gained knowledge and experience I found myself contributing more and more, and I'm now one of the most experienced and prolific posters, with over 21,000 posts to my credit.

I found that I really enjoyed using all the knowledge and experience that I'd gained to help my fellow forum members, and that's how the idea for this website was conceived. I'd now like to share that knowledge and experience with all of our visitors.

I believe that here on this site you'll find lots of useful advice, tips and techniques that will help you not only to build a website, but also to build a successful website, whether or not you too choose to follow the SiteSell method.