Living in Beautiful Devon

Guest Editor - Lesley Pinkett

I began in the Spring 2004 after searching for information about making money with affiliate programs. I had one unsuccessful attempt at putting up a website which, because I had no idea about how people searched for information, failed dismally. While searching for ways to improve this site I came across SBI!.

In 2004 things were not like they are now, we had to use something called the Manager which was a piece of software that was installed on your own computer. Compared with the Brainstormer that we have now it was a very clunky piece of software and not that easy to use. Like many others before and since I rushed the research and registered a domain that I thought would be profitable. I also didn't check for trademark issues.

After about a dozen pages I realised that this really wasn't what I wanted to be writing about, so I scrapped that concept, bought a new subscription and did the research properly. Then in February 2005 I registered www.east-devon-guide.com, which was what I should have done first time around! This is a blockbuilder site.

I used the Brainstormer to find out exactly what people were searching for and then based my pages on those keywords. I am fortunate in that I live in East Devon too, so it was very easy to obtain good photographs to illustrate the pages.

The brainstorm figures for East Devon Guide were not that good but I really love the subject and I can go on for hours and hours about it. This site is now three years old and, although the traffic isn't that great, I'm beginning to get local bed and breakfast businesses asking me about advertising on the site.

Because I have not got a pinpoint focus on the site it allows me to indulge my passion for local history as well as show people what a beautiful area it is. There are a number of pages on the site that are there simply because I wanted to put them there and not really because there was a large number of people searching for a related keyword.

Sometime during early 2006 I was browsing the forums and came across a site that was being offered for sale www.hdtvinfoport.com. My husband has an interest in electronic things, so after some discussions with the owner we bought this site too. This was a site that had about 14 pages and had been comprehensively researched and written about.

We paid quite a bit of money for this site but it was an investment that has paid off. We had to spend quite a bit of time revamping and updating the site and we decided to upload our own HTML pages. Owing to the highly competitive nature of the topic this site, which still only has approximately 20 pages, it now brings in a nice four figure income from Google AdSense every month.

This site is based on keywords that hundreds of people are searching for every day. The new pages that we have added since we bought the site have been based on the questions that people submit to the contact form. In this way we know that we are adding value to the site, real people ask us for help with their problems. We are now adding affiliate links to this site, as well as Kontera ads and links to various products available from ClickBank.

About a year later I also bought another ready made site www.theworldsbestflowers.com. I bought this because it was on a subject that I have an interest in and I felt that I could add to the site and earn more income from it.

I am still in the process of overhauling this site. I get a small amount of money from the Google ads and I'm gradually adding Kontera links as well as affiliate links to various books and services. Like the East Devon site, this is a labour of love.

The flower site, like the Devon site, is easy to add pages too and of course the more pages you have the more chance you have of attracting visitors.

From the point of view of the sites being a commercial success the TV site is far and away the best one. However, if it had been down to me it is a topic that I would never have tackled on my own. If I had been looking for a niche that is profitable then this would have been an ideal candidate. I'm now beginning to outsource work, so it is one that I may have considered as viable. If you don't have the expertise yourself then hire someone who does.

That being said, the best content is the content that I've written myself. I have written the majority of the EDG content. There are a few articles that are written by other SBI! users but I only use things that add value.

I enjoy having a portfolio of sites because they are all self-supporting and pay for themselves. I will need to pay some Income Tax on the revenue that I get from them this year but that's a good thing because it means that I'm making a profit. And really, that's the best part of using SBI!, all you have to do is set it up properly and it will run with very little maintenance on your part.

If you're looking to do as I did and buy a ready made site then keep a watchful eye on the SBI! Forums as I've bought two of my three sites from adverts in the 'Have You Heard'... forum. Don't rush into buying sites just for the joy of owning them and make sure that you are willing to put in the work to update them to your own requirements once you've bought them. This can be a very time consuming job and take as long, if not longer, than starting a site from scratch.

Lesley

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