A Site Build It! Success Story
You're about to read an inspiring story by Site Build It! owner, Andrew Ghigo.
What I love about Andrew's story is that it illustrates how Site Build It! works with virtually any topic. I'm a huge electronics fan so reading about Andrew's story was very fun for me.
Practical-Home-Theater-Guide.com:
Case Study By Andrew Ghigo – June 2009
Do you ever dream of turning a passion into a great source of income while working from home?
This is my story of how I transformed my interest in home theater into www.practical-home-theater-guide.com. My website has grown far beyond all my expectations – generating over 350,000 visits a month and proving to be a great source of income for my family.
The success of my site came about over time, despite my total lack of prior knowledge in online business and web design. Most importantly, it is helping me earn a living in a most enjoyable way – doing what I like most – talking home theater!
My Online Business Success Story
In November 2003, the first web page of my SBI site -
Initially, progress was slow due to lack of time. Once I got around 20 content pages, I started promoting my site through Google AdWords to get some exposure.
As I added more content, search engines begin taking notice of my site and I started getting more free traffic. More content meant more traffic. Soon, I no longer needed to pay for my site exposure; I terminated my paid campaigns and concentrated on building more content to help build up my stream of free traffic.
Next, I joined several affiliate programs to monetize that flow of free traffic. However, the level of free traffic was still too low to make decent money from most of these programs. There was one exception though – many of my search engine optimized content pages were ranked highly. These provided a perfect match for Google AdSense. Income from AdSense – while still low with respect to present-day levels - soon started reaching interesting levels.
Within the first year, I managed to build around 80 web pages. By November 2004, I was getting around 150 visits a day – not much but still enough to earn me sufficient income to cover my site expenses a couple of times.
The real turning point came when early in 2005, I started promoting my site by posting a few articles at several e-zine directories. I chose home theater related topics that were often controversial. Soon, most of those articles were finding themselves published on hundreds of sites – providing valuable one-way links while increasing my site exposure.
By November 2005, I managed to almost double the level of content – reaching 150 pages. However, thanks to my new promotion initiative of publishing articles, traffic increased to over 1200 visits a day – from some 1000 referrer sites, in contrast to the 150 visits a day the year before!
I continued building more content at my pace and in my own free time. But I did not just write about just anything. I used the research tools I had at hand to find profitable topics to write about. In the process, I managed to build a level of credibility that made it possible for me to begin targeting more expensive products that helped increase my earnings from commissions on sales. You see, once you win the respect of your site visitors, it takes the same effort to sell a $2 plug or a $2,000 HDTV – it is just a matter of targeting the right audience.
Where I Stand Today…
Since my early days online, a lot has changed and the results have by far exceeded my expectations. Today, I have around 440 web pages; many rank within the top positions despite the fierce competition in my niche. Average free traffic figures during the last twelve months exceeded 350,000 visits a month – approaching close to 500,000 during the peak period.
Income from the site soared to several thousand US dollars a month and this from a site run part-time. During the last twelve months, despite the difficult economic times, my earnings from www.practical-home-theater-guide.com exceeded those from my full-time good-paying engineering job. 
About Me
My name is Andrew Ghigo. I live in Malta, a small island in the center of the Mediterranean. By profession, I am an engineer with specialization in telecoms fraud management systems.
That might seem as far from home theater as it can possibly be. But, since my early days at university, I developed a keen interest in multi-channel audio systems; this eventually shifted towards home theater design.
There was just one problem though…
My interest in home theater was turning out to be too expensive to justify. First and foremost, I have a family to support. I needed a solution that would work well for our family and be affordable.
I wanted something that would fit into my already busy schedule, and that I could control myself while working from home.
That way, I would be available for my family when they needed me. I also wanted something that would not feel like a burden after a full day's work... that would make it easy to jump out of bed at three in the morning if need be! I knew what I wanted, but didn’t know exactly how to go about it.
While researching online for ideas, I came across numerous sites on home theater. Some were of an exceptional standard. Others were not so good - with information that was not always totally correct.
This triggered the idea to build a website about home theater. I was not after an ordinary website to share with friends, but one that would reach a wider audience – an authority site that would deliver free content while still making it possible for me to earn income through adverts and sales commissions or other ways I would eventually come up with.
Me build a website? Yes, and a good one too!
Starting my home theater site proved to be a major turning point in my life. The idea came in early 2003. Before then, I did not have the slightest idea of what it would take to build a website.
I still wasn’t sure if this whole concept would even work so I was reluctant to invest any money on it. After all, money was tight and after researching so much, I thought I might be able to piece things together using some free resources I had run across. So, I went for one of the many free web hosting services, found an HTML tool to write my pages, and started posting my first articles.
It wasn't long before I felt that I had made a mistake. I did not make any money. Instead, within a few months I ended up spending a great deal on various resources and tools. Not to mention the efforts I invested in trying to integrate the different services from different sources to suit my needs.
I still wanted my dream so went back to the drawing board. At least this time I had a better idea of what I was looking for to help me execute my plan. I found Site Build It! (SBI!), whose process and tools just made sense to me and took the plunge again in September 2003.
Anyone can upload a few pages and call those a website, but…
Along the way, I realized that when it comes to building a website as an online business, it’s a whole different game. At the time, I didn’t know how to research and identify profitable topics to write about, nor did I know there was a special formula for writing so that search engines would shine a light on your web pages.
Additionally, I didn't know how to write properly to reach my target audience much less how to earn money from the flow of eager visitors that started coming to my site looking for information, products, services, etc. Eventually, though, I learned all this, and more through a foolproof process designed to help ordinary but enthusiastic individuals move on in simple steps towards achieving online business success.
A Final Thought
All I am doing is writing about something I love - in my free time. I managed to build a website that has changed my life – one that is making it possible for me to earn a living by reaching a global audience - while still working from the comfort of my home.
This is a truly motivating and enjoyable experience. It is also equally fulfilling - knowing I am helping others realize their home theater dream - both through my articles and free personal advice. For me, this is truly a dream come true!
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Lisa's Thoughts
What I love about Andrew's site is that it's clear he has an extreme passion for what he's writing about. He knows his stuff when it comes to electronics and his site is definitely evident of that.
I'm sure you have something in life you are passionate about, but you may be hesitant to start a website because you don't know where to start. That's where Site Build It! comes in. It will help you gather that information, organize it and turn it into a profitable information site like Andrew has done.
Learn more about Site Build It! and get ready to turn your hobby into a lifetime income.
