Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My personal take!

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My personal take!

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My personal take!

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – Site Build It aka SBI aka Site Sell reviews and how does it do compare to Wealthy Affiliate? SBI turning to WordPress?


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My first encounter.

Hi there, Edmund here.

I knew about Site Build It way back in 2009 while I was looking for ways to start an Online Business.

I was very impressed with Site Build It at that time. Its owner, Ken Envoy, almost convinced me with his daughter’s story. He said if a 14-year-old girl could monetize her website selling her own designed slippers (or something similar, I vaguely remember), anyone could build a website with Site Build It.

I was planning to sign up with Site Build It but when I know the cost of it, I held back due to other financial commitment I had at that time.

I admit, even browsing through the Site Build It website, I learned a lot of things about Internet Business from Ken Envoy.

In particular, his 4 steps process. The figure below is quite self-explanatory.

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate - SBI Process

I decided to look for cheaper alternative and did not check out Site Build It again.

Long story short, after all the ups and downs, I found Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate offers a free* Starter Membership with 2 free* sub-domain websites and a free* Online Entrepreneur Certification (Level 1) course.

It’s free! Why not? I do not even have the hassle to ask for a refund if I am not convinced at Wealthy Affiliate.

When Kyle, the owner offered his help for all newbies to get started, I grabbed at the opportunity.

I was impressed and became a Premium Member, the rest was history, my Online Business Journey took off.

 


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My research online.

Recently, a friend asked me what do I think of Site Build It. He wanted an opinion from me.

I told him I came across it many years ago, I do not know what the has company become. I told him I would help him do a little research first.

Since I am doing a research for him, I thought why not I write an article about the comparison between Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate.

I was really surprised with what I found.

Just within the first page of search results, there are a number of pages written to “condemn” SBI and it seems that some sort of infighting was going on since 2012.

“Is Site Build It a scam? I certainly call it a scam.  And in this thorough and detailed Site Build It review will, I will strive to prove that claim to you as well.” – addicted2decorating.com

Something might had happened between the author of this blog and SBI. This could be just one side of a story. I looked further.

“Just wondering if anyone would mind sharing what your experience with SiteSell’s SBI! (SiteBuildIt) has been. I’m thinking of trying it out. Many thanks.” – warriorforum.com

The people at Warrior Forum provided a more balanced view of Site Build It.

Below is a blog from a current Wealthy Affiliate member who shared his own SBI experience.

“Several years before I discovered Wealthy Affiliate, I was an SBI owner. While I don’t want to bash Site Build It, they definitely didn’t live up to the hype in their videos or sales pages.” – steveo5770

 


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – SBI Block Builder vs WordPress

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate - wordpressAfter reading through many reviews of SBI, both good and bad. I realized the main reason why many people left SBI’s platform. SBI’s own website building platform has many limitations and not flexible enough to build a modern website.

Ken Envoy has strongly advocated his own’s proprietary Block Builder for website building, similar to Google’s Blogspot’s drag and drop design style.

On the contrary, many of them preferred WordPress which offers flexibility and an open source concept where developers can build any plugins to use within the WordPress website.

“I don’t think SBI is a scam, but it’s not for everyone. The actual value in SBI is the education, not the technology. It could be useful for someone who doesn’t know much about computers or the web. But for someone capable of installing software like WordPress at their own host (which is really easy), SBI would be more of a hindrance than a help.” – tobanwiebe.com

Personally, I think SBI is trying to change for the better and embrace WordPress. It did come out with a plugin for WordPress in 2013 to tap on the WordPress market.

“For years, Site Build It touted how much better they were than WordPress. Not anymore. Ken Evoy, the owner of Site Build It, hyped up a new WordPress plugin that was going to change the course of SBI forever.” – affiliatemarketertraining.com

However, I also think that it could backfire because SBI sends a confusing signal to its members. To use SBI’s own website builder? Or find their own host, set up a WordPress website and use SBI’s WordPress plugin?

“SBI! finally has a competitor. A competitor that is cheaper than SBI! (half the price, to be precise!), and which uses the very platform everybody has been pleading for (WordPress, no less), means SBI! is facing its most dangerous threat ever!” – suckersbuyit.com

Moreover, if you are using a “heavy” (large file size) plugin with all the specialized tools, you could probably slow down your website unknowingly.

Google hates slow websites.


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate - Wealthy Affiliate University


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – Apple vs Apple

To me personally, Site Build It is an academy that tries to help anyone new to venture into the Online Business World. It has good intentions, however, the owner might have overpromised and under-delivered in the technical expectation of SBI’s many ex-members.

Wealthy Affiliate is also an academy that helped trained 1000’s of Online Entrepreneurs in the past decade since its beginning in 2005.

Both advocates a one-stop service to provide training, tools, community and hosting.

If given a choice of SBI and Wealthy Affiliate, and if I am someone wanting to make money Online but totally new. Which would I go for?

Given that I had done my own diligence to research prior to joining, these will be my practical consideration.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #1.1 – Basic Training – On Par

Both Academy provides basic training for beginners.

Their concepts are similar, create a website, build contents, gain traffics and convert sales.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #1.2 – Advanced Training – Wealthy Affiliate winner

Wealthy Affiliate is an Open Education Project where any member can create training for all other members in the community related to Internet Marketing.

There are many experts within the community who selflessly share their knowledge to anyone who thirst for more knowledge.

Webinars by Jay, an Internet Marketing expert, are held once a week.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #2 – Keyword Research Tools – On Par

Both Academy provides each own’s keyword research tools.

Keyword research tools provide results as long as you are familiar and comfortable using it.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #3 – Community – Wealthy Affiliate winner

SBI has a forum of community where help and support are available from other members.

Wealthy Affiliate has a more dynamic community with Live Chat, Blogs and Q&A system.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #4 – Hosting – Wealthy Affiliate winner

You are the sole owner of your own website in both SBI and  Wealthy Affiliate.

SBI uses its own Block Builder System for website creation and your website is hosted within SBI Servers. In the event you need to transfer your website to other platforms, it will be a more difficult task. You could feel the hassle reading from various article links above.

Wealthy Affiliate is a WordPress Specialized host with all the security features for WordPress. All the websites you create in Wealthy Affiliate is using the WordPress platform. Wealthy Affiliate hosting comes complete with a SiteRubix site management suite. Transfer of website is easy.

As widely acknowledged, WordPress is far superior and easy to use, this will be an easy choice.

 

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate #5 – Cost – Wealthy Affiliate winner

SBI

$29/mth or $299/year. (One Website Only, SBI hosting, all training, keyword tool)

90 days money back gurantee

Upsell: Custom Website Design Service – from $297 (basic)

Support: $19.95 per incident

SiteSell Support - Fee

Wealthy Affiliate

Free* Starter membership at $0. (Live support – 7 days trial, 2 free* sub-domain websites, 1 free* course)

Premium Membership at $49/mth or $359/year. (25 own domain websites + 25 sub-domain websites, WordPress specialized hosting, Live Support, keyword tool and all training within WA)

Upsell: None

Support: Free

A clear choice here too.

 


Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – Conclusion

Given the choice to select between Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate, the decision is an easy one for me.

As an Online Business owner, you have to manage the cost of operation and cash flow too. I believe you’ll not just stop at building one website. As your first business become profitable, you will look out for other niches to explore and venture into. You’ll start building second, third or more websites. Agree with me?

Would you want your operating cost to increase as your number of websites increase?

Which make a better cents(sense) to you?

My friend is clear of his decision now and I hope this article will help you in making a better decision too.

Wishing you the best! 🙂

Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate - Edmund

 

 

 

 

*Please note that some countries are not able to join as FREE Starter Members due to Wealthy Affiliate University’s Anti-SPAM policy.

 

8 thoughts on “Site Build It vs Wealthy Affiliate – My personal take!

  1. Mark D

    Hi,

    I’m a member of Wealthy Affiliate and have been for about 8 months now. I’ve not heard of Site Build It before, however, I’d like to endorse your review and say that if you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate, you don’t really need to look elsewhere.

    I wasted a lot of money online over the years, but now I am just a premium member of WA and really don’t need to consider looking for anything else now.

    Cheers

    Mark

    1. Edmund Post author

      Hi Mark,

      Thank you for your comment and endorsement of Wealthy Affiliate .

      I understand how you feel on the money wasted, I had wasted money too when I first started out. I am glad that we both found Wealthy Affiliate and could just focus on our Online business rather looking for anything else.

      Wishing you the best!

  2. Kim

    Hi Edmund,

    Thank you for this detailed comparison of SBI vs Wealthy Affiliate.
    I have heard about SBI recently and wants to understand more first before I decide whether to give it a try. I am glad that I found your article and it definitely helps me to make a better decision now.

    It is obvious that Wealthy Affiliate is the clear winner here.
    Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  3. Viljoen

    Hi Edmund

    I would also recommend Wealthy Affiliate above Site Build It. I do not think that I will move outside WordPress any time soon because I am now so used to it.

    WA might be more expensive but you just get so much more out of the deal than that off SBI. You simply cannot compare the 2 against each other.

    1. Edmund Post author

      Hi Viljoen!

      You are absolutely right! I am with you when you mentioned you are so used to WordPress. Me too.

      WordPress allows much more flexibility with plugins and there are many themes that are so eye-catching and beautiful. This allows better user experience when your visitors visit your website.

      Wealthy Affiliate is the true Open Project Education Platform with seamless integration of training, tool, community and website management suite. The monthly fee is second to none. That is why I chose Wealthy Affiliate after my throughout research.

      Thanks for your sharing and wishing you the best!

  4. Margit

    Hi Edmund,

    Thanks for giving your personal view on SBI! versus WA. You mentioned that one of the main reasons why people might leave SBI! is because they prefer WordPress to SBI!’s site builder. Do you know that SBI! now also exists for WordPress?

    So you can use WordPress as your site builder of choice AND still take advantage of SBI!’s keyword tool and all the business-building education.

    In the end, though, it’s not the product features that are most important, but the results. In your review, you claim that WA is better than SBI!.

    Allow me to explain, with data, how that is incorrect.

    We have noticed a flood of reviews like yours by affiliates of Wealthy Affiliate, recommending WA over Solo Build It! (formerly Site Build It!).

    So we performed a study that compares the two, head-to-head. The study is objective, rigorous, statistically significant and reproducible (i.e., anyone can do the exact same study so there is no way this can be “made up”).

    Are you aware of this study? If not, it’s a 3-part series:

    Part 1: Overall summary.
    Part 2: Methodology.
    Part 3: Summary results.

    The results of this study show that SBI! outperforms WA significantly (for example, with SBI! solopreneurs are 33X more likely to achieve “Outstanding-Excellent” results in terms of attracting traffic to their sites and 10X more likely for medium-level).

    I repeat – we could not fake these results if we tried. Part 2 explains that in detail, but basically – anyone can repeat this study. They’ll get the same results.

    Please reconsider your WA recommendation – you do harm to honest, good people who are ready to work at building an online business to achieve goals that matter to them.

    Much has changed since you first heard about us back in 2004.

    We’d love to have you on our side, making a recommendation that will improve someone’s life, rather than having a result that will almost surely lead to disappointment and despair (87% of WA sites get zero / near-zero traffic).

    Once you see how badly SBI! beats WA, all the marketing-speak disappears. It answers the ONLY QUESTION that the solopreneur wants to know…

    “Where am I most likely to succeed?”

    Hoping you’ll reconsider,

    Margit

    1. Edmund Post author

      Hi, Margit.

      Thank you for your template comment which I think you will cut and paste in all reviews that compare SBI and WA as it is loaded with links back to SBI or site sell. I am sorry I do not allow backlinks in my comment area, I have removed them.

      I read the 3 parts blog by Ken Envoy and I feel sorry for him to have to come out personally to write 3 extremely long blogs and spend money on the study and research just to compare SBI vs WA. Internet marketing training is not just all about hardware, but how your customer feels about your system, processes and most importantly the different background and personal situation of each customer.

      I am a fair and pragmatic person. I agree that SBI indeed does provide a good training to guide new budding Online Entrepreneurs. I believed that there are many people benefited from the training. But what is letting me lean towards Wealthy Affiliate is my pragmatic personal take.

      Let me explain,

      1. To get started, I can access to the free starter Online Entrepreneur Certification course, anytime I want. I have a day job and wanted to explore the Internet Marketing and could only afford 2 hours each day after work and family commitment.

      There are a massive amount of information to digest even just to know the basic. I needed to take my own time and my own pace. I do not want the 90 days money back guarantee dateline to decide whether I want to continue. I do not want to fork out money upfront and faced with unforeseen problems when I want a refund, it is a hassle to me.

      2. The cost of SBI is too high for me to commit right up front. I would rather use something free to experiment (even if it is a subdomain) with what I learn before I commit to building the main domain. The Online Entrepreneur Certification (Level 1) training is really well constructed for me to take some action and practice.

      3. Even if I decide to become a premium member, I can host up to 25 main domains at Wealthy Affiliate. While SBI charges $299 per site, this is an easy decision.

      4. I can experiment with different niches at Wealthy Affiliate at the same time. I may have more than one passions, I can create different sites for each at the same time and then test their results without worrying about the high hosting cost again.

      Perhaps, this is why some sites at Wealthy Affiliate ranks better than others because WA members do not focus on sites that are not performing. (Sometimes, even technical results cannot show the ground truth as in this realistic world, there are too many changing variables!)

      5. After my own study and research, I want to use the more versatile and modern WordPress themes. I know SBI site builder was outdated from people who has used SBI before. Although SBI has a plugin for WordPress, this is different from building a WordPress specialised hosting website.

      There are also a few things I disagree with Ken,

      1. He mentioned that,

      Wealthy Affiliate, a “make money” business, sells a “make money” business opportunity to people who are “pushed” into a niche related to “make money,” for which it’s natural to write “make money” reviews or articles, which appear real to unsuspecting visitors, thereby continuing the “vicious circle.”

      This is not true because Wealthy Affiliate’s Online Entrepreneur Certification course does not tell you to sell a “make money” business.

      It teaches you how to create a niche website based on your passion. WA has a separate but optional course which is the Bootcamp Course. The Bootcamp course is for people who want to become WA’s affiliate and promote its training while earning a commission.

      2. “Bait and Switch” is really subjective. Nowadays, most People tends to search for reviews before they really spend their money on a product Online.

      Most of the time, when you reach a product review page, you would see in one way or another, the reviewer will give one or 2 alternative recommendations which he/she thinks that the reader can try out. Just like Amazon’s “Someone bought this product A also purchase this product B”.

      Is this “Bait and Switch”?

      Isn’t Ken’s 3 long blog a “bait and switch” too if he writes about how bad WA is compared to SBI and telling people to take up SBI?

      I agree that there are many Tom, Dick and Harry in the Online World trying to make money through scams. Thus, I advise readers to be street smart and not to fall into obvious scams.

      You can read a heartfelt discussion by people who are current member of both WA and SBI here.

      And Margit, no, I do no harm recommending alternative Internet training to my readers. Because they are under no pressure or whatever to fork out money upfront. It is free to try, just like you would test-drive a car before you decide to buy it.

      Finally, I believe Kyle and Carson (WA co-owners) would spend their time and money to improve WA’s Systems and providing help and support to the community every day, rather on the technical research and writing long winded blogs to compare WA with others. Community, help and support are what Wealthy Affiliate is all about. (And WA won’t charge you for help and technical support.)

      I will end our long discussion here and will not reply any further comment.

      Wishing you the best!
      Edmund

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