Dear Ken,

Ian Colquhoun, the president of Axiom Audio, asked me to check out your SiteBuildIt product a while back. Axiom Audio is a high-end manufacturer of award-winning speakers. We had decided to sell directly from the Internet.

And that "storefront site" is, if I do say so myself, a wonderful site. It shows the products off to great advantage, has loads of features that audiophiles love, and of course can take an order.

So when Ian told me about SBI!, I said "We already have a Web site. What do we need SBI! for?"

And then Ian slugged me over the head with the truth. While our site was indeed gorgeous and a great sales site, unfortunately we started by "putting up the site" the same way you'd put together a sharp, attractive store in a mall or a shopping street.

And then we found out. We discovered, the hard way, what you call "the fundamental reality of the way people use the Web." No one was searching for us. They search for information about audio speakers, home theatre, etc., etc., etc.

We weren't getting much traffic, needles to say. And what's the point of even a $1,000,000 site if you don't have traffic.

So I checked out your site and information about SBI! (and I spent a lot of time on it), especially the parts that are targeted for businesses with existing e-comomerce sites, I was immediately impressed by your no-nonsense, "this is not rocket science" approach to building websites. You made me believe that it was possible to take my passion and build an effective, highly-trafficked website, no matter what that passion was.

That said, I'll tell you a bit about myself...

My background is in the Theater, and I also spent thirteen years as the editor of Sound & Vision Magazine. You could say that my passion is music. I am pretty well known in the 'print' audiophile community. But I was far, far, far from being a tech and knowing anything about building traffic to our main site.

The SBI! approach certainly made sense. No need to tear apart our primary e-commerce site -- it was excellent. On the other hand, it had not been developed with the Search Engines in mind.

So I got a hold of SiteBuildIt, and began the process of building a website. After going through the brainstorming process, I realized my niche was explaining the STRAIGHT GOODS on everything audio, video, and home theater related. I could make a vast and complicated subject easy. And so the AudioLofftReport.com was born . . .

Frankly, I don't know much about online systems and technology but I do know about Audio, Video and Home Theater, and the SiteBuildIt! turnkey system let me focus on what I know best -- my business.

For the AudioLofftReport.com, I focused on getting the content written rather than worrying about learning HTML, SHTML, CGI... whatever acronym you can think of. It was a straightforward undertaking and your Action Guide and step-by-step instructions were very complete.

All I had to do was to create my content and to make sure that the SBI step-by-step processes were followed. At first I had an assistant, Judd Burdon, focus on putting the content in place within the SBI program format. It was a straightforward undertaking and your action guide and step by step instructions were very complete.

I can't emphasize how important that is. I now understand why you tell folks not to skip steps -- I bet that the "too smart folks" get themselves into trouble when they do skip steps, but I can see how carefully and logically you have put this all together.

Luckily, I had no choice! I'd have been lost, if left to my own devices! I merely put myself in your hands for everything except the content. Thank goodness your SBI can't do that yet... or you wouldn't need us human customers at all, would you?

Anyway, it's a great feeling when the trickle of traffic starts... when folks start to e-mail. And then it builds...

I have watched my traffic consistently improve in leaps and bounds (hundreds of visitors per day already!), which translates into excellent traffic and sales to axiomaudio.com)! And that is the whole point, right?

Obviously, the key goal of our site is to engage the customer that is in the buying audio/video/home theater buying cycle and to do this we developed a number of 'opt in' programs that allow people to enroll in a number of my FREE audiolofft courses as well providing people with adequate opportunities to link to the Axiom site (www.axiomaudio.com) to refer to specific award winning Axiom products and their reviews.

And the bottom line? I have been able to create a professional web site that gets significant traffic that provides us with qualified leads that convert into Axiom Audio sales which have an average value of over $800 per sale.

Thank you so much, we are constantly amazed by SBI!.

Alan Lofft
www.audiolofftreport.com

2006 Update
2008 Update