RAISING A SUPERSTAR SITE

Ok, I know the title is a little presumptious, but as Mums don't we all think our children are superstars? And, I suppose as a Mum, I can relate the stages of growth of my site to the stages of growth of my son, Alexis. I hope you enjoy the analogy!

Having a baby, it was a lot of work, and figuring out What am I doing? and Am I doing it right? Luckily I had some words of wisdom from others more experienced, mostly my Mum, although far away on the other side of the world, at the end of a telephone willing to help at all hours.

The forums are a little bit like that, more experienced people so generously giving their time to help the new ones, with their problems, or just to hear out their frustrations and to tell us they have all been in the same boat at one stage.

At the beginning with a baby, there are a lot of sleepless nights, feeding, bathing, changing, and not a lot of things back in return. It can feel like all work and no play! You can feel drained and have no energy left.

With SBI, at the beginning it may be an uphill road with plenty of learning and you may not feel like you are getting anywhere.

But then the baby looks you straight in the eyes and gives you a beautiful smile, and a gurgle and your heart leaps into your mouth and you get a burst of a zillion volts of energy that just keeps you going to see that smile again.

And then you hit on the idea for your site, and realise you have so much passion for a subject that you could easily write about it for ages, this will give you a shining light to push ahead. Or sometimes a post in the forums, will inspire you for ideas and help make the road ahead a little easier.

Slowly its not such a one way street of work, you get little rewards along the way, a cuddle, a look, and then the words "MUMMY", aaaaah. Slowly the milestones come along, and these are the things that make it all worthwhile. The reason why you spend all day looking after another human being, nurturing them and caring for them.

As you accomplish each task, building your site, you'll get little "aha" moments, that tell you that you're further along the road than when you first started.

There can be frustrations along the way, as with all new things we have to learn. When Alexis was starting to move, (he's a very active boy, always has been and still is) he was very impatient to be doing more than he could. When he could sit,he wanted to crawl, when he mastered crawling, he wanted to walk, when he could walk, he was determined to run straight away. He tried to do more, but it only brought him down with a bump, he picked himself up and then did what he could, for a while, and then he would try again and before long he could master the next stage.

Building your website may get frustrating at times, if its all new to you and you have a lot to learn. Its also easy to get caught up in the excitement and eagerness to have your site up on the net. There is so much passion that you want to get ahead of yourself. But. It is important to master each step before trying the next. It's laying the perfect foundation so the next step will be a natural progression.

Then comes the fun times, the cute times, they are cuddly, they want to be with Mum all the time, they do sweet things - even the not so sweet things are funny. Alexis was a bundle of energy as a toddler. He was like those duracell bunnies, put him down and he just kept going all day long, even when everyone else around him had dropped (including me sometimes!!).

Once you get into writing content, writing pages about your subject that you are very passionate about, it will feel the same way, you start to write and the words will just flow. You don't need to think about any other stuff for a while, just write as many pages as you can.

When Alexis hit the terrible two's he was like a tornado. Tantrums and a very strong will to do what he wanted to do. Of course, it would have been easy to give in to the tantrums, easier in the short time but not in the long run. So we had to do time out, counting down and time spent alone in his bedroom to learn what was acceptable behaviour and what was not. In the end, I wanted to have a child that I liked and enjoyed being with and the only way for that to happen was for him to learn these things. Now, some children will pick up on these lessons straight away and others will have to go over them many times for it to sink in. It does eventually, and you are then rewarded with well behaved children. I could have done with SuperNanny back then, but she wasn't around so I fuddled through the best I could.

SBI has an Action Guide which is a bit like SuperNanny, it gives you 10 units to work through at your own pace. Sometimes we have to take time away from the enjoyable bits to do the hard yakka to get the lovely result we want in the end. Again, some people (annoyingly!) pick up these lessons straight away and others have to go over it several times for it to sink in. Perhaps more so in some areas than others. I was a bit like Alexis, I had to go over some units for a while for it to sink in and fully understand. But never worry help is at hand, and SuperNanny (sorry Action Guide) is only looking out for you to get the best end result for your site.

After setting the groundwork you will feel each new learning curve ball that gets sent to you, easier to deal with. There will be new things to learn all the time. Even now, as the internet continues to evolve, SBI adds new features to add to your site to improve it and your business.

When you work on something for a long time, it is such a reward to see milestones achieved and look back over the progress. When Alexis was learning to read and write, it was a struggle. Each line of words were like a jungle to him. He took one word at a time and just kept going at it, and I was there with him all along encouraging him. Frustrations were overcome and within time he learnt to read and write. What a marvelous moment when you see your child read a sentence or page to you and the look of accomplishment in their eyes that they did it! My heart swells with pride!

When you start to see the figures for your site improving, getting picked up by the search engines and then the traffic that comes to your site increases, these are wonderful milestones that remind you of how far you have come on your journey.

And the end result? Well, Alexis started High School this year. He was excited to be learning new things. And in his first term. He was getting A's in maths and B's in all other subjects. (I remember the struggles with reading and writing and homework!). He is so proud of himself for getting such grades and that just gives him more encouragement to do even better. At the end of term 1, he received a letter from the Principal, "thanking him for being a student that takes responsibility for his own behaviour and making a positive contribution to the whole school team. He had been identified by staff as having a positive attitude, displaying the principles of the school philosophy of choosing how to act, and was commended for his courtesy, always being prepared and collaborating in his learning environment." Wow, what a wonderful commendation to receive after only 1 term in a new school.

This term he has been picked as one of only 4 children to represent the school at the World Vision Global Leadership Convention for Young Australians! Well, I could not be a prouder Mum! I am so happy to see my son accomplish all these goals, it is all I could have dreamed for when he was just a baby. I know I have done the best job I could have done being a Mother to my children. I am a success!

With your SBI journey and your website business, if you keep doing all the things the Action Guide tells you and follow the guides, you will have a successful site and business. If you perservere you may one day be one of the results case studies and lead as an example to others of how to do a great site. You may make accomplishments with your site that others haven't and hit new goals along the way. Anything is possible! You will be a success! Click here to start your journey with SBI!


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