Product Name: Home Website Builder 2.0
Advertised Price: Free, Unknown
Real Price: $147
Rating: 30/100
What Is It?
A drag and drop website builder.
Short Review
The guys at Home Website Builder are very honest in their advertising and there is some potential here. However, there are much better alternatives out there, so I don't think your money should be spent on this product.
Before You Buy
Usually with products related to making money online, you have to be wary of ridiculous income claims, false advertising, and other misleading marketing tactics. It's pretty much a nightmare finding out what you are actually going to pay for.
But with Home Website Builder they are very clear that what you'll be doing is building a website and promoting products on that website related to a specific topic. It's called niche marketing or affiliate marketing, and it's very similar to what Bryon does here on Human Proof Designs.
It's a legit way to make money online, if it's done right. To test these guys out I signed up for their free version.
What I Liked
I was very surprised at the website builder they had set up. It truly was drag and drop, the graphics were well designed, and the first couple of steps were super easy to get through. Newbies will like this part.
There were many questions that were clearly answered in their FAQ, and one particular one regarding their free versus paid memberships. One difference between the two is using a subdomain versus a premium domain, which I thought was explained nicely as you were signing up.
And regarding their hosting price, 2 years included for $147 for the Pro Membership isn't bad, and neither is the $50 price tag (2 years) for single domain hosting. In fact, it's so cheap, that it makes me suspicious as to the quality of the hosting and what other fees you might run into.
What I Didn't Like
Unfortunately, all the positives I listed above have some serious negative sides to watch out for.
For example, their drag and drop website builder is extremely limiting in many ways. There are only a few topics to choose from, and even fewer products to populate your site with.
Niche marketing is HUGE and you can create websites on any topic imaginable. The topics listed here in HWB 2.0 absolutely can be profitable, but they are some of the most common and most competitive niches out there.
Also, the number of products available for you to promote was shockingly low, and mostly digital information products from Clickbank. These products are usually not that good, and already heavily promoted (that's not always the case).
And while their hosting prices are good, it's unclear exactly what kind of hosting you're signing up for. Is there live support? You can get live support included in a hatchling plan at Hostgator for $3 per month with your own .com domain, so why the heck should I pay $37 (2 years) to host a subdomain?
They are also no up front about the hosting cost. Your merry path to building a free website comes to an abrupt halt when you discover that they don't host your site for free. Well, some people do.
Keywords, Content, SEO
It was completely unacceptable that they asked you to write a review as Step 3 in the website setup process.
WHAT to write and HOW to write is one of the biggest challenges for newbies, and they just stuck it in there, as if you could do it in 5 minutes. No doubt a large percentage of people would also ask themselves, how do I write a review of something I've never owned? There's a way to do it, but without proper training, you'd have no clue.
They do not explain anything about how to optimize your review for search engines, or how many words to write, or give you advice on how to structure the content so that someone actually buys from you.
The Main Problem
As I started to see more and more issues with the way this program was set up, I realized that there was one underlying problem: No Training.
Believe it or not, maintaining a website is the easy part. Most places have relatively simply setup processes, and not needing code is the industry standard nowadays.
The biggest challenge you will face as a newbie affiliate marketer is going to be how to grow your business. Anyone can do it, but you need a trusted set of training modules and a legit mentor (or group of mentors) to show you the way. I did not see that present here
The only training to speak of (locked to free members) was a bunch of PDF guides, in list format. There was no comprehensive training schedule, step by step instructions, or really any way to know what you should do after your website was done.
Final Review
I have to give these guys credit for a great first 10% of their product. But the rest of what I saw really dropped the ball. In all honestly, it doesn't matter how much Home Website Builder 2.0 is, because I don't think they provide enough training and support to teach you to actually earn from your website.