Dmytro Petrov

Please visit SiteSell facebook to read my story and stories of my friends!

If you were around during the 50,000 Fan Celebration at SiteSell Facebook, you’ll surely remember the name of our newest Featured Fan, Dmytro Petrov. Not only was he one of the winners in our “Best of Breed” photo contest, he was one of the main cheerleaders and motivators for the contest. He’s also well known in the forums, having made over 500 posts to date. He was one of the driving forces behind the wish to implement Unicode UTF-8 charset encoding, a big plus for SBIers writing their sites in a language that uses Non-Latin characters (like Russian or Chinese).

I invite you to read Dmytro’s story, an inspiring journey from computer-illiterate to successful online business owner, webmaster and Google AdWords specialist.

Hello, my name is Dmytro.

I live in the south part of Ukraine in the small city Melitopol, not far away from the beautiful Azov Sea. Our city is well known as the biggest exporter of sweet cherries among all republics of the former USSR. Every spring time it turns into a real flower paradise with enormous amounts of blooming cherries and other fruit trees. I just can`t express the feelings that I experience every year standing in the middle of an endless white ocean of flowers and breathing fresh air with the sweet cherry scent.

Probably some of you know me from the Solo Build It! forums. I am always happy to help fellow SBIers if I have enough knowledge in the discussed topic. Probably half of all my posts are related to the usage of multilingual content with Solo Build It!. I was one of the most active SBIers in the promotion of using Unicode UTF-8 charset encoding. And I am so happy that a few months ago my Solo Build It! dream came true! Thanks to Dr. Ken and the hard work of the SiteSell team, foreign SBIers like me can now unchain our creativity and create content in any language.

Do you remember this line in one of the Solo Build It! Videos? “If you can surf and use email, then you can build a profitable website. No HTML or special computer knowledge required.” My story is living proof that this statement is correct!

Now it`s so funny to remember that in my school we had only 5 PCs in our computer room for about 600 pupils and only 2 of them worked!!! Naturally we weren’t even allowed to switch them on. Later at University we had access to some computers but without an Internet connection. I wouldn’t say that I`ve learned something useful from those lessons. They taught us briefly MS DOS and BASIC programming, which was absolutely useless for someone with only theoretical knowledge and not even their own email.

In 2004 I went to Denmark as exchange student at a modern Danish mink farm. Later I studied at the Grindsted farmer school in Denmark. During those 2 years, when I lived far away from my family, I had to learn how to use the latest communication technologies such as email and Skype.

The more I discovered all the unbelievable benefits of the Internet, the more exited I was about it. The personal laptop that every student received during the course and the unlimited Internet access turned me into an advanced Internet user in under 2 month’s time.

In 2006 I found Solo Build It!, and this turned my life around. At the time I had a crazy idea to create a personal website or just an about me webpage (I considered that someone would be interested in reading it ;-)) I had a lot of free WYSIWYG options both in Russian and English markets, but was looking for the best platform that I could find for free. I do remember the exact day I first landed at www.SiteSell.com via one of the affiliate links. I liked the simple design and was intrigued by the intro video at the homepage explaining that your site will be dead without traffic. The content of the page was so informative, interesting and most important effectively PREselling, not hard selling like most competitors. I guess it was “love at first sight!”

My biggest fear related to Solo Build It! was not about its price. With my Danish scholarship of 1000+ Euro the Solo Build It! subscription for 299 USD was not a big deal. In addition, the 3 months free test drive looked very reliable and I had the feeling that I had absolutely nothing to lose. Instead I was so worried whether I could follow the whole process with all instructions being in English – a foreign language for me which I only studied for 3 years at conversational evening classes. Because Solo Build It! was so UNIQUE I realized that if I got stuck somewhere in the middle of the process, no one will be able to help me in my native language.

It took me a – for me - enormous amount of time… 2 weeks to take the final decision. Now I know that I actually decided much faster than the average SBIer, who researches for about 6 months before they buy. During those 2 weeks I revisited SiteSell.com, sub domains, videos, case studies every day and each time I was able to find more and more great information and inspiration. Most importantly this intense exploration changed my mindset and attitude to the whole process of website building. SiteSell successfully passed my scam radar and I hit the BULL EYE from the first try!

I created my first Solo Build It! Site https://www.denmarkfacts.com/ in May 2006. And, you know, I actually bought Solo Build It! 2 months before I even bought my very first own computer. So, I know the answer to the question what came first… the chicken or the egg ;-)

Originally I intended to create a website with tips and assistance to foreign students in Denmark like me. But Solo Build It!’s tools showed me that not enough people searched for this topic. I needed a bigger audience. So I decided to create a specific country guide. I was busy with my education and had not much free time to focus on my website. Earning money form my site wasn`t critical for me and I could afford to develop my site very slowly. At first I had no intention at all to use my Solo Build It! site as a money making machine, so I had very low requirements to monetization. All I needed was 1 USD per day, to pay for the Solo Build It! subscription. After one year, my site paid for itself… so the question about renewal was easy to answer.

After I graduated I was already sure that I wouldn’t be working a single day as power engineer. Thanks to Solo Build It!, I found a much more interesting alternative... starting my own online business! My English still wasn’t so great, so I decided to look for people to work with me. For the next two years I created several new Solo Build It! websites together with my friends and family members.

The perfect example of such a cooperation is our new dating website http://www.Ukraine-Dating-Agency.com/, which I created together with my friend Ray Clark. We were so tired of the endless stories about “scammers” and the high “fees” charged by other dating agencies and decided to create an honest dating site. We also provide useful information to anyone who wants to visit Ukraine. So this site is worth your visit even if you are not looking for a beautiful Ukrainian wife.

Google AdWords – “The Art of War” is my current obsession. I started my first AdWords campaign to find some new clients for our small holiday home. Little idea did I have that over time this would transform into my major income stream! Now I am a certified AdWords specialist and manage advertising campaigns for my friends and clients in different fields, from renting apartments in St. Petersburg in Russia to creating huge promotional campaigns for a Medical Company from Israel.

Today, my “Danish” Solo Build It! site hit the 1000 visitors/day milestone and – solely from AdSense - makes more money than the “average” salary in my country. I also had some success with the 5 Pillar Affiliate program. December 2011 was my most successful month to date, and I`m expecting my biggest check ever from SiteSell to be on its way to Ukraine!

Solo Build It! BlockBuilder 2 is just a few weeks away from public release, and I already registered 2 new Solo Build It! websites for my clients. And thanks to Unicode and BB2 they will be 100% in Russian language!

Thank you Solo Build It!, Ken Evoy and the SiteSell team for making my dream come true!

All the best,
Your fellow SBIer from Ukraine.
Dmytro

P.S.: If you are not tired of me you may watch my latest Solo Build It! report created a few weeks ago for the “Best of Breed” contest: http://youtu.be/qROPEaZxfuk