Although John Chow hasn’t been talked about as much as in the past, he is still considered amongst the Kings of profit when it comes to blogging.
John Chow’s blog started gaining traffic through social news site Digg by submitting an article that became popular quite quickly. He the submitted another article about how much traffic that article received, which again, became quite popular. Ever since, he has been reaping the rewards. Digg not only sent him traffic, but the visitors sent him links.
With the many links collected, Chow began creating contests. The links created by Diggers were enough to send visitors and have them become contest guinea pigs. They then subscribed to his RSS feed. As his RSS feed grew, Internet Marketers raved about how his blog went from zero to popular in just a matter of weeks. They sent him even more links and more traffic.
With the additional traffic, John Chow had it made. He began writing reviews with affiliate links attached. When his visitors bought the product, he made money. When he reviewed traffic generation sites, like BlogRush, his affiliate link sent even more traffic through pyramid schemes.
John Chow continued his quest for more traffic by holding a contest with Shoemoney. The contest was to see who could raise their feed count the most by the end of the month. Although Chow lost, his feed count increased significantly. Shoemoney’s involvement with Chow further helped raise Chow’s popularity when he asked Chow to fill in a couple of times for the Shoemoney radio show.
As marketers listened to John Chow on the radio, they clicked. Traffic was at an all-time high. Guest posts were flooding in quickly and each post receiving hundreds of comments. At this point in time Chow could tell bloggers to poop on a stick for traffic and they would do it exactly as described.
John Chow’s popularity has since leveled off. Earlier this year, for nearly a month his only posts were about eating at nice restaurants. Guest posters would fill in for Chow to carry the burden of writing articles on Internet marketing and making money. Although his eating posts have cooled down, his posts hardly, if ever deal with making money online.
Written: Jul 14, 2008
Tags: internet marketing, john chow, make money online
Mizé
July 14, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
Hi. I found your blog trough Entrecard. Thanks for sharing this story, I didn´t have a clue why he was so famous.
The funny thing is, above all this, he can sell links, stuff his blogs with affiliate links (because that´s what you will find) and gets PR by Google, while others get penalized, it´s funny, isn´t it?
Cheers!
bonoriau
July 15, 2008 @ 2:10 am
I’m sure during early time John Chow also like all newbies ..but he came at right time and right place…and he also work hard to be success and rich & famous…congrats John Chow
Gary R. Hess
July 15, 2008 @ 2:18 am
Yeah, definitely one of those things. Maybe it was luck or maybe not. Maybe it was just good marketing… or maybe he bought votes. Who knows? Any way you put it, he was smart. He got a break and used it to his advantage. I don’t think anyone can fault him for that.
revenue
July 15, 2008 @ 5:04 am
Yes i often visit JohnChow Blogs , he is really The Man in Blogging, thanks for sharing this info
Susan
July 15, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
Yep, he got in early and won big!
Matt Ellsworth
July 16, 2008 @ 12:01 pm
I’ve never really thought he had much to say that was truly unique. Most of the time when I read something there its not the first time I”ve heard it, just put a slgihtly different way. But hey I guess some people just want a star to follow.
Enfotainer
July 23, 2008 @ 7:40 am
Just stumbled upon your blog through Entrycard. Dropped a card. You’ve got a nice blog, so I guess you’ll see me around!
Keep it up!
Jarret
July 24, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
I think if anything what John Chow was particular smart about was that he branded himself starting with his blog domain. Lately, it seems the window of opportunity to make money blogging is almost gone. Most of the established players that got in early have already built the links, subscribers, and traffic.
Another interesting blogger that I would like to hear about is Darren (Pro blogger dot net). How do his blog earnings compare to John?
On another note, how much work and know how does it take to get a PR 6 and Sub 20,000 alexa rank?
Gary R. Hess
July 24, 2008 @ 2:43 pm
The last number I heard from Darren was $1 million/month. I’m not sure if that includes of his company or just that one blog, though. ProBlogger.net dwarfs John Chow’s in just about every way… and he does it without much else besides sponsors and AdSense.
Actually, during my girlfriends Computer Informations college course, the book she was using referenced ProBlogger.net quite a few times when talking about blogs. That is how popular he is.
As for how easy it is to get the Alexa, quite easy. JohnChow’s blog isn’t as popular as one might think, 10-15,000 visitors/month. So it can’t be THAT hard if you run into the same ‘luck’ as John has.
Just get on Digg a few times, create controversy, and write good articles (at least at first). If you can manage that, you can surely manage to do the same.
The sad thing is, it is much easier than it sounds. Digg doesn’t like blogs, at all. You could try to buy yourself on, but that’ll cost you a few hundred bucks and even then you might not get on unless it is a quality article.
Jarret
July 24, 2008 @ 3:46 pm
Thank you Gary for your reply to my question. I agree that digg doesn’t seem to like blogs or at the very least, my blog. I’ve never experienced any worthwhile traffic from digg. Perhaps, that’s because my health blog topics aren’t suited to the digg audience.
Another burning question that I’ve always had is outside of the blogging blogs revenue. One incredible blogging phenomenon is the I can has cheezburger blog. Invent some ‘lolspeak’ take a few pictures of some cats, and wow now you’re talking traffic that even dwarfs problogger (Alexa rank 1000)! I can only imagine how much that blog makes by selling ads.
Gary R. Hess
July 24, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
Yeah, that’s just how it goes. I’m sure when the creator thought of the idea it was only for fun and didn’t think it would become this huge.