John Chow Is Killing His Blog By Trying Too Hard To Make Money
May 31st, 2007 // 8:17 am @ Jim Kukral
Be careful not to try so hard to make money with your blog. Sometimes, like in the example I’m talking about below, you can do “too much” and as I’ve said before, you will start to lose your credibility and readership.
Read this comment on a post over at Problogger. #18 comment to be exact. He’s talking about JohnChow.com. The post is talking about using donations to monetize your blog.
I immediately thought of John Chow as an example of how NOT to do this.
While he does have a loyal readership he breaks a few of your other rules:
1. Already Monetizes in Other Ways – when I saw he put ‘buy me a beer’ on his blog I got really angry. He boasts every month about how much he earns and then has the arrogance to ask us for a few extra dollars?
2. Offers Little Value – he used to write some good valuable content but lately his blog has become largely about doing paid reviews, swapping links (in the name of ‘reviews’), boasting about his earnings. The actual tips about making money online are few and far between.
3. Greed – he’s recently even started charging people to leave comments without no-follow tags.
4. Buy me a beer on every post – I’m already sick of seeing that link at the bottom of every post.
Thanks for your tips on this Darren. I hope others do it in a more sensible way.
The reader is right. It is only a matter of time before a loyal readership decides that enough is enough. They start asking themselves, “Is this blogger really trying to help me, or just make money?” When they think the latter, they begin to question the blogger’s credibility and as soon as that happens a loyal reader can fade away fast.
I’ve had my issues with John Chow before, particularly way back in November of 2006 right here on this blog when I wrote about how this could actually happen to John.
Do you want to be known as a thought-leader, well respected in your community… or that internet marketing guy who pushes stuff just to make a buck?
Is that starting to happen? I don’t want to say I told you so. I’d rather use it as an example for other bloggers to learn from.
Promotion and marketing is all fine and good. Heck, I do it all over the place. The difference is that I’m not writing frequent content specifically to make money (paid reviews, etc…). Rather, I’m trying to help people. Has John’s blog gone too far?
Category : Blogging &Making Money Online &Online Marketing
krillz
3 years ago
Finally I found more people that share the same opinion as I regarding john chow.
Right now he’s site looks like a Christmas tree, what he is trying to do is ridiculous with all the ad sales etc.
And I have to say that the longer you read john’s posts the more you realise that he isn’t helping you earn $ of your blog, sure he’ll slip in a how-to sometimes explaining things most web developers and webmaster already know.
So it seems that the people left on that site are:
1.Completely new to SEO making money online and are hoping they’ll get some good info.
2.The “ass kissers” who practically say and do anything to get mentioned by chow. Maybe they think john will create miracles for them, personally I do not know.
The good followers of his blog, the ones that had something good to say are long gone, and all he has left is people commenting 10 times in a post just to hit the top commentator’s list.
It’s sad to see, that greed can turn people this way, especially money.
If someone else would turn his blog into a Christmas tree 2 years ago I bet john would have had bad opinion about it.
Money and greed can make people blind, and this will be the fall for him.
El blog de John Chow está decayendo | Monetizando.net
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lex g
2 years ago
I think that John is totally in it for the cash. And since he’s not making any secret of it I think he should do exactly what he wants to do. Push as hard he can to milk his blog as much as he can …. I have written a post about how he uses his blog’s momentum to make loads of money…
You can find it here : http://www.newmediatype.com/how-john-chow-makes-money-using-blog-momentum
As far as the blog pushing goes : I think almost everybody would do what he is doing if the got the chance … *almost everybody that is ;)
Lex
Popular Wealth
2 years ago
Make Money Online Because of John Chow – Bio…
John Chow dot com overview. An ongoing study of what works to make money online with a blog and what doesn’t.
……
Healthy Tips
2 years ago
Good post.
I first went to John Chow yesterday and liked him… Now im not that sure..
Monchster
2 years ago
Whether or not we think JC has gone too far or not far enough, I am positive of one thing…. he’s determination. He’s created buzz, and we continue to talk about it. Heck, he’s even in the February edition of the Entrepreneur magazine. The guys must be doing something right.
And in his article he confesses, he makes money blogging about nothing…. his determination has gotten him where he is now.
I can sure learn from that.
Bob McClain
2 years ago
One thing some of John’s detractors seem to be missing is that John probably doesn’t care what Google does to him. He has grown through link building, blog connections and word-of-mouth.
Google’s arrogance is not going to hurt him or his site. He doesn’t need them and as others of us learn from John’s example, that should really start to shake up the greed-trust at Google.
The idea of a corporation as greedy as Google pointing the finger and trying to punish John Chow for trying to make a few thousand dollars a month is laughable at best and ominous at worst.
If Google keeps trying to engineer the web with the stick method, they will soon enjoy the same venom that Mr. Softy has been receiving for the last several years.
Not John Chow
2 years ago
Success is the ultimate measure of a blog. It has been almost a year since this post was published and John Chow is raking in the bucks. I don’t think he cares about anything but that.
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Netrepreneur
2 years ago
John Chow has extremely good information on his blog….yea,I know sometimes he doesn’t exactly stay on the marketing subject,but marketing involves what you go through in life,the places you eat,cultural news,etc.
The fact that he commands so much($30k) from monthly ad revenues proves readers like what they find at his blog. I mean c’mon how could he do this if there was nothing valuable?
poortornado
2 years ago
It may be hard to swallow, but he is one the of leaders of the monetized blogging world. Everyone can learn some lessons from John Chow, whether they are good or bad is up to you.
brazilman
2 years ago
30k per month ? That’s good coin considering what he’s doing. Netrepreneur, how do you know about this figure? I wonder if carlocab is doing this much?
brazilman’s last blog post..Building Your Own Blogs To Get Backlinks
SeanFu
2 years ago
I have mixed feelings regarding JC. Sometimes he does provide quality information, but it truly does feel like he’s trying to squeeze as much as possible out of his site which makes his site feel sort of ‘forced’ in my opinion. Sort of like, when he reviews things and says they rock, do they really rock? Or is he just telling you what you want to hear because someone is paying him to tell you that?
SeanFu’s last blog post..Kid Builds Paintball Tank
Aldo
2 years ago
Guys why you so concern on JC? what he’s doing on his blog certainly not for us to concern, is this a matter of ‘JEALOUS’ ?
John Chow and His E-Book | Making it Rain Until I Splash
2 years ago
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Ajith Edassery
2 years ago
I spotted this post now only… Really nice write up. In fact, my own blog was started after I started reading John Chow. It is true that of late, he is talking too much about dining, food etc than make money online topics.
Cheers,
Ajith
Ajith Edasserys last blog post..Make money with CreditBurner PTP Network
Benjamin
2 years ago
John Chow Dot Com is evil blogging at it’s best
Benjamins last blog post..Will the real John Chow please stand up?
Norhafidz
1 year ago
I disagree, I think Chow did a very good job in optimizing his blog and at the same time feed his readers with some valuable information. As we understand, we can’t just tell people how to make money, that’s not the way. JC will not be around if he tells everything about what he did. But he did share some informational knowledge on his blog.
Norhafidzs last blog post..55 October Star Bloggers
noni benefits
1 year ago
My view is develop some good script for helping spam protection automatically like if your past related advise or comment then it should approve other wise disapprove .
Billy
1 year ago
Yes, he should just let it roll, and not to push it so much. It was doing just fine!
Stocks on WallStreet
1 year ago
Agreed the only credible thing on John Chow's blog is his e-book everything else is just an affiliate scam. He is a hypocrite as he always says content is the most important thing yet he delivers nothing of quality.
Matt
1 year ago
I disagree with your post. I really like John Chow's style. Have you downloading his free ebook on blogging? Wow. Great stuff. I have already applied many of the ideas in this no frills ebook and it has substantially improved my blog. I still have not even finished reading it all because I wanted to implement the suggestions he had right away. He is not the typical snobby blogger who is "above making money." He is straight up about this. He is honest that he is coming from a marketing perspective. We need more like him. By the way, your blog looks very sharp too. Kudos.
icejiao
8 months ago
?????
balance
5 months ago
Some of the comments you people have made are cries of jealousy and envy AKA "HATE" grow up
your site not as profitable try something new ,some of you people would be served well learning from John Chow.
Tioman
4 months ago
John Chow is an example of a person who take full advantage of what he got and others don't
4ndr1
3 months ago
I'm agree too
fiwedding
2 months ago
John is a businessman and a business man will do what a business man will do. The guy is an absolute creative and a crazy genius in making money online.