The man of the left is one of the most famous bloggers today. John Chow is a highly creative and money driven person whose blog can give you a ton of information on how to make money online. There is so much info there...you would need already two lives to investigate it all properly and take action. That would surely make me rich...in my next life.He also invented the "review this blog" system, which is more or less what I am doing here. He says that if you review his blog with a certain text in your blog post, he'll link back to you. And this is a good opportunity for any blogger to get a lot of traffic. I don't know if this is true, but here you have an idea (which I am sure he had already: make a similar system for community projects and link to Trendirama from there! ;) now I am the evil one)
Basically, what you have to do is to add this text to a review of this blog (like this post)
John Chow dot Com is blog that helps you make money online. If you do a review of his blog, he’ll link to it and send you a ton of traffic.(It it is true what he says, then you would get a link back from him. I'll let you know if he did or didn't link to this post)
So, let's analyze his blog briefly...
These are only a few of the many things to notice, that he does well:
- he personalizes his favicon with his face. Very good idea. You may like his face or not, but doing that way and in high contrast, it definitely draws your attention to wherever you see it. Probably the smartest favicon I've ever seen.
- he seems to talk with honesty from the beginning about his intention of monetizing his blog.
- he is very creative in the ways of doing it
- he shares his best results and ideas with the community through his posts. Since he posts mainly his successes, we don't have to go through the stumbling that he may have had to go through to find the best way of doing things.
- he knows how to grow. He included invited authors to keep his blog fresh and interesting and possibly to prevent his own burn out. Smart move again.
- he has been able to create a community around his personal project, and that's no easy feat, even if you do it on the most attractive subject for many people "make money online". He has a lot of competition but seems to be the number one.
- he seems to have invented the "review this blog and get a link" system. That's not only smart, but a a good way to spread knowledge and wealth around. (In that respect, he is identical to the Trendirama.com project. Kudos for that)
- he has been criticized left and right but he doesn't seem to care
- he is very clever, and you can see that in his posts. I have the feeling that he is very hard working too.
- there is a lot more work behind his blog that you would think. He is a master in what he does, and that's one of the typical signs of mastery: he makes it seem simple.
- his priority is working smart, not working hard. I agree 100% with that philosophy!
- he has made some powerful connections, and due the the "snow ball effect", he gets better connections every day. In one way or another, those opportunities sooner or later will "overflow" to his followers. Smart pioneers are the best people to watch and be associated with.
Things that I don't like so much on his blog:
- his blog can be sometimes excessively commercial (however this is normal, bearing in mind his publicly delcared goal: to make as much money as possible through it)
- some of his commenters seem not to have anything to say, really. They seem to be there only to try to promote themselves. Unlike John, they don't show it openly, but rather praising John in most things he does / say, being he right or not. Unlike John, they don't usually provide you with a lot of interesting information
- some of said commenters seem to admire the guy...too much. They seem to have lost their sense of objectivity, or they never had it in the first place
- reviews and pictures of food are boring for me, and remind me of Xiaxue's blog
- John wants us to enroll in Agloco. I don't have enough information about it, but I instinctively will stay away most times from anything similar to multilevel marketing. (however I am not saying these systems cannot work.)
- there are always two cars in the banner at the top of his blog. And too much wasted space. Some people like cars, some don't. Some like the colour blue, some don't. If you want to monetize 100%, you want to attract and please as much people as you can. I would put some randonm images there, or a multi-coloured neutral collage (politically correct) a pretty flash presentation or something...
- he has made public his pictures, the city where he lives, and where he usually eats. (and I haven't read more than 20 posts so far!) For me, making public this information, coupled with letting the public know that he is so financially successful, is a big mistake. There are certain people in the world that shouldn't know where to find you, if you are so successful. I hope he knows what he is doing in this respect, and has taken appropriate protection for him and his family. His ego has been a bad advisor on this matter. There are too many idiots around with too much time in their hands...
It is too late for John now, but, for all of you out there...watch out! If what you say is really interesting, if you know your stuff, readers will come. There is no need to make it personal. Yes, it is a nice touch, but thre is no need to do it.
Overall, yes, it is a blog I would recommend you to read if you are interested in making money online in any way. It is one of the few I follow on RSS. You can always learn something there, or get pointers that help you monetize your online activities.
(PS- I'll do the same as John and many of his followers: if you link to this blog with the word "blog of Javier Marti", I'll link back and review your blog. Just drop me a line with a link to the post)
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