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It's been a little over a year since John Chow decided to make money
by blogging about making money blogging. Since then, the 42-year-old
Richmond, British Columbia, entrepreneur has watched his income from
John Chow dot Com increase more than 50 fold--from $353 a month to
an annual run rate of $300,000. That's $25,000 a month for sitting
at home doing what Chow describes as "rambling." He's not alone. Something has changed in the blogosphere over the
past year--something really significant. It starts with the
already-huge community doubling to more than 114 million blogs
worldwide and spinning off 175,000 new sites daily, according to
Technorati,
the unofficial chronicler of the blogosphere.
The Blog Bang set off an explosion in new moneymaking services
just as Chow was exploring the territory beyond Google AdSense. He
now uses more than 100 ad networks, like AuctionAds and Kontera
ContentLink.
"When I started, the options for monetizing a blog were
pretty limited," Chow recalls. "But people keep coming up
with new services that can help you make money."
Chow is far from being the blogosphere's biggest lottery winner.
David Sifry, who founded Technorati as a family blog in 2002, can
probably claim a share of that jackpot. So can gadflies like Perez
Hilton, politicos like Arianna Huffington and all those businesses
for which blogging has become the marketing innovation du jour.
Citizen journalism is turning semipro, explains Derek Gordon,
vice president of marketing at Technorati, who feels high-gloss
sites like The Huffington Post compare favorably to traditional
media. A study by the Society for New Communications Research
suggests that in five years, conversational marketing will attract
as many ad bucks as traditional channels.
Chow deserves special recognition for demonstrating the pure,
unadulterated earning power of the medium. His traffic-generating
achievement isn't clouded by product sales, avant-garde content or
attractive page design. Until recently, Chow wasn't even selling
"himself"--that is, the personal expertise found on
financial and analyst blogs.
His blog remains a somewhat banal combination of his money count
and what he had for lunch--the blogging equivalent of Seinfeld, the
show "about nothing." With the free blogenator WordPress
and a degree in accounting, Chow monetized nothing into a No. 39
ranking on Technorati's Top 100 List of most-linked blogs. His
overhead is about $550 a month; the rest of that monthly 25 grand
goes to the bottom line.
Chow wasn't a web novice: He'd had limited success with his
reviews-oriented site, The TechZone. But what Chow has learned
running John Chow dot Com has helped him monetize The TechZone and
his new TZZ Media advertising network. Taken together, Chow's
revenue streams are closing in on $1 million annually, making him a
web marketing expert by any measure.
Chow has also assembled his income-earning techniques into a
59-page web book downloadable at johnchow.com. Make Money Online is
free, but it still makes money for Chow, thanks to its active web
links that drive traffic to his site. It's not a bad read, either;
even if you don't make blogging your career, there's plenty there to
help monetize your business blog.
"There are no rules or limits in blogging," explains
Chow. "Your earning power is only limited by the traffic you
can attract."
Blogging isn't just a pastime or marketing gambit anymore; it's
a living!!
Read Past News Articles:
"Continued
Power Cuts"
- January 18th 2008
"UPS vs. Generators"
- February 1st 2008
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