John Chow dot Com Free WordPress Installation - Start Your Blog Today!
 

Blogging Up A Storm With BlogStorm

written by John Chow on July 5, 2007

Get Traffic To Your Site!
blogstorm.png

As you all know, I’m am currently not ranked number one on Google for my name. This has raised a bunch of questions, with the main one being where did I go? As a matter of fact, if you do a Google search for my name, you’ll see a Google sponsored ad asking that very question. I reproduced the ad on the left. Feel free to click on it. It’s a screen shot and not a real Google ad.

The ad was placed by a UK blog call BlogStorm. I must admit, that was pretty creative marketing on their part. However, the funky Google ad was just beginning. In order to extend their reach even more, BlogStorm saw fit to order up this ReviewMe review as well. Some may view this as adding insult to injury. I’m calling it smart marketing.

Who Is BlogStorm

BlogStorm is the creation of Patrick Altoft, an internet marketing consultant & full time blogger from Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.

BlogStorm teaches blogger how to make money online (where have I heard that one before?). Their Google ad seem to claim they know a lot more about linkbaiting than me and points to a really cool beginner’s guide to linkbait article. I really like the idea of suing somebody as linkbait. Being as evil as I am, you would think that I would have come up with that one.

A Mover And A Shaker

Patrick sent along this note with his review request.

We have launched a new blog helping webmasters build traffic and earn more money. Today is the start of a new series about affiliate marketing. The blog is two weeks old and has already make number five on Alexa Movers & Shakers and Time magazine. You can find all our posts at: http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/all.php

I did a check of Alexa and BlogStorm is not longer on the Movers & Shakers list. However, getting on the list is a pretty high achievement. Add in the fact that Patrick did it within the first two weeks of the blog’s life and it’s pretty amazing. BlogStorm offered some extremely compelling content and one nice piece of linkbait (more on that in a bit) to drive all that moving and shaking traffic. Besides their linkbait article, some of the other must-reads include:

30,000 Visitors In The First Week

BlogStorm was launched on June 7th and managed to pull down 30000 visitors in its first week. However, that traffic didn’t came because of the blog. Patrick created a cool tool call the BlogStorm Tracker that received a lot of positive press and links from other blogs.

The BlogStorm Tracker allows you to track the number of websites linking to your blog posts or news articles. BlogStorm monitors your RSS feed daily and offer free statistics so you can see which of your posts are the most popular and how you can improve. Anyone is allow to add their site for free.

Patrick used the BlogStorm Tracker as his linkbait. As you can see, he achieved great results with it.

Built Traffic First, Then Make Money Online

For a blog that shows readers how to make money on the Internet, BlogStorm hasn’t done much to make any money themselves. With the exception of four ad buttons on the upper right side of the blog, BlogStorm features zero advertising. You won’t even see a Google ad. It’s pretty obvious that Patrick is trying to build traffic before monetizing the blog. A very good strategy in my opinion.

BlogStorm offers a full feed RSS. Their blog is updated two to three times per day so I highly recommend subscribing to it. You can also subscribe to BlogStorm by Email.

Now, if BlogStorm would only accept Google AdSense advertising, I can send them a “John Chow is over here!” Google ad. :twisted:

Did you enjoy this post? Get John Chow Dot Com updates via email...

Stay up to date with all of John Chow’s tips for making money online and blog posts by subscribing via email. Your email will be kept private and never shared with anyone.

Comments have been disabled for this post.
Sort: Newest | Oldest

You will be back soon, I have no doubt about it.

Haha, yeah.
Like the last line.

now, i think, you're a real evil :-)

"Now, if BlogStorm would only accept Google AdSense advertising, I can send them a “John Chow is over here!” Google ad. :twisted:"

I think i will check them out later on tomorrow

Hey, I'm #1 when my name is put into Google!!!

I did some posts on people for my blog who aren't household names, but people did search for their names and they came up on my blog. I learned this thanks to statcounter.

I don't get how the blogstorm tracker works. Can someone please explain?

You place a script on your site and when your site gets really "hot" and receives lots of traffic, you will appear on top of the Tracker page at BlogStorm.

Yes, but how does it know your site is "hot"? That's what I haven't been able to figure out. There is some hook with Yahoo, but I don't understand what yahoo adds to it.

Trust me, you WILL know when your site is hot. Do you have a way to track your traffic? Look at your Technorati authority, Alexa rank, Page Rank and Google thingy (sounds so professional doesn't it? :mrgreen: ) I think when your Technorati authority gets in the three digits, and you rating in the four digits, you're HOT!!

Nice review as usual. I am going to keep an eye on this one...

trying to steal your traffic on making money online :twisted:

Hey John, is there any issue with telling people to click on a google ad even though it's not an actual google ad? I'd hate to see you lose your $800 per month!

I dont think it should matter, as its only a image and will not be equal to creating false page impressions

Yea, it shouldn't matter because its not an actual ad and no one is getting paid for receiving clicks

Hmmm... I've been open almost 2 months and I don't even have 15000 yet. Then again, I've been dead the last two or three weeks.

I thought the Intraweb felt empty today...

Good post, checking out the site now.

I've seen that ad before this review. That's very smart move.

Yes, so have I. Actually, I think I mentioned about it in a post. I also saw another ad about "The New John Chow" or something like that.

New Blog about "How to make money online" is to much ... I want to make money online.

ME? -- I don't want and, yes I want.

I'm almost done with my study. (for mechanical engineer) and my biggest wish is to succeed in that.

AND THEN, I have 2 website. First is one of my club which you can find under my name and second one is website of my "apartment in Lopar" (guess which one)

My plan is not to live from website money but I will like to earn enough to pay hosting, marketing promotions and similar things for club and apartments.

BUT, people which are visiting my websites aren't interested in earning online so they will not help me to earn something from google or someone else.

SO, it seams, (for me), monetizing a blog or website which is not about "how to make money online" is nonsense.

ALSO, making one more website about monetizing a blog is also nonsense when we all have 100000000000... of websites on same subject.

so...

PLEASE, ANSWER ME ON THIS(or make a post), JOHN:
How to make money online with website which IS NOT about, "hot to make money online - or offline"?

Quality content. Many of the blogs I read are about things completely unrelated to making money online.

I agree, if you have quality content and are passionate about what you write, people will realize that.

If you build it they will come. I might be the only one who hears those voices in my head though.

Check out http://www.stevepavlina.com/

Steve is passionate about personal development, and shares his knowledge & experience on how to make money with a blog.

You *may* even see a John Chow advertisement here and there on that site. That's how I stumbled upon this site (no relation to StumbleUpon)

Yeah, this site is awesome. it's one of the first ones I found this year, and I used his resources for some good inspiration. He's also a very humble guy. I think if you observe the qualities and traits of the top people online, you will notice a trend or correlation, and THAT'S the key to success.

With that Google ad paired with an actual review from JC himself -- it will only brew the perfect blog storm.

Let the johnchow train rolling....

Vijay

I agree that is some great marketing and the fact that he's not monetizing the site overtly from the start definitely adds some credibility (at least for me).

Personally I would have been a touch annoyed if someone had done that to my name (at least initially)... great review.

hehe, smart idea from the google ad :twisted:

Yeah, that's one of my more favorite ones I've seen recently :)

I don't know how I feel about it...

I noticed it when it first came out, looked at it, but didn't ultimately click on it...

John, you aren't the least bit ticked off about this bright and evil marketing strategy? :shock:

Haha, looks like John has a new evil partner. If you search "BlogStorm" (which Patrick's site doesn't rank first for, that was kind of funny), you should see a nice John Chow Google ad on the right side XD.

Nice beginning, 30,000 in first week...

Waa.... 30,000 is a very pretty good beginning

It was on Techcrunch too, which I am sure helped a lot

That is very good traffic for few weeks old blog.
Can you do it with any site or you need to have always some special tool or special idea and spread it over Internet firs?

It has to be a mix of good ideas, content, marketing, and other available online tools. I mean, I haven't even heard of Patrick Altoft from the UK until last week.

Thanks for the review John.

Out of interest since I started showing the advert it has had over 3,200 impressions just from people searching for John Chow.

An interesting post we have coming up is an interview with some affiliate managers giving away some tips on making more money, being accepted to programs and not getting caught cheating.

How many hits has John gave you? :P

Wait, if you do a post/interview on how to not get caught cheating, won't that tell the people out there how to look out for your cheating ways? :mrgreen: :twisted: Unless it's some sort of super secret stealth method, then do tell! :mrgreen:

So this site seems to be popular, and I do see advertising on the site, but what does this equate to ad revenue opportunity? Thousands per month?

$12K last month... Go through his archives, John provides monthly reports on his earnings.

I meant the Blogstorm website, not John Chow's.

I'm curious to know as well.

At this very moment in google.com

JohnChow.com is still ranked number 45 for John Chow

JohnChow.net is ranked 9

.... very evil indeed

On the Other hand, what did yo do different lately John?

I see your meta description changed and you told us before you are using allin one SEO changing your titles.

Hard to get a kickback of 44 positions, yet we all know that age is important in Google, so I suggest: sit back and earn some extra money ;-)

It's a great blog. I've read every single post. One thing you didn't mention was his briliant WordPress plugin that helps generate links to your website when people try to hot-link your images.
http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/blog.php?cat=plugins

I'm going to check that out. Thanks

Sad to know that John chow is out from google ranking. So, do you still continue with your linkbait promotion?

He's only out of Google ranking for his name. As far as I know, John is still doing just fine for other key phrases like "make money online"