If You Build It They Won’t Come

This is an amazing post. As a blog newbie I am on a huge learning curve. However, if I can learn to do things right from the very beginning then it can only do good in the long run. Thanks John!!

you are wright blog without traffic is nothing even if it has good content :mrgreen:

Great idea linking to older posts - I'm a fairly new reader, and hadn't gone too far through your archives - it's good to find similar articles without having to hunt!

It's pretty clear that John's sense of humor and personality have a great deal to do with his success blogging. Like anywhere else, who you are is probably the biggest factor to winning in any business.

It's cool how John has made his business successful by being himself and being open to share value along the way. That's the key. I don' tsee a lot of that discussed but I think it's the #1 reason John's so successful--he is offering value and he is really open to sharing.

That will always draw a crowd.
Mike Klingler

Well said and I totally agree about the 10 / 90 split. That's why I'm working on marketing my own blog a lot more than I have been.

Great post (as usual) John. This is a great group of articles. They are great resource for beginners as well as an excellent refresher or wake up for experienced webmasters.

That is a great tip! Thanks John!

Really an eyeopener. Excellent. I am getting addicted to John Chow Dot Com nowadays that even before getting on to dailies, I get on here!

I don't ever expect to get rich on my blog. But I do have a good organic PR of 3 without doing anything but blogging. But this week I decided to have a little contest to raise money for a charity walk I'm in. Only one friend (a real life friend!) has participated. Its depressing.

The 10% blogging and 90% marketing is golden rule for any web site, I fully agree with what you said. Most people keep forgetting about it.

John the marketing wiz :P
I must try some of these on my own blog. Link baiting sounds good.

John the marketing wiz :P
I must try some of this on my own blog. Link baiting sounds good.

Totally agree with "without traffic, a site makes nothing."

I think this line pretty much sums it up:

"There are tons of small blogs that can write better content than me."

That's pretty much the key. I slam on John's poor grammar and spelling, but if you can get past that, you find some useful information that has been marketed masterfully. Why else would a video post of him poking a live lobster create so much buzz? Countless other blogs do nearly the same thing, but they know jack-squat about marketing.

I guess the same can almost be said about my blog. I'm a writer. I can even be a copywriter. But I'm not a marketer or a coder.

Oh wow, I didn't know it's 90% marketing but good to know that is how you did it. :grin: :idea:

Like any business attracting customers (traffics) is the hard part!

Great Lesson Plan for the day..this should keep me busy for a while. I'm on it!

:idea:

:smile:

I always wonder if the little guy can really get up there in traffic and earnings. It seems to me that these big earners, the ones with lots of traffic, are salesmen who already had their networks of associates, friends, and partners setup beforehand, as part of their regular jobs (or their previous jobs) offline. As salesmen, they spent years making contacts as part of their work, whether selling toys or local microbrewed beer. When they set their eyes on Google, etc., and blogging, they were ready. Fortune favours the prepared man.

completely true, just hold on... johnchow.com didnt become a popular blog right away either or thetechcenter... my blog took three months before i started getting 100 viewers per day.. keepworking hard

One of the best posts ever!

Another way to obtain links to your blog is to submit your best blog entries to blog carnivals, on http://blogcarnival.com/bc/

There are many blog carnivals, each specializing in a subject area. The carnivals are updated weekly or monthly and are often rotated among alternative hosts.

You can even chose to start your own blog carnival, another way to get 10s or even 100s of links to your blog.

Great post!

That's definitely true. I've always been guilty of spending too many times tweaking the looks and layout of my blog after I've posted new content instead of channeling my efforts and time to market my blog.

It's a habit I must definitely change. :lol:

Even in the field of dreams he had an SEO(James Earl Jones), link baite(graham)and a monetization expert(the daughter)

What? Order business cards? Just get some cardstock, a printer, and photoshop. http://www.webmaster-source.com/2007/06/03/create-...

I'm nitpicking here...but the film was "Field of Dreams". You forgot the "s" at the end John. Traffic and quality content aren't the only things that matter...so does spelling :)

that's what i always advise my fellow blogging friends: if want to build blogs, go to probloggers and friends; if you want to make money, ask John Chow dot Com!

Not entirely true, If you are adding new content every single day the promotion should occure by itself.

This blog has over 100 new posts a month. Thats one hundred different websites that Google will index and send traffic to.

Now if a blogger is just writing every single day with quality content, chances are google will pick you up in the serps and start sending traffic.

While your ideas are all good, you would still need to build it. There is no point in getting dugg, and than not updating for 5 days.

Or for that matter getting a reviewme review from JohnChow when you only have 5 posts.

This post should be more geared towards branding which is what your great at JOHN!

Why do you not appear in Google for the term 'John Chow'? Seems very strange to me? have you fallen out with the Big G?

Well said John! Traffic is definitely key to marketing, but like you said what you do with it is important! Cheers Mate

Good post John. Not sure if if the 19/90 split is correct but a lot of bloggers definately dont make it because they dont know how to market their site. I also believe a good design can make a big difference