Make Money Online – May 2007
This quest to make money online with a blog has been an amazing journey. What started off as a personal home page has turn into a five figure per month operation. I never intended the blog to ever make money. However, because one of the subjects I blog about is how to make money by blogging, I monetized John Chow dot Com as part of a case study to show what can be done if one pulls out off the stops.
Monetized back in September of 2006, the blog made just $352.94 using nothing but Google ads. In October, the blog income went to $1,361.64 because I added more revenue sources. The blog income continued to grow: $2,139.93 in November, $2,790.05 in December, $3,440.66 in January, $7,011.05 February and $8,545.25 march and a record $11,702.66 last month.
After eight months of non stop growth, I am happy to report that the blog has finally experienced its first decline in advertising income.
Total Blog Income For May 2007: $10,559.40
Why am I’m glad for the income drop? It’s simple. When you keep showing month after month of non stop growth, people have trouble relating to you (they think you’re Google, or something like that). Now, everyone can see that I’m just human. Here is the income break down.
- Affiliate Sales: $2,485.74
- ReviewMe: $2,000
- Direct Ad Sales: $1,650.00
- Text Link Ads: $1,521.07
- Google AdSense: $1,246.50
- Kontera: $1,000.00
- FeedBurner: $300.53
- Buy Me A Beer: $194.65
- Subscription: $110.00
- TTZ Media: $50.90
- Grand Total: $10,559.40
Blog traffic was a record high 374,255 page views from 187,324 unique visitors. This finally beats the traffic level set back in the Digg infested month of October 2006. The blog is also experiencing record high RSS subscriptions (please subscribe if you haven’t done so).
Blog advertising expenses for the month was $522.14 for SiteMatch Google ads and $326.40 for normal Google ads. Hosting for John Chow dot Com is provided by BlueFur. The blog is hosted on a BlueFur Xlite dedicated server which cost $169.95 per month. Use coupon code JohnChowRocks for 15% off.
Looking at the revenue number, you can see most things went up but there was a huge drop in ReviewMe income – they are no longer my number one income source. I also experimented with a few other income sources in May. I added a Buy Me a Beer plugin for readers to send me beer money via PayPal. Surprisingly, it worked really well, raising almost $200 in nine days. What didn’t go over as well was the offer to remove nofollow in comments for $10 a month. Only 11 readers signed up for that. But that’s OK because you never know until you try. Making money by blogging is all about experimenting.
Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com E Book
Every time I post a monthly recap, I get a ton of email from people asking how I did it and how they can do it too. Most of these questions I have already answered in the blog. However, not many people want go through over 100 pages of blog posts to find the answers. To better serve readers wanting to make money by blogging, I have created an E book on the subject. Best of all, it cost zero dollars (and comes with a 1 million times money back guaranteed).
Download Make Money Online With John Chow dot Com
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Trackbacks
- » John Chow Free E-book Offer | Working Mother of a Toddler on Parenting, Motherhood, and WAHM Issues | Modern Mami @ TheParentBlog.com - June 1, 2007 at 1:25 pm
- Blog Potato - Blog Portal to the Blogosphere LiveWeb Web 2.0 Wiki Blog Blogger Blogs Reviews » Live Web Watch 6/1/07 - June 1, 2007 at 4:30 pm
- John Chow: $10,559.40 by Финансовы стриптиз - June 1, 2007 at 10:40 pm
- John Chow vuelve a demostrar cómo rentabilizar un blog » 86400 - June 2, 2007 at 12:33 am
- Geld verdienen met je blog - John Chow 8.000 in mei at Enthousiasmeren - June 2, 2007 at 5:29 am
- John Chow gana 10000 dólares con su blog en Mayo « Alex Seo - June 3, 2007 at 10:49 am
- John Chow buat duit $10k+ dari blog pada bulan Mei Lepas | Belajar Cara Membuat Blog Wordpress | Buat Duit Dengan Blog - June 3, 2007 at 10:37 pm
- Blog Review: JohnChow.com - June 4, 2007 at 11:59 am
- El libro de John Chow » Blog Daddy - June 4, 2007 at 7:15 pm
- Build Your Blog Traffic Using Excel & Data Mining | Neural Market Trends - June 5, 2007 at 3:07 am
- ChickTech.net » John Chow’s Free E-Book - June 5, 2007 at 7:41 am
- Links Roundup - 5th June 2007 - June 5, 2007 at 8:52 am
- NINGUNTERRA » Blog Archive » Cómo conseguir más análisis de Zync.es - June 6, 2007 at 4:47 am
- Págame un café | hombrelobo, una mente dispersa - June 7, 2007 at 3:17 am
- What I Have Learned As A Blogger « John Chow dot Com - June 11, 2007 at 9:00 am
- How Much Money Can You Make From AGLOCO? I Know! » Make Money Online at Kumiko's Cash Quest - June 13, 2007 at 8:06 am
- 24 Enlaces - Navigando en linea. » Quieres ganar dinero en linea? - June 13, 2007 at 11:04 pm
- Make Money on the Internet | shoppingNsales blog - June 14, 2007 at 3:01 am
- Финансовый стриптиз by Блог Димка - June 15, 2007 at 1:39 am
- Case Study: John Chow dot com posts dissected - June 15, 2007 at 2:02 am
- top kontera earner at Blogjer is about blogger - June 17, 2007 at 6:47 am
- PrimoFeed CPA Ad Network Review - June 20, 2007 at 5:00 pm
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Congrats on the ongoing success of this case study. The Buy Me A Beer plugin is my favorite, as it takes a fun twist on the simple donation process. I’ve only netted two beers on my blog, but hey, thats a good start!
Cheers!
John, Shawn,
Other than TTZ and this blog, do you have any plans to launch any Internet Startups of your own?
A blog of this income level is very nice but how long can this last when most of your readers gradually fade away after they found out that making this level of money blogging is rather rare? I would be real interested about what other kind of venture you have an interest on.
Congrats for your great month though.
Jimmy
I am doing other stuff but it’s offline and not online.
Fair enough. Wish you the best
John just keep at it, you’re doing great. I’m sure you have past the one million dollar mark in earnings by now.
I main source of online income comes from my computer hardware review site OCIA.net… similar to John and his tech site, The Tech Zone.
I have been running my site for six years and its going stronger than ever, so I don’t think it is necessary to look into other money making options at this point.
I think John’s just being wise, he’s diversifying his income sources! Not a bad idea!
I think making money advices are great, but when someone like john gets to be so popular, it doesn’t matter what he blogs about.
Britney Spears needed to learn how to sing, dance, and entertain people to get attention. When she became famous, it didn’t matter what she did. Everything and anything she did still got people’s attention.
Another thing, I think the reason why adsense clicks are going down is because feedburner is increasing. As more and more people are reading his articles else where, less of them are coming to the site to click on ads. Thats just my 2cents
I agree with you Andy. I think the best the thing to do to increase ad profits is to not show the full articles on the syndication. But then again you can’t be too greedy otherwise you’ll loose readers.
Jimmy,
You wrote: ” … but how long can this last when most of your readers gradually fade away after they found out that making this level of money blogging is rather rare …”
We need to be diligent students of content and creativity. That is the secret of John’s prosperous blogging.
I disagree with your scary statement about fading readers and impossible blogging income. If content brought the readers, content would sustain and increase readership.
Don’t deify John, he is (human, just as he stated above), only among the pace-setters in the blogosphere.
He is not the first to climb to that elite 5-figure blogging income. More bloggers are rising and would climb towards that level.
Go back and study his income pattern of the last nine months, you would notice pluralism and diversity, as an effective weapon for breaking the mediocrity mould, (which you feared) in blogging.
But that’s the point, John is showing us how to make some money! He never said every blog can make this much! I don’t think he even realized it could make this much himself! Personally, I think it’s the ‘how’ that’s much more interesting!
More ‘how’ John!
Personally I hate the ‘buy me a beer’ pluggin.
I think it’s really tacky.
John, I was wondering, do you think your ReviewMe income has gone down because you raised your price?
Also please could you show us a breakdown of where your traffic comes from internationally?
Thanks and best wishes,
G
Most probably from the US but I would love to know those minute details.
Check out Alexa for that info. It may not be accurate completely, but will certainly give you enough info.
Kenneth
I think most of his traffic comes from USA and Canada.
$194 for beer funds — not bad at all, John.
ya thats a great plugin and way more beer than you can drink
It’s really a nice touch! Makes it feel donating is fun! That will reward the giver as well! It’s more fun to give ’something’ than money!
I guess that your reviews are just a little TOO honest for some would-be purchasers! But that’s okay. Integrity matters more to your readers!
Thanks, Good luck in Taipei!
As an after thought, stripping out the reviewME reviews, you still did better!
I’ll be publishing my ‘less than spectacular’ results in the next few minutes! So don’t laugh guys! But I think I’m making a start!
Maybe he finally capped the number of review mes? We havent been seeing that many lately.
Yeah I remember last month there were tons. This month I can’t remember past 3 or 4.
His price for a review may be above what most websites starting out would bear. Also, he tends to give ‘real’ advice, not advertising schpeel, so some ‘advertisers’ may not like the tone he took, or what he said. Personally, I think that makes the review more valuable not less, as a critical review will help readers too.
Nice stats, John. You did better than I expected given that I haven’t seen nearly as many paid reviews this month as last. Congrats!
What happened to the TTZ Media ads? They have become your worst performing block!
The TTZ Media ads were not running last month. I had a few embedded into some blog posts, but that was it.
You should mention that in your post, don’t want to give your company a bad name!
Man, I really hate to hear about the slow down in ad revenue. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we see you in the soup lines down at the Salvation Army
Seriously though, congrats on your successful blog.
Now if we only knew why Darren blocked you…
Any reason for the drop off in ReviewMe ads?
Also – you used to have people write some of them but that doesn’t seem to occur as much anymore.
It’s summer. Advertising is generally lower.
But it was the first full month at $400/review. Maybe that hurt$$ you also.
Is the Google Adsense moslty clicks(x%) or you have CPM/referral(Firefox)?
I dont understand why advertising is lower in summer. Maybe you could please tell me or it would make a great post.
Kids are out of school, people play outside more, families goes on vacations.
Was it reviewme that put a limit of 10 paid reviews a month? Seems that could be the reason. The numbers seem to add up.
$400 – 50% = 200
200 * 10 = 2000
I broke $500 in revenue this month from blogging, I do not think it will hold steady.
This is the first time I’ve ever heard any mention of your earnings with your blog. $500 a month is still pretty damn impressive.
I generaly prefer not to talk about my earnings because I don’t blog about making money
This month a bunch of “we don’t pay until you pass $XXX” services all passed their cash thresholds.
Another $3500 and I’ll have the debts I need to pay off gone!
The real kicker is that I need to acquire a PSP for some video game reviews and I don’t want to spend $170 to buy one! Call me cheap but I don’t think a PSP is worth that much.
The reason I need one is that I am going to be getting some pre-release PSP games to review and talk about! So, I need a PSP!!!
Borrowing can help!
i think you should go and buy it on credit…write a review and retun it the next day…
Actually John does it every month. These are the feb earnings, and you can find others in ‘related posts’
HERE
It was in response to HMTK Steve’s comment. I know John blogs it each month.
Sorry. I need to read the comments properly from now
congrats man!..
Yeah $10,000 isn’t a setback by any standards.
Still John, $10k is a lot, I would be laughing if I were you! Congrats!
You can see my earnings for this month (though not solely dependent on my blog, and significantly less than you of course).
If you think 10k is a lots for John, you are forgetting something. THE TECH ZONE IS HIS MAIN SOURCE, AND AS PER SOURCES, ITS WAYYYYY MORE THAN JOHN CHOW DOT COM
Sorry, but I have no idea what you just meant or said.
I meant John Cohow dot com is probably a very small source of income if you compare it to what John is getting from his review site TTZ
Ah, yes. But still, I’m just saying $10k a month is not that bad at all for a blog.
Congrats on your success and thanks for sharing your success and even the not so great successes with your readers. You make it an enjoyable learning experience.
Thought you were going to say something like “This blog has served its purpose. I won’t be updating it anymore and instead blah blah blah.”
Glad you’ll still be around.
He’s pulled a similar stunt on April Fool’s day. And that was probably the first time JC DOT COM got 150+ comments
The tone of this post got me thinking about that, too. Thank God he didn’t go that way, right LOL.
Finally, Affilate Sales have taken over the first place from ReviewMe. Are you going to try PPP Direct?
I fooled around with PPP but all I ever see is $8 opps. All the “good” opps are looking for PR7+ and Alexa under 10K.
I bet they will be more than happy to get a review from john (unless its from SEVEN DAY SYSTEM PEOPLE
) And i meant PPP DIRECT
I don’t see John moving to PPP Direct anytime soon. He’s been doing very well with ReviewMe.
I agree with Marc; from his posts I gather that John’s pretty happy with ReviewMe. He’s probably declining review requests left and right as it is.
I think John would do well regardless..
How much traffic did you have when you first monetized your blog in September?
You can click the September link in the blog post and find out.
People think that you wil go through dozens of comments and answer every question there is. Though like me, I am too lazy to read through old posts.
I think the higher ReviewMe price affected the demand for the reviews. But still, great job! Keep it up John!
so you actually earn more than 1000 bucks with adsense just by runing this blog or what
All income figures listed are for this blog only. I do no reveal my income from other sources.
Sensible chap…
…na..you will definitly hit some new highs more…and get more traffic and stuff…BUT…check the mail i sent you last time…for the review linkback…batch 18 or something…you will see what i mean
John being YOU has been the best decision.
Too many fakers not enough shakers!
Will continue with loyal readership by the way regardless of Google or any other type of search results because you are on point (most of the time)
Stephen Welton
Keep up the good work John. I am sure the ReviewMes will go up again
Nice numbers John-do you have some kind of flat rate deal with Kontera?
I wondered too. Same 1K as April and May. Maybe, it is a Kontera coincidence.
Congrats on another 5-figure month, John!
Not a bad month, sir
can you share how to advertise with Adwords? Match Sites and Adwords ad.
Always downloaded your book and recommend other, because real issues and real answers.
John, you deserve every cent. I would assume that June will be a record month, especially for affiliate earnings, as a result of the eBook.
- Mike
Still some highly impressive figures
Someone needs to make a music video of you with the I Wanna Be Like Mike song… but with you photoshopped into all the videos.
Don’t sweat the drop. You are still crushing the online game. I had an increase in my revenues, but I need to quadruple them to compete with this site.
As far as the reviewme drop, I don’t see it as a big deal. You are getting fewer reviewme requests, which just means you don’t have to work as hard. You get more money per request and that will probably help you content to ad ratio.
it would of been nice to see a section devoted to increasing your blogs visitors in the ebook, although certain parts i skimmed through touched the subject, i think that is one of the most important topics in monetizing a blog…no visitors = no chance to make money
and this maybe be dumb question, but what exactly is the code you use (if you can give it) that puts the “save to del icio stumble it!” etc after posts?
Tips to increase traffic would be a nice series. I will make future posts about it. The digg, stumble stuff are from FeedBurner. It’s part of their feedfare.
yeah i think it would be, its always been one of my biggest struggles (and many others), and i knew it had to some something easy to find like feedburner…thanks john!
How about a mention of your e-book in the sidebar john, that will give it more exposure to your fresh readers
John for the love of god turn of the top commentator plug-in PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEAS!
Also any idea why the review me reviews fell down? I’ve seen 2-3 people ask and you avoid, are you saving it for a blog post???
You can check out my earnings as well people it was about 3k this month!
Good for you Mubin,
you have maintained a 3K income for the last 3-4 months.
keep up the works and congrats.
It may have dropped but 10 big ones is still an amazing income from just one of your websites.:)
Jeez, another incredible month, even with the drop. Well done. That buy me a beer idea did a fantastic job in just 9 days!
Yeah I was really surprised that that much money was actually ‘donated’. I thought he’d get a few beers, not $200.00+
I would like to see some posts evaluating how effective your advertising has been. I see you’ve spent over $600 on advertising. How much do you think that helps? Do you think your ROI is positive on that ad expense?
wow, that is good money although you should make more compare to april cause this month have 31 days..hehe
I’m glad to see that you are in fact human John
.
John! I’m surprised to see why your blog with such a huge traffic makes so much less money with adsense? I mean i know some blogs with less page views than your’s but still making 3-4 times income from adsense!
I think this has a lot to do with the page views coming from his loyal readership. We make him money through the affiliate stuff, not Adsense. The Google visitors are the ones who are (most likely) clicking on the Adsense stuff, and they don’t generate nearly as many pageviews as those of us making comments, contributing, reading everything, etc.
- Mike
I’m sure this is it. In fact since my blog is mostly family/friends/personal related, I have ads off for direct pageviews, the ads come on if make it in from google (other search engine).
I hacked up a plugin to do it, seems to work pretty well. I just realized I should probably post about all that stuff, since I’ve hacked up quite a few plugins like that.
I’d love to read about it. I look forward to the post. Subscribed!
- Mike
Couple of Questions:
For the buy me a beer plugin. Do you actually go out and buy a beer with it? Or do you take it to be more symbolic?
The way I see it, I’d rather buy someone for someone to enjoy (especially since you’re already rolling in the dough).
The other question being, is the revenue stated in CAD? I always assume it’s USD (being the fat headed ‘american’).
All I can say, in the immortal words of Bubbles of Trailer Park Boys, is “Holy f*)# boys, that’s a lot of cake!”
That said, you obviously have worked hard to earn all this.
If my own humble blog can be 1/100th as successful I’ll be happy.
Brilliant, just keep it real, we all will keep coming back
hey, congrats to you! I really hope i’ll earn like you one day. I’ll take you as my mentor from now on! haha!
Thanks for the ebook. It makes interesting reading and your earnings for the month are certainly something to aspire to.
Hi John.
I’ve download your “Make Money Online” ebook.
It’s very useful and helpful. Especially the wordpress plugins. I’ve just install all the recommended plugins this morning.
P.S. How to become an affiliate for TTZ Media Network?
Great job so far, John. This case study has truly become more than just a successful experiment, you should be so proud.
Hm.. I am now reading ur ebooks,,..
good idea for not sell that Ebooks coz u can promote ur blog…
I am interest on topic ENglish Is Not My First Language coz I’m not googd on written in English…
But I’ll try harder and will use ur method to improve my blog….
He he he..
Not complete read your ebook,..
Hm.. a i am now read ur ebook..
quite interesting..
I like ur topic especially topic English Is Not My First Language..I will use ur method to improve my blog skills.. ]
ADIOS…
Awesome job man.. keep up the great work.. and as always, keep us posted!
Donate money to the charity!
This great. I want to make my blog like you. I have to download your books.
thanks. Cakruk
WOW! I hope more of us reach your online income level John. I think you did a great job diversifying your income source.
It seems like TTZ does not bring a lot, or do I misiing something?
Its very difficult to see such a sharp growth in online income from $2K/month to $10K/month in 6 month. Many congrats to you and i hope you will be inspiration to many blogger
John,
What did you mean by Subscription.You have earned $110 from them.It would be helpfull for the bloggers to know that.
John,
Our blog is gaining momentum and this post is a TRUE inspiration.
Well done John. I would still be proud if I was you
Hi,
Impressive figures to pep up people new on the blog world. Well , to personally acheive the $$$ is individual’s ability though.
Your e-book make a good read so I added it in my post.
3 links to help you draw money through internet business and blogs
Cheers
Uma
http://www.heartysuprise.com/blog
Depressed? That doesn’t really cover it.
I have been striving to make my living form the internet for several years now. I don’t have a Blog (as I have never seen one as a benefit to what I already do, never mind have the time to do one). I manage to scrape a living form my main web site and a couple of subsidiaries, in fact I have been plodding along thinking I am getting there and that in two or three years time I will be generating a modest income which will allow me to stop worrying where the next payment is coming from.
As part of my efforts to increase my income I have been featuring Kontera in-text advertising on my site but, instead of growing, my income has declined to a mere £50 ($100) a month since Autumn of last year. Going in search of an alternative I came across your Blog. Truly amazing but I couldn’t believe your earnings from Kontera compared to mine so I read all about what you have been doing. That’s when I got really depressed!
My web site is now seven years old and averages around 300,000 page views per month but I don’t earn a quarter of what you are now earning after only nine months.
I take my hat off to you and have now decided to redouble my efforts. As a first step I have downloaded your free eBook to see what pearls of wisdom I can apply to my own site.
If it works out I will be back to buy you a beer.
my adsense is about $100 per month,
when can i earn the same ($10000)with you.
http://nashikcity.blogspot.com/
WOOOOOOW WHATS Thata alot of money in a months
The amazing ability to make $11,000 in one month from a blog, only John Chow