There Is No Secret Formula
written by John Chow
Every once in a while I’ll come across a comment or an email asking me to stop writing about my personal ramblings and stick to making money online posts because that’s what I’m good at and that is what the readers want to learn. They want me to reveal to them the secret formula that will unleash all the Internet riches. They don’t want to know what I had for lunch or dinner.
There Is No Secret Formula
There are people who will go around reading every blog on making money online and buy any ebook on the same topic in the hopes of finding that secret formula that will make them rich. I hate to break it to them but there is no secret formula.
Take a look at the diet industry. People spend billions on diet programs, books, videos, etc. hoping to find that secret formula to help them lose weight and keep it off. The formula is no secret and can be summed up in four words: Eat less, workout more. Pretty simple, isn’t it? How many books and programs do you have to buy before you figure out all they’re telling you to do is to eat less and workout more?
Making money online can summed up in four words as well: Get traffic, optimize ads. There. I’ve just given you the secret formula to getting rich on the internet. Every single post that I make about making money online either deals with getting traffic or optimizing ads. If you can build traffic and optimize your ads for maximum revenue, you’re on your way to becoming rich.
Everything I do on this blog helps to either build traffic or optimize the ads. And that is why you will see posts about what I had for lunch. It builds traffic. 
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Huh? I think the opposite about yoru content. I orignally subscribed to your posts because of the more personal posts which were more interesting to read at the time, considering some of them were about Vancouver (where I live too). I found you blog when you wrote the article about the new street toilets in Victoria.
So I say, blog less about money and more personal ramblings!
John and you Karol, hit the nail. It is all about traffic and optimizing ads (or rather, preselling them in a post). From what I have read most on John’s blog, most of his revenue came from affiliates, which makes me think he was good at pre-selling them and hence received/s a good revenue from them.
Maybe we should ask you about the “formula” to get most of the traffic, which of your techniques worked for you when you first started blogging. That what we need to maybe know from the
John.
Personal ramblings may caught those readers like Karol, and some other type of posts may get the attention to other readers, which makes a good community from a blog (my opinion). Another thing we might want to read from John is, how to build credibility with his readers and have returning visitors (the quality of the posts….)
This post was only meant to provoke those pro Chow or those who hate him. The more you love or hate him the more he’s sure you’ll be back tomorrow. Mind share is a beautiful thing.
Howard Stern back in the day used this formula to get some serious attention. It works.
damn, well said. howard stern was at one point the king of controversy.
Well, we start with tip one LoL
your right - and plus people do not want to try and test themselves or reesearch themeselves etc. they think they can get th emoney overnight and bam they have a great blog with tons of traffic, I think I come to this blog to just see what the chow is going up to not really to learn, there are some small tactics that are on here that are worth reading like this one - because it is personal and shows that people needs to stop crying and doing something for themselves
Personally I think he should blog about what he wants. Rather than blog about money more, personal ramblings less, or personal ramblings more, money less, just write what he wants to, it’s his blog. A good mix of the two is probably best as there are people like you who wants one and people like those that email John that wants the other.
I am always surprised at why people think John should write about one thing more than the other. While it’s true you should be good to your readers, they came here in the and possibly subscribe because they like what he writes. He’s always had both, and they still came and read. Not like they’ll all stop reading because he continues to write the way he always does. People just need to quit complaining.
But there are secret formulas to building traffic and that is what everyone wants to know about!!
its knowing folks and getting juicy things to get peeps to wanna be down with ya.
there is no secret formula to anything in this world…it is all there in the open… but we always ignore it and try to find out non-existing secrets…
And that’s why people who try to sell secret formula’s usually end up keeping it a secret, because they’ll reveal the real, real secret in book 2, download 2 or website membership #2…
It’s elusive for one of two reasons: it’s difficult to catch or it’s not there. Most of the time, it’s the latter reason.
Kenneth
I thought Google’s algorithm formula was top secret…
Less about money and more about ramblings ahahaha it is funny to see that people are to lazy and still waiting for this magic formula
I have my own secret formula too : work hard , be smart , learn from your mistakes and good shot and move on to the next step
secret formula 2 : read less act more
secret formula 3 : like nike said just do it !!!!
another secret formula ahahahah buy the secret book
“secret formula 2 : read less act more”
Totally agree! Just think about all the posts you could have written or promoted your blog in the time you read through all the different make money online blogs.
While I agree with what you’re saying, I disagree with Karol.
I think that the more you blog about making money, the more people will be interested in your posts. No offense but personally I just dont read any posts about your dinners or lunches out. Some people are different of course, but I would like to think that sticking to the subject would attract more traffic. Thats not to say that some off-topic stuff mixed in doesn’t help set the mood and make things a little more interesting
Brian
That’s the thing brian, this blog started as a personal blog and is many ways still is. John has tried to convey that message over and over again and people don’t seem to understand that his blog isn’t just about making money. While he does post a great deal about it, and this is one big case study, from beginning to end, it was still always a personal blog with all the personal posts in it.
By saying he should stay on topic (meaning you want him to blog about money and building traffic), you misunderstood his blog for a straight money making blog. Is it one if his main topics, sure why not. Is it his main topic period, no. Personally his personal ramblings is on topic (not off-topic), they’re just not on topic in your opinion.
You mentioned before that people ask you for more posts about making money online, and less “off topic” posts. I find it wild that people would say that. To me that is like being invited into someones house, and telling them to rearrange their furniture.
Do people have no manners? Have they not noticed that they don’t have to read posts they don’t like as much?
Oh, I know, as part of your evil plans for world domination, your RSS feed goes directly to their visual cortex, so they have no choice but to read every word you have written. Good thinking!
yeah john chow, yet showing your lunch, it’s making me hungery!!!
it actually appalls me since i am on a diet and its SO MUCH FOOD.
hay isreal what happened long time no post what were you up to
been lurking, and working on my blog.
Hey, I just wrote the post above, and when I wrote RSS, you somehow automatically made it a link to your feedburner feed. How did you do that? Does it happen every time. There must be some cool plug in. Would you tell me which?
RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS RSS
I believe he is using the WP Affiliate Pro plugin to do this. You can read more about it in this post:
http://www.johnchow.com/how-i-gain-4691-rss-reader-in-1-month/
he is using a plugin that searches for words and turns them into links - I know he bought it from DDC but the free one that I use is alinks
he has a plugin that does that. i use link a dink for free. but anyway. john i agree, just write, and write about different things. i didnt understand that until i wrote about football one day on my weight loss blog, and for the next few days i got a large % of traffic to that post about sports. the keywords people use are astonishing. be diverse.
This is also the most difficult part of blogging successfully. Being creative and writing on diverse subjects using keywords that will drive traffic to your blog is complicated. You need a lot of luck too!
Makes sense to me. Of course, you have to eat good-looking food, otherwise we won’t care.
Honestly I think you should just ignore those e-mails. I can’t stand the people on here who whine about not liking what you write about. If they don’t like it, they don’t have to read it.
For some reason, the least successful in society feel the need to criticize those who become successful. I’d be willing to bed not one of the people that complained to you earns more than $20,000 per month blogging and probably never will.
Keep doing what you’re doing John!
I couldn’t agree more. I often get depressed because although my blog generates a good deal of income, i always feel like others know more than me when it comes to marketing their blogs, seo, using social media, and stuff.
My new strategy is that when i start feeling overwhelmed, instead of reading something in hopes of learning more… I login to my blog and write a really good post. its all we can really do that is totally in our control.
yes when i get overwhelmed that i dont know as much about seo, social networking, and stuff, instead of jumping online and reading blogs like this i log in my blog and try to write the best post i can.
i do alright but of course want to do better but ive come to the same conclusion you have… their is no magic formula.
So very true. The big step is to just get out there and do it. If you’re spending all of your time reading about making money, how are you going to have any time to make any yourself. You HAVE to start somewhere. The sooner you start, the sooner you can start learning for yourself rather than trying to learn from someone else’s success. Each person isn’t the same. There are different circumstances that surrounds everyone and even though some things are consistent, I think your success online depends on your set of circumstances. The biggest one though, again, is to simply stop reading and start publishing. Anyway, that’s my .02.
Absolutely. I used to spend so much time reading I couldn’t see straight. It’s all about action, action, action. It doesn’t matter if you’re blogging or marketing a business opp. You need to take action, optimize your marketing and drive traffic every day. By the way, I also enjoy the random thoughts posts.
J
[...] read the most recent post by John Chow, the guy who made 23,448.59 last month in blog income. In There Is No Secret Formula, John says: Making money online can summed up in four words as well: Get traffic, optimize ads. [...]
Don’t listen to them! I enjoy your personal ramblings.
As for the weight loss thing, it’s simple: create a caloric deficit and you can lose weight. Like with shares and stocks: buy low, sell high. Alas if only it were that simple!
’tis true!
Indeed.
John, just for experiment, publish an empty post one day with nothing but “I’m not going to say anything in this post.” You’ll still get 50+ comments, at least.
John Chow is addictive. Many people are addicted to Mr Chow.
This is a great post
Maybe you should emphasize the traffic part more. Everything is about traffic. Once you have traffic, everything is easy 
People can optimize their $20 monthly adsense spot all they want but it will take those people 25 months to make the same amount John makes on one 125×125 button per month.
It’s called human nature. If you read up on copywriting, you would realize that many will tap on greed/laziness to sell their ebooks/products.
so much fighting and bs and spam on this website. and i think this guy is a fake.
John, thank you for that great tip, you have put the nail in the right place. I am trying to advertise in has many places has I can, I do not know too much about optimizing ads, but I did select that option in my feedburners account. But it will be nice if you could put out a post talking more about that topic. Kudus to you.
So what did you eat today?
Not sure if anyone cares, but I wanted to ask…does this kind of website work? The ones where you buy advertising? Pixel Buck seems to think so.
very well said. build traffic. optimize ads. been doing it for quite some time. yeah, it really works!
As long as you keep writing what you write about, I’ll keep reading.
[...] Build traffic, optimize ads. That’s the formula for success as stated by John Chow. [...]
Making money online can summed up in four words as well: Get traffic, optimize ads
Thanks for letting us in on your secret john.
There is no secret formula but hard work pays off in the end. That is how I look at it.
I just started my new blog, and I wouldn’t attempt to try and tell someone who has been as successful as you about what they should and shouldn’t write about. Seems kind of presumptuous to me.
interesting to read the post and then see the ad next to the post. John, you’re saying that there is no secret but the ad inside of your post suggests that there is a secret way to make $237,000. How a beach bum did it and learn his reverse funnel system blah blah blah. just thought that was funny. nobody else caught that?
It’s always very contridicating here.