John Chow Makes More Money With A New Theme
August 23, 2007
It’s pretty big news about right now; John Chow’s got a new design (created by Nate Whitehill). If you haven’t seen it yet, take a peek at the preview below:
I really like the new theme. To be honest, the old one was bland and I often wondered how someone with so much money couldn’t come up with something better. But now the blog has a more professional feel. It is sharp, bright, and still very well organized - and all of that without being too flashy. Nate definitely did a good job, and he was smart to offer the design for free. Not only does he get a lot of exposure for it, but a link at the bottom of the site that appears on every single page!
Oh yes, I believe I’m supposed to mention how John is making money with his new theme. Well, if you haven’t noticed, it does contain a lot more advertising. The eight sponsor buttons on the sidebar are all new and came with the new design. Each one of them cost $500 per month, according to Mr. Chow - now that’s a lot of money!
John believes in not selling himself short, that he should make close to the highest amount of money with his site that he can. But let’s face it: he’s already making a fortune online. And while John won’t gain anymore money from it, I believe he should cut the sponsored ad buttons in half, to four instead of eight. He won’t get the extra cash, but he’ll be doing something for his readers, and isn’t that enough of a reason? Many people are complaining on the overdose of advertising, and I agree. It could definitely be reduced.
But all in all, I really love the design. I’m very impressed by it and actually quite a bit jealous. Some good new features are the popular articles and subscribe sections at the top, and it’s things like that that I hope to get in a future layout for this blog. John’s theme is professional and stunning, but would be twice as better without all those ads. Great job on it, Nate!
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7 Responses to “John Chow Makes More Money With A New Theme”
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Begging to differ, ol’ sport, but that’s not a design: that’s a conglomeration, a collage, a set of billboards, a bunch of ugly junk that one must look in order to scan Mr. Chow’s Pearls of Wisdom… where’s the Text Only button?
That’s too many ads, as for me. If you focus on content which is supposed to be the primary value of the website, you’ll see it’s taking less than a quarter of the screen… But I guess that’s the only way to go for someone who relies on blogging income in their life.
I agree, the advertising could be reduced. Besides, even though John Chow makes his entire income from blogging, he’s still making plenty for a comfortable living (far much more than my family). And even though he’ll be making even more from decreasing the content and increasing the ads, I do think he should consider his readers sometimes.
Actually, John doesn’t make his entire income from blogging. He owns The Tech Zone (thetechzone.com), which is how he was able to get such a large audience of blog readers in the first place. He didn’t start at zero like the rest of us. He had thousands of contacts to work with when he first started his blog. That’s how he was able to launch it and get so much traffic to get things rolling. When you have deep pockets and that many online contacts it’s a cinch to make that much money with a blog. In reality, he should be making many times more than he does.
I see.
So technically, he has even MORE money than I thought he did. Wow. He’s a great blogger and I’m sure all of his readers would appreciate it if he toned down on the advertising a bit. But enough said on that, because it’s not going to happen.
However, if I was making as much online as he is, my top priority wouldn’t be to make even more. I’d probably work very hard on making my blog better, buying advertising, etc.
Hi Tay. Yes, I agree about the ads. With the amount of traffic he has he should easily be making triple what he does…and he should be able to do it with even less ads. He’s not the monetizing “genious” that people think he is. In fact, I’ve crunched the numbers, and many people (if they had the same amount of traffic) would make more on their blog than he does.
The key is to focus on residual commissions and affiliate programs with two or more levels. For example, if I had that kind of traffic my estimated blog revenue would be somewhere around $40,000/mo. And that’s a conservative figure.
But I’ll give him one thing. He is real good at getting more traffic and getting a buzz going about his blog. Then again, and like I said, when you have so much to start with it’s not that easy. Remember, he had enough money to run his own AdWords ads specifically on Problogger’s site, which got his thousands and thousands of visitors. Most people don’t have enough money in their savings to run ad campaigns like that. But he does. It’s like wanting to start a soda company when you’re already Coca-Cola. It’s not too hard.
Shine on,
Aaron
PS: I’ve been enjoying your blog lately. Good content. :)
If that’s so, I’m surprised he doesn’t try to focus on making more money with less advertising - because lately, he’s introduced even more ads. All of his readers would be much more happy if his blog’s design and was cleaner and more ad-free.
I do agree with you, he is good at getting traffic. And I also like the example you used - “It’s like wanting to start a soda company when you’re already Coca-Cola”. Very helpful.
Thank you! :)