I was able to get an interview with the famous John Chow. A person whose website I visit myself daily! I was just recently able to get into the top commentators list, so I was excited :) His website has been a big help and inspiration and I love his “evil” tips. Everything italicized are my comments! John Chow Dot Com

Name: John Chow

Age: 41

Where is your website hosted? It’s collocated at NetNation in downtown Vancouver.
What blogging program do you use? Worpdress.

How long have you been blogging? A little over 1 year.

What inspired you to blog? I wanted to write about other topics that
interest, and I couldn’t do it on my TTZ site.

Since you’ve been blogging how many websites have you owned? I added no new
sites since the blog. I own about a dozen sites and three dozen domains all together

What ad programs do you use on your site? Google AdSense, Kontera Inline ads, ReveiwMe,Text Link Ads
TTZ Media ads, Private sales and affiliate programs.

For the readers who are curious about what they could make monthly, how much income do you generate from your blog monthly? $8,000

What programs have you used, and who have you ditched? I replaced Vibrant Media with Kontera because they offer me a better deal. I’ve reduced Google down to one ad per page to increase their eCPM. The other two spots have been filled with private advertisers. I had auction ads running for 4 days before replacing them with TTZ Media.

What steps did you take to increase your page rank, Alexa and Technorati
stats? Being a webmaster resource site helps because they are rank high by default. The Technorati ranking was increased by my review my blog promotion. For those who don’t know, anyone who reviews John’s website gets a linkback on his post, he’s up to 60 batches of them!

What kind of feedback do you receive from your readers?Mostly positive. Many asking for advice. Almost as many asking for a plug, A few begging for me to give them money. Who wouldn’t want to see if you’re willing to donate to them making 8,000 a month off a blog!

Have you used guest bloggers? Yes I do. They’ve been great at helping maintain the content level. The best thing about his guest bloggers, they keep the same style content and writing structure as John so they website will continue to flow well

What tips for promotion do you have? A good promotion will generate a lot of
buzz and be viral. Think along that line.

What do you say to bloggers who wish to go pro? Do you recommend it? Do it because you love it. The money will come later. Even through my blog makes more than most people’s full time income, I don’t consider myself pro since I still do it part time.

At the end of the day when you look at what you’ve created what do you think? “I guess people do want to hear what I have to say.”

It what ways has your website effected your life? It has allowed me to meet many new friends and form new relationships. That has been the best reward.

John has been a huge success without even having to hunt down direct advertisers, they come to him! I know that is a goal for a lot of us! He has an amazing website and everyone should take a gander at it some time or another he offers a lot of great tips!

I have been in the process of building a store for many years. I’ve gone through ideas of what I want to sell or what I want from a store and my Fiance is trying to build an online skate shop. I was doing a lot of research for this for him and figuring out the best programs and one of those programs I wanted to let you guys know about was Ashop shopping cart software

It is an Australian based shopping cart program which lets you create your shopping cart through their servers

Which means all you have to do is pay one place, instead of purchasing a shopping cart, finding a webhost making sure the shopping cart is compatible and then installing it. This makes the process a lot simpler.

Their smallest plan is $69 a month they offer a 10 day free trial you can store up to 500 items in your store. Its a 50mb a month of space and 5gb of bandwidth.
Which some people think thats only a little? But if its a new store you don’t really need much more space than that.

But some people like to sell their own goods off their blog as a way to monetize and this is a great way to do it, sell your own mugs, t-shirts etc. Or if you’re a DIY’r like other people I know it makes it a lot easier and really professional look!

Ashop shopping cart software check it out!

Do you wanna Advertise on blogs? Then goto Smorty Or do you want to blog for money?

If you are one of the many people who do pay per posting, there is a new service out. It is called Smorty.

You need the blog for 3 months, you get paid weekly. The campaigns aren’t as high as of yet like other services but the fact that you get paid weekly instead of 30 days from the post is amazing. However, like the other places your posts amount paid depends on your PR , previous posts etc. You can make up to $100 per post. I like my money instantly. I hate having to wait 30 days for a 3 dollar post :| But for bloggers looking to monetize their blog. Smorty is a great opportunity. You don’t have to do all the hassle like with other programs. What they have to write about is a little better and more free flowing.

And for advertisers its a really great service too! It’s a new service so its a little cheaper to advertise, but its a really good new service. The set up is simple and convenient and bloggers can write about you and link back to you. So not only are you getting advertisement for cheap but it increases or PR and Technorati if you keep track of that for your business.

Smorty blog for money!

I was just reading about this new magazine on dmiracle.com and I had to check it out after downloading the digital version which you can read free or pay $79 dollars like I will for the print subscription, since I want to help them the best I can. It’s a great magazine.

I sent in my feedback stating I want to know more about the unknowns then about Darren Rowse or Shoemoney, even though I am fans of both I am sorry if this offends but I want to find someone new whose doing good or trying. Michael Arlington although he is great he wouldn’t have techcrunch to where it is without his connections and I want to know about the people who are doing it without any connections and I’m sure a lot more people would like to know about that since there are a lot of us who are trying to break into a niche we are passionate about and have zero connections.

So hopefully that will make a dent in their heads for their readership. I am very excited, I’m going to attempt to get their podcast so I can listen to it in my car but I think I’ll start doing that in the morning downloading podcasts from Shoemoney and others who are great on giving tips and listening to that on the way to work. I think starting my day out with inspirational tips and marketing might perk up my day. However I don’t know how easy it will be for me to give up WBLI that I listen to every morning..