All Posts Tagged With: "john-chow"

There’s a question I’ve wondered about for some time now, whether or not all those people that pony up hundreds of dollars to experience the John Chow Effect really get something worthwhile out of it. Let’s face it, you can save yourself a bundle of cash by landing yourself on the frontpage of Digg or having something that people love to Stumble but more often than not all of that is worthless outside of driving up your traffic stats. However, just like beauty, worth is in the eye of the beholder, so the question is, is it worth spending $400 to have your site or product reviewed by John Chow?

If your Alvin Phang the answer is a resounding NO. Alvin has put together a free 16 page report on his experience with the “John Chow Effect“. While the report itself does tend to cast John in a dim light because overall it states Alvin got $0.00 return on his $400 investment it’s not necessarily intended to convey that message (but it makes for a great headline).

I’m not an ebook kind of person, especially ones that are grammatically challenging to read, but I’m really interested in seeing some results from someone who’s bought one of the many reviews John has done. While Alvin’s approach is from an advertisers point of view and the ebook is full of screen shots there are still a number of lessons we can take from it. For example, Alvin requested a review of his Atomic Blogging product, in his ebook he states “The review was written very well but as an advertiser’s point of view the review did not deliver what as I was expecting from John”.

That’s a great point because whether you buy a $10 review or a $400 review there is some expectation on the part of the person buying the review. However, the first question that comes to mind is, what (if any) conditions/requirements were given when the review was submitted? It would be important to convey your expectations to the reviewer, even if your sending them a product to review, don’t assume they know what your looking for.

Something else Alvin points out that I think is important, especially if you pushing a product, is that the product and even a site needs to be of interest to the reviewer. Alvin argued that John didn’t really recommend his product throughout the review, but he also admitted that he felt it wasn’t something that really grabbed John’s attention. This is so important, the whole purpose of spending this money is to get loyal readers or sale conversions. If the reviewer doesn’t find the lvel of interest your require then your probably not going to get what your looking for, whereas, knowing your expectations up front could influence their review just enough spawn you some sales. If you just want a million hits in your stats meter to say you got lots of traffic then send me $200 and I’ll hook you up, just don’t complain when they don’t provide you any benefit.

Bottom line. Whether it’s John Chow or anyone else, if your looking to get a review done you need to seriously consider what your asking of the reviewer. If you simply toss them some cash and ask that they “just review my whatever” then don’t have very high expectations that your investment will gain you readers or sales. However, if you have a goal in mind, then explain that to the reviewer, tell them what your intent is: whether it’s to generate sales of an ebook or critique it’s content. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time and will most likely make your investment much more beneficial.

Thanks to Andy Beard for turning me on to Alvin’s ebook. I’d really like to see more of this kind of stuff reported from people that have bought reviews, not necessarily from John. I’ve said before I’m actually surprised John doesn’t solicit this feedback to bolster his already bulging ReviewMe wallet.

If you’ve bought a review and have results to show how it did, drop a link in the comments to let us know.

In an effort to grab a little bit of traffic a guy over at IMakeMoneyOnline.tv created this video, titled “What Would John Chow Do?“. Interesting link baiting concept but the video is pretty corny if you ask me, which is probably a good thing, if it wasn’t so original I wouldn’t be saying anything about it. So what would John Chow do after someone created a video like this? Why he’d blog about it of course. It must be nice being the object of everyones affection. Anyway, check out the video, what do you think? Great link bait or waste of time?

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Do you recognize this website? Sure you do. Who doesn’t? When it comes to making money online, John Chow is one of the guys everybody wants to be like. Sort of like the star quarterback who’s got the really hot girlfriend, everybody wants to be like him and in John’s case they want the website too. The dream to make money online is no easy task, but John makes it look effortless which is one of the reasons people flock to his website looking for that one piece of advice that will make their own sites prosper.

I’m no exception, having recently started following his lead and targeting the key phrase Make Money Online, not so much because I want to be like him, so much as I want to be like him. Actually, the key phrase is popular and if your going to talk about making money online, then you could do a lot worse than using John’s advice.

There’s a huge difference in what John offers and the run of the mill blog talking about how to be the next millionaire. John makes no bones about the programs he uses or the fact that he’s using his knowledge to make a dollar at our expense. His blog is like fly paper and it’s the ultimate in link bait. Having recently acquired a page rank of 6 it’s become one hot commodity, commanding $200 plus per month for a featured link and $400 for a ReviewMe review. That’s some awesome revenue generating potential and somewhat out of reach of the typical blogger or site owner. But never fear, John recognizes that the biggest value in his blog is it’s word of mouth power and there’s no better way to get your name mentioned than to have it continously dropped in post after post around the internet. One of the most facinating examples of this is the reason I’m writing this post.

A couple of months ago John put forth this experiment, called Review My Blog. In this experiment he asked that other sites review his blog and link back to the original post, in exchange for the review he would link back to them. This quickly exploded as site after site immediately snapped at the chance of getting a link from his site. It also spawned a multitude of similar offereings on other sites as well and has now become a hot link baiting strategy. It didn’t stop there though, recognizing he’d hit on something, John changed the program and asked that he be linked using the key phrase “make money online“. After only a couple of weeks this paid off and he’s now sitting pretty at #2 in Google for that search. Gotta like that and he does, yet he doesn’t come across as vain or even bragging about his success, which is something I find appealing. If your going to talk about making money online then there is a perception that has to be set and maintained otherwise people have no incentive to take you seriously. Something John’s taught me is that there is tremendous value in sharing what you know and it’s something I hope I can be a fraction as successful with.

But it’s not all about making money online at John Chow dot com, there’s exotic places, fast cars and fancy food, but I haven’t found any hot women yet. Still, if Asian quisine is your thing, his Fine Dining reviews are tops and he’s got an eye for the super hot sportscar. Check out the new Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR Roadster, one of which I walked by while playing golf with Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan the other day and failed to take any pictures of.. Lesson number one, when in the presence of a super hot car, take the pictures. Unlike the super hot lady close by, it won’t slap you back or send her really big football player of a boyfriend over to smash your camera or worse. John also touches on things of a technology nature and nicely diverts us from our obsession with some more personal type posts.

If there was one thing I could recommend, it would be an analysis based on feedback of the ReviewMe reviews he’s done. I’m a stats kind of person. I believe in stats and it’s one thing to look at his site and just know that $400 will bring in a hoard of traffic, but it’s another to actually be able to see that. I am disappointed that more sites that have benefited from his reviews haven’t put up more statistical data showing their results. I don’t know if it’s something he’d be able to work with some on to get or maybe it’s something those sites need to be doing. Maybe I’m lax and not keeping up with them like I should but it sure would be great to see some of that data.

Other than that, there’s not much else I can imagine he needs to do, yet I know that the next slick idea will probably come from him and that’s why if your really serious about making money online, John Chow dot com is one site that must be on your daily read list.

This is a sponsored review. If you’d like to order a review, you may do so here.

Don’t forget I have a similar offering for a link back as well, check it out here.