Once you become successful, you can get away with anything. Namely, rubbish posts and awful blog designs. I will make a short review of three blogs that belong to three very successful individuals:
1. John Chow: Eating, fast cars and… money.
- Earns: More than $27,000 a month with his blog alone!
- Topics covered: How to make money online, what and where he ate, stupid youtubish videos.
And people still dig his blog! What’s the secret? Every month, he makes a post about how much money he earned the previous month, through various kinds of advertising. And that is always interesting.
Design highlights:
- You can’t see the content of the blog because of the sheer number of ads.
- His favicon features half of his face.
- Dollar bills are next to the website logo.
- And there is a big image of a fast and expensive car. I am going to be really disappointed if Johnnie isn’t the one behind the wheel.
On a sideline note, who wouldn’t want to rake in so much cash each month for such a design and content?
2. Joel Comm: Contextual ads rule.
- Earns: 5-figure checks each month with AdSense alone.
- Topics covered: PPC earnings, his life (anything and everything, from worrying about Disney to political rants).
Joel Comm, aka Dr. AdSense, got rich by writing the New York Times bestseller, The AdSense Code. He advises people to blend in their ads as much as possible, to obtain a higher click-through rate. Well, he is a man of his words. Just look at his website.
Design highlights:
- I just love that parked domain look.
- Sits next to a my-initials-retro-style logo and points to it.
- AdSense and Kontera ads all over the place. Spammy websites rule.
Hats off: Joel earns a lot and is honest and open about his worldviews, which is rare.
3. Steve Pavlina: Content is king.
- Earns: Apparently, thousands and thousands of dollars.
- Topics covered: Self-improvement exclusively.
Steve Pavlina used to program games. And he has turned to self-development exclusively. I must say that I have no remarks regarding the content of his blog at all. The guy is completely focused.
Design highlights:
- Blogger-like template look. Zero distinction. Who can remember this?
- Looks really cheap, especially considering the big AdSense units slapped at the beginning of each post.
- No logo, no images, no nothing. Just a blue gradient and a sick green in the background. Can’t get more bland and boring than that.
What he managed to pull off:
- Steve managed to get into Wikipedia.
- Steve got quoted by the Guardian.
- Steve’s Alexa rank is hovering around 8,000: more than the likes of Michael Gray or Todd Malicoat (this isn’t so important, but still sounds nice, especially if you know that the other two guys are well-known SEO experts).
How did Steve succeed? Easy: he is the Antichrist. You can see this for yourself if you look at the screenshot of the results of an intention manifestation experiment he made recently.
The bottom line
I believe that the 3 fellas I mentioned above have worked their asses off before being able to blog about anything or have awful blog designs and still get tons of traffic. They earned their status and this is cool.
The reason they get so much traffic and earn so much money is, among other things, the fact that people love to read about success and how someone made it, be it on the Web or not.
And once you are extremely successful, you fall under the rule which says that the rich get richer. Just take a look at this AdSense ad that frequently appears on Steve Pavlina’s blog - it really says it all:
Work and you’ll succeed. Just remember to hire a good designer once you get there 
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Deborah Robinson // Dec 17, 2007 at 2:31
Great post. You got to love these guys who make money on the internet by writing about making money on the internet. I stopped reading their rants for precisely the reasons you outlined above. Plus I found their advice only applies to other guys who blog about making money on the internet! They’ve created a whole economy out of thin air–what a stroke of genius!
2 evernerve // Dec 17, 2007 at 16:16
Yes… and there is always a similar sentence, mentioned in some obscure post, or in fine print in one of these how-to-succeed-online books: “Making content is hard work” or “I started my 3-4 successful websites 4, 5 or 6 years ago”.
Like you said: a stroke of genius!
3 Alan // Jan 3, 2008 at 2:57
You make really good analysis Evernerve. Very spot on about their web design highlights. Kudos to you as well. Hope you make it big and can become as spammy as John Chow too.
4 KG Lew // Apr 5, 2008 at 21:03
Yeah… once you get working and everything starts flowing the way you want… then you can pretty much post whatever you want and people will still read. by then, you have accumulated a couple things: experience, a fan base and the balls to do it! nice post.
5 Ajith Edassery // Apr 17, 2008 at 13:11
Great stuff man. However, I somehow tend to like John Chow because of the innovative way in which he marketed himself (by telling how much he makes each month)
Regards,
Ajith
6 Thiago De Carvalho // Apr 24, 2008 at 9:04
It’s always best to keep websites simple if you want to make money.
Ask Joel Comm and John Chow to change their designs.
I don’t think that will happen.
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