2008
Make Money Online Blogs = Fail
Posted by Jason in Daily RamblingI may not be able to update tomorrow, having a few problems with the Internet which is a pain – have also not replied to emails because I cannot access them, so bear with me. On a positive note, I won a Flip Mino in Super Blogging Tips contest – pretty cool, eh? Will post a picture etc when it arrives. 
I’ve been talking to a few people that have been wanting to start up their own blogs – mainly people that find me through here or Blog Premiere, and I’d always recommend starting a blog as it allows you to network far better than you would without.
I’ve said this about twenty times a few times before, but if you want to start a blog – please do not start an MMO one unless you’re making money. I remember someone leaving a comment on here around January this year, asking me why I ran a make money online blog when I didn’t make money (my monthly tally then was around $1,8k) which at the time I was pissed off about, but realise now that the comment was bang on.
If you check out the blogs under Entrecard’s Make Money Online section (I believe I’m still under that section, haven’t been bothered to change it) you see 90% of them have the following phrases, or slight variations of it as their title – ‘Make Money Online With X’ / ‘Making Money Online With X’ / ‘Make Money Blogging’ / ‘Learn How To Make Money’ … and then you look at their monthly income report and the earnings are something like $23.54.
If you start out in the MMO niche, you have an immediate disadvantage. Not to be harsh, but 90% of the bloggers in the MMO niche are scum that only think about themselves and their sole aim is to make money… off you. This is the reason I moved out of the niche and branded this a ‘young entrepreneur blog‘ – by all means, talk about money; but when you don’t make a dime (as most in the niche don’t) do not try and teach people how to, as misinformation is worse than no information at all.
Take a look at the posts over the last thirty days in all the ‘make money online’ blogs you read.
How many of them talk about making money, and a strategy you can duplicate?
How many of those methods to make money are NOT rehashed ones found on other blogs?
For most blogs, you’ll be able to count the number of posts that satisfy the above criteria on one hand.
This is a little bit of a rant, but I’m honestly pissed off at this niche – I’ve spoken to people that have lost hundreds and hundreds of dollars following idiotic advice that clearly doesn’t work, and things should change. So start!
Do not be scared to call out MMO Blogs, or any blog in particular for talking rubbish or scamming the blogosphere. I did this when Alan Johnson at The Rating Blog was clearly faking his statistics – this continues even to this date (10,000 RSS subscribers which are all fake generated, along with most of the comments on his posts). I have no problem with people even calling me a moron (this is an open opportunity, and the only one you’ll get so feel free to use it 
) if people critisise this blog, as long as the criticism is constructive.
So if you run a ‘make money online’ blog and satisfy any of the criteria above…
No offense meant, of course.
What are your thoughts on the ‘make money online blog‘ industry and what kind of experiences have you had with them?
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You’re a moron… wait, you said I could call you that!
But LOL! It’s funny how we were talking about this on Yahoo the other day… we should combine our blogs and just put people on blast who don’t make money online, who don’t get traffic, etc but claim they do.
Someone suggested on my blog to write about the different niches that make money, I mean, make a LOT more than MMO niches. Of course, I’ve started a few blogs and if you’re still up for that bet of me making more on my new blog than DatMoney, I’m still up for it.
Jay
Jay’s last blog post..Road to $3,000/Month with a $100 Budget Update: People Love Links!
I think people can still have their own make money online blogs if they want, but they should focus on blogging about their journey from making $0 to make $x,xxx. Any advice they give along the way should be taken with grain of salt as they don’t have the experience to truly trust. I’m hardly a big time money maker and branded and re-branded my blog as an internet entrepreneur blog versus an MMO blog. I like to express my thoughts and experience and projects versus gloat or pretend to gloat of the money I make online.
Erik Karey’s last blog post..Niche Review Sites = Free Organic Traffic
I agree with you. There are a lot of shady sites out there that I wouldn’t trust to be around my daughters piggybank alone.
When I first started my blog about MMO it was just going to be a growth and learning experience for me and maybe help others do the same and learn from the failures I have with MMO systems.
This was before I found out what a big black hole the MMO niche is and how many sites there were. I found JohnChow.com, ShowMoney.com, ZacJohnson.com and the rest after I started mine.
I am going to keep it up but I am not going to be fake about it. If I make only $100 a month then I will blog about it. I won’t go on about how great BANS is just to get people to click the link and buy the software. I will blog about how its not as good as the others made it out to be, aka that foul mouth dork from Blogger Unleashed.
Anyways… I like your site. Good reading and honest to boot.
That is why I branded my blog as a “blog tips” type of blog. I’m sure not all “make money online” blogs are rubbish, just 99%.
Rajaie AlKorani’s last blog post..5 Points To Consider Before Sending An Email
I love the honesty of your blog. But I am starting to feel owners of MMO’s are really NOT entrepreneurs. MMO’s are simply independent freelancers – not entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurs are all about scaling a business by leveraging other people and freelancers are all about using their talent to make the most dollars an hour that they can.
Entrepreneurs therefore have no glass ceiling. Freelancers (including all MMO’s) have a ceiling.
A little bit of an off topic rant. But just wanted to say it.
Oops… just read other posts and found that you are a fan of Blogger Unleashed.
My biggest thing with him is his mouth. He sounds like a figgin sailor. Every other word is a cuss word. I can’t bare to even watch the videos because of it, even though there is some great info on them.
I cuss when I am pissed, but good grief… nothing like this guy can belt out in just a few sentences.
Anyways… sorry if I offended anyone who likes Vic.
Excellent post. I wanted to blog about this a while back but I might make some enemies and well the link bait wouldn’t be really worth it.
Entrecard is a perfect example of these types of blogs, I think that people go into the niche because they made a dollar with a GPT site and they consider that making money online.
Most of those blogs are just pure crap filled with tons of ads and crappy horrible written content. The funny thing is that they make an e-book claiming they make “x” amount of dollars but they don’t prove it, and then they sell it for “xx” dollars of course I’d be a hyprocite to say that which is why I never reveal or announce how much I make, I simply tell people ways to do it.
I find it hilarious when a person starts a blog by just pure impulse and doesn’t really think about the impact of the blog, and all they are doing is creating more make money online internet spam.
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@ Jay, sure I’d be up for the bet. You succeed, I review you, you fail, you review me. I don’t like betting money, having been brought up in an Asian household (most of us are tight asses).
@ Erik, exactly – if you want to blog about what you’re doing, fine. I see too many newbies talking about making money from say – affiliate marketing – and giving tips to do so, but they’ve never tried it out themselves and thus their tips will lose people money rather than make people money.
@ CRO, that’s exactly the way to go about things. Now could I take a look at your daughter’s piggy bank for a second?
I did like Vic at Blogger Unleashed because I don’t mind the cussing and I love controversy. However, I’ve not visited his blog in a while – been busy with things. Different things work for different people, however I do know that BANS can be replicated free with Wordpress and a plugin (I have it somewhere…).
@ Rajaie, cheers for bucking the trend. And I’d say maybe 99.9% are rubbish
@ Germz, you should have put up the post, would have been fun. The only people that would get pissed off are the guilty ones.
I have a viewpoint on eBooks, having sold them myself in the past… perhaps for tomorrow’s post.
@ all, thanks for the high quality comments, I appreciate it.
I’m an rss subscriber to this blog, and I always find your writing style to be interesting and usually informative. My opinion on the MMO blogs as a whole? Snake Oil. Not much information for a little money isn’t what I’d be looking for. I have the interwebs, they can feed me most of what I need to know on most subjects. A how to, on the other hand is sometimes very useful, especially when I’m trying things out that I’ve never done before, or didn’t have an earlier interest in. So I read your blog, and I’ll probably follow over to your new site as well, assuming that you post where you’re going when you make the move.
come visit us and lol ur pols pho paws!
Wait, someone told you not to run an MMO blog when your monthly earnings were $1.8k once? That guy was out of his mind…$1.8k a month is not a failure by any means. The biggest fail blog I’ve read in the MMO niche was the Geek Boys. Run by one man who wanted to turn a $10,000 investment into his blog in order to earm $1 million (he dropped that goal a while ago).
I see your point, though. Write about something you have proven experience/success with. I am a developer by profession, and don’t make much money on my spare time. And many MMO guys can’t design or code out of a paper bag. Think economics – trade services and look at your relative advantages, and you can focus on your real strengths instead of joining a niche for its perceived glamour and allure.
JustChris’s last blog post..A new theme (soon) and a new computer
Are we gonna have a set time frame for this or am I given the same amount of time it took DatMoney to make money?
Jay
Jay’s last blog post..Road to $3,000/Month with a $100 Budget Update: People Love Links!
I agree with JustChris – I would very much like to know how to earn $1,8 per month, or even half of that!
I also agree with Erik, that it’s ok for newbies to have MMO blogs as long as they’re honest about it and are blogging about their journey, and not trying to teach others how to do it, or trying to sell them crappy stuff. But I admit I’m getting tired of seeing them all over the place ^^;
And about BANS – what is your view on it? Is it good or bad? And could you give me the name/link of the plugin please? Pretty please?
I would like to try it out and see if it works.
Silla’s last blog post..To enroll or not to enroll – that is the question!
Couldn’t agree with you more Jason. MMO blogs are horrible, and written by people similar to 50% of the posts on Digital Point, and I have cut down so much on reading them (there’s only you, Jamieharrop.com and Mike’s Money Making Mission that I actually read – though occassionally read about a dozen others including Vic, Court and Problogger). They just waisted time.
I’ve called out a bunch of them on my blog, so far I’ve been called:-
- An embarassment to blogging (I didn’t accept an advert from a 6 week blog on Entrecard that linked to an affiliate marketing page – I’ve been blogging for six YEARS).
- A hypocrite (because I had ads on my blog and I’m not in the Make Money Online niche)
- A loser
And got knows what else.
I don’t make money blogging. I don’t boast on being a millionaire. I regularly say “yeah, I make beer money from blogging, that’s it.”. It’s better than saying “I will be a millionaire and have the life I dream of!”.
It does make me laugh the whole “yeah, this is my site, and I love blogging!” after a blog for six weeks, try it for a year, two years, and still if you still love it
. I have a “graveyard” folder in my feed reader of dead blogs. 99% of them are MMO.
Great post by the way
Rhys – Retro Garden’s last blog post..Twisted Metal 2: World Tour
..People will soon realize you don’t make any money online and that will hurt your reputation. Need I say more ?
exgrafix’s last blog post..How to Transfer your Blog or Website to a New Host the Easy Way
@ Mike, don’t know how I missed replying to your comment (did check out your website though, Toilet Paper Entrepreneur amused me
).. I’d disagree with that. MMOers don’t all fit under one branch, there are many different aspects (for example, one can MMO as a writer which is not a scalable business unless you hire a team etc but one can also work the whole virtual real estate market which definitely is scalable).
@ Bonafide, I’ve never used the term ’snake oil’ before but perhaps. I still haven’t found too many MMO blogs that have actually helped me bank… if you know any, let me know
Checked out your blog, some of them pictures were decent. I love funny stuff.
@ Chris, I believe the statement was ‘if you don’t earn more than $100/day, you shouldn’t run a MMO blog’ – which at the time, felt harsh; however I’d start to agree with him.
The standard rule of thumb (that is, what I’ve found when teaching people) is that any method taught will usually be 1/2th or 1/4th as successful when done by a learner; that’s if both people work to maximum capacity. So I’d be teaching people to make $25 a day, or even $50/day – which is less than your average day job.
For a university student though, that’s decent bank and I’m glad it’s increased
I remember the geek boys – that was epic. He couldn’t write, couldn’t design (his blog looked like well… something coloured by a preschooler) and couldn’t make money, yet expected to make $1,000,000 in a year. Painful.
Throughly agree with your last point.
@ Jay, you decide all that mate. I’m just razzing you cos it’s always good to have an incentive (or in this case, a disincentive… writing a review of TUK on DM) so go wild, set the rules and whatnot. I can’t even remember what we bet on, to be honest.
@ Silla, if you really want to learn how to make half of $1.8 per month, I’ll tell you.
Personally – if there were just a few, fine – it would be bearable. But when you get twenty blogs starting up daily with the same ambition and not making a dime… it gets way too annoying
@ Rhys, when you call people out, let me know – I love blogging contoversy, there isn’t enough. Bloggers are too nice for their own good, things tend to get stale if someone doesn’t shake things up.
If you get hate mail, you know you’re doing well… that’s how I see it.
@ exgrafix, nope! Think you covered it
CBA to edit – @ Silla, I’ll look into what the plugin is called, can’t remember right now (it’s late!). As for BANS… it speeds things up, but when you’re starting out you don’t need things sped up; the WP plugin works fine on a platform that 99% of us are familiar with
I love it TUK, I know you’ve said it many times before, I haven’t been exposed to all the blogs around, I just like honesty. I started my blog to document my internet marketing experience.
I share what I experience, if something works, I share that….but I don’t just promote every affiliate product in hopes of making a sale. I think the problem is people are not honest….they fake rss feeds, they pretend like they are making more money than they are….or that they have more experience.
I have no problem saying ” I don’t know that” or ” I haven’t tried that before” or ” I have no experience with that” there’s no point in lying.
I also put up my rss feed count, despite the fact I don’t have as many readers as some….it’s no secret that my blog is not years old!
I don’ t know man….some blogs I just stay away from. I don’t like to be tricked and don’t try to trick others…that’s why I love your blog, and have from the first time I read it….you shoot straight.
Keep it up mate….
JK Swopes’s last blog post..Secret Marketing Strategy 18 exposed
This is a great point and glad I stopped by. I tried MMO for a little bit, but I got tired of trying to think of MMO posts. Now I guess I am in “blogging tips” or “young entrepreneur.” Some people have had very successful MMO blogs, but now all the juice in that niche is taken up and it is extremely difficult to dominate. Now many other niches, such as blogging tips, young entrepreneur, writing tips, and so on can all fall in MMO, or all with MMO they form a category of “blogging” I guess. So sometimes I will call my blog MMO for that is what people categorize it as, though really it is in one of the finer categories.
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Energy and Emotion
Also Jason could you reply to comments in other posts, because there were many that you missed. Also in some there are people you forget.:(
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Energy and Emotion
Jason you mean like this?
http://www.thegermz.com/my-ramblings/the-million-dollar-ebook
Germz’s last blog post..Comment Kahuna is a useful little tool.
You’re a moron! LoL.
I tried the MMO niche but I couldn’t focus on it because that isn’t one of my passions. I make money online and I make guest posts for blogs I admire, but I could never run one.
Maybe I will add it on to one of my other blogs lol. Maybe my gaming blog, “How to make 10 cents a month”
By the way, just joking around lol.
But seriously, why are so many MMOs pure crap?
EmmaB’s last blog post..I Found a fellow canadian!
By the way, would you consider getting a threaded comment plugin installed? It would make replying to people, a lot easier
EmmaB’s last blog post..I Found a fellow canadian!
I never really have anything to do with the MMO sites, and you are right, they are mostly just out for themselves, although they purport to be absolutely dying to share their secrets.
Carol Ferndale’s last blog post..Tips for Turkey: board basis and a good deal
Congrats on winning that contest. I’ve entered most of those contests and have not had any luck. I’m dying to get my hands on a Flip Mino!
EntreBlast’s last blog post..Entrecard Thoughts Friday #10
I just started a new blog which takes aim squarely at both the “MMO” and “seduction” niches. Really got a kick out of doing something a bit more creative, and if I can keep it up, I think it’ll bait some links just for being so crazy, plus it’s hilarious when people dont realise it’s a joke.
My first two posts were along the lines of “Make yourself irresistable to women by downloading free ebooks” and the entrepreneurial challenges faced by a young crack dealer.
Don’t really wanna leave a link just yet as I’m still building it up. Cheers.
@ Joe, glad to see you’re not in the MMO niche. To be honest, I have no problem with people documenting their goals, but I do have a problem when pure newbies start ‘teaching people how to make money’ – it just doesn’t work.
Glad you like TUK!
@ Nathaniel, I do agree – the MMO niche has various aspects of it, I’m just pissed off at the general trend. Also, decided to reply to everyone in this post because it is a hot topic – if I’ve missed someone out, let me know, specific posts where I have. It gets difficult when you have loads of people sharing their views
@ Germz, something like that but – specifics! No one can sue you for expressing your opinion.
@ Emma, you just hurt my feelings.
Seriously though, MMOs are so crap… think it’s because of the misinformation. People see John Chow etc think ‘it’s easy’ so get sucked in. Then once they’re in the rut (an MMO blog that doesn’t make money) they’re tired of wasting time so they start faking statistics, revenue and whatnot.
As for Threaded Comments, I will look into it… been busy with things and my Internet connection is way too screwy to download anything over 10 bytes
@ Carol, I’ll share my secrets with you… if you send me $1,997 through Paypal.
– do agree with your point.
@ Entreblast, TUK will be having a contest soon that will flip you out. Make sure you stay tuned!
@ Matt, sounds pretty interesting – let us know when you do decide to share it
@ Jason – you have not missed out on anyone here, but I am talking that you might miss out on other posts. I understand it is hard to reply to comments sometimes (internet connection, time consumption, etc) and that’s fine.
Nathaniel’s last blog post..Birthday Time: July 11th
The problem with the MMO niche is that newbs starting a MMO try to replicate what the big guys are saying. Guess what, they said it first so you’re going to be known as a copy cat right away. The niche is saturated and I don’t think there are as many people as we think trying to “make money online”, so the traffic so the Google juice just isn’t there.
All John Chow does is post about what he’s eating and affiliate crap to make himself a buck. That gives me an idea for some link bait
I think the main reason that any new blogger fails when they are trying to make money online is many A-listers have disillusioned the masses into thinking they put a website up yesterday and today they’re making $30,000 a month. Which is the point I make a lot on my blog; it takes work and time to make money online so be prepared to give up your time for a lot of work.
BTW, thanks for having a useful blog; of all the feeds I subscribe to, yours is usually one of the first to be opened daily.
B Carter’s last blog post..Finding My Happy Place
Jason – LOL! Well, I’ll see how iBlogtoBlog.com is after this month
Jay
Jay’s last blog post..Road to $3,000/Month with a $100 Budget Update: People Love Links!
i think it is pretty much simple as mmo blogs are polluted nowadays… but you cant blame people for jumping into the bandwagon
Melvin’s last blog post..How To Get That Advertising
I really don’t understand why people are so crazy about getting into the MMO niche. First off it is overly saturated (been said a million times!). Secondly, I would guess that it has to be one of the harder niches to earn in since you are marketing to fellow webmasters/marketers, and they can spot your “make money from the reader” attempts from a mile away.
I guess the thought may be that once you are an established MMO (whether you really are, or are faking it) you will then be able to earn from the countless number of newbies that are searching for MMO/”Get Rich Quick” answers?
Got that right man. I’ve tried MMO blogs, and its really hard to think of new stuff every single day/week.
G’s last blog post..Turn Around, Back To The Roots
Meh, I donno, I personally think everyone should blog and I’d love to see some fresh make money online blogs. There are plenty of blogs by people making money that are absolutely terrible. If you are a good writer and can help people make money, it shouldn’t matter if you are or aren’t doing it yourself.
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funny.. really funny.. i like your humor dude,…
i have a site called smartblogtips.com which was the first site i thought of and finally it dawned to me that, its not going to make reason…
simple… i didnt have original content to give to the users…. and i hate giving duplicate comments to viewers… so now i am thinking of either selling it off or else delegating the work to someone hired for it… i may take also look at anew makeover to it…. all depends on the soming week.
regards
Thinkjayant @ Smartblogtips
TJ @ Smartblogtips’s last blog post..TinyURL gets a makeup, adds custom alias
Nice post, I never go around those blogs, because there is nothing for me there.
Aleks’s last blog post..Joke of the day – Wife and horse
This is right on point. I just read this post, and I have, indeed, found so many MMO blogs where those who run them aren’t interested in anything else except trying to make money off their blogs. I think if you’re starting a blog, you should focus on something else (entrepreneurship, business ideas, passive income strategies, etc.). MMO alone from a blog isn’t worth the time because you have some serious stalwarts (John Chow, Shoemoney, Problogger) who are already dominating the niche (and probably know more about it than you).
Flimjo’s last blog post..Detox Weekend
Well I personally began my site as a MMO site, but realised that I couldn’t keep it up because I was faking it. So instead I now write more about personal finance. I feel I can offer more credible information and I love finance so it is great for me to write about
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That’s good decision.
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