Which Blogging Business Model is Right For You?

Today we look at two leading affiliate bloggers in the Internet Marketing space, Shoemoney and John Chow.  Both bloggers publish seven days a week in the same niche. How do their blogs power their businesses?

John Chow: The Blog is the Business

John Chow’s blog is the home base of his business. This means his content is written for the purpose of attracting a high readership, which he hopes to convert to paying customers.

The more traffic John gets, the more leverage he has over pricing his services like site reviews, banner ad space and sponsored tweets. The last time I checked, John charges $500 for a site review, between $250-1,000 for an ad and $117.65 for a sponsored tweet. Not too shabby.

But that’s not really how JohnChow.com makes its money. The real profit is in the list, as they say. When you subscribe to receive John’s free Make Money Online ebook, you automatically start receiving his autoresponder email series. These carefully timed, automated emails detail how you can go from zero to $40,000 a month with your blog, just like John did.

John makes money as an affiliate from the products he recommends in his autoresponder series and his blog. Some products have monthly recurring payouts, like Aweber, so John will continue to get paid as long as you’re subscribed to the service he recommends.

The more content John puts out, the larger his influence spreads over the Internet Marketing space. More influence equals more readers, more readers means more income, and so on.

Shoemoney: The Blog Compliments the Business

Shoemoney’s blog is a bit different than John Chow’s. For one thing it’s not the entire structure of his business. He makes most of his money from successful internet marketing ventures in various niches as well as his Shoemoney System.

Shoemoney’s posts are off-the-cuff but really insightful on how he’s done so well for himself. Where John is exclusively a blogger—and a good one at that—Shoemoney tends to speak his mind more assertively. He makes a lot of subjective observations about what’s going on in the Internet Marketing world and elsewhere.

I believe Shoemoney makes some pretty good money with his blog as well. Aside from freely promoting his own products, he has the Shoemoney marketplace which allows advertisers to pitch their product once a week on his blog. He may also throw in the occasional affiliate offer in his posts.

Which model is better?

There’s no right answer to this, because each one works pretty well. It all depends on the path you want to pursue. There’s no right way and there are a million other ways as well.

But if you want to make blogging your business, listen closely to John’s advice and read his book “Make Money Online” (I’ve reviewed that here).

If blogging isn’t your main thing, check out Shoemoney’s “Shoemoney System.” In it he breaks down exactly how he makes his money, from eBay to Facebook to a dozen other creative approaches. (I’ve seen the system and it’s solid.)

For what it’s worth, Shoemoney.com gets more traffic than JohnChow.com, according to Compete.com. There are some other stats on that page worth looking at as well.

Personally, I prefer Shoemoney’s blogging agenda. He doesn’t have to worry so much about his blog making him money because his business is spread across other enterprises. John Chow too has other endeavors, like his book and blog training program, but I’m certain his main money maker is the blog.

What do you think?

Road photo by i_yudai, comic by Comictan.

Disclosure: links to Aweber, Shoemoney System and Make Money Online book are affiliate links.