Just saw him update the message in facebook that he is back in google.
He will be writing a blog post on how he did it.

But I couldn’t wait to know how he did it?
Was it John Chow Fail?
Did he suck up to Google and finally gave in after so pompously denouncing the Big G?

Looks like so. Apparently Google reconsidered him. But how?
Amongst several things that John will be announcing soon, one thing is right on his Blog.

He has changed all advertisement link on his blog to nofollow.
See the picture:

Google is also very straight forward in its “regulations”. Don’t sell hard links. If you sell advertisements, add a nofollow. Once upon a time John Chow Defied the Google Laws and he became famous. But he is already famous now and somehow he feels that he needs Google more than Google needs him.

John tried first with his other .ca domain as Shoemoney blogged here. Now he wants to launder johnchow.com as well. He did several bold things, John Chow, and defying Google was the boldest, showing path to thousands of internet marketers that Google is not the only source of traffic and Income . But it looks like Google is indeed a good source of Income and traffic. Noone messes around with Google?

Anyway, the bottom line is that John is Back in the Index.
But John has some time to get back fully into the Google system.
A query of “John Chow” or “JohnChow” is not throwing a authority listing with site listing.
A query with “johnchow.com” does show up some sitelinks.

Anyway I would like to congratulate John Chow for being back in the SERPs.
He could have done it any time he wanted though!

We shall wait for his post.

In my marketing class, we discussed this theory very often, that a successful marketer sells the hole and not the drill. What this basically means was that your customer doesn’t actually need a drill. What need is a hole in his wall. And if he can drill the hole easier with a Non-Drill he will buy the non-drill. So don’t focus on the product too much, focus on the hole, focus on the real need.

This is something that marketers have done for decades in their advertising copy, sales letter, brochure. You need to do exactly that in online marketing as well.

Whether you are hawking Acai Berry or fatloss4dummies, you should not try to sell the product but the benefits of using the product.

They they need is a slim and toned body and they are willing to spend spend money on that. Sell the benefits of having that Hole first.

But because he made a lot money using subscription model, would you also be able to make Millions? Possibly yes. But in order to be able to make money online using a subscription model, you will need to answer a few questions?

1) Does your product or service offer an unique value that will be diluted if it were free?

Some people place more value on a service or product if there is a certain cost associated with the product. Even though everybody wants a free, ride, the percieved value of something expensive will always be more than a free product.
Example is the Blackhat forum run by Quadzilla
People sign there up because they think it has more information than a wickedfire because it is a paid forum. In reality, people are paying for Quadzilla’s Blackhat expertise that he would not share on his public blog.

Your product need to unique such that it cannot be recreated or cloned easily, and it must offer something of value for which one is willing to pay a price, or a premium.

2) Can the product or service be profitable without offering a Freemium section?

The best way and most popular way of getting subscription revenue is to offer a free section and charge for an upgrade to a premium section. Like DNforums or those file hosting sites.

If the business you are in can be run profitably without charging a premium, ie, by running google ads and affiliate offer, and if your product is not patent grade unique, free is the best way.

You should not try to squeeze subscription revenue, because if you did, then someone else will come along and give everything for free. People might place a premium value on a paid service, but on the internet, brand loyalty is extremely fickle and it just takes a few mouse clicks to sign up to your free competition.

Google have democratised the making money online game and beware of the micro entrepreneurs.

But if you do have a very unique product that can not be copied easily, by all means make some subscription money.

If this is your first visit, come back after one year.
I make one post per year, so the quota for 2009 is up I guess.

Well, bad joke!
What is zbongo.com ? You ask.

I say, it’s my blog.
I have several blogs, in all possible niches.
You see I bore too soon, and I can’t stick to one niche.

So Instead of creating Big sites and getting bored, I create small niche sites and move on to the next project.

I stick some contextual ad, a few affiliate links and wait.
The most boring part is SEO..

They say, write good content and SEO will follow.
I say that is kinda bull!

Why? You ask again!
I say because I say so… no?

Ok SEO used to follow good content earlier, some 10 years back.
Sites were few so when someone starts a website on Fender Guitars, he would link to the few Guitar sites available at those times. And google counted them as votes. Those were the days..

Then some Start Up entrepreneur thought Geocities and tripod should be modified to create easy to update, template driven websites where pages, now called posts, should be listed chronologically. Those were called weblogs, someone shortened it to Blogs. Google bought blogger.com
Someone thought Blog software should be open sourced.
Boingboing started blogging and Instapundit began blogging and postsecrets became famous. Technorati hyped it.

Then google gave bloggers a means to make money from their new found traffic. Adsense millionaires came in beings overnight. Weblogs was sold for millions and even more people stated blogging. People started blogging for money.

And the link virus started. Everybody was linking to everybody else. And since it was so easy to start a blog, everyone started blogs just to link to each other.

And the web was full of links. Everyone became conscious of links and now it has become easier to get a link, but to get an authority link has become awfully difficult.
Sigh!!!

So you write good content, people won’t easily link to you if they think you are an SEO guy with an URL with a Hyphen. People think SEOs are spammers.
Many social bookmarking sites closed and they blame the SEOs. They should blame the spammer but SEOs?

Anyway, I also started blogging and creating these small sites after seeing those bloggers make millions. I found that blogging was not a means to make money, not for me, but yes, blog platforms have made creating sites easier, and I have created several sites using wordpress and all of them generate good amount of money.

I thought all affiliate marketers were spammers.
I never even used adsense on my blogs for fear that people will think I am a spammer.
Then I realized the power of the internet and google and adsense.
Adsense actually makes micro economies and micro entrepreneurs.

Everybody is good at something, and anyone can create a blog around his subject of expertise and make at least a modest living.

I am here to guide you to create blogs that actually make money.