As a service to the Internet marketing online community of compulsive dipshit buyers I decided to purchase Blogging to the Bank 2010. I have no use for this ebook. I bought the 2006 version and thought it was basic crap. I figured the 2010 version would be just as wasteful. But I had some money to flush and thought it would make for an informative review topic. God knows the thing will be a huge Crapbank seller. I also know that there will be tons of bogus review sites from IM d-baggers that will set up mini-sites, Squidoo lens, Hubpages and all manners of utter shite to sell you the product. I’m not here to sell you the thing because I think it is a waste of money.
First of all, don’t pay full price for the thing. Simply click away from the site and the unethical script will pop up with Julie begging you not to leave and giving you $10 off. People who use this type of marketing suck. It basically shits all over the people willing to buy the product for “full price”.
The bonuses include a two year old niche technique ebook. A Twitter “system” ebook and videos. Some PowerPoint slides for more niche discussion. And some PLR and graphics for 5 overused niche topics. Oh and you can submit your email to a couple of his buddies for more worthless IM junk. Can’t recommend any of it as terribly useful. You might argue that the Twitter thing is to your liking but honestly there isn’t much to it. That’s why people offer Twitter ebooks for free.
So what about the ebook? Go read Griz. Go buy Digital Nomad’s Guide to Make Money Online. You’ll get far more out of the experience. This book is written with the day one newbie in mind.
So begins the Introduction on who he is. That blogging is the greatest thing since the moon landing. That you can make money. Give people a reason to read your blog. Blog it. Blah, blah, blah.
Next is finding something to sell on Crapbank of course. When you find that jewel of literature grab some keywords from your favorite tool. What keywords are best to use? Dunno. He doesn’t go into it. What if the keywords are highly competitive. Tough shit. He doesn’t write about it. Did you know that if there wasn’t any advertisements then the market isn’t profitable? I know. Shocking.
Find something you want to pimp? Great. Find yourself some hosting. Get yourself a domain. Used is best of course. Anything exciting about that in the ebook? No. Not really.
Time to build a blog. Did you know there was something called Fantastico to help you build a blog? Crazy. I know. He breaks things down into short and long term blogging. Short term is flippers. Long term is money sites. Whatever.
Optimize the blog. Does the book provide any magic elixir? Nope. Standard SEO plugins and the like. He suggests buying fancy graphics packages for the blog just in case you didn’t know that if you were in it for the long haul and want to brand your shit you should do something more than just a default theme.
Of course he is big into building email lists so he makes a few suggestions about building that and creating a newsletter. Can’t disagree with that. 30,000 people bought some iteration of his Blogging to the Bank ebooks. Mostly through guberu pimping. If you are inclined he gives you a little boost in that direction but really the instructions are all available at your favorite autoresponder store.
He delves into SEO in a paragraph. Same for on-site optimization. No tricks. Just a perma link here and a description there. All very 2004.
Monetization. He doesn’t tell you how to make money as much as what to plaster on your blog to make money. Banners, Adsense, 125×125 ad sales.
He talks about content. He still uses PLRPro. I commend him for that. I do too. He says pretty much what I do. Post about once a week over the course of the year. Did you know you can write your own content that you can post on your blog and on article directories? If not, Blogging to the Bank 2010 is the ebook for you.
Outsourcing was mentioned. Nothing you haven’t read before.
Backlinks were mentioned. No tricks. Nothing to get you ranked higher or faster. Standard fare. Lots of bloviating on getting noticed in Twitter, Digg, Technorati, etc. Typical write and hope. Maybe you’ll get traffic from an article. Maybe not. Will it help get you ranked in the search engines? Not from my experience. But the book doesn’t discuss why social traffic sucks and what you must do to get organic traffic in the search engines. But given this dude is all about building a list you shouldn’t expect to learn much about organic traffic goodness like the Nomad ebook.
And apparently his new gig is selling blogs. He gives his criteria for selling them. Not really my thing nor am I interested in it becoming my thing.
So there you have it. Blogging to the Bank 2010 review. If you are a rote newbie then it might be of value. But even if you are there are better how-to sites and ebooks to choose from. If you are looking to “blog to the bank” don’t expect this ebook to teach you how to make money. It ain’t happening. Get Digital Nomad’s Guide to Make Money Online or read Griz’s stuff for free. Griz has posted a few other sites that are worthwhile as well like the University Kid or Blogger Illustrated which he currently promotes.
Stay tuned for my next review. Two keyword research software products go head to head…
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Splork,
That was top notch. You are a heckuva good writer – just wanted you to know that.
Splork,
Your dry sarcastic sense of humor is just GREAT!
I’ve been alone a lot lately due to my wife taking care of sick parents, so it’s me & the dog.
When I see one of your emails hit my inbox I delete all the other crap & then get a cup of coffee or a glass of wine (depending on the time of day) and sit down to have a few good laughs.
It’s just so true, as P. T. Barnum may have said, “There is a sucker born ever second online”
An endless line of suckers tripping over each other because they see “Hurry, It’s gone live!!!” in a subject line in their email.
Maybe we should team up, re-can some crap and then do the 2 week product launch routine where we dribble out bits & pieces of the very best stuff and then fill there hard drive up lots of stuff, because it does appears Quantity still sells!
Keep it Up & Best Regards,
Dave
P.S. I’ve got it, we rent a car & drive around La Jolla shooting a video. Wind up at the county club where the valet parks the car for us and we waive goodbye as we walk into the restaurant to enjoy a leisurely lunch overlooking the 18th hole as we do every day.
Thanks Griz.
Thanks for reading Dave. Though that is a lot of pressure to deliver. Would hate to sour your wine.
Your write a lot of short sentences. In fact, many are so short they aren’t even sentences.
I care not.
Thanks for. Reading.
Splork: I have been one of your 13 readers for a couple years now, but have never commented. This time, I had to. I bought Blogging to the Bank II and then again BTTB III (I never learn). Both were so trivial that I learned nothing from them. You are so right about this product. It is crap. Rob Benwell is a husker of the worse kind. Then I saw BTTB 2010 come out. I thought “fool me once, fool me twice….NOT going to be fooled a third time.
Thanks for your blog. Like someone else said, when I see a post come in, I drop everything to read what you say. Keep up the good work. You have a lot of admirers.
Hey hey, my first time here. Great review. Right on target. I actually didn’t purchase the ebook until I bought into the whole affiliate website that you get for free – after paying upfront for a year’s worth of hosting of course. I found the ebook crap, rehashed, nothing new, no details, etc. I am looking forward however to setting up my blogging to the bank website, and I also hope to write everyday on my experience. Have to create original content you know!
Hey Roxie. Thanks for reading.
Found you when I searched for reviews and I’m so glad I did. You provided so many great links I almost forgot to come back and thank you for your honest and witty review (especially liked “crapbank”, “basically shits all over the people willing to buy the product for “full price”, and “he delves into SEO in a paragraph”!). I’m going to unsubscribe from the daily onslot of emails telling me about the next best thing, and get back to basics. I think that two years and thousands of dollars is enough “investment”. Time to get seriously down to work. Thanks for the slap upside the head!
Thank you for your review of Blogging to the Bank. We appreciate you sharing your opinion and doing the research needed to fairly evaluate Rob’s product. We’ve read quite a bit of standard and vague positive reviews, but we appreciate your blatant honesty and the candor in which you sort of make fun of the various internet marketing tactics. BRAVO. We have seen fit to link to this article in our independent Blogging to the Bank 2010 Reviews section. Anyhow, keep up the good work spreading truth.
I laughed so hard when I read CRAPBANK that I sharted!!! (thats Shit and Farted all in one) Yep I have to agree, its where you can find any CRAP that someone sitting around the computer scratchin his ass has typed up in a weekend without a shower!!hahaahahh Good read by the way and I agree one hundred percent on the review…think he was in his underwear when he wrote that?lol
Great job, I was just getting ready to purchase this product to place an (honest) review of it on my new site that I have developed to expose the tons of crap that people unknowingly purchase without any really chance to ever make any money.
Keep up the good work…