It’s something that I know a lot of readers are interested – how to profit from blogging.
However… it was with a heavy heart I saw that Rob Benwell was releasing yet another product that promised to reveal the secrets of a million dollar blogger. A promise that I had heard the last two times he promised to do it… and didn’t.
Karmic payback anyone?
Is there any profit to be made from ‘Blogging To The Bank 3.0’?
I have said it many, many times before: I don’t like knocking people in my articles. It’s not as if I get some kind of twisted thrill from it. I much prefer to be able to say “I went through the product and loved it” like I did with Ryan Deiss’ Continuity Blueprint.
Unfortunately it’s a rarity that anyone comes out with anything worthwhile!
I have spoken about Rob numerous times in previous articles. It was good at first with the original Blogging To The Bank, not so good when he launched Niche Domination and seemed to disappear, not so good with the membership site he launched with his brother…
… and then not really that good with the Blogging To The Bank 2.0 book. So you can understand why I was somewhat sceptical about this one.
Blogging To The Bank 3.0 is an eBook that promises to teach you the ways of a millionaire blogger. Firstly a reality check. Rob has made a lot of money from the selling of his ClickBank product Blogging To The Bank.
I would be very, very, very surprised if the bulk of his income comes from blogging. When you see screenshots of his ClickBank earnings more than likely they’re from the sales of his eBook or products he promotes as an affiliate to his email list.
So don’t for one second think you’ll be earning tens of thousands from blogging. It isn’t going to happen. Some do, the vast majority don’t.
The book is 58 pages long, with the first 20-30 pages dedicated to setting up a blog. Nothing wrong with that, but you could get that kind of info for free in numerous different places. Like youtube.com.
Go to Youtube type in “How To Set Up A WordPress Blog” and you’ve essentially got the first 30 pages of BTTB3.0 in video format and it hasn’t cost you anything.
Not the best start.
Then Rob says something which instantly set off something in my head. He says on page 20 “Now I’m not saying Black Hat SEO is bad or anything but it does have its place and it’s not on a long term blog that you’re going to put time into.”
Now I could be completely wrong, and I rarely am, but in his last eBook (or it may have been an email promoting someone’s black hat eBook) I’m pretty sure he said something along the lines of “Black Hat SEO works. Would you rather be making money using black hat quickly, or not making money using normal techniques”. That isn’t an exact quote but I’m pretty sure he said something like that in Blogging To The Bank 2.0 that was released not too long ago.
Either this guy is a multiple personality blogger or he’s using whatever he can to get people to part with their cash. And that’s the distinct impression I get. I haven’t been impressed with any of his offerings of late which is a shame because the guy is a genius marketer; his products just don’t live up to the hype.
I get the impression that Rob is just in this for the money and not for the experience of his customers. Not only is the eBook pretty much rehashed information, the majority of which you can get elsewhere for free, but when you sign up you see a one time offer page selling you a membership to new monthly blogging strategies. That’s fine. Good marketing.
What annoyed me is that there was no way to bypass the link and get to the download page. Which meant I had to wait for the email to arrive with the download link for the book I’d just paid for. This link didn’t arrive for eight hours.
It could be that as it was a big launch Rob had problems and I get that. But if he’d allowed access to the product for those who didn’t want the one time offer it would have been so much better. It felt as if he was trying to force you to sign up to the OTO. Again, it just seems as though the guy is solely driven by money and not by customer satisfaction.
I found the book itself to be pretty much the same content I’ve read in his previous books and elsewhere. Nothing new whatsoever really, apart from one tip on sponsoring WordPress themes for links back to your blog which was pretty cool.
So we come to the end of yet another review of this young man. I’ve said it many times over. Rob Benwell is a very, very, very good marketer. Unfortunately he isn’t very good at creating solid products.
His latest offering is not necessarily bad, and if you have never seen any info on blogging before than this isn’t too bad an investment. But if you’ve seen any blogging courses before, especially his two “originals”, save your money from this one. It just isn’t worth it.