You might be surprised that I’m not referring to the html attribute in this article but to something else. Should you, as a beginner or intermediate blogger, follow the big popular guys in the business ? Should you follow John Chow, Darren Rowse, Shoemoney and all the other celeb “make money” bloggers, follow their trail and do exactly what they do, what they tell you ?

The main question in my opinion is why so many users read for example John Chows blog. He is a smart guy making lots of money on the Internet. But that’s it, mostly. Are his tips useful for someone starting to blog ? I honestly don’t think so. Most of his posts are reviews or (hidden) advertisements for services where he will profit the most from.

Guess why he posted a free “make money online” e-book. Not because he wants to aid everyone in making the same amount of money than he does. The main reason is to earn by referring users to various services. He earns if you earn. You will therefor never reach his level, at least it is very unlikely that you do.

I’m not saying you should not signup as a referral if you want to try out a service. Nothing bad about this. The guy who referred you discovered the service and it might work for you nicely. Just remember that he might post about a service because he will earn money from users who signup, not because he will actually use that service.

You should not ignore those websites as well. I’m still subscribed to all those popular blogs. I rarely find something worth interesting - that is for me interesting - on those websites. I actually discovered that the comments sometimes contain much more value than the article itself.

There is nothing wrong in subscribing to those blogs, just make sure you think about those wonderful services that are posted all the time. Just think about it and if you have to pay money for it research it some more. Wait some time, post questions about it and see if it is as good as it was advertised. Think before you follow, that’s the wisest choice in my opinion.