21 ways to avoid saying MMO (Make Money Online)
How many times have you seen "MMO" in a blog's tagline? No, I'm not talking about a massively multiplayer online game, I'm referring to that ubiquitous phrase "Make Money Online". This phrase popularized by JohnChow was a great tagline for his blog. You immediately knew what the blog was all about and considered him an authority on the topic especially after reading a monthly blog earnings post (Last month it was around $30k).
Now what do you think when you arrive at another blog, and see that same blog tagline Make Money Online? For me, my knee-jerk reaction is to ask these bloggers where is your creativity? I think to myself, "Great another MMO blog, I doubt this person has ever made money online." Already a skeptic, I then give the blog a paragraph or two to prove some value as they already have to fight an uphill battle to convince me they're worth the time to read.
Either way this MMO additiction has got to stop. Just look at the number of MMO blogs on EntreCard. This category comes second only to the personal diary category:
Numerous bloggers have expressed their disgust with this MMO phrase, but no one has offered any help for those of you still addicted to MMO. To help you out I've created a list of 21 ways to avoid saying Make Money Online:
1. Building my wealth without getting a job
2. Paying the bills one click at a time
3. Earning a living off websites
4. Generating wealth off websites
5. Paying the rent without leaving my chair
6. Forging an empire one site at a time
7. Monetization strategies that work
8. Making that cheddar by blogging
9. Learn to pull down profits by blogging
10. Work less and start blogging online
11. They call me the baker with how much dough I earn online.
12. Skills to pay the bills (Someone already has that one I think) 
12. Rolling in dough created on the net
13. Raking in the cash off the www
14. Making money like it grows on trees
15. Padding my wallet with contextual ads
16. Living large off website income
17. Earn a killing armed with only a laptop
18. Creating wealth on the world wide web
19. Hit the jackpot without visiting the velvet table
20. Producing wealth off web properties
21. Be your own boss by earning a living on the web
I thought of these Make Money Online alternatives in about 30 minutes with a little help from a thesaurus. Several of the phrases I wrote as a joke, but some of them aren't too bad. Now just think if you spent 30 minutes on coming up with just one unique blog tagline instead of following the MMO masses? I guarantee if you remove the Make Money Online blog tagline and replace it with something else you'll see an increase in the amount of time people stay on your blog and an increase in traffic too. I'm not the only one that wants to hit back on my browser as soon as I see another MMO blog.
That's the end of my rant, now I'm off to play some WoW...
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Fair enough!! Point very well made and taken.
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I was always told that to be successful, you have to be creative and unique and you sure proved your point.
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The reason bloggers have MMO in their title is to try and get better rankings in the SERPs. Near impossible to reach page 1, but had Carl Ocab had that view he wouldn’t be where he was today… and you can get decent traffic being even on lesser pages.
Do agree about changing it though, fresher titles = better blogs
Shoemoney has Skills To Pay The Bills
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This is what is the difference between quality and poor content. Quality = unique.
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It’s all about SEO and traffic.
You can’t rank on page 1 of the serp’s for Make Money Online if you don’t use the keyword in all the right places on your blog. Nobody searches for the terms you used but feel free to use them – less competition for the rest of us.
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Some nice slogans. I might have to steal one
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@Da Blogger
Yah
I was trying to make a joke about that one lol…
@Grizzly
I understand it’s all about the SERPS though which is precisely why I would advise people NOT go for Make Money Online. That phrase is very difficult to get now and in my opinion the world needs less blogs with MMO in their
tagline. There are still other phrases that can be pursued through post titles or other blog taglines. Now I see that you’re in 7th place for the keyphrase right now though, so I can understand your focus towards ranking up but at what cost?
Have you considered how many people might hit back on their browser when they come to another MMO blog compared with how many people you actually bring in for that key phrase?
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Shoemoney, has the term skills to pay the bills already.
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Ok lol… I added a smiley face to the post next to the skills to pay the bills one so people know that I’m joking.
Why else would I type it then use the line through unless I was joking?
Lol come on people. Hopefully no one will get confused now.
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Yeah, well the bigger issue is that 90% of the MMO blogs dont make any money worth writing home about anyway, why would i read them?
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That’s another good reason why the bloggers shouldn’t use MMO as their blog tagline then don’t you think?
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Chris,
I couldn’t agree more, I have lost count of how many times I have told people to stop writing MMO and “how to blog” blogs. They will never make a dime in those niches. My earlier comment was to point out that you will still need to target the right keyword in any niche in order to get search traffic and I gathered from your alternate keywords that you were suggesting “if” people were chasing the MMO niche they should try something other than the “make money online” keyword. Alternate keywords would be pointless as they have no searches.
You said,
“Have you considered how many people might hit back on their browser when they come to another MMO blog compared with how many people you actually bring in for that key phrase?”
I think you are confusing social traffic with search traffic and I have talked at length about this – social traffic is useless for making money online in any niche. Social traffic consists of bloggers and stumblers and entrecarders etc and they don’t click ads or buy products – they are simply readers. Search traffic is the only traffic that has a specific need and they do click and buy.
If a social reader drops by and sees my MMO blog and backs out who cares? I would prefer they not show up in the first place as they simply lower my CTR.
Search traffic on the other hand is only on my site because they are looking for MMO blogs that can help them – and my site does exactly that. Google sends me several thousand of these people a day and they click ads and spend money. My 600 RSS readers don’t spend a dime. The problem with so many bloggers is that they are busy chasing readers – Chris did you spend any money on my blog? Did any of the commentators above spend money on your blog? Readers are nice but in the long run you don’t make a living online from readers. If all these same bloggers spent some time learning SEO and targeting keywords that searchers are looking for they would learn that there is far more traffic to be had than what they can achieve with social media and more importantly – traffic they will earn money from.
I know – everyone wants to be “famous” and have thousands of readers like the A-listers. They think this is the way to online riches. Thing is, only 1 in a million will achieve this and the rest will starve while people like me make more money than the A-listers by targeting search traffic in all the same niches others are chasing readers in.
My MMO blog is successful because I have been teaching people how to rank on top of the serp’s and not how to be another John Chow clone. You saw how well I rank for one of the most competitive terms online (I am on page 1 for all the MMO keywords not just the main term) – just think how well my other 200 sites rank for niches that have far more traffic than MMO and not nearly the competition because bloggers are busy chasing social traffic. You probably won’t but do yourself a favor and read some of my blog – if you want to really make money online then learn how it’s really done.
Btw – the only reason I have a MMO blog was to prove that I could take a free blogspot blog and dominate a niche that has millions of people competing in it. My blog didn’t cost a dime and it makes a healthy income. You might also notice that I’m not selling anything to my readers. I hope to see you drop by Chris as you have obvious talent and I hate to see you wasting time chasing the wrong goal. If you aren’t interested in making money and only want readers then disregard this – although my methods have generated a large readership as well although unintentionally.
All the best Chris
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Yes uniqueness is something important if people are to come to your sites. and as well if you are to MMO
lol… i really like some of the alternatives you came up with.. get a fat wallet without leaving the couch.. my adding and lifestyle.. 
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Grizzly,
You definetely win the award for the longest comment on my blog
heh heh. Joking aside, I do believe you make some valid points. I would agree that search engine traffic will click on more ads, but I think that you’ve over estimated the number of readers that come to blogs and don’t click on ads or buy products. Besides, I would say that blog readers are more likely to have been into earning money on the web than people that just search MMO in Google. And therefore the blog readers could be potentially “worth more” for lack of a better way to say it.
The list I wrote was not for SEO purposes which is where I can see where most of your argument stems from. Most of the alternatives I wrote as a joke or as a creative way to say the same thing without saying MMO. That’s why some of them sound “a little off.” I specifically tried my best to not use make, money or online in any of them.
At the height of John Chow’s MMO #1 spot I remember him mentioning he received about 250 visitors a day via Google. So unless you’re in the #1 spot in my opinion it’s not worth it. Would you mind sharing how much traffic you get via Google for a 7th place spot?
I believe that over the long haul if you build trust with your reader base and offer recommended products and services you can still make money via affiliate income. Besides, that’s what most of the bigger name bloggers do anyway.
Side note: I did look at your blog as soon as you wrote your post. I think that you’ve done an excellent job targetting your blog towards beginners though as they’re the ones that have probably not applied to various ad networks or purchased all the worthwhile ebooks etc.
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Love the post! Very funny lines. I know you were mostly joking, but it does set the wheels n motion
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I’ll have to ditto what Griz said.
As he said, the affiliate income you mentioned isn’t going to be earned by anyone who isn’t at the very top of the MMO social register if they’re depending mostly upon social (aka referral) traffic.
Do really you think enough of your ‘readers’ are going to buy from your affiliate links for TLA or SEOBook for you to make any money? Or, do you think it’s much more likely that they will either sign-up from a bigger blog, buy through their own link or simply sign up without a referral at all?
Your traffic is about the same as mine on OpTempo judging from your feed numbers and Alexa so I kind of know what the answer is. That’s also why I don’t show the common MMO blog ads but mostly off-the-wall stuff like ringtone, dating and t-shirt ads. But, even with that, OpTempo makes the least amount of money of any of the monetized web site or blogs I run (about 30 of them at this point).
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Awesome list, dude. Brings to mind John Cow’s line, “Milking the net since 2007″. Hilarious. But good point, who wants to read yet-another-MMO-blog?
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@Frank C
I see what you and Gerry are saying, I just think that there’s a trend towards MMO blogs being overly spamming and/or irritating which is something many others have discussed. Now I’m not disputing that the content either yourself or Gerry write, but rather trying to move more bloggers (especially noobies) towards something else.
Do I believe you can be successful using Make Money Online as your blog tagline? Yes. Do I believe that some of the Make Money Online blogs out there are valuable? Yes. Do I believe Make Money Online to be the catch all be all phrase for bloggers looking to earn money off a blog on the topic? No.
I composed this list as a way to offer a fresh alternative to the standard MMO phrase particularly for those that are just starting out blogging.
To answer your question, I have signed up a few people through affiliate programs but not a ton of course. I believe that with time I will climb the “blogging ladder” because I write from experience about ideas I believe will help people succeed online. I don’t just sling products to make a quick buck. I’m in it for the long haul and building a brand through trust.
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MMO blogs are already up to 475 in Entrecard.
It’s like a virus.
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Great point! Many bloggers, including me, use MMO in their taglines because the search engine optimization. But let’s face it, this tagline is too saturated, I want to change it, may be I could get one of listed in this post
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I thought for sure you meant MMORPG at first
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@Mr Javo
Yah, I think that your blog has good content and there could be another tagline that gets some traffic that you can hit more easily perhaps?
@Mike
lol… yah that was intentional along with the joke about playing WoW at the end. I can’t play that game anymore. The first and last time I played the game it was wayyyy too addicting and I played it too much.
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Chris,
Check out Griz’s latest post, just made today. He answers your question (1500) .
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Interesting Chris. I like your suggestions better than MMO!
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[...] goes: Chris Guthrie is sick of all the blogs using the “Make Money Online” tagline. In an effort to break [...]
I’m all for creativity, as anyone who has read any of my blogs will tell you. However, as several commentators here have pointed out it’s all about the SEO. Really, I don’t give much weight to taglines. There are several blogs I frequent but would be hard pressed to tell you their tagline. I have a fairly popular SEO blog, and as competitive as “SEO” might be I can’t imagine readers would find me if I used some other keyword. It’s the same with MMO. The blog I used in my link here is brand new, but the clarity provided by saying it’s an MMO blog is part of why people read it. The other part, I like to think, is my fascinating writing style.
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Yes there are definitely more ways to say Make money online than MMO….
has been missing some creativity lately among those web-marketing guys… the wind is changing though.. 
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“Traveling around the world sponsored by my online earnings!” – how about that Chris!
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These are some interesting phrases. Now a days, the Make money online domain is liked a clogged toilet. Unfortunately we are all part of it. Every now and then, we are seeing new bloggers that never made money online coming up with some tips on how to make money online. Anyways, we have to live the truth.
Using the tagline or phrase really makes you stand out from this clogged niche. I kept mine as simple “making 2 cents per minute” – many of them remember me for this.
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This was a great post. If people even lack the creativity to come up with a nice tagline, how can we trust the creativity in their money-making skills?!
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Right on Chris, great article. I’m glad to see that you’re getting a lot of views and comments on your page, keep up the great work
Best of luck to you and your website,
Richard from http://hedgeagainstspeculation.com
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I think a unique blog attracts a lot more re-visits than one that just gets the initial click for where it is in the search engines. I think the difference comes whether you are talking about blogs or web sites. I seem to use search engines a lot less when looking for a blog.
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well they may make money or not…MMO bloggers dominate a big percentage amongst my clients
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Hahaha, and now I have an interesting one. Because I have a concept to make money WITH MMO
(what’s in a name, someone said some time ago….)
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“Make Money Online”- How many different ways can you make money online. It’s so funny to see this!!
Target your keyword and you might have a better chance of making money yourself. Broad terms will generate poor targeted traffic.
Thanks for the post!!
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