ProBlogger: An Excellent Blogging Overview

Over the Christmas Break I read ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett and Wiley Publishing, 2008. While I’ve been an internet marketer for over 7 years, I am relatively new to blogging. Now that I have decided to blog, I want to get good at it.

While I am not interested in blogging for a living, I am interested in learning about blogging from those that do. ProBlogger is likely the 5th book I have read on blogging this year and it is by far the best I have read so far. I wish I would have read it first.

What I like about this book is that it is straight forward, practical and easy to read. As a busy consultant and entrepreneur, I am a bit impatient if I have to slog through a book. ProBlogger outlined a very logical, linear process to follow. Darren and Chris, the authors lead you from ground zero to blog promotion in just over 200 pages. They outline;

• what blogging is,
• how to chose a platform,
• how to setup a blog,
• what to write,
• how to write it, and how often,
• how to promote your blog, and even
• how to make money at it.

The book is not a technical book, so it does not get into a lot of detail. However, it does tell you what to do and in what order. It also points you in the right direction as to where to get more info.

The other thing I linked about this book was the absence of hype. The book offers practical advice for people serious about getting into blogging without a lot of self-promotion or bragging.

As I was reading the book I could not help but see the overlap between best practices for blogging and those for websites. From their description they are very similar. As a result, I started looking at this book as an all around good primer for anyone interested in promoting a website or a blog. So here I am plugging the book 2 days later.

If you are just starting to blog or have recently built a website, I think you could do a lot worse than give this book a read. Even if you ignore the sections on making money from your blog, you will still find at least 80% of this book to be relevant and useful.

If you’re an experienced internet marketer you are not going to find many surprises, but you will get pointed to  key resources specific to blogging that you may not have been aware of. If you are not serious about blogging to promote you business or make money I suggest you give this book a miss.

John Watson is the president of Accrue Performance Marketing Inc. and is the author of Being Profitable™ : the earnings growth program. John has been consulting since 1993. He specializes in helping entrepreneurs Design Build and Grow market leading companies.