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.

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140 Characters, a lesson in the way of the Twitter Samurai

I’m talking about the new book 140 Characters: A Style Guide For The Short Form by Dom Sagolla and Wiley Publishing.

A lot of people say to me that they do not get Twitter. I hear questions and comments like:

• Why would anyone care what I am doing on a moment by moment basis?
• I don’t know what to write.
• How can I write anything meaningful in 140 characters?

Dom Sagolla offers answers to these questions and more in the Twitter Equivalent of The Associated Press Style Guide crossed with a book on poetry and English literature.

I have to admit, it took me a while to get my head around this book as I started out in a pragmatic small business and internet marketing headspace. When I finally slowed down and opened up to the message, what I got was an introduction into a new literary venue, complete with its own style guide. I got a glimpse into an expanding Twitterverse by one of its key influencers. It’s kind of like reading the Lonely Planet guide for Nairobi.

Approach your 140 characters as you would a Haiku poem, a memorable one-liner or a powerful truth and you are getting close to the message of this book. Twitter can be more than a micro broadcasting venue. It can be a real-time conversation and a publishing medium at the same time and what matters is who you are on Twitter.

In reading this book I found myself looking into the world of a dedicated and artful Author and wondering if I was willing to take on that role and learn to be good at it. I think ultimately that was the indelible question for me in this book. It showed me what I was up against in Twitter and what it is going to take to be a leader in this space. I was left in a quandary about who I want to be with respect to Twitter? The funny thing is this question is what inspired me to read this book in the first place. The difference now is I think I have a better understanding of how to make my decision.

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.

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Yahoo Listing Finally Appears

This is my 3rd and final posting, on how long it takes Google to recognize my $299US Yahoo Directory Listing. After nearly 30 days, Google finally recognized the Yahoo Listing. As I said in my last post it took less than a week for both Business.com and HotFrog.ca by comparison at $299US and Free to put that into perspective.

I guess I should not be overly critical of how long it took to get this listing setup and recognized, DMOZ the open directory project is 3 months and still counting with no sign that the listing will ever materialize.

With all my link building efforts over that last 3 months, I have to say that niche industry directories, On-line press release distribution sites and social media connections have generated the most rapid recognition from Google and where I will continue to focus my efforts.

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