ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
I created three FaceBook applications where I ask questions and the users answer them. I did not spend any money on advertising and the applications never took off like I hoped. I have collected over 50,000 answers in less than a year. Unfortunately the type of discussions are not key word heavy enough to make money with ad systems like Google’s adsense.
I decided to create a real world blog and knew I needed to study the best practices in the field. I enjoy reading away from the computer so I went to Amazon.com to look for books on blogging. After looking through the selections, I decided on three books. The first of which is ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett.
For those wanting to know more about blogging this book is a wonderful read. It is well written and well presented. It helped me have a better understanding about the nature of blogging.
In chapter 2, Niche Blogging, the boys hit me over the head with how important it is to have a niche. I knew that but I still wanted to have the shotgun approach and have the ability to talk about anything. Well, chapter 2 changed my mind and made me probe deeper into what I could do as a niche subject.
For the rest of the book I was stoking the fire on my back burner with the question of which niche. I give 100% of the credit for my idea of my new blogging concept to this book and Darren and Chris for making me ask that hard question, which niche.
And speaking of credit, this is written on the WordPress blogging software. It was chapter 3, Setting Up Your Blog, that convinced me to use WordPress. I thought I was going to use Blogger as I had used it in the past but learning about the control that WordPress gives bloggers made it irresistible. The second book I bought from Amazon.com was a book on the program by Google, Blogger. I’ll be reselling that book back through Amazon.com. :-0
Chapter 4, Blog Writing caught me off guard. I got what I was expecting out of all the other chapters but this one was different. The ideas for blog article writing were more than I would have hoped for. I guess it was the authors ability to categorize the types of writing that came out of people forcing themselves to come up with new posts on a daily basis. There were more writing ideas presented here than I have read in entire books on writing. This chapter is now a reference source for me.
I learned in chapter 5, Blog Income and Earning Strategies, about freelance blogging. Because of this idea I have designed my blogs from day one to have guest writers. This works with the basic business plan presented of administration, editor and writers. Right now I am all three but in the future I would like an editor for each blog and have lots of writers.
I almost did not even want to read chapter 6, Buying and Selling Blogs. I don’t want someone else’s blog and at this stage other than a business plan entry, I can’t think of selling my “new” blogs. But I read it any way. I would like to give a long subtitle to the chapter, How To Create Your Blog So That If It Sells, It Is Ready to Change Hands. This is a prime reason to have other writers on your blogs.
Reading chapter 7, Blog Networks, was rather scary. Learning about the Corporate co-operative blogs that have such a huge reach and power made me flinch. I’ll be on my boat in the blog ocean and these guys will come cruising by in their yachts with bigger wakes. Yikes. Although with my multiple blogs and multiple writers, I will be starting my own mini blog network.
I enjoyed the intro to chapter on Blog Promotion and Marketing. Build “flagship content” or “pillar articles.” Create content that is easy to promote. They refer to blog postings that are above and beyond what might be regular posts, blog posts that are core information about your niche. This one page, 166, was very inspirational for me. From: ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
I learned about “link-baiting.” I had alway thought of it as growing an inbound link collection but that does not sound as exciting, or strange. Link-Baiting, come on. I guess it got this moniker from those that used attack comments in hopes to generate links back to their blog. I was glad to see the authors suggest thinking about your reputation rather than trying slash and burn attack comments.
The Blog Promotion and Marketing chapter feels like the tip of the ice burg. To continue the ideas in this chapter I will be following the blogs of the owners. Darren Rowse has ProBlogger.net and Chris Garrett runs chrisg.com.
The final chapter “Create Something Worthwhile” is to me more of a mantra. I just keep repeating it over and over. “Create Something Worthwhile” “Create Something Worthwhile” “Create Something Worthwhile”
Other quotes from this chapter:
- “brainstorm content ideas that they (readers) would absolutely love“
- “know and understand the need to be “remarkable”"
- “some cases it is the nature of the (news) story that helps it spread”
- “add value”
- “Always be thinking, “How can I make this better?”
Well, we shall see or at least I will see as I use the concepts, ideas and inspiration from this book to launch and run my new blogs. This is my third day on WordPress and I am thankful that I bought this book and learned the best practices for professional blogging. Thanks Darren and Chris!
