Sunday, September 7, 2008

Problogger Secrets of Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett





Problogger Secrets of Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett

This book is refreshing. The writing is honest, clear, and straightforward. Chris Garrett has a background in computer programming and writes a blog at http://www.chrisg.com/ and Darren Rowse has a blog at http://www.problogger.net/ . These blogs are two of the most popular blogs on the internet about blogging. I like that they immediately tell you that blogging is not a get rich quick scheme, it takes years of diligence to make your blog both profitable and widely read.

They tell you the truth about quite a few things. I wish I had read this book earlier. Post every day with original thoughts and content. Track your blog and see who is visiting and where they are coming from. Include original content and write original thoughts.

One of the most important reminders I got from this book is do not rely on a single source of traffic for your blog. The traffic can be very ephemeral. If a blog uses traffic generators like Digg or Stumbleupon, these sources of traffic do not guarantee that the blog is getting regular visitors every single day. It is the regular visitors who come back over and over again that matter. For a while, I was using Entrecard, I sometimes got a hundred to two hundred visitors a day. When I stopped using Entrecard, my visitor count dropped to about 40 people per day. Of these ten of them were from Entrecard.

The best way to generate traffic is to talk to the people who are visiting, go visit them, and comment on their blogs. Don't just comment. Say "Please comment on my blog." or "What do you think?" So, "How do you like what I am saying?"

In the beginning of the book, the authors remind you that there are many reasons for blogging including hobbies, practicing writing, improving your computer skills, and other things. Think about whether it is worth it to advertise and make money. Sometimes advertising conflicts with your other goals.

There are a lot of subjects covered in this book. Some of them caught me by surprise. You can learn to sell your blog, create a monetary value for your blog, about the social media popularity contest, and many other subjects.

The main focus is how to make money in the long term from blogging. Chris Garrett describes other methods of making money from blogging; consulting, being a guest blog poster, writing for other blogs, designing blog templates, not just advertising. Darren Rowse has a job board on his site, http://www.problogger.net/ for those seeking employment working on blogs.

The voice of this book is one of honesty. Darren Rowse comes across as the conservative preacher he once was. There is a lot of integrity in this book. The authors want you to create a unique and unique content. People are looking for something worthwhile to read which is remarkable, educational, and informative.

Problogging is surprisingly easy to read. I read it in afternoon. The book is 229 pages long. Punctuated throughout the book are black and white photographs, many of them of different blogging sites. This book is a popular book by a pair of popular authors that have direct experience on what they are writing about.

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