Free download that comes in three sections: Glen Allsopp’s blogging success story, how you can do it and personal insights. Glen started out with a desire to create a website for DJs as an on-line meeting place and promoted it on related sites and via word of mouth to create a real community. Encouraged, Glen put his knowledge and expertise into blogging and created PluginID, which has landed him a dream job, has 3103 subscribers and 85000 page views per month.
Having established his authority, Glen then turns to outlining how you could do it. He does warn that less than 1% of bloggers make a liveable income and it’s better to focus on a blog as a means to an end (promotion) rather than an end in itself (income) with any income from blogging supplementing a real income earnt elsewhere. Glen talks about finding a passion you can communicate rather than picking a popular subject and forcing yourself to write about it. That’s not to say you can’t blog about a popular subject, but make sure you feel engaged and passionate because that will be reflected in your writing. Forced writing about a topic that doesn’t engage you will translate into a dreary blog that won’t attract readers or income. I’m in complete agreement with him that blogs should be about readers: write for readers not search engines or with the aim of attracting income. If readers aren’t your primary focus, you’d struggle to get ranked and struggle to earn from blogging.
Once you’ve got your niche, Glen Allsopp covers branding, selecting a domain, hosting, traffic, search engine optimisation, commenting, guest blogs and social media in a friendly, non overly-technical way. Glen’s a fan of pared down, focused writing which makes his blueprint easy to read. He does labour the point about his love of WordPress. I like WordPress, but I think trying out various blogging platforms and finding one you’re comfortable with is fine, so long as you do actually try WordPress.
In the third section, Glenn passes on some personal insights into how he became successful. He suggests consistency – keep true to your voice and passion and don’t change for the sake of following the latest big idea if you know it’s not for you. That holds for writing as well as blogging. Build a reputation so you build backlinks which will help you dominate search results. Use analytics wisely and provide insane value.
Overall “Blogging Blueprint” is a solid introduction to the basics of blogging for beginners and a good reminder for those with some experience of blogging. There are no startling new ideas for instant success, but then there is no instant success, as writers are well aware.
June 26, 2009 at 11:01 am
[...] Emma Lee – Emma is a writer who has had her poems broadcast on BBC Radio and short stories featured in a number of publications. You can find here website here and the review of Blogging Blueprint, here. [...]