I did my report on a book written by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett titled "ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, Third Edition". It was an extensive read with amazing pointers that might just help me further my writing!
If you are like most people, you would entertain the option
of being able to work from home for a living in a heartbeat. In this book, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way
to a Six-Figure income (third edition), I was able to delve into the
concepts that could eventually get me there. As many know, there are numerous
ways to earn that money, but few ways are on the desirable side of things. You
need to look at it as a whole when going head first into a choice like using
the internet to make your money.
On the
topic of blogs the most important thing is to find a topic of interest, or a
Niche as mentioned in this book. The problem with a lot of bloggers is that
they love writing but they are more interested in writing what people want to
read. This works at first but, surely, readers lose interest and move on to the
next best article. You don’t want to be that writer that just under par, you
need people to learn about you and what you love to write about. So sit back and
take the time to gather your ideas and stay true to you when you make your
blog.
Within
this book, I learned that there are a few different ways to earn your income
using a blog. To start it off you could go the advertisement route, which would
clutter your page and possibly ruin the traffic to your site. This was said to
be a dangerous method due to losing the fan base all because you advertise too
much. Another great way was called “Freelance Blogging” which meant that you
would be a hired out writer for other blog sources. So on top of your own blog,
if you are holding one of your own, you can also sell yourself out for writing
on topics others need on their sites.
To even start to be able to make
all that desirable money, you need traffic. If there is no one visiting your
blog, you are headed nowhere fast. You need to be able to write and interact
with your traffic and make them want to come back or, as the book referred it
as, stick around. This concept is labeled as “The Sticky Blog” idea, where if
you interact with questions and good topics you will have people that want to
stay around. Once you gather this group of sticky people is when you can start
to gain reputation among other readers and even other bloggers. That is how
your name can start to float about the higher ranks of blogging. To tag along
with this topic, you need to be up to date with most all of the social media
options. A good way to stay up and active with your readers is to involve
yourself with media, such as twitter. That way you have more than one way to
connect with the people that are following your blog.
The reading also focused on making
sure that what you are writing about is fresh, not something used and out of date.
This idea was referred to as making your blog to not be like fashion, it isn’t fleeting
or a bandwagon. You need to write about new and interesting things that people
will care about; issues that people sometimes shy away from. That is what
blogging is for, expression. When you get to this point where you need to keep
people around even if topics are thin, make sure you keep up on all of your
feedback. This lets your readers know that you are still around and working on
your blog. Otherwise, you might just wash out all the work you have put into it
so far.
This book was a great read,
especially because I am an avid literature buff. I truly enjoy writing and
responding on my class blog and that is just an assignment. All the ideas
within this book were good, some were obvious and unneeded while others were
quite astonishing. I would suggest this book for people that look to further
their public writing skills, even if it isn’t a blog. Imagine this advice for an
author that publishes paperback books, the ideas within this book were
completely valid for even that venue. The book is a bit extensive in some areas
that weren’t needed, which made some points quite dull to read. Although there
were many valid points on top of the excess reading that I will carry with me
in any future writing I put myself to.
