You need to visit blogs and websites that exist for the sole purpose of helping people get started on the Internet and get you started with your own blog.
The best sites are blog sites with information mostly about blogging – and a little bit about other stuff (e.g. movie downloads, sporting results, their craft for sale on Etsy…).
You also want to read articles (also called ‘posts’) written by bloggers who have made money and mistakes online.
Once you get into the groove and start regularly reading articles on these sites, you will pick up on other best-practice bloggers via recommendations, advertisements, reviews, comments, forums and news alerts.
DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE TO THEIR EMAIL UPDATES!!
- Many successful bloggers get into speaking engagements at blogging conferences and design coaching programs and membership sites to give you a comprehensive service.
- If you visit different ['good'] sites, as a result of Googling various search terms you pick up along the way – you can get a wide variety of views, insights into different strategies and real life examples of what worked and didn’t work (and hopefully why).
25 Top Blogs ABout Blogging To Get You Started
The following list of 10 blogs was published in a post on Daily Blog Tips by Daniel Scocco back in May 2007. There are another 16 over at Daily Blog Tips – here’s the link.
- Alister Cameron
- Andy Beard
- Blog About Your Blog
- Bloggers Blog
- Blogging Pro
- Blog Herald
- Blogtrepreneur
- Build A Better Blog
- Business Blog Wire
- ChrisG
Why ‘Old’ Lists on Blogs ARE NOT a Waste of Time
You might be wondering why I would make reference to a list that is more than 2 years old. Well, if you want to know who has been around for longer than a week, and is giving you advice about how to become a successful blogger – look at their history and past efforts. If they are still about and even more successful, then they have the credibility that most ‘self professed idiots experts’ don’t have.
Despite some blog sites not being updated – it does not mean that they don’t still hold value. A website that is not updated for a few years doesn’t get discriminated against like a blog that doesn’t drip in the owner’s blood, sweat and tears. It’s just unnecessary sometimes to keep updating a site or chopping a good feature article up into 10 ’stand-alone’ articles just for the sake of SEO.
TIP: If you go to a site and the ‘self professed expert’ is giving you advice that seems questionable or you have your suspicions about how long they’re been online practicing what they preach…
- check out their archives and see how long the site has been around
- read their about page – what, they don’t have one!?
- check their domain against ‘who is’
- if they’re supposedly old-timers, check out the WayBackMachine for archived screen shots of their site
- Google their name and their site name
- if they have lots of listings they could be artificially inflated by the owner commenting like a rabbit around the web, speaking at every forum in town, using RSS to populate their content in many places, writing numerous posts in a short period of time…
- a newbie may be good – a natural even. A lot of us were successful at marketing and business off-line before we came online and had to learn to adapt our knowledge. The offline world does give you credentials. A cretin who is amazing online may be useless in the offline world but who is to know?
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Thats a great list for anyone to use, from newbie to advanced. Thanks for sharing them.
George Serradinho´s last blog ..Serious Monday Roundup #14
It is nice to be included but…
All you did was take the blogs listed in Daniel’s list and place them in alphabetical order, and at least one of the blogs you listed hasn’t been updated in almost 2 years.
It is really important to add value and not just rework someone else’s content
Andy Beard´s last blog ..Why Tweetglide Matters – seriously
Hi Andy,
I had the above list in my ‘research’ folder from quite some time ago and thought I would finally get around to putting it to a post. Thank you for mentioning the name “Daniel” as I didn’t have the reference link pasted on the page with my notes.
You are correct – the list is from Daily Blog Tips, by Daniel Scocco.
Even though some sites aren’t updated, doesn’t mean they don’t still hold value. A website that is not updated for a few years doesn’t get discriminated against like a blog that doesn’t drip in the owner’s blood, sweat and tears. It’s just unnecessary sometimes to keep updating a site or chopping a good feature article up into 10 ‘stand-alone’ articles just for the sake of SEO.
I will leave the first 10 links up, update the reference and clearly acknowledge Daniel – sending readers his way for the rest of the list. I am continuing to share the link love in the spirit of blogging – including yours. Thank you for your ‘peer review’.
As for ‘adding value’, I assumed that the 186 words prior to the list, putting links into context, was adding value. A bit like your article “How To Build Profitable Minisites” with 194 words. But, to try and make readers happy that have the extra time to read a lengthier post – I added an extra 350 words – just for you actually. You ‘inspired’ me somewhat.
It’s a pity you don’t power your WordPress site with Thesis Theme – I could have given you a free review :-)
Great to see the post updated. As just a list of the blogs it didn’t have any “you” in it, and now it has.
I don’t look at word counts and that post about Michael’s course you mentioned actually took me a fair amount of time.
I went through the signup process to ensure there were no major pitfalls I would be embarrassed about, checked out lots of the materials to ensure even the free content was worthwhile etc.
I don’t use Thesis – quite often is causes more problems than it solves.
First link priority on home link?
Noindex Nofollow on date based archives? http://thesisthemehq.com/2009/11/
If I created a new layout configuration on my desktop for me, or maybe for a client, who would I migrate that to a live server without messing in options files or database exports?
If you wanted to leave Thesis, what happens with all your custom titles?
Sandbox was using theme hooks and child themes before Thesis existed, yet you would think they were somehow exclusive to Thesis.
Both Sandbox and Thematic have much better semantic markup.
(note: my site is just a testbed, I mess around with things all the time, my functions.php is currently switched off)
Andy Beard´s last blog ..Why Tweetglide Matters – seriously
Andy – cool about the posting. Further to your comment about NoIndex – I unchecked those boxes now so they are dofollow. Your comments about Thesis custom titles…options files and database exports…and semantic markup. For a novice like myself and many others who unpack Thesis for the first time and go holy crap!! until the learning curve flattens out – could you please explain more simply why Thesis is not your preferred theme?
I was concerned about WordPress the other night when my auto upgrade did not reactivate my plugins and I realised how dependent I was on many of them. I am actually considering putting an html site together for another domain I’m working on.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Via comment or if you want to guest post – I’m not concerned that you have strong/negative views on Thesis – I’d really like to know more about your above comments. Let me know what you think. Cheers.
very nice list and thus useful too this is my first visit to to your website and looks interesting
Absolutely! I have always found that old blog posts are NOT a waste of time . On the contrary, I have always surprised myself with old gems hidden buried as old posts. Posts just like this particular one :)
TechChunks´s last blog ..Best “Technology” posts in Year 2009