Two weeks ago I launched a competition to give away my copy of Darren Rowse’s and Chris Garrett’s guide to pro blogging, Problogger: Secrets for blogging your way to a six figure income.

Competition:

The competition invited readers to submit in the comment box the most successful blog post they have written and explain why they thought it was so successful. If people didn’t have a blog they could simply provide a link to post the liked on someone else’s blog.

Results:

The competition generated 17 entires, from all over the world, which is more than I anticipated. The fact Darren first and then Chris tweeted the competition no doubt helped with this.

There wasn’t a strict criteria I used for choosing the winner, other than wanting to select a winner that I thought would benefit the most from the book.

It’s a shame I don’t have 17 copies of the book to giveaway, because they were all interesting posts. Though like in any competition there has to be winners.

The runners up:

The runners up, which unfortunately win nothing, are:

Meikah:

Meikah’s post on poor service at Louis Vuitton really hit a nerve of public discontent generating more than 40 comments outlining similar poor service. Makes you realise the importance of monitoring what is said about you online. I expect there are store managers that would be horrified to hear this, but then again perhaps not?

Yvonne:

Yvonne’s excellent post on 10 ways to get creative in seven days is in my opinion a near perfect blog post. In fact it was simply too good to win. The intention of this competition was to pass this book onto an up and coming blogger who I though would really benefit from the tips. Considering Yvonne employed so many of the techniques Darren and Chris recommend I don’t know that she would benefit as much as someone else. You’re just too clever already you see Yvonne.

I encourage everyone who reads this to check out Yvonne’s post and follow her advice, it is really good. I am following it myself.

Sanjeev:

Sanjeev’s post detailed a fairly lengthy overview of Windows Live Writer (disclosure I have worked at Microsoft and my employer has Microsoft as a client). Despite the post being incredibly long Sanjeev broke his post up with plenty of headlines, which made identifying the sections you wanted and those that you didn’t really easy – very important when you consider how much of the web there is to read.

Winner:

However there can only be one winner and that is Jess Morris. In the scheme of things Jess’s post on Twitter service at Australia Post isn’t technically the best written blog post entry, yet it generated 90 hits. Not a bad number of visitors for a new blogger. It has also generated comments from her audience and has been retweeted by her Twitter followers.

As all experienced bloggers I suspect would attest, it is exciting when something you write is so well received by your audience that it generates a spike in traffic, is shared via retweets and comments accrue as people join the discussion. It’s those posts that give you the blogging bug.

Jess, I hope the book will allow you to generate more successful posts like your entry to this competition and continue to evolve your blogging. Remember though, you have to pass on the book once you have read it. I look forward to following your blog.

Thanks again to all entrants.

A couple of months back I made a concerted effort to increase the number of posts I made on here and increase the traffic coming to my blog. That process involved me reviewing the blogging practices of my favourite bloggers (see my blog roll in the right panel) and also involved me reading Problogger: Secrets for blogging your way to a six figure income. The purpose of this post is to provide a review of that book and also to give away my copy.

Competition:

Before I get into the review, let me outline how you can win the book. Because let’s face it that’s why you’re here right.

As the book is a guide to blogging I am going to give the book away to a commenter willing to share a link to their most successful blog post and explain why they think it has been successful. If you don’t have a blog simply provide a link to a memorable post on another person’s blog and tell us why you like it. I will select the winner. The condition of entry though is that you too pass on the book when you have finished it.

Review:

The book, as the name suggests, is a guide to making a living from your blog. It is written in the first person and is authored by successful and professional bloggers Darren Rowse and Chris Garret. Written so it can be understood by people with no experience whatsoever in blogging it covers everything from selecting a blog platform, through to tips for great content creation, blog monetisation and closes by providing case study examples of successful global blogs.

I have been blogging for quite some time now (first blog launched in 2004), so for me there was nothing in the book that was all that groundbreaking, especially as I’m a reader of Problogger, but it was nice to have it all in the one place.

For me, the most important section of the book was the one focussed on creating great blog content.

Tips covered include:

• Finding your niche – does the world really need another photography or social media blog
• Writing succinct posts – the internet is a big place, make your content is short and to the point
• Making your posts standout – headline tips, the power of lists, formatting, using pictures
• Writing for search engines – tips for ensuring your content is search engine friendly
• Engaging readers – writing techniques for encouraging comments or increasing subscribers
• Post frequency – theories on how often should you post

What is good about the book:

• Both authors have been incredibly successful with their blogs, so it was great to get such candid insights from people who absolutely know what their writing about
• The book is broken up into easily understood sections, so you can skip parts you don’t need and likewise easily find the stuff you want more information on
• It provides examples of lots of free tools you can use and outlines how they help with the blogging process

What is not so good about the book:

• The book is written in the first person, but there are two authors. As the reader, you are not always sure which author it is you are hearing from. Perhaps this isn’t really too much of an issue, but it did trouble me a few times whilst reading
• The book focused a lot on making money from your blog directly. I thought there could have been more focus on the benefits of having a blog beyond simply making money from ads and perhaps some examples of how people have benefited in other ways from their blog
• I thought the book could have focussed a little more on the role of social media in driving traffic to your blog. It focussed a lot on social bookmarking sites, like Stumbleupon and Digg, but less on the importance of growing a network of like minded people on Twitter and Facebook (two major drivers of traffic to my blog)

Who should read this book

As I mentioned above, the book is well set out, so even if you are an experienced blogger like me it is easy to skip chapters and focus on the authors’ tips for driving deeper engagement and higher readership. Having said that, those with no or little experience blogging will benefit the most from reading this book.

Competition

As I said at the top I am giving my copy away and will select a comment left on this post before Friday 4 June to be the winner. So go on, drop me a comment about the most successful blog post on your blog and why you think it has been successful. For those that don’t have a blog, simply share a link to a memorable blog post you have seen and outline why you think it was so powerful. Remember a condition of entry is that if you win, the copy then needs to be handed on to somebody else when you have finished with it.

Good luck!

The Huffington Post has published a story on Australian Work Habits, which surprise surprise finds that we are actually all quite hard working.

It is a good read, but what I am most chuffed about is the fact that the Huffington Post is linking to a post on this here blog.

No doubt the link is automatically generated, but it is exciting for my egotistic nature no less.

However, the more important thing to learn from this example is the importance of managing your business or personal reputation online. It is vital that reputation managers today are taking notice of what is being posted and shared online about their brands and products – no matter how small or insignificant the site may seem. You never quite know when one of the world’s biggest blogs  could link to one of the world’s smallest blogs and bring a lot of traffic to something previously unknown.

If you or your PR people are not currently monitoring your brands online I suggest you do so immediately. If you get push back from your manager or finance people send them to this post – it may just change their mind.