Blog Wild - Great Book for the Beginner Blogger

Looking for blogging tips, especially directed toward the beginner blogger like myself? Not even sure how to blog or set up a blog?  Blog Wild, by veteran blogger and blog consultant Andy Wibbels might be the book for you.

He even will guide you step by step how to create a blog using TypePad.

Andy highly recommends TypePad for beginner bloggers like myself. He feels that "TypePad gives the most professional results out-of-the-gate".

At the time Blog Wild was published back in 2006 I certainly would have agreed with Wibbel - that "with other tools you have to know a little more HTML or code to get results that are going to look impressive."  This is still true with Wordpress.  That said and done,  today with little or no technical expertise you can easily custumize your blog with the new Blogger point, click, and drag layout editor.

I haven't read Wibbel's book cover to cover, but what I found particularly useful is how to create your own persona and 5 Ways To Get Traffic For Your Blog.

Blogs are not CNN and nothing is more boring than reading a blog that reads like a newspaper article. If I wanted to read a news article I'd go to CNN or read a newspaper. Wibbels shows you how to put your own personal flair in your blog.

I agree with Wibbel "that a blog with no author info is pretty darn boring". It is nice to know a little about who is writing the blog! Author info certainly makes your blog more interesting and personal.  Also, people are a lot more likely to trust someone they know rather than pages that look like they've been taken out of a textbook.

Andy says the best way to get traffic on your blog is to comment on other blogs. 

Wibbel does not recommend using free hosting.  As the author says, "who are you going to complain to[using free hosting] when your provider goes down?"  Point well taken Andy!  Currently, I'm hosting my blog on blogger.com and haven't had any problems that I know of anyways.  However, in 2007 when I hosted a blog with Blogger it was down at least a couple of times.  If it wasn't for the fact that to use the new Blogger customizable layout you need to host your blog with Google, I would use Hypermart to host my blog. 

Hypermart is a reliable, reasonably priced web host with friendly and helpful 24/7 custumer service and technical support.  The later has come in handy many times, believe me!  I will be hosting my site Internet Security 101 with Hypermart. I've also used them in the past to host both web sites and blogs.

Blog Wild includes ways to make money on your blog, such as using Google Adsense or selling products/services. None of this was new to me, but might be helpful for other novice bloggers.

There is lots more in Blog Wild that I haven't written about, especially directed towards people wanting to use a blog to promote their business.

In a nutshell, I highly recommend Blog Wild for beginner bloggers like myself. It contains lots of useful, helpful info and is well worth the read.