BUILDING A WORDPRESS BLOG

I am a relatively new blogger and as such, decided to read several books to aid my efforts in structuring AND understanding this wide-world of blogging.  I was particularly interested in gaining additional knowledge relative to WordPress.  For this reason, I purchased” Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Read”.  The book was written by Mr. Scott McNulty; published by Peachpit Books; copyright 2009.  The major chapters are:

• Why WordPress?
• Installing WordPress
• Managing User Accounts
• The Dashboard
• Future proofing Your Blog
• Preparing to Post
• Publishing Your Post
• Working with Pages
• Handling Links
• Coping with Comments
• Working with Themes and Widgets
• Themes: To Find or To Build?
• Using Plug-Ins
• Troubleshooting and Maintenance

The book was written in a very straight-forward manner and easy for a novice, like myself, to follow.  I certainly did like the fact that each chapter could “stand alone” and serve as a future reference.  Most of the way through the book, I had my computer up and running and was logged into WordPress.

I can definitely recommend this book to you if you are “in the mood” for a reference relative to blogging.

BLOGGING-100 SUCCESS SECRETS

I have just completed reading; what I consider to be an excellent book, “BLOGGING-100 SUCCESS SECRETS”.  The writer is Daniel Harris, copyright 2008.  The book is very comprehensive and answers questions such as:

• The significance of blog traffic
• Examples of a “group” blog
• The importance of blog layouts to content
• How to build more traffic to your web page and blog
• Tips on how to blog and gain money doing so
• The importance of blog pinging
• How a template helps a blog
• Blog editor: Choosing the best style for the category
• Tricks for getting readers

There are segments on political blogs, entertainment blogs, food blogs, travel, sports, medical, education, books, celebrities and many others.  I always look for how efficient the writer is relative to “the mechanics” of writing; i.e. sentence structure, layout, punctuation, logical presentation of ideas, etc.  Mr. Harris did a commendable job in this department.  If you are looking for a good reference book on blogging, I would certainly recommend this 165 page paperback book.  The cost was under $20.00 and for a new blogger, worth the price.