Packt Publishers is very good when it comes to identifying great topics for their business and finding people who can write in a clear and simple way. In this new book, WordPress 3 for Business Bloggers by Paul Thewlis brings you the knowledge to start the process of blogging for any purpose, not just business.
Here is a short overview of the chapters so you can see what is covered in this book.
Chapter 1: A Blog Less Ordinary—What Makes a Great Blog?
Chapter 2: Introducing our Case Study—WPBizGuru
Chapter 3: Designing your Blog
Chapter 4: Images and Videos
Chapter 5: Content is King
Chapter 6: Search Engine Optimization
Chapter 7: Supercharged Promotion
Chapter 8: Connecting with the Blogosphere
Chapter 9: Analyzing your Blog Stats
Chapter 10: Monetizing your Blog
Chapter 11: Managing Growth
WPBizGuru a Case Study
After the first introduction of some great WordPress blogs and how blogs can be used Paul goes into a case study showcasing a new site on http://blog.wpbizguru.com/
In the following chapters, he takes you from the basics of the design and changes to match your own ideas (don't get scared by the coding! It is not that hard..) up to how to write your content and use images and video in your posts.
What I really like in these first chapters is the way he helps you with ideas on how to create a blogging plan and how to implement is focusing on the real purpose of your blog/website.
The following chapters are about how to get traffic to your blog, how to measure that traffic, and what to do with it.
The monetizing chapter is a bit limited on how to get the most of your blog traffic but is surely a start in the right direction. Managing growth is not only about keeping the performance of your site but also about keeping up with comments and reducing spam in your blog.
WordPress Plugins
Paul mentions several plugins in his book that I think are very good, however, there are three plugins he uses that I don't use anymore for several reasons:
- Akismet = replaced by Growmap Anti Spam Plugin (I use the premium version which comes with Commentluv) because it works better and the free version is well.. free (Akismet is not free in many cases https://akismet.com/signup/)
- Super Cache = replaced by Hyper Cache if you want it simple or W3 Total Cache for the more techies among us.
- All-in-One-SEO = replaced WordPress SEO by Yoast, no not because he is Dutch like me, but because the plugin just works better and is also free (AIOSEO has a premium version)
Conclusion
WordPress 3 for Business Bloggers is not just for Business bloggers, it is a great starting point for any WordPress blog or website you want to set up. Like I mentioned before I really liked the Blogging plan layout and the focus on the purpose of your blog/website.
One thing I missed was how to secure your blog against hackers, so I will write a blog post on that next because you really need to secure your site. The Backup and restore sections of the book are mandatory for making sure you can get your blog back fast.
All in all, a great starting point for any new WordPress website owner that wants his or her website to succeed.
