‘Blogging your way to riches’ is an information packed book by two successful bloggers who have monetised their blogs – Emma Bradley and Lynn James. Their blogs are Emma & 3, Emma’s Savvy £ Savings by Emma and Mrs MummyPenny by Lynn.
The book is split into 18 chapters as follows:
- Introduction
- Why should you blog?
- The essentials skills needed as a blogger
- What to expect in the first 6 – 12 months of blogging
- What equipment is needed to start blogging
- How a blog should look and how social media should support it
- Networking for ultimate success
- How to set goals to drive success
- How to work with PR and SEO Agencies
- How and when to pitch to PR Agencies
- How to make money from your blog
- How to negotiate and seal the deal
- Collaborations and how they can benefit you
- Search engine optimisation (SEO) demystified for success
- How to comply with regulations when blogging
- What can I outsource to save time and make blogging easier?
- Longer term diversification and making even more money
- Conclusion
First Chapters
The first chapter introduces the two authors and how they got into blogging. The second chapter is all about the different reasons people start blogging such as:
- Online journal
- Telling a story
- Providing a creative outlet
- Promoting a campaign
- Working from home
- Making money
After that the next few chapters talk about what you need to do to create your blog and what to expect. It also goes in detail about how you go about getting paid work and growing your audience. There is also a chapter which lists all the things you need in your blog form what you should put in the side bars, disclosures, what pages you need and even what the colour of your blog represents about you. There is also a chapter on social media and where to go for networking online and in real life.
Most Useful Chapters
Some of the most useful chapters I found were Chapter 9 regarding PR and SEO agencies. I know next to nothing about this and so I need to go through this chapter again. It’s not until you get to chapter 11 that you finally get to find out about making money form blogs. There’s nothing out of the ordinary there. Some of the methods of making money include:
- Sponsored posts
- Affiliate earnings
- Ghost writing
- Public Speaking
- Selling products
Chapter 13 is also a good chapter on collaboration and how you can make that work for you. After that it goes into more details about your rates, SEO, complying with regulations. And then finally, when you become as big and as rich as they are, it talks about how and what to outsource and diversify.
Finally…
Overall, this is a fairly good book for beginners going into blogging although there useful things for more seasoned bloggers. I have read a lot of similar things before but chapters9, 11 and 13 are some of the chapters I did find useful and will go back to read again.
The one downside is the format of the book. I thought I had purchased the kindle version of the book but it was actually a pdf version. It’s good that I can print it out but not so easy to read on the kindle or online. Other than that, it’s not a bad book but now I need to find the time to implement some of the things that I learnt!
An accountant and a Mum 