6 Sites To Help Your Business Blogging Skills

Many of my clients ask me about blogging.

“What the heck is blogging?”

“Should my business have a blog?”

“Why are blogs so popular?”

While I try to answer these based on fact and not so much on opinion (because my opinion sometimes sounds fanatical when it comes to the greatness of blogs), I also try to direct them to some sites that have helped me with my blogging adventures, especially once they decide to give it a shot. Here’s a list of some of my favorite (I’ve got them in my RSS reader so I don’t miss a beat) blog help sites. Please note, these are blogs that are ONLY about blogging, not about working at home as a blogger, or working at home in general. This list is meant mainly for businesses with existing web sites that might want to venture into blogging as an additional part of their current site. I’ll make another list soon for individuals, I promise!

These links will open in a new window, so you can come back to this list after bookmarking, because I know you’ll want to!

• ProBlogger – Darren Rowse is simply one of the best bloggers out there in my opinion. He not only teaches you the basics, but also keeps you posted on generating revenue through your blog via ads of all kinds. He has articles on getting and keeping a loyal readership (as he has thousands of his own), and really does a fantastic job of staying on top of the blogging industry. I can’t say enough good things about him, so just go check it out for yourself!
• Performancing – I really do love the tools available on this site. First and foremost is the blog editing tool for Firefox – you can write to any one of your numerous blogs right from your browser window, without having to go to the site, login, and click through to your “write post” page. Their metrics tools are pretty cool as well – it tracks as many sites at a time as you want, and lets you know how many hits you’re getting, exactly where they’re coming from, what people are searching for to find your site (and what page they land on), and even tracks your Google Ad clickthroughs. There’s also a really great forum and the creators are extremely receptive to feedback and support.
• CopyBlogger – Essentially one of the best blogs on how to write in a blog I’ve seen yet. Focuses on skill, technique, and ways to engage your readers simply by fine tuning the way you write your copy.
• Successful Blog – Liz Strauss takes successful blogging a little deeper by writing about not just writing, but thinking about the plan. “It’s more than a blog. It’s ideas.” is absolutely true of Liz’s site, and it makes a great place to expand your thinking once you feel you’ve got the basics down.
• Business Blog Top Sites – Check out what other business blogs are doing in terms of design, frequency of posts, topics, and more.
• Corporate Blogging Info – This site is no longer updated, but there are nearly two years of posts in the archive here that might be useful to aspiring corporate bloggers.

So there you have it. I could probably list a lot more, but this is good to get you started. Once you start clicking around, I’m sure you’ll find more too. Let me know in the comments if you think there are any that really should be listed here, and I might do a “Part II”.