The nice folks at PacktPub sent me a pretty good book called “WordPress For Business Bloggers” by Paul Thewlis. I’ve been reading it for a couple of weeks and it turned out to be an excellent read.
Who is it for?
It makes it clear in the beginning of the book that you should at least be familiar with WordPress as a blogging platform. It doesn’t expect you to know any HTML or PHP skills, just a working knowledge of the WP interface for adding posts and pages, activating plugins and general use.
The book says it is aimed at anyone running or starting a business blog using WordPress. It can be for PR, marketing, profit or driving traffic. Whatever you use it for, if it’s for a business then this book is for you.
My own addition to this is that it will be perfect for someone who runs their own personal blog and is used to people asking them blogging questions. Why? because with this book, you could move from doing minor updates to personal blogs to heading up a business blog for your workplace or local businesses. You will see why below…
The Plan
One of the things that really impressed me with this book was how Paul gives good examples of specifics, what makes a great blog is the first question covered in the book. It doesn’t try to explain from the beginning what a blog is which would take a whole book but instead, it gives an example of different blogs that are aimed at;
- Increasing sales
- Adding value
- A dialog with your customers
- Raising awareness
- Showing expertise
- Customer Service
- Public relations
- Driving Traffic
The first chapter will give you an excellent summary of what you will learn from reading the rest of the book including, monetization, promotion and statistics.
The Case Study
This is where the real value of the book comes into play. So many “how to blog” books and blogs don’t go into specifics. They go on about how you should do this and that but not exactly how to go about doing this and that!.
The WordPress for business bloggers book has it’s own case study site to take you from planning (including strategic goals, tactical goals and implementation) all the way through from Chapter 3 – Designing your blog, how to install to your local machine so you can develop a blog before it goes live to blog design principles, layout, typography, colors.
Images, video and content are all covered in chapters 4 and 5. I was really impressed by the content of these chapters, every sub heading had a gold mine of information associated with it and was able to cover a large amount of the whole blogging for business idea without getting too wordy or cluttered with random information. It’s quite clear that Paul knows an awful lot about blogging and WordPress!
Through each chapter you get to work on the case study and see it grow as you complete each chapter and learn how each new bit of information gets applied to a real blog.
Why would you buy it?
Far from being just for business bloggers, I think this book would be an excellent resource for anyone wanting to know a bit more about blogging. All the information and guidelines would be applicable to any new blog.
You could even use this book as a self study course, work through each chapter and follow the case study and by the end, you will not only know how to make a full site but, you will know why you put headings here, how you should respond to comments, what to do with SEO and how to apply it and much more.
The case study site is quite simple and will give you a good ‘heads up’ on how to add and remove items from an existing theme so you could adapt a regular theme to word specifically for your business.
The code is available to download from the packtpub website.
If you’re working for your company and they don’t have a blog, just the information in Chapter 1 and 2 about mapping out a strategic plan and how to implement solutions would arm you with enough ‘know-how’ to talk your boss into getting your company into blogging. And wouldn’t it be nice if you knew just how to start? 
Click here for WordPress For Business Bloggers
Get ANY book from PacktPub for FREE
Being the nice folks that they are, Packtpub has offered up 2 books from their vast collection as ebook downloads. My first packtpub book was an ebook and from it, I learned all that I needed to know about wordpress design so I really recommend that you enter this contest!
Requirements
- Visit the PacktPub website and browse their collection and leave a comment here with what book you would like to win.
(link to the books page at packtpub if you like) - Write about this contest on your own blog and link to this post.
(it doesn’t have to be a whole post, it can be included as part of a new post but mention “wordpress for business bloggers” or “packtpub” in the paragraph and link directly to this post)
Details
Contest will run until Jan 16th 2009.
Winners will be chosen by a magic script at Random.org
Please use an email address that you can be contacted on when you comment, this email address will be used to receive the ebook
I’ll most likely be entering, so I’ll be back. I’m curious though, is this book for beginners, or pretty much any business blogger?
Dennis Edell´s last blog post..Free Permanent BackLinks: Are You A Subscriber Or Follow Me On Twitter?
thx for PacktPub site, it’s become really useful for me
Thanks for the recommendation Andy, I may have to recommend this book to some of our customers! Packt produce some excellent books – I have a couple on WordPress and Drupal that were very helpful for improving my “leaning-curve”
Cheers, Jon
Jon´s last blog post..Recession-Proof Marketing – test and measure
I run a WordPress blog myself and always on the look for more information about this fantastic blogging platform.Thanks for the review, I will most likely check out the book.
Tom Lindstrom´s last blog post..How To Become More Creative
do you know if there’s a free trial available?
thanks
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i think i’ll try this contest. the book sounds great. thanks
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I’m putting in my entry for this contest.. Blogged about it on my marketing blog- http://marketing.dominiquegoh.com/blog/free-e-books-from-packpug/
I would like to win
http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-for-business-bloggers/book#indetail
and
http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-theme-design/book
Dominique Goh´s last blog post..Merry Xmas
thanks for your entry dominique, just an FYI, there will be 2 winners each receiving 1 book. let me know which one you prefer (I’ve read them both and they both rok!)
Hmm, this book sounds interesting. I’ve set up multiple wordpress blogs (including http://www.afhill.com/blog and http://www.afhill.com/gothedistance ) and I’ve just been learning as I go. I’d be interested in how they recommend the best way to use a blog for business is.
Andrea Hill´s last blog post..Razorfish’s Patent on Measuring Social Media
Thank you for the amazing review Andy. I’ll definitely check it out .
…
happy holidays
Anti Scams´s last blog post..Acai Berry + Colon Cleanse Scam ?
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http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-plug-in-development/book
This is the book that I want.
And this is where I blogged about it.
http://cashmerelashkari.com/2008/12/26/another-nice-contest/
Cashmere Lashkari´s last blog post..
I’ve posted a review at http://www.blog4funandprofit.com. Thanks for hosting this contest!
-Anthony Navarro
I love to win this contest because I have just started my blogs with wordpress. Please count me in
wordoress tips´s last blog post..960 Grid System – A powerful CSS framework for building websites quickly
I would love to win, I am a huge fan off wordpress and learning to use it to its full capabilities, I have not seen this book before but I am definately interested after your review.
Hi Andy,
after much consideration I feel that
http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-theme-design/book
is the book I would wish to win more as am extremely curious to know how to develop my own custom made wordpress theme.
Dominique Goh´s last blog post..Year End Reflections-( On Roy)
I’m glad to find this useful information for colon cleanse.
great blog you have!
Nice review. The book seems interesting . I should get it soon ! Thanks for sharing.
Twitter: thespotter
Great review Andy!
WordPress is some much more then simple blog and this book comes at the right time to help people realize the full potential of the platform.
Alex Sysoef´s last blog post..WebProsperity Pre-Launch
Twitter: thespotter
Andy,
I would LOVE to know what plugin you use for adding Twitter name to comment. Please share, better if via email used for this comment but I’m subscribed to the thread as well.
Happy New Year!
Alex Sysoef´s last blog post..Happy New Year!
Andy thanks a lot for checking out my site– Commnetluv is great! I followed your link to your last post to see this contest– and read your book review. As a new WP user that is very valuable content for me!
Have a Happy new Year…
-Bob
You seem to have switched off Andy!
Happy new year.
Nicole Price´s last blog post..New Year Resolutions to Help You Save Money
Great Review! Been using WordPress for almost a year and I think this book would be a great read for me.
BeyondRandom´s last blog post..Happy Holidays To All!
Andy,
This book is helping me a lot thanks for the recomendation. I’ve been using it to help me fix up my new blog (or get off on the right foot as a newbie)
-Bob
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I’m 13 can i still apply
anyone can enter!
I am changing the rules for the last week, you only need to link to the book you want to win in these comments to qualify
Andy Bailey´s last blog post..ABloggerBlog.com : Featured Site
Andy,
Great contest. BIG thanks to you and PacktPub for the offer.
Let me enter by choosing the following two interesting titles:
1) WordPress for Business Bloggers (looks very helpful after reading your review).
2) WordPress Plug-in Development (due out Jan ’09 looks very interesting re: a topic I have never investigated.
I know the details of the contest have changed slightly in the fact that you do not need to post about it on your own blog, but it seems only fair. I’ll have a post up on my blog before the day is over and hopefully send you some link love.
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Hi Andy, you can find the blog post and links in the URL! If I win, I’d like one of these please:
1. “Wordpress Theme Design” by Tessa Blakeley Silver or
2. “Wordpress for Business Bloggers” by Paul Thewlis
Yep, I linked to both books and also to here and your homepage.
Good luck all contestants!
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Here is my link:
http://hollak.info/2009/01/free-packtpub-book-contest-deadline-nears/
I posted my two most desired titles a couple of comments above this one.
Can’t wait for the drawing. Tomorrow (16th) correct?
Joe
Joseph Hollak´s last blog post..Free PacktPub book contest deadline nears