WordPress for Business Bloggers: Promote and grow your WordPress blog with advanced plug-ins, analytics, advertising, and SEO [Paperback]

Paul Thewlis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1847195326 | ISBN-13: 978-1847195326 | Publication Date: August 11, 2008 | Edition: Paul Thewlis(Author)

This practical guide will show you how to make your business blog different from the crowd and attractive to your target audience by implementing the features of WordPress. This book is for current users of the WordPress platform who want to get the most out of WordPress to manage business/professional blogs; it is not an introduction to WordPress and does not cover basics such as installation or creating posts and pages, configuring blog settings, etc. Readers are expected to have a WordPress blog or to be in the advanced stages of planning one. The book is aimed at managers of business/professional blogs, which broadly fall into four categories: Professional Expert Blogs – owned by individuals who blog in their area of expertise to increase their personal exposure and standing. Corporate Blogs – owned by companies that blog to reach customers and encourage closer relationships, sales, and referrals. Online News Sources / Magazines – blogs that provide content on particular topics, funded by ads. Campaign Blogs – not-for-profit blogs run by charities or "causes", designed to promote ideas or encourage certain behaviors. Non-business bloggers will also find the book useful if they want to take their WordPress skills beyond the basics.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Thewlis

Paul Thewlis has worked as a web communications professional in the public and private sectors. He is currently E-Communications Manager for a multinational transport company based in the UK. He began his web career as a Technical Editor, working on web design books for a well-known publisher. He has extensive experience of many content management systems and blogging platforms.

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Packt Publishing; Paul Thewlis(Author) edition (August 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847195326
• ISBN-13: 978-1847195326
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #655,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nicely Done, February 4, 2009

By 

Todd Hawley (San Francisco CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WordPress for Business Bloggers: Promote and grow your WordPress blog with advanced plug-ins, analytics, advertising, and SEO (Paperback)

This book explains how to take your WordPress blog and turn it into something special, a blog that sets it apart from the tens of thousands of other blogs online. Using as its example the "Chiliguru" blog, Mr Thewlis explains how to produce a blog that readers will take notice of and read every time you post new content. He starts with the basics, like setting your goals for the blog, designing it, incorporating image and video files, then goes on to offer "blog writing tips." With so many bloggers, it's important to incorporate good writing into your blog. Even though he stresses there aren't any "set rules" to blogging, few people will read a blog that is boring or poorly written.

Search engine optimization is a hot topic in the blogosphere these days and Mr Thewlis devotes an entire chapter to this topic, discussing keywords, permalinks, tags and site maps. He also touches upon other ways of promoting your blog, how to analyze your blog stats, and more importantly ways of making money from your blog. There are also lots of good screen shots throughout that help explain different procedures.

I found this to be a highly enjoyable book. It's clear Mr Thewlis put a lot of effort into showing the reader how to create a stand-out business blog.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the first book on web building that got me excited about what I was learning!, November 21, 2008

By 

gypsytu "Tony" (Montana USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: WordPress for Business Bloggers: Promote and grow your WordPress blog with advanced plug-ins, analytics, advertising, and SEO (Paperback)

I have purchased and studied many technical books, this is the first book I felt a need to write a review. I find it well organized and understandable. The information concerning plug ins and the proper process is extremely valuable. I have only read about half way through the book, but I understand more about WordPress than I thought possible. The ability shown how to design the blog on your own computer and then upload it to your host is priceless. I highly recommend this book!

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wordpress Beyond the Basics, June 23, 2009

By 

Thomas Beck "www.beckshome.com" (Mechanicsburg, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: WordPress for Business Bloggers: Promote and grow your WordPress blog with advanced plug-ins, analytics, advertising, and SEO (Paperback)

Touted as a `beyond the basics' book targeted towards business bloggers, WordPress for Business Bloggers delivers a wealth of WordPress and blogging knowledge in the context of a fictitious case study. I picked up this book as a way to jumpstart my involvement with WordPress after several years of involvement with other blogging tools. I was not at all disappointed with the results.

Based upon my experiences, I can confidently assert that no experience with WordPress is necessary to benefit from this book. The book states the assumption of such knowledge up front and, after that, never returns to WordPress basics. Ample materials on WordPress installation, operations and configuration can be found online and I appreciate that the book didn't spend any time rehashing these items.

Instead of focusing on simpler procedural activities, the book weaves together the challenges of solving business issues for Chiliguru, a fictitious business blog, with advanced WordPress operations, guidance, and plugins. The book manages to bridge the challenges of running a day-to-day blog with WordPress-specific knowledge in a unique style. One would be hard pressed to cobble together the information and knowledge this book imparts from the web-based tutorials currently available on the Internet. Examples of the unique content covered in this book include:

* Search engine optimization, including coverage of keywords, permalinks, and sitemaps supported by a variety of WordPress plugins
* Integrating social networking content from Twitter and Facebook into WordPress blogs
* Blog statistics analysis with both WordPress stats and Google Analytics
* Integration of Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate programs into WordPress-based blogs
* Coverage of advanced technical topics including: increasing scalability via WP Super Cache, using WordPress MU for multi-blog environments, and backing-up, restoring and moving WordPress blogs.

If you're looking for a beginners guide to WordPress, this book is not for you. On the other hand, if you've accumulated some basic experience with WordPress or another blogging engine and you're looking for insight and knowledge to take your WordPress blog to the next level, you really can't go wrong with this book.