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Book Review: WordPress for Business Bloggers

WordPress for Business Bloggers by Packt Publishing was a pleasure to read because it approaches many of the important aspects of WordPress from a slightly different perspective: that of the “business blogger”. The book is aimed at the aspiring business blogger who wants to use WordPress to run a successful business blog. The book claims to skip the basics and jump right into the meat of transforming WordPress into a lean, mean business blogging machine. While this may be true for the book’s target audience, the technical aspects of WordPress covered in the book are familiar ground to the seasoned WP user.

Digging in

Digging into the book, readers will find the expected WordPress topics explored from a business-blogging point of view. The books moves along at a quick pace, and quickly makes the case for using WordPress to achieve their business blogging goals. The book then presents a case-study that serves as a working example throughout the remainder of the book. After a quick romp through some basic design and coding principles, the book covers the essentials on integrating image and video content into your blog. The following chapter emphasizes the importance of content in general, and provides some timeless advice on using WordPress to deliver superior content.

Business never personal

While the entire book accurately presents WordPress and blogging from the “business blogging” perspective, the second half of the book seemed to be more useful as far the actual “business” side of the equation is concerned. Covering topics such as Search Engine Optimization, Blog Promotion, and assimilation into the “Blogosphere”, the second half of the book really begins to shine as a useful resource for up-and-coming business bloggers. The book then winds down with three informative chapters on Analyzing Blog Statistics, Monetizing Your Blog, and Managing Growth. These last three topics were very informative and should have comprised a greater portion of the book.

Bottom line

Packt Publishing’s WordPress for Business Bloggers is a great resource for anyone planning or running a business blog using WordPress. The book is written in a casual yet informative tone that keeps you engaged even during the technical stuff. The book is printed in black-and-white, but features a wide variety of examples, images, and diagrams to facilitate understanding. The book doesn’t include a lot of code, but does deliver some choice snippets in several key areas. If you are thinking about getting started with WordPress while diving into the exciting, challenging and rewarding world of business blogging, this book is highly recommended.

About the Author
Jeff Starr = Web Developer. Book Author. Secretly Important.
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5 responses to “Book Review: WordPress for Business Bloggers”

  1. Patternhead 2009/02/15 12:04 pm

    I’ve had quite a few Packy Publishing books and in general they’re all pretty good. Not sure this one is going to make my short list though.

  2. Yeh, it’s a great book for its target audience, but experienced WordPress bloggers may not find as much benefit. If you have any suggestions for good WordPress books in general, I would be interested in hearing them.

  3. Janice Manilow 2009/03/01 7:36 am

    I’m not a seasoned WordPress blogger but even I didn’t find as much information as I hoped there would be.

  4. Jeff Starr 2009/03/01 9:04 am

    @Janice Manilow: Not enough information in the book or in the review? If the book, what were you hoping to read more about?

  5. Hmm this sounds pretty interesting, however it seems like one of those books that you can just get all or most of the same information from other blogs and websites. Nevertheless sometimes I like to just sit with a good book and put the laptop aside :D

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Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience. Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and more »
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