How to Build a Blog (Create Awesome Content and Build Community)

by Danny Iny, The Digital Writer, Shelly Greenhalgh-Davis (Editor)

Blogs are supposed to be the magic bullet for online business. Whether you’re a professional blogger, or your blog is built to buoy your regular business, you’re pressing publish for one primary To build, engage, and nurture a ginormous audience. Not just big and ginormous – an audience so massive, you’re virtually guaranteed a flood of customers wide enough that your rivers of online revenue will never stop flowing. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. Yet, the vast majority of blogs trudge along with an Alexa ranking soaring north of a million, with their authors seemingly screaming down an empty online hallway as the echo of their voices slowly fades amid the chirping crickets and digital tumbleweeds.It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. You must be doing something wrong, or maybe missing something obvious. You search for help, but instead of answers you find yourself skidding along a slippery path littered with snake oil and bombastic $500 in just one hour with our no-fail system!How I Make $4,729.19 every week (while never changing out of my pajamas)Tired of Losing? Beat any competitor to the front page of GoogleThe siren call is alluring, yet you can see the jagged rocks in the distance.  If it’s so easy to make $500 in an hour, why are they selling the system for $27, rather than hiring teams of people to do all the work and make them the money? What if your competitor buys the same course – how fast will she knock you off of that top spot? Why do they always detail the amount down to the last decimal? You’re skeptical, but hopeful. It seems like everyone is growing a giant site in no time, just not you. What’s their secret?You open your wallet, carefully sidestepping the “results not typical” disclaimers. You sift through the nonsense, find a few kernels of solid advice, then diligently put them to work. But you find nothing but more crickets and tumbleweeds; maybe a scant handful of new visitors.This is exhausting, but you don’t have to do it anymore. How to Build a Blog cuts through the crap and shows you why the guru strategies don’t always work, and how you can follow an A-B-C strategy that will. It might not be easy, but it is possible. And “How to Build a Blog,” shows you exactly how with proven, tangible examples that you can start following tomorrow.

87 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 22, 2012

About the author

Danny Iny (@DannyIny) is the founder of Mirasee, host of the Business Reimagined podcast, best-selling author of multiple books including Engagement from Scratch!, The Audience Revolution, and Teach and Grow Rich, and creator of the acclaimed Audience Business Masterclass and Course Builder’s Laboratory training programs, which have together graduated over 5,000 value-driven online entrepreneurs.

All of this grew out of humble beginnings; he started out just like most online entrepreneurs, with an idea and message to share, and no idea how to do it. He made several wrong turns – which he calls “plot twists” in the Audience Revolution – before really understanding the Audience First paradigm, and how to apply it to online business.

And when he did, it was like lighting a match to a fuse. Back in 2011, he started Firepole Marketing with less than nothing; he had no traffic, no subscribers, no relationships with any influencers in the industry, and over a quarter million dollars in personal debt, left over from his last failed startup.

In just a few short years, he’s transformed Firepole Marketing into Mirasee, grown the business to multiple-seven figures in revenue and a team of 30+ people spread all over the world (including his talented wife) on a mission to support very special global community of 50,000+ loyal and inspired entrepreneurs.

Danny has maintained a passionate commitment to learning and transparency, freely sharing lessons learned from great successes, major challenges, and even his personal life to support the online entrepreneurial community as a teacher, speaker, angel investor, and advisor to many of the top leaders in our industry, who have Danny on speed-dial when they need help with their business or strategy.

Reviews

[Mauricio Gatgens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masterfully written in a very simple manner

If we're being completely honest, I was a little bit skeptical of reading this because of the somewhat lazy title....but Danny and Sean absolutely delivered. Everything in this book is simple and written so it's easy to understand every last concept. This book got me even more excited to start building my own blog and what a better way to do so than to follow the plan laid out in this book!
Hands Down, best book on blogging I've read so far.
~ Mau G - The Geek Entrepreneur ~

[Ericka Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome content on starting and marketing a blog.

Step by step experience driven. Much of the information is written in a fresh easy to understand style that allows the reader to follow the instructions as they read the information. Truly inspirational. Now on to the implementation.

[Ann Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to reach people with your blog, and/or build a business, this is by far the best book to read. Danny Iny, who runs Firepole Marketing, practices what he preaches and gives an enormous amount of valuable advice on all marketing subjects. This book is highly recommended.