12 Free Ebooks to Teach You Blogging and Content Marketing

For those who are serious about blogging or just cannot seem to get their blogs to take off, sometimes all you need is some first-hand tips from the experts themselves. We hear you and since there are plenty of such ebooks lying around online, we’ve done the legwork and collected 12 such eBooks that are great collections of blogging experience, knowledge and tips that are the result of years of trial and error from those who have been there, done that.

Here you’ll see free ebooks on how to start blogging, how to become a successful writer, how to get money with blogging and get traffic, how to organize your blog and create strong visuals, and more. So, scroll down and enjoy!

Editor’s note: 7 of the books below are available absolutely free; the links you see are the direct download links. The last 5 books require some form of registration or at least an email address to download.

1. How to Start a Blog

This book is a step-by-step guide on how to setup your blog and make it successful. The ebook contains 7 chapters to help you set up, maintain, monetise, and promote your blog along with helpful resources and tools for bloggers. Ogi Djuraskovic is behind FirstSiteGuide, and a web enthusiast who helps people start their own blog/site. Other team members of FirstSiteGuide who took part in writing the ebook are experts in hosting, marketing, SEO and design.

Authors: Ogi Djuraskovic, Kristi Hines & the FirstSiteGuide Team

Available in: PDF

2. 365 Writing Prompts

365 Writing Prompts was written by The Daily Post team who do all kind of jobs (from blogging to coding) and have the goal of helping people start their own blogs. Get this on your reader, tablet or laptop and get inspirational prompts on each day of the year to write. For example, for June 20, you will get, "Moment of kindness. Describe a moment of kindness, between you and someone else — loved one or complete stranger.” Also available in Spanish, French and Indonesian.

Author: The Daily Post

Available in: PDF | Kindle | iBooks

3. Blogging For Dummies, 4th Edition

If you feel like a complete dummy in blogging, this ebook will teach you a lot new things in simple language. This ebook is helpful for amateurs and pros, who want to integrate their blog with social media and optimize it for search engines. Susannah Gardner is a writer and editor who helps people say exactly what they want to say, and the co-author, Shane Birley is a technologist (with a literature degree) who helps people build stuff online.

Author: Susannah Gardner, Shane Birley

Available in: PDF

4. Who’s There?

Seth Godin is an american author, marketer, and speaker, who doesn’t really need an introduction. Despite the title, Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the New Web, this ebook is not going to tell you how to set up your blog to sell your products. It’smore about the influence of blogging on your future, career, ideas and the whole lifestyle that comes with.

Author: Seth Godin

Available in: PDF

5. The Blogger’s Workbook

This 10 page ebook was written by web designer and developer Heather Jones, who has been creating animated graphics for over a decade. The Blogger’s Workbook is her first ebook with first-hand tips. In this ebook you’ll find information on how to start a blog, add proper categories, schedule your articles, guest posts and more.

Author: Viva la Violette

Available in: PDF

6. A beginner’s guide to creating visual content

As we live in the world of overloaded information, to create a really awesome blog you need to not only write a good copy, but also frame your articles with proper images and other visual element. This 60-page ebook will tell you how to create high-quality images, photos, graphs, infographics and other design elements for your blog.

Author: Shannon Johnson, Keith Frankel and Jon Smith

Available in: PDF

7. Pocket Guide to SEO

Forty agency has been designing remarkable user experiences for over a decade. If you have a blog, but have no visits then this is the guide you need. This awesome 15-page Pocket Guide to SEO will tell and show you everything you need to know about SEO: proper keywords, headlines, descriptions and more.

Author: Kim Stearns

Available in: PDF

8. How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Copyblogger is a software and training organization which provides expert advice, exceptional products and smart copywriting. This ebook is an in-depth guide on how to write killer headlines, touching on mistakes to avoid, working formulas, templates you can use and more. It is part of a 14-book how-to series on everything to do with content marketing, which you can get if you register on the Copyblogger site.

Author: Copyblogger

Available in: PDF (Editors Note: This link is from a university site. Otherwise, the book is only available upon registration.)

9. A Simple Guide to Blogging for Business

Wishpond is a company which helps people to create, publish and track their online marketing campaigns. They have worked with Facebook, Twitter, Mailchimp just to name a few brands. This ebook will help you to understand all the benefits of having great content on your site. You will be taught how to start blogging, find your target audience, write good content, promote your blog, measure results and more.

Author: wishpond.com

Available with registration

10. How to Make Money Blogging

Crystal Paine is a wife, mom of three, and speaker. In 2007 she founded MoneySavingMom.com, which has over a million unique visitors and around 4 million pageviews per month. If you have a blog and want to get money with it, you going to need this ebook. It shares insider tips and tricks on how to monetize your blog as well as list useful resources for blogging.

Author: Crystal Paine

Available with Noisetrade account, Facebook login or email address.

11. A Definitive Guide To A High-Traffic Blog

There are thousands of blogs out there around the Web. Thus, it’s really difficult to create a blog which will stand out from the rest ones. This ebook is packed with 15 years of experience and 14 sections of advice on how to find writing ideas, create competitive content, overcome writer’s block and draw visitors to your site.

Author: Todaymade

Available with email address

12. How to Build a Blog with 10,000+ Subscribers

Here is an ebook that will tell you how to grow your email list up to 10,000 subscribers in just 12 months. Glen Allsop moved to South Africa when he was 18, to be a social media manager for huge brands like Land Rover, Nissan and Hewlett Packard. These days, he is a successful blogger who runs his own marketing company and helps people make a living online.

Author: Glen Allsopp

Available in with email address

Now Read:
14 Free Ebooks for Web Designers

12 Free Ebooks to Teach You Blogging and Content Marketing

12 Free Ebooks to Teach You Blogging and Content Marketing

For those who are serious about blogging or just cannot seem to get their blogs to take off, sometimes all you need is some first-hand tips from the experts themselves. We hear you and since there are plenty of such ebooks lying around online, we’ve done the legwork and collected 12 such eBooks that are great collections of blogging experience, knowledge and tips that are the result of years of trial and error from those who have been there, done that.

Here you’ll see free ebooks on how to start blogging, how to become a successful writer, how to get money with blogging and get traffic, how to organize your blog and create strong visuals, and more. So, scroll down and enjoy!

Editor’s note: 7 of the books below are available absolutely free; the links you see are the direct download links. The last 5 books require some form of registration or at least an email address to download.

1. How to Start a Blog

This book is a step-by-step guide on how to setup your blog and make it successful. The ebook contains 7 chapters to help you set up, maintain, monetise, and promote your blog along with helpful resources and tools for bloggers. Ogi Djuraskovic is behind FirstSiteGuide, and a web enthusiast who helps people start their own blog/site. Other team members of FirstSiteGuide who took part in writing the ebook are experts in hosting, marketing, SEO and design.

Authors: Ogi Djuraskovic, Kristi Hines & the FirstSiteGuide Team

Available in: PDF

2. 365 Writing Prompts

365 Writing Prompts was written by The Daily Post team who do all kind of jobs (from blogging to coding) and have the goal of helping people start their own blogs. Get this on your reader, tablet or laptop and get inspirational prompts on each day of the year to write. For example, for June 20, you will get, "Moment of kindness. Describe a moment of kindness, between you and someone else — loved one or complete stranger.” Also available in Spanish, French and Indonesian.

Author: The Daily Post

Available in: PDF | Kindle | iBooks

3. Blogging For Dummies, 4th Edition

If you feel like a complete dummy in blogging, this ebook will teach you a lot new things in simple language. This ebook is helpful for amateurs and pros, who want to integrate their blog with social media and optimize it for search engines. Susannah Gardner is a writer and editor who helps people say exactly what they want to say, and the co-author, Shane Birley is a technologist (with a literature degree) who helps people build stuff online.

Author: Susannah Gardner, Shane Birley

Available in: PDF

4. Who’s There?

Seth Godin is an american author, marketer, and speaker, who doesn’t really need an introduction. Despite the title, Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the New Web, this ebook is not going to tell you how to set up your blog to sell your products. It’smore about the influence of blogging on your future, career, ideas and the whole lifestyle that comes with.

Author: Seth Godin

Available in: PDF

5. The Blogger’s Workbook

This 10 page ebook was written by web designer and developer Heather Jones, who has been creating animated graphics for over a decade. The Blogger’s Workbook is her first ebook with first-hand tips. In this ebook you’ll find information on how to start a blog, add proper categories, schedule your articles, guest posts and more.

Author: Viva la Violette

Available in: PDF

6. A beginner’s guide to creating visual content

As we live in the world of overloaded information, to create a really awesome blog you need to not only write a good copy, but also frame your articles with proper images and other visual element. This 60-page ebook will tell you how to create high-quality images, photos, graphs, infographics and other design elements for your blog.

Author: Shannon Johnson, Keith Frankel and Jon Smith

Available in: PDF

7. Pocket Guide to SEO

Forty agency has been designing remarkable user experiences for over a decade. If you have a blog, but have no visits then this is the guide you need. This awesome 15-page Pocket Guide to SEO will tell and show you everything you need to know about SEO: proper keywords, headlines, descriptions and more.

Author: Kim Stearns

Available in: PDF

8. How to Write Magnetic Headlines

Copyblogger is a software and training organization which provides expert advice, exceptional products and smart copywriting. This ebook is an in-depth guide on how to write killer headlines, touching on mistakes to avoid, working formulas, templates you can use and more. It is part of a 14-book how-to series on everything to do with content marketing, which you can get if you register on the Copyblogger site.

Author: Copyblogger

Available in: PDF (Editors Note: This link is from a university site. Otherwise, the book is only available upon registration.)

9. A Simple Guide to Blogging for Business

Wishpond is a company which helps people to create, publish and track their online marketing campaigns. They have worked with Facebook, Twitter, Mailchimp just to name a few brands. This ebook will help you to understand all the benefits of having great content on your site. You will be taught how to start blogging, find your target audience, write good content, promote your blog, measure results and more.

Author: wishpond.com

Available with registration

10. How to Make Money Blogging

Crystal Paine is a wife, mom of three, and speaker. In 2007 she founded MoneySavingMom.com, which has over a million unique visitors and around 4 million pageviews per month. If you have a blog and want to get money with it, you going to need this ebook. It shares insider tips and tricks on how to monetize your blog as well as list useful resources for blogging.

Author: Crystal Paine

Available with Noisetrade account, Facebook login or email address.

11. A Definitive Guide To A High-Traffic Blog

There are thousands of blogs out there around the Web. Thus, it’s really difficult to create a blog which will stand out from the rest ones. This ebook is packed with 15 years of experience and 14 sections of advice on how to find writing ideas, create competitive content, overcome writer’s block and draw visitors to your site.

Author: Todaymade

Available with email address

12. How to Build a Blog with 10,000+ Subscribers

Here is an ebook that will tell you how to grow your email list up to 10,000 subscribers in just 12 months. Glen Allsop moved to South Africa when he was 18, to be a social media manager for huge brands like Land Rover, Nissan and Hewlett Packard. These days, he is a successful blogger who runs his own marketing company and helps people make a living online.

Author: Glen Allsopp

Available in with email address

Now Read:
14 Free Ebooks for Web Designers

12 Free Ebooks to Teach You Blogging and Content Marketing

Insider’s Tips for Better Content Writing

It doesn’t matter whether you are a blogger, freelance writer, professional writer, or a student; you can always benefit by elevating your content writing skills.

The quality of your content usually suffers when you produce great quantity. Professional writers have discovered a few strategies that enable them to avoid that trap. The following tips and tools will help you produce a steady stream of great content.

Image Source: Retro Typewriter via Shutterstock.

The Research Doesn’t End When the Writing Starts

The first thing we should learn from professional writers is to preserve the research mode throughout the entire writing and editing process. Many content writers make the same mistake: they conduct a basic research and use those sources without bothering to get new ideas along the way. Creativity is an ongoing journey; you cannot limit it to a certain stage.

These tools will help you conduct an effective research:

• Pocket – When you find an interesting online source you could use, but don’t have the time to read it, you can put it in Pocket – an app that enables you to save and organize articles, videos, and other types of online content directly from your browser. The best part is that you don’t even need an Internet connection to read these materials when you’re ready for them.


• Google Trends – Throughout the research and writing stage, you need to keep track of the popular keywords that are trending in Google search. This is a simple, but powerful tool that will help you create search-friendly content.


• Google+ – If you don’t want to be distracted by fancy tools and apps when conducting a research, Google+ can serve just as well. All you need to do is create an empty circle named “research”, “sources”, “ideas”, or anything else that will help you identify it. Then, use it to keep track of the online sources you would like to use in your content.

Focus

Rambling won’t get you anywhere. You need to clarify what you’re going to talk about right from the start, and stay away from digressions. Every piece of content you create should have only one point. Otherwise, it will be confusing for the readers. These tools will help you create focused content:

• WordCounter – When you plan the development of your article, you should include a word count goal. Then, use this tool to see if you went overboard with unnecessary arguments. WordCounter is much more than a word and character counter; it also identifies repetitive words and phrases that are diluting your message.


• Piktochart – The best way to present focused content with clear facts is to create an infographic. You don’t need advanced skills to do that; Piktochart is an awesome tool that helps you create data-driven content from scratch. All you need to do is pick a template and customize it with unique images and content.

Image Source: Writing Notes via Shutterstock.

Organization Is the Key to Success

The creative process of writing can become messy sometimes. You get more ideas than you could possibly include in the piece you’re creating. In addition, you have to think about time management if you want to get the work done on time.

There are two types of professional writers: those that find the mess inspiring; and those that find effective ways to make the writing process more productive. Experiment with the following tools to find out if you can improve your writing skills with proper organization:

• Evernote – This app enables you to save any ideas, documents, or online sources into organized folders and tags. You can create a separate folder for each writing project and find the memos whenever you decide to go back to it.


• IFTTT – If you use different apps and websites during the writing process, you can keep them under control with a single tool – IFTTT. The name of this tool is an abbreviation of “If This Then That”, which correctly explains how it functions. For example, if you save an article in Pocket, you can program the app to automatically save in Dropbox or Evernote as well.

Preserve Your Unique Voice

Although you have to keep track on the trends your target audience is interested in, no one would like to read the same information over and over again. Do not copy other bloggers and writers. You should make your content recognizable with your unique style and personality.

If you think you’ve already developed your voice, that doesn’t mean you should stop developing your writing skills. These tips will help you find, preserve, and develop your voice:

• Explore the style of your favorite writers. That doesn’t mean you should copy it; only take it as an inspiration and example of how great content should look like.


• Be studious about your own work. Are you presenting something new to your readers? Are you conveying a clear message that triggers a discussion? Is your article structured properly? Make sure to give affirmative answers to these questions.

Image Source: Writing In the Park via Shutterstock.

Have a Unique Point of View

Sure, you can write about something your readers are already familiar with, but you need to elaborate the topic from a specific point of view. If you follow someone else’s lead, your readers can easily find the content contradictory to another article you’ve published.

If you cannot find a creative angle, then it would be wise to leave that topic for later and find something more inspiring to write about.

Make the Content Believable

If you’re not writing a personal story, then you have to rely on verifiable facts! Your readers don’t like wasting time on content on broad, inaccurate claims. Don’t stretch the truth; make sure to find enough supportive facts and opinions from influential people. Do not try to manipulate your readers by creating unnecessary hype. This is the tool that will help you stay grounded:

• Digg – This website is much more than a source of quick, fun reads; it’s also a well-curated feed of the stories and news that are gaining attention on the Internet. The daily email newsletter will help you get fresh information you can include in your articles.

Keep it Simple!

Make the sentences, words, and paragraphs short and readable. Complex style won’t get you with a large base of loyal readers. If you get carried away, make sure to cut the clutter during the editing stage. Yes, editing is necessary! The first draft is never a masterpiece!

Finished!

Now that you have a selection of effective ways that can turn you into a better content writer, you only need to stay committed to your practice!

The post Insider’s Tips for Better Content Writing appeared first on Speckyboy Web Design Magazine.

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Insider’s Tips for Better Content Writing

7 Content Curation Tools For Bloggers

There’s a lot of effort that goes into running a blog professionally. And the larger part of a blogger’s time is spent in researching and organizing information – often more than it takes to create the content itself.

But it’s possible to save a significant amount of time at this stage if you use the right curation tools.

Curation helps you filter out the signal from the noise and manage information more efficiently.

Here are a few such curation tools that can help you do this. One thing we kept in mind while creating this list that the tools should be aimed for use by individual users only and not enterprises, and consequently, a majority of their feature set must be offered for free.

Recommended Reading: 20+ Essential Tools And Applications For Bloggers

1. Listly

Use it to: Create smarter lists that your readers can interact with.

Bloggers know that list-based stories work. That’s why we have so many "9 ways to…" and "13 things you need to know about…" posts flying around. Lists work because they’re easier to consume than a chunk of text. But what if you could crowdsource your list-making?

Listly brings a collaborative approach to list-making that is much more suited to online publishing than just standard, text based lists. Once a list has been created, readers can make additions to the list, vote the entries up or down, comment on an entry, share the list, and even embed the list on their own website.

2. Headslinger

Use it to: Find news that’s relevant to you faster than ever before.

Need a way to quickly browse through news headlines? Give Headslinger a shot. With Headslinger, you can follow the most popular publications on the Internet categorized under different sections such as arts, auto, tech, food, travel, health, humor, entertainment, and more.

You can sort your news sources and keep them in separate folders for better organization. At one glance, you are presented with all the headlines of any publication along with a small excerpt – from here, you can directly share these headlines on your social networks or "sling" them to be read later when you want to.

3. Utopic

Use it to: Easily save web pages with one click and sort them in folders.

Browser bookmark systems are often too basic to serve any real purpose. In most cases, we just click on the bookmark button and then lose track of it; the bookmarks just keep piling on in an endless list that we never end up using. But thankfully, better tools are available.

Utopic is a visual bookmarking tool with social features that lets you find, save, and sort web pages. Setup is really easy, all you need to do is sign up with your Twitter or Facebook account – and once inside, you can either use a bookmarklet or a Chrome extension to create your bookmarks.  If you’re looking for an alternative, check out Diigo.

4. Prismatic

Use it to: Get highly personalized recommendations of what to read next.

Prismatic is a beautifully designed news curation and discovery app that uses machine learning algorithms to filter content that aligns with the interests of a specific user. To start your account, you select and follow ten topics out of the many available such as business, television, health, technology, automotive, DIY, and more.

Once you’ve done that, you’re led to your Prismatic homepage, which presents stories from the topics and the people that you’ve followed. Once you start reading, liking, and sharing stories, Prismatic automatically and continuously serves up content best suited for you.

5. Protopage

Use it to: Set up your go-to page on the internet for information and task management

Protopage is an RSS reader, virtual desktop, and Internet start page. It’s an extremely feature rich tool that allows you to create a completely customize page just for yourself on the Internet. You can use it to read your own selection of blogs and news, create to-do lists, keep bookmarks, place sticky notes, add photos, manage your calendar, and more.

The basic organization on the page is done by creating, editing, and arranging widgets as per your needs. Protopage also optimizes content for viewing on mobile devices such as Android, iOS, and Blackberry.

6. Saved.io

Use it to: Create bookmarks easily without installing any resource-intensive extensions

Saved.io is the simplest bookmarking system that you will ever use. There are a lot of bookmarking tools out there, but almost all of them need you to install some sort of browser extension to work – and of course, if you use different browsers on multiple devices, you’ll need to find and install the right extensions for them all. No need for all that with Saved.io.

All you have to do is create an account and prepend "saved.io/" to any link in your browser and hit enter. That’s it. Your bookmark is now saved. You can create lists if you like, but other features such as tags and descriptions have been eschewed in favor of simplicity. Who’s complaining?

7. Kippt

Use it to: Collect design inspiration, tell stories, research new subjects, and much more

Kippt is a full-feature curation and archival tool that allows you to save links, read articles, watch videos, share notes, and much more. Your collections can be private or public, or shared with the people you work with. Kippt makes your information workflow and archiving effortless.

When you collect something to Kippt, the page and the content will be searchable, organizable, readable on your devices and easily sharable too.

So these were some tools that can help you save time, be more organized, and manage information in a more effortless manner. What are some tools apart from these that you use to curate information?

Editor’s note: This post is written by Vishveshwar Jatain for Hongkiat.com. Vishveshwar, a writer and editor for over 6 years, with experience in both digital and print media, is now a content marketer at AdPushup; which helps users optimize ad revenue generated from their existing ad units. Find him on Twitter.

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