Posted by David Chin

Rob Benwell’s new book is touted as a much-improved version of his blogging classic, with updated blogging strategies that now include techniques on harnessing the firepower of Web 2.0 sites.

Unfortunately, I can’t really give a strong buy recommendation on this ebook.

Review Summary:

• Overall rating:
  3/5 (Average)
• Suitable for:
  Absolute beginners to blogging. Even then, there are far better (and free) resources for the budding blogger.
• Likes:
  Easy to understand and to digest. Written in plain English. Techniques are appropriate for those who don’t wish to go far beyond blogging basics.
• Dislikes:
  Nowhere in the manual could I find details (or any hints whatsoever) on how Rob managed to create a fortune for himself by blogging Clickbank products. Stuff telling you that you’d need to create unique content, or do a lot of careful research, or add value to your visitors’ experience won’t exactly give you any additional useful insight into the blogging for money process.
  For comparison sake, Andrew Hansen’s Niche Marketing on Crack (a.k.a. NMOC, which I own) does a far, far better job of going to great lengths explaining exactly what is needed to create a blog that can secure top rankings in Google AND make money with only a few visitors.
  Heck, even Andrew’s email series for NMOC has more value than Rob’s entire ebook.
• Conclusion:
  Ultimately, it’s a light-weight manual on how to create White Hat blogs.
  For $47 , I expected more … much more … not light-weight, rehashed, dime-a-dozen blogging tips.
  For your money, time and effort, there are much better resources which I will be listing in a separate post - stay tuned!

On With The Detailed Review

First, the Table of Contents for Blogging to the Bank 2.0:

1. Introduction
2. The Last 16 Months & My Quest
3. The 5 Blogging Commandments
4. The Step By Step Blueprint For Highly Profitable Long Term Niche Blogs:
   * Market Research & Keyphrase Lists
   * Owning Your Blogs – Domains & Hosting
   * Making Your Blog
   * Content
   * Optimizing Your Blog
   * Pinging
   * Promotion & Backlinks
   * Web 2.0 Traffic & Promotion
   * Outsourcing & Building Your Blog Empire
5. Extras #1 – Money Squeeze Techniques
6. Extras #2 – Advanced SEO
7. Extras #3 – Make Money From This Ebook
8. Final Words

I’ll now talk a bit about each of the section of the ebook.

Introduction

Rob makes it clear that his income comes mainly from the sales of Clickbank products. He also introduces his blogging blueprint which is split into two parts, Simple and Advanced.

The Last 16 Months & My Quest

Rob talks about what he was up to in the sixteen months since he released the first version of Blogging to the Bank (I bought that ebook).

He reveals that the techniques taught in that first version are less effective now, since they focused on creating blogs in Blogger, and Blogger has been effectively cracking down (and deleting) on blogs created purely to earn affiliate income.

Refreshing and surprising is his admission that automated blogs cannot be relied on for long term profits.

What will bring in blogging profits though, is his 5 Blogging Commandments, which I go into next.

The 5 Blogging Commandments

My opinion of the commandments?

Nothing earth shattering, and most probably stuff that you bloggers already know. Basically, the blogs you create need to be targeted to a market that will bring in money for you, be sticky and offer value to visitors.

The summary and clear cut principals are nevertheless useful for newcomers.

The Step By Step Blueprint For Highly Profitable Long Term Niche Blogs

Step 1 – Market Research & Keyphrase Lists

Rob lets us know his preference when it comes to Adsense vs Affiliate Programs.

He also reveals a technique that he uses to find and promote Clickbank products that are not too competitive yet has great potential for healthy conversions.

He writes about a keyword research technique that I honestly never thought of using before - this is one of the gems in the ebook, for me at least.

Step 2 - Owning Your Blogs – Domains & Hosting

Not much meat here, but his recommendation for a hosting provider is pretty unexpected. I’ll definitely look into using that hosting service as it’s being provided by one of the big names, and Rob experienced absolutely no issues with the large amount of traffic his blog gets.

We have heard horror stories about how numerous hosting companies promise you unbelievably huge amounts of disk space and bandwidth, only to shut your account down or force you to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package as soon as your sites receive increasing levels of traffic.

Step 3 – Making A Blog

Nothing of interest here to bloggers who are already experienced in installing their blog of choice.

Step 4 – Content

This is always the toughest part of blogging - keeping your blogs updated with fresh and unique content.

Rob makes a strong recommendation for a PLR articles service (and I agree with his recommendation). The service provides a huge number of articles for over 11 niches every month. The quantity of articles is sufficient to keep your blogs updated weekly for a year. Distribution of the articles is also limited to 200 participants, so the risk of being slapped with the duplicate content penalty is minimal.

He also talks about a few other techniques for sourcing the content (thankfully, none of them involves auto-generation), but what I liked most about this section is an explanation on how he blends and utilized all techniques for his blogs.

… more to come …

Buy Blogging to the Bank 2.0 now