Darren Rowse, aka ProBlogger, is giving away books for a comment:

I’d like to do a bit of a giveaway today of a few of them and all you need to do is leave a comment saying which one you’d like.

This Wednesday I’ll randomly choose a winner for each book, contact you to get your mailing details and pop them in the mail for you (I’ll pay for the shipping).

Here are the 5 books:

1. Yes: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
2. Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for effective Internet Marketing
3. Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success
4. Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share their Secrets to Creating a High-Profile High-Traffic and High Profit Blog
5. Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What it’s Becoming and Why it Matters

Oh and for a little extra I’ll throw in a copy of ProBlogger the Book as a 6th Alternative.

That’s right. You comment, you have a chance at one of those six great books. I chose #2 on SEO. It’s definitely an area I can improve my skills in.

Which book will you choose?

Problogger, aka Darren Rowse, is always full of great ideas. His recent article, How to Improve Your Blog When You Have No Internet Access, is another bundle of them. Shared with a bit of a wink, they are some simple suggestions for when your access is down but you want to blog.

The most underrated one on the list is the last one.

Take a Break – perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something by conspiring to bring your internet down. Why not go with the offline thing and go for a walk, play with your kids, take your better half out for a coffee, have a sleep, read a book….. your blog will still be there when your internet is working again.

I find I don’t do this enough. Oh, I play on the computer and stuff, but I’m not really making some down time or taking advantage of it to enrich my life.

Origami has become one of my new downtime hobbies. Heck, I’m enjoying it so much I started an origami blog, Folding Paper.

Another great down time way to help your blogging along is taking picture. Bring your camera wherever you go, even if it’s a cheap one. Take pictures of people, architecture, plants, water, birds, and everything in between. This is a wonderful way to get your own stock footage for your blog. So many people ignore pictures all together, yet I continually get compliments on photos I include with blog posts.

Cheers,
Todd

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20 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider: “There’s a lot of reasons why you might choose a post over a page or a page over a post (that’s for another post) – but today I thought I’d highlight a few ‘pages’ that I have here on ProBlogger as examples of pages that bloggers might want to develop to promote their blog to different groups of people. Some are more essential in my mind than others but all have been helpful in the development of my own blogs.”

With that statement, Darren Rowse leads us into the 20 pages all bloggers should consider. The idea is to provide permanent and useful pages on your blog for landing and internal referrals. Some of these pages are more critical than others.

Most important on the list would be the About and Contact pages. Darren has this to say on the About page.

Having an about page is essential in my mind as it gives new readers to your blog a snapshot of who you are and why they should subscribe to your blog. This is the page that I go to every time I hit a new blog – if they don’t have one it decreases my chances of subscribing significantly.

He couldn’t be more right. I visit lots of about pages, especially when I’m new to a blog.

Other pages brought up include a Subscriber page, and Series pages. A Subscriber page is used to clarify what subscription is and how to subscribe. This helps bridge the gap for those new to RSS and blogs.

Series pages allow you to consolidate a series of posts in one page. One could also be used to provide a central page linking to the individual posts in a series. This allows readers to select only the articles they are most interested in.

Overall this should be a must read for new bloggers or bloggers wondering how to get more ’stick’ to their blog.

Good show Darren as usual.