There were 2 blogs that I found that helped me more than the rest (and still do), and first introduced me to structuring blogs from a business point of view, planning them and promoting them using business and marketing techniques. They are Problogger.net by Darren Rowse and Entrepreneurs-journey.com by Yaro Starak. They are both packed with help and information about blogging, from their wealth of experience and knowledge. I also subscribed to the Blog Traffic King newsletter through Entrepreneurs-journey.com giving tips on traffic generation for your blog.

These were all pieces of the jigsaw but there were still gaps, I wanted somebody to take me by the hand and guide me through. While trying to find more information, I was finding it hard to keep up with the posting and marketing that I wanted to do. I was wondering if what I was doing was helping me or not, and that all added to the frustration. As I said early I was also subscribed to some internet marketers newsletters, and they were telling me that to get anywhere I needed help, I couldn’t do it on my own without a lot of trouble and it would take a long time to achieve anything. Great! They were saying I needed a mentor, and that happened to be them. But I didn’t want a mentor for internet marketing in general I just wanted one for blogging. Wouldn’t that be great, someone who could show me step by step how to build a successful blog. But there was no one out there.

Then in March I received an interesting edition of the Blog Traffic King newsletter, Yaro Starak was asking if anyone would be interested in a blog mentoring program ran by him. Would I! would have been an understatement. I just had to wait and see if it came off. I had to wait till June when Blog Mastermind was launched and I joined up straight away.

I’ve been in the program a month now and I am absolutely bowled away by the information and help I have received (I will go into more about Blog Mastermind in another article). Only one of my original 3 blogs still survives - Create Blogs. I used it as a starting point and somewhere to practice my newly acquired skills. But you wouldn’t recognise it after having the Blog Mastermind treatment. That’s why I have moved it from Blogger to Wordpress and it has now turned into the blog you are reading today - Build a Blog.

And that’s where I am now, enjoying the community, help and information I receive from Blog Mastermind and it’s members. I am looking forward to the future and creating and building my photography blog that I have wanted to do for so long. But I now know I have the support, firm foundations and structure that I looked for, and craved for so long. So here’s to my new challenges and their rewards, I’ll keep you updated. I’ll keep blogging and I’ll see you soon.

Mandy