Atomic Blogging vs Blog Mastermind

March 6th, 2009 Add Your Comments

You’re going to be hearing a lot about Atomic Blogging, it’s inevitable when somebody well connected updates one of their products. The problem is that everybody and their dog will be interested in promoting this product because of the affiliate commissions that are available (about $30 on a $47 sale through ClickBank, this post will have affiliate links in it), it’s going to be hard to get the real low down on what Atomic Blogging 3 is like. Luckily then I’m a proud owner of 2 of the hottest blogging products out there so I thought it would be useful to give an honest comparison. I’m not interested in the authors here or their back stories, I’m assessing these products on their actual content only. Read on my friends…

Atomic Blogging

First up a little background. I bought Atomic Blogging version 2 on the recommendation of John Chow. It was being sold as the ultimate blogging course, from nothing to high income, with everything explained in great detail. Part of the reason for me buying it was to review it and get affiliate sales. I never did it because – and this is important – I never actually rated the product that much, certainly nowhere near enough to rave on about it like a demented salesman. So what does this have to do with Atomic Blogging version 3? The great thing about building an e-product that shows every step of a process is that when some steps change you can release a whole new version, ka-ching! For example if you’re teaching people how to install and setup WordPress then when WordPress changes significantly you’ve get to do a whole new version. Change a few screenshots, alter a few paragraphs and it’s a whole new product. A hell of a lot of Atomic Blogging 2.0 is dedicated to the real REAL basics of blogging with WordPress. Version 3 is no different.

So if you have the faintest idea of how to install WordPress and selecting a template then Atomic Blogging may not be for you. Of course there is more involved such as how to build traffic leveraging web 2.0 and monetizing that traffic. There is a section dedicated to Adsense but to be honest there isn’t anything here that you haven’t read a million times either on free blogs or on the various webmaster forums (Article marketing, blog commenting etc etc). Whilst reading through Atomic Blogging I found nothing that was knew, I really mean that. Well there were a few free WordPress templates but nothing that you couldn’t better for free using Google Great if you’ve never done this type of thing, useless if you had even the least bit of experience. This is why I didn’t review it at the time because I assumed my average reader would be way ahead of where Atomic Blogging can take you. I still do think that. And again, from the people I’ve spoken to Atomic Blogging Version 3 doesn’t seem that different to what I’ve got. The only major additions seem to be via a paid monthly membership (optional extra), if you’re interested here’s what’s in the monthly membership areas:-

Atomic Blogging VIP Membership
- you get monthly PLR blog articles that you can use for your blog site
- get the latest software updates of the Atomic Blogging System
- Atomic Blogging 4.0 (Elite) Theme With 1 Blog License
- and much more….

Atomic Blogging Premium VIP Membership
- monthly 1 x free software
- access to monthly video vault with at least 1 new video tutorial added every month.
- will feature monthly reviews of plugins and upgrades to teach you how to enhance your blog to get more profits
- ability to submit request for video tutorials for help
- Atomic Blogging 4.0 (Premium) Theme With 1 Blog License
- and much more…

So how would I sum up Atomic Blogging? For $47 you get a very basic guide to blogging with WordPress with some traffic generation and monetization advice with a few templates thrown in for good measure. There is no killer content in this package BUT if you are totally new to blogging and want a simple and affordable step-by-step guide then you could do worse. Of course you could gather the information you want for free just be searching the internet but at least with Atomic Blogging it’s all in one place. If you’re currently using WordPress to blog and making the least bit of money then I don’t think you need this. If you’re interested in taking your blogging to the next level then what you really need is Blog Mastermind.

If you’re new to blogging you can buy Atomic Blogging 3.0 for $47

Blog Mastermind

How the hell did I end up paying $497 for this?! That is the first question that hit my mind as I logged into the members area of Blog Mastermind. The answer was of course plainly simple, John friggin Chow, that’s how! I’d been thinking of stumping up the cash for a review over at John Chow for a while so when I saw the chance to get a free review with this product I though what the hell, nothing to lose. My plan was to fly through all 28 lessons and get my review ordered. I wasn’t expecting that much in the way of new or groundbreaking content but I was wrong.

As with Atomic Blogging a lot of the early content is dedicated to the very basics of getting WordPress up and running. However because this is much more a course than a single fire and forget product it is encouraging you to perform daily tasks to help you further down the blogging line. All of the lessons come in HTML or MP3 format. The result for a beginner blogger would be to bypass many months or possibly years of seeing little or no results from your blog. Hand on heart, following the early steps of the Blog Mastermind course would put any blogging newbie on exactly the right lines from the get go.

It wasn’t this early content where I found the real value in the Blog Mastermind course however. It was in the traffic, reader retainership and monetization lessons. Unlike Atomic Blogging a lot of this content was new to me, In fact the author seems to fly of on a tangent from the norm with many things and the results for me have already spoken for themselves, even though I’ve only used possibly 10% of the information at hand. My RSS subscribership on an already established blog has jumped 25%, my referral traffic has increased a huge amount. It also gave me the push to write my plug-in which has seen a significant increase in my natural search engine traffic on multiple blogs. Blog Mastermind rather than following the crowd and telling you what might work goes one step further and lets you known (from the authors own practical experience) what does work. There are certain link building methods that everybody and their dog seems to recommend but actually have very little positive affect. Blog Mastermind debunks this stuff and gives you ways that do work. I loved it.

At $497 it is an expensive product, no doubt about it. But with 28 standard lessons, a few extra advanced lessons and access to one of the best members only forums I’ve ever read from my point of view it has been great value for money. In case you are wondering every lesson is very comprehensive. We’re talking about 15-20 minute MP3’s here! If you’re currently running a good blog but want to take it to the next level then Blog Mastermind will give you the information and motivation you need.

Sign up to the Blog Mastermind Course