My Eight Favorite Blogs

There are any number of "Top Ten" lists out there of the best "Must Read" blogs in any given sector. I recently advised bloggers to be cautious about adding too many RSS feeds, in a post which will soon appear on David Risley's website. So that suggested to me that it might be time to go public on the blogs I most enjoy.

This is not a "Best blog" list, and is not in any order - the blogs below are simply the ones I most enjoy reading, the ones which get me to sit back in the chair with a coffee and then cause me to pause at the end and think about what I have read. As always, I'm doing an "8" rather than a "10" and here they are:

Seth's Blog
Seth's writing is so wonderfully economical, so sparse and yet so powerful. He posts a couple of times a day, but the short posts will resonate with you for many hours afterwards.

Problogger
This site is a fantastic resource for any blogger, but what I love is Darren Rowse's writing - this guy is a novelist, a full-on story teller. Just read his post on the now famous traffic spike to see how he paints a picture for his readers.

Copyblogger
Like Problogger, there are many guest posts, but it's the ones from Brian Clark that draw me in. His writing style is quite hip and trendy, and his construction is exceptional - I love the way he brings disparate threads together to make you want to read to the end of every piece. See his Marvin Gaye post as a cracking example.

David Risley
Another young guy who's been on the blogging scene for many years. His focus is strongly on marketing, but unlike so many of the pure marketers, he can really write. His posts are compelling, to the point, and sometimes shockingly honest.

Entrepreneurs Journey
Written by the improbably named Yaro Starak, who is also blessed with the scariest hair on the net - he really should brand it. He took off around the world for several months recently and continued to write great content for his blog. His writing is superbly organized and visually the best there is, each post leading you gently to a conclusion.

John Chow
You've just got to love this guy! He posts every single day, he's unashamedly commercial in everything he does, but he lives the dot com dream and seems to enjoy every minute of it. His writing isn't great, but it's totally compelling!

Jamie Harrop
Who? Jamie is just 21 years old and lives in Yorkshire, UK. His writing is truly excellent on his motivational blog. Until I started reading his posts, I wouldn't have believed that such a young person could inject so much pathos and poignancy into writing. A rising star to watch out for.

Steve Pavlina
Is he cynically exploiting his readers with outrageous ideas to increase traffic? Has he lost the plot with his raw food diet and polyamorous relationship quest? Does he really believe some of the stuff he comes out with? Can he write a post without using the word "resonate"? Who knows, but I can tell you this - he writes beautifully and his posts are as compelling as the best soap opera you ever watched.

If you're not on the list, don't fret! I read many, many more blogs than these eight, and yours may fall into the category of "Brilliant" for content, or information - but these are the ones I most enjoy simply for the writing.

What are your favorite blogs and why?