Baxter tagged me about 10 years ago to write up a Thinking Bloggers award post, and due to a mixture of illness, real life and good old procrastination I simply haven’t done it. Sorry again Baxter. So I ‘m going to get on it now, and instead of doing 5 in one post, I’m going to spread it over five posts and spend a little more time on it.

Andy Beard is my first choice, and it’s an easy choice simply because so many of his posts make me think. Andy is, in the words of his Blogger profile:

Married, 1 dachshund, own a small house in the Polish countyside where I live with my Polish wife. I originate from SE London I have worked in engineering, air-conditioning, and for the last 12 years in the computer games industry, primarily on business development, sales, marketing, product aquisition and localisation.

Which certainly tells you a lot (although not the dachshund’s name), but won’t necessarily give you a flavour of what his blog, Niche Marketing is all about. Whilst the name is descriptive, and his own tagline lets you know that you’re in for plenty of SEO, blogging and social media tips, it’s far and away Andy’s opinions, and comprehensive well written articles that draw me back.

I’ve learnt an awful lot in the relatively short time I’ve been reading his blog, but it’s all been high quality stuff, being of value to both me, my readers and other bloggers – things that become essential linking material, not because they are linkbait per se, but because they’re good.

Articles like the ultimate list of NoFollow & DoFollow plugins, which was the first time I really became aware of what the whole business was about, and what it was trying to achieve. Since reading that post all of my blogs have had DoFollow enabled. Having subscribed to his feed at this point, I then got to find out about Bumpzee and the DoFollow community that Andy had started, and although I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t utilised this as much as I should have, it’s another great blogging community to be a part of.

I could probably throw in another half a dozen links, but it was from Andy that I learned the importance of linking your own posts within your site, using anchor text when you leave comments and much more.  None of these posts are ‘dry’ and although you could find a lot of the technical information elsewhere, it’s the personality within the writing that is key for me.

One other thing of note, is that Andy is not shy when it comes to linking and visiting other blogs (this one included) and to replying to your comments – this is refreshing from a well read, respected blogger, and it helps to build a sense of community. While I don’t expect any blogger to hang on my every word, it’s cool to see Andy pop up all over the web leaving comments, and linking to people, rather than just remaining within a circle of cronies like some I could mention….

If you haven’t read Andy’s blog yet, you need to – it doesn’t matter that you may only be blogging for fun about your pet goldfish, and you’re not interested in SEO etc. That’s cool, but there’s so much else to pick up.

Essential reading, and essential thinking.