Yaro Starak is one of the most influential bloggers out on the scene today. For a few years now, he’s been dominating the blog how-to market with his Entrepreneur’s-Journey.com site.

Yaro’s posts and thorough and loaded with gems of advice and recommendations for up and coming bloggers.  He built his business on perseverance, testing and soaking up as much knowledge as he could along the way.

Blog-Religion Markers for Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Authority of Leadership: There’s little doubt Yaro is King of EJ – his personality is evident and visible on every page of the blog. He uses an assortment of technologies to make it easy for you to get to know him: audio, steaming video, content and pictures.  There are some sub-factors that make Yaro the charismatic leader of his blog-religion. In fact, Yaro and Daren Rowse of ProBlogger.net have these in common:

• Teaching - Yaro’s manner  and voice in both audio and video content posts are reassuring to the listener no matter what level of blogger they are.  His posts offer clear guidance on how new and advance bloggers can accomplish their blogging goals.
• Focused - Yaro’s post cover a variety of topics; from Internet marketing product reviews to overviews of technologies he uses to make money online. 
• Balanced – Yaro’s a blogger that I can identify with -and did- immediately.  He believes in a balanced approach to his blog-religion like I talk about in this post.

Community: The main metrics for the Community characteristic for a blog-religion are related to numbers of readers and comments.  EJs feed is read by over 53,000 readers  That’s a lot of regular followers.  It’s a  ‘mega-church’ type community similar to ProBlogger.net! The comments often number in the mid to high double digits. Yaro differs from many blogs in that he doesn’t overtly push social media outlets like Twitter, though he’s active there as well.

The Holy Book: Yaro’s bible is titled, Blog Profits Blueprint and it’s free to download -a unique approach to such a hefty value.  (I’ve read it and recommend it to you.) This is no freebie download typical of most incentive-based eBooks. No way, this is a solid 60+ pages of material he should probably be charging for. Here’s a peek at what’s inside.

• Guiding Principles – The book offers guiding principles that direct the aspiring blogger.  It clearly defines the playing field for professional blogging, offers clear warnings on recognizing common pitfalls and how to realistically assess your blogging progress.
• How To’s – He clearly lays out a number of actionable instructions that every blogger should follow if they want to create a following of like-minded followers.
• Resource Rich – it’s packed with names of resources and clearly defined steps to follow in order to gain the maximum benefit from each one.

Education & Training: Yaro’s nailed this element of a blog-religion in his Blog Mastermind coaching course.  This is a 6-month eCourse with PDFs, audio and video downloads and some of the best blog marketing advice available.  The content is unsurpassed and since it’s Yaro at the helm, students learn and apply and benefit.  (I know because I’m a member of BlogMastermind!)

• Levels of Membership – Yaro’s built a strong conversion process into his blog-religion that promotes the next level of training.  His Blog Mastermind has built in levels of membership and does his Become A Blogger video training course with Gideon Shalwick.

What’s missing from the Entrepreneurs-Journey Religion?

Not a lot! Really only one minor issue keeps EJ from being a full-blown religion.

Definition of Niche-Specific Terminology:

As I said above, this is a minor issue and most likely due to the rather large target audience EJ focuses on. One function of a blog-religion’s holy book is that it defines niche-specific terminology. Blog Profits Blueprint is a very valuable overview of the entire blogging for money process.  However it fails to define a niche-specific terminology. This isn’t a flaw in the book by any means, it just doesn’t meet the sub-factor standard for defining niche-specific terminology.

Summary

Entrepreneurs-Journey.com is a solid business blog that adheres very closely to the blog-religion model.  It’s got something for every level of follower and the information contained within its ‘church’ delivers solid value to its attendees.  As one of the students in Yaro’s Blog Mastermind, I’m a full-blown evangelist as you can see from the sidebar ads for his programs as well as the one below.

What About You?

Care to agree or disagree with my assessment?  Are there factors I’ve overlooked in reference to Entrepreneurs-Journey.com?  I’d love to hear from you. All comments are welcome.