When I started creating blogs and websites I was totally clueless but lucky enough to find several forums and websites that helped me increase my knowledge and gave me new ideas so that I could improve my websites tremendously. It took me a while to discover several of them and even today I find websites that I never visited before that have a great value for every webmaster, be it novice or experienced.

My attention shifted from popular blogs like Problogger to lesser known ones because I personally think that the value of some websites decreased quite a bit since then. The same can be said for websites like John Chow or Shoemoney who all seem to be at the top because of their name rather than because of what they write recently.

If I look at John Chows website for instance I find articles about dinners and parties, review me articles, even more review me articles, Kontera or TTZ advertisement articles or affiliate blabla. There is not actually a single article on the first three pages that is of any relevance for me, maybe the Peppermint Affiliate article but that one is most likely sponsored as well.

My main source of information comes from Webmaster forums. Why there ? Because they concentrate on webmaster topics and have so many users that you will receive all relevant information and news in no time. Here are some of my favorite webmaster forums that I use from the beginning on and still visit daily:

Digitalpoint

Sitepoint

Webmaster World

Those three are a good start. There are probably a dozen more that you can visit depending on the type of information that you want. The earners forum for example is wonderful if you are into affiliate marketing, dnforum if you are into domain names and stuff like that.

With lots of posts comes lots of junk. Let me get that straight. Not everything that is said in those forums is true or working. You always have to question what is being said. I usually start a discussion by myself if I’m not sure about a topic or information. You learn pretty fast to read between the lines though and know which information are trustworthy and which are not.

I would also like to point out several websites that I discovered just recently that are a wonderful read for new and experienced webmasters alike. Unlike John Chow they deliver lots of useful content and information, they are:

How to Make Money Online for Beginners

Court’s Internet Marketing School

Why are they different ? Take a look at their recent articles and compare them to John Chow and Problogger:

How to Make Money Online for Beginners

Backlinks - The Root of All Evil - How to Get Useful Backlinks
Search Engine Optimization Basics - How to Optimize your Blog for Google Search Listings
The Make Money Online Niche

Court’s Internet Marketing School

Help A Blogger In Need
Keyword Sniping Case Study - Patience People!
Confidence Lacking? Limit Your Competition

John Chow:

From a nobody to a nubody brain control for the masses
2008 TTZ Media Affiliate Dinner
Go To Affiliate Summit West On Me

Problogger:

Do You Tailor Your Affiliate Program Messages?
14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers
Help a Blogger in Need

Now, if you are a beginning blogger. Which articles would you like to read ? If you are experienced, which one would you pick ?