You are here: Home / Archives for Build a Better Blog

Time to Monetize? Travel Blog Case Study #1

October 18, 2011 By 31 Comments

This is a guest post by Lisa Egle who runs the travel blog Chicky Bus. Lisa approached me here on TBC to see if the travel blog community can help her decide if she should try to monetize here blog, and if so, how best to approach it.

Travel Blog Case Study

Come on, how can you not help me???

I think this is a great chance for us all to learn as I know many (if not most) of us have faced this question about monetizing. Lisa is very brave to open up her site completely to all of us and see what is going on traffic wise. Many of us have a piece of the monetizion puzzle and this is a great opportunity to help out each other in the comments. I will also post a follow up article with all the comments organized along with my own thoughts.

Time To Monetize?

When I started my travel blog–Chicky Bus—approximately one year ago, I had two primary goals: sharing my travel stories, tips and photos with others while building a social media platform to help me publish/sell my travel memoirs, once completed.

“Monetizing” my site—with ads, widgets, affiliate sales, etc.—was not high on the list although, admittedly, it was in the back of my mind.

Now, one year later, the monetary possibilities have grown in importance and moved up on the priority list. I recognize the value of what I do/see the engagement, put in a lot of time/energy and have seen my “numbers” improving. I’ve also spent not just time but money on my site for: a premium theme builder, webhost fees, a social media consultant, a web developer and some paid plug-ins. I’d love to see a return on my investment.

Before I ask my questions and we conduct our “case study,” here’s some background on my site:

Background

Monetize a Trave BLog

Site Name/Tagline: Chicky Bus: Finding yourself off the beaten path.

How it appears on Google: Chicky Bus: Travel tips, spirituality and humor.

Age of Site: 1 year, 1 month

Domain Name: I chose the domain name, www.chickybus.com, because it’s memorable, the backbone of the overall concept and thus, “brandable.” Early on, I opted to do this versus choosing a “discoverable” name, one that would be found in simple searches about travel—eg, “solo travel” and “female adventure travel”. I do, of course, use these and many other “key words” in certain posts.

Concept

Chicky Bus aims to take readers “off-the-beaten path and into the moment—to a place of self-discovery”—via tales, tips, photos and more. This reflects the theme of the book I recently completed and works the same way; readers/”passengers” are taken on the bus for trips/”rides” to 5 continents around the world, which entertain and lead to introspection and hopefully, inspire healthy risk-taking and more in-the-moment “authentic travel.”

Target Audience

The site is geared to anyone, male or female, with an interest in travel/cultural experiences and photography:

·      independent travelers (solo/couples) who travel internationally and in the US

·      travelers who generally take tours and wonder what it’s like to get off the beaten path

·      people considering their first trip

·      students and professors interested in cultural exchange/world politics

·      anyone interested in personal growth (living in the moment, taking risks, etc.) and open to the idea of it happening via travel

Actual Audience

According to Alexa statistics, my site’s audience “tends to be childless; they are also disproportionately highly educated women between the ages of 25 and 45 who browse from home and have incomes under $100,000.”

Visitors

Visitors to the site spend approximately 44 seconds on each page view and a total of seven minutes on the site during each visit. Search engines refer approximately 10% of visits. (Note: this is also per Alexa and some of it differs from what Google’s metrics said.)

My Numbers

Alexa Ranking: 146,280 worldwide (42,532 US and 57,281 in the UK)

Google Page Rank: 3

Google Analytics: Approximately 3250 visitors (75% new) per month, of whom about 2530 are “absolute/unique”; 5676 page views in the past month; time on site varies.

Twitter Followers—3000 followers

Klout Score: 63

*I realize that there are mixed reviews re: the validity/value of some of these numbers and metrics; however, since they’re what many people use, I’ve listed them. What I do know is that those visiting my site tend to be loyal, interested and highly engaged.

Monetize Now or Later?

Last month, Virgin Atlantic (via a marketing company) approached me about running a search widget on my site and I agreed to it. It’s a start, but I’d like to see more money coming in.

I’ve been approached by other companies, those less well-known, and haven’t been sure what to do. Some of them seem spammy and not worth my time. I recently set up an advertising page to show which options are available.

So, my question to you—those already making money—is…is it time for me to really monetize or not? Is my site the kind that’s appropriate for this? Are my “numbers” high enough? And if so, which types of situations will bring in the most money without creating a lot more work for me?

The challenge here, of course, is time. I’ve finished writing my book and am considering publishing options. Meanwhile, I’m a full-time ESL professor and have a busy life. Of course, like many of my travel blogger peers, I’m a bit of a social media/Internet addict and, at times, feel burnt out.

My Questions

Here are some of the things I’d like advice about—and to see demystified if possible. And if it helps to share links to lists, articles, etc, if relevant, please do so. Without further ado, here are my questions:

1. Affiliate links: Are they worth it?

I recently bought some slashproof travel gear that I thought was excellent. Is it worth writing a post about it and using affiliate marketing to try to earn commission? Is it worth the time/energy? I am sure that other travelers would benefit from the post, but would they click and buy?

2. Advertising: What’s the best approach?

Do I, the travel blogger, pursue it? Look at other bloggers’ sites and see who they have as “sponsors” and if their “numbers” and niche are similar, approach that particular advertiser? Or do I wait to be approached by the advertisers themselves? And if/when that happens, how do I know whom to trust?

And if they are legit, how much should I charge? How long should I commit for? How do I re-negotiate for a higher rate? And what about homepage versus single-post page versus sitewide? Are there different prices for each option?

Anyone out there have a form or rate sheet to share that they give to advertisers to show the options/pricing structure?

3. Sponsored vs paid guest posts: One or both?

Every once in a while, I see that a traveler blogger’s post was sponsored by someone else; at the bottom, there’s a link to a travel-related company. I wonder how much they were paid to include this link.

Other times, I see a post that the blogger allowed someone else to write—and obviously got paid for, too. The writing quality (and number of comments) is generally low or simply awkward sounding; sometimes the post seems out of place and, on occasion, compromises the integrity of the site in some way.

In my case, I’m more comfortable with allowing for the former situation versus the latter. Also, I’d even consider writing a “targeted post”—one that the advertiser wants to run that includes a link. This, however, would cost a lot since it would really be labor-intensive.

What’s a good/basic protocol for each of the scenarios? How much can/should one charge?

4. Press Trips: “It’s complicated,” right? Or not?

As a former reporter, I find the idea of a press trip a bit perplexing and wonder how it really works. What specifically do “they” (eg–the agency, tourism council, etc.) pay for—airfare, transportation, tours, etc? Some of it? All of it?

And what about compensation? Do you get paid, too? If so, what is it fair to ask for? And what happens if the trip doesn’t go well? How do you handle writing about it? Is there any sort of conflict of interest?

What about income tax (if you’re not a permanent digital nomad)? Must you claim the “free trip” (and what it would have cost) as income? Do you have to pay sales tax on it based on the rate mandated by the state in which you live?

Final Question: How Do I Monetize Without Losing Sight of My Original Goals?

These are some of the monetization situations I’ve been wondering about and would love to know your thoughts re: my particular “case.” As you can see, if I pursue monetization, I’d like to work “smart” versus “hard.”) The question is–how do I manage it all without losing sight of my primary goals—providing quality content to readers, maintaining my social media platform and getting my book published?

Bio: Lisa Egle, founder/owner of www.chickybus.com, is an independent traveler and an ESL professor at a 2-year college. She recently finished her travel memoirs, a collection of short stories about her experiences on 5 continents around the world. She’s done everything from (unintentionally) eating dog in China to being proposed to on a chicken bus and recently, meeting a Colombian hermit in Lebanon. Her travel philosophy (and the concept of her site) is “travel off the beaten path and into the moment–to a place of self-discovery.” 

Links:

So what do all of your smart travel bloggers things about Chicky Bus’ situation? Leave your comments below and let’s figure out this monetization issue!

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog, Case Studies, Make Money Blogging Tagged With: ,

How to: Google + and Your Travel Blog

September 29, 2011 By 8 Comments

How to Use Google Plus to Increase Blog TrafficThis is a guest post by David Billa of David + World, Ogijima fame. Yes, it is long, but useful posts usually are.

Google+ has been released a little more than 2 months ago now. I was lucky enough to get an invite pretty early (I know people ;-) ) and I must admit that I have spent a big chunk of the past two months playing with it (is that why I’ve been blogging less than usual this summer?). Now that Google+ is available to all the regular folks it’s time to see if it benefits bloggers or is just another distraction.

Is Google+ Right for your Blogging Business?

Despite the incredible growth of the network in just over a month, I’ve heard many people saying that they were not interested in joining in. Some people think that it is one more social network too many. Some people think that it’s just like Facebook so why bother. And some unlucky people would like to join, but haven’t been invited yet by anybody – after all and despite its 25 million users, Google+ still hasn’t been “officially” released yet. [Update: it is now officially released to the general public]

I thought that now was about the right time to tell you a little about it, with the obvious goal to convince you to join (and Google is not even paying me, sometimes, I think I’m just not a good businessman).

First, let me tell you about the basic features you need to know. Then we’ll see how this can be useful for travel bloggers.

Caveat: There will be a lot of comparisons with Facebook and Twitter in this post. While it has been said a lot that Google+ will (or will not) replace Facebook and Twitter, I believe that the three of them can coexist more or less peacefully. The way you use each of them and what you do on them is slightly different. However, to make things easier to understand, especially if you’ve never used Google+, I thought that comparisons with tools you’re already familiar with can help.

Main Features of Google+

Circles

The first thing you’ll notice when you join Google+ are the circles. It may have been the most discussed feature (because it’s the one that everyone saw, even people who didn’t spend more than 5 minutes on the site), but I’ll explain how they work anyway, just in case.

On Facebook, you have friends. You see pretty much everything they post, and they see pretty much everything you post (unless you block some people, types of news, etc.).

On Twitter, you follow people. You can read all what they write. When people follow you, they can read all what you write. You don’t have to follow people who follow you (and vice-versa) and anyone can read your tweets, even if they don’t follow you (following just publishes people’s tweets in your timeline and make them easier to… well… follow.)

On Google+, you circle people! That is, you select what circles people belong to. Friends, family, travel bloggers, you decide. You can create as many circles as you want and include as many people as you want in them (well, you can circle a maximum of 5,000 people, I don’t think any of you is there yet). You can put people in one or several circles. People will know you “circled” them, but they won’t know what circle(s) they’re in.

Circles have a double function, as they both determine what will appear in your streams and what you’ll share with whom. You need to be mindful of that when you create your circles. A good thing to do is to create circles for reading (bloggers, techies, news, specific countries, etc.) and circles for sharing things (buddies, close friends, family, vague acquaintances, etc.).

By default, your stream includes all the people that you circled, but then you can filter it by circle.

When you post something, you can select who can read it; from everyone (public) to a single individual. In between, you can pick various options such as all of your circles, just one, or a few. Note that selecting whom you share with is a inclusive process and not an exclusive one. You can’t decide to share with all your circles except one. If you want to do that, you’ll have to manually select all your circles but the ones you want to exclude.

An “exclude” feature may be implemented in the future. Remember that Google+ is just starting and its features will obviously evolve with time (not mentioning the ones that are already ready to be launched and will show up be little by little).

Hangouts

I admit that it’s a feature I haven’t used (I’m not a big fan of chatrooms and I don’t even own a webcam). A hangout can be public or private (you decide who gets invited the same way you decide who can read a post you write), and then it’s like a video conference, where you’ll hang out with whoever shows up. [Todd here: I think this has huge potential for running webinars and travel chats]

Photos

Well, I don’t think I need to explain in details here. You can upload pictures. You can group them in albums, and once again decide who gets to see them or not. You can also, edit them (just slightly of course, this is not photoshop), comment on them, etc.

Note that pictures will be uploaded to your Picasa account (if you don’t already have one, one will be created for this occasion). Also, you may choose to make your pictures already on Picasa visible on Google+ if that’s your wish.

Sparks

It’s a feature that I almost never see mentioned. Yet, it is one of my favorite. Sparks are more or less Google searches that you can save. They allow you to create new streams about topics you care about from various sources. It’s not exactly like a Google search in the sense that only a handful of results will show up (usually the most recent news and blog posts), but it’s a great tool to discover new sites and blogs talking about topics and keywords that you care about.

Games

Yes, games have just arrived on Google+. You can now play Angry Birds and Bewejeled and compare your scores with people in your circles.

Privacy

Privacy is a big concern in social media, and Google+ is doing both quite a good job and a not-so-good job with this.

The good: You can easily and clearly select a different level of privacy for any part of your profile; who’s in your circles, your “+1”, your location, your job, your education and whatnot.

The bad: I guess I’m getting spoiled with all of those privacy options, but I wish it went even further. What if I want a photo-album to be public except for that one picture? What if I want some of the links to my websites on my profile to be public and some private? Well, I can’t do that, at least not for now.

The ugly: You may have already heard about the “real name controversy.” Google+ wants you to use your real name on your profile. No nickname, no brand name, just your real name. A lot of people are unhappy about that, understandably so. However, I don’t think it’s all bad. Google says they want only real names to avoid spam and abuse, and they are right somehow. A good way to limit spam and abuse, as well as set a certain tone, is by having “real” people on the network.

I don’t know if you remember, but when the war was on between MySpace and Facebook, I’m convinced that one of the main reasons Facebook came out victorious is that it was “cleaner” than Myspace which had become a big mess at that time (for example, I was friends with Albert Einstein and Voltaire on Myspace). It’s understandable that Google wants to avoid its new network to become a big mess right from the start.

That being said, the way this policy is being implemented is not the best. For example, there have been some cases of people whose real name were unusual who got their account shut down. Apparently Google now leaves you a four day period to change your name and/or appeal before shutting down the profile.

Personally, while I understand that some people can be unhappy, I also think that making a big fuss about it is being a bit over-dramatic. After all, if you want to connect with people who know you, you may want them to be able to find and recognize you, don’t you?

Are you concerned that people may find things about you that don’t want them to find?

I have a rule of thumb as far as privacy on the web is concerned. If I put something online, it means that I’m willing to accept that it goes public, even if I posted it privately. If I’m not ready for this, the thing stays offline.

If you’re a blogger, I suspect that you already have a public page for your blog on Facebook and you want to do the same thing on Google+, right?

Well, you can’t do it just yet, but this brings us to the second part of this post:

How to use Google+ for your Travel Blog?

Of course, Google+ being brand new, there are still many options to explore as far as using it for/with your blog is concerned. Actually, it is one of the things I love with social media, especially new ones; you create its usefulness, you invent the ways a social media is useful for you.

So what did I find useful about Google+ in terms of using it in association to my blog?

Let’s start with the obvious:

Sharing

Just like with any other social media, the base of the whole thing is sharing information and links with other people, including links to your blog posts.

Socializing

I don’t know about you, but I rarely become friends on Facebook with my readers. It can happen, but Facebook is a tool I’m using more and more with people who are actual friends offline. It’s not completely true, but while a lot of people say that they can’t wait for Google+ to take off so that they can close their Facebook account, I’m more along the lines of “I can’t wait for Google+ to take off so that I can remove anyone who’s not a close friend on my Facebook account”.

Some will say that there’s Twitter to socialize with people you don’t actually know too well (including your readers). While it’s true, I could never really get into Twitter much. While it’s great to socialize with your readers and your niche blogosphere, this 140 characters limit really annoys me and is too limitative. I like to be able to develop my ideas, just throwing in my two cents in form of a few words is not my thing, and if you follow me on Twitter (@Ogijima), you’ll see that I mostly use it to share links, not much more.

In terms of socializing, Google+ is Twitter on massive steroids, not only is there no character limit (maybe there’s one, but I haven’t met it yet), but discussions take the form of threads, a little bit like what you’ll find in forums and on Facebook.

In other words, it has both the spontaneity and openness of Twitter and the threaded format of forums and Facebook. The best of both worlds.

Of course, Hangouts are also a great tool for socializing. I won’t go into details, not having used it, I’m not in a position of give you advice, but I think it’s self-explanatory. For example, I know there are a few fans of #TOTT (Travel Talk on Twitter) reading this. Imagine what you could do with a TTOGH (Travel Talk on Google Hangouts).

Also, in the past few weeks, I’ve noticed – having in my circles people I only knew from Twitter (and their blog) before – that, because we don’t only talk about our niche on Google+ but also about many other topics, we get to know each other better as people, not just bloggers, much better than we’d ever do on Twitter.

Games can play a very positive role in that domain too. After all this is what games were invented for in the first place, as a social activity (we sometimes forget about it, used that we now are playing alone on our computers and smartphones)

Sparks

As previously mentioned, Sparks are a great tool for finding new sites and blogs dealing with topics you care about. It allows me to expand my reading list as well as my backlink building (i.e. new places to comment on)

For example, if you’ve ever read my blog, Ogijima, you know that I mostly talk about this region of Japan that is full of amazing islands. The other day, thanks to Sparks, I found an architecture website mentioning a museum that was recently built on one of these islands. I would have never found it without Sparks (except though lengthy Google searches). Will I never go back to this blog? Probably not, I’m not well-versed enough in architecture. However, I had an interesting read and I didn’t leave without writing a (I hope) useful comment giving some insight about the island and a link to my blog.

 “Public pages” or lack of thereof on Google+.

I am sure that some people jumped in on Google+ and instead (or in addition) of creating a personal account, they created an account for their blog. The Google+ equivalent to Facebook public pages if you want. Chances are the page was closed by Google or that you quickly had to change it back into your personal account. I know I did it. As soon as I received my first invite for Google+ I created my personal account, and the second thing I did was to send invites to all of my other gmail accounts in order to create a Google+ account for each one of my blogs (I tend to have one gmail account per blog for various reasons).

And even before Google started to close down accounts with fake or brand names, I realized that most were quite redundant. Sure, I had to close one account (created under a pseudonym for a blog written under that pseudonym) with great regret, but concerning my main blogs (written under my real name) it was the logical thing to do. To the point I’m not even sure I will create a “brand page” for them when those will be implemented.

Of course, I have no idea how those pages will work. Maybe they’ll be very different from Facebook pages, and will end up being indispensable for your blog (in this case, I’ll come back to tell you why if Todd allows me to). However, if they’re anything like Facebook public pages, I don’t see the point.

After all Facebook pages are only useful if you don’t friend your readers, and even though, I always found communication to be poor on them.

As a page owner, I’ve never found much interest beyond posting links to my blogs and other blogs related to my niche so that they appear in my “likes” newsfeed.

As a page “liker”, except for liking posts and status updates, I never really use them. I know some of you love having discussions on them, but personally, I always find that these discussions are not “real” discussions. Sure everyone responds to the page owner, but no one really talks to each other beyond that.

What I’ve seen on Google+ so far, because of all the factors I’ve mentioned are real discussions among people, and not only on niche topics, but about many things. Maybe I’m just discovering personal branding, but I suddenly find myself talking with my readers and other bloggers about various topics not necessarily related to our blogs. I find this network of people much stronger than networks of people on Twitter for example.

Years ago, before the age of social media, I was an avid forum user. I was a regular of a few forums, which were mostly populated of regulars, and we created strong bonds over time. Some of them became some of my best offline friends. I even know some people who got married and who met on these forums.

It may be too early to tell, but I see some of that on Google+ already. In a more open and more “2.0” way of course.

Actually I’ve been thinking about creating a new blog for a little while, and the fear of having to start over in terms of networking was the main reason why I haven’t yet (I don’t see myself using my Twitter account and Facebook pages devoted to Japan for this blog that will have nothing to do with Japan). In just a month, on Google+, I built an existing network of people that is both loose enough to not be just a bunch of friends, and tight enough to be a good ground to build this new blog on. I may not even need a “brand page” when they come out.

In other words, I think that Google+ is very powerful thing in terms of developing your name online, and I’m very excited about what the future holds.

What did I miss? How are you using to Google+ to grow your blog? Is it working?

You can connect with David on Google+, on Twitter @davidplusworld, and even on Facebook

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: , ,

How Much Can I Really Earn from my Travel Blog?

July 12, 2011 By 34 Comments

Earn Money BloggingThis is a question that has been plaguing me recently as I have begun to work through a new strategy for Todd’s Wanderings. It is also a question that is inevitably on the minds of TBC readers and just about anyone who is attracted to the bright lights of blogging.

According the 1,000-1,000 Challenge we are focused at the minimum of earning (or proving that it’s possible) 1,000 USD per month. To be very honest, this is not such a hard thing to do. Developing 1,000 visitors a day is MUCH more difficult. The hard part in monetization is deciding if you want t make more and then choosing the correct strategy for your business model.

Maybe it’s the development worker in me, but I hate developing plans without a solid set of data guiding my decisions. Recently I set off a rant about advertisers trying to low ball good, honest, attractive, hard traveling bloggers. It occurred to me that there is nowhere we can point advertisers to industry standards to back up our claims that our rates are fair and not inflated. To help rectify this situation, and to help us all in answering the question of this post I have put together a poll, along with Laurence from Finding the Universe, to help create a rate card for text based advertising and sponsored posts.

I actually have an ulterior motive for this poll. It has occurred to me over the past two years that advertising can only get you so far in your monetization strategies. If you only want to make 1,000 a month and keep your blog loose then this is a great option for you. Check out our three part series on making money with your blog for a good introduction to advertising.

But if you are looking to live off of your blog, or spend more money when traveling, than it requires a different strategy and business model. You might also have other goals with your blog and text links are a potential liability to your future growth as Google frowns upon them to the point they have permanent wrinkles. For example, my goal at Todd’s Wanderings is to help get my first book published and sold to millions of people. If Google deindexes my blog my plan is ruined.

First things First: The Survey

Please fill in our quick 8 question only Advertising Survey, and share it with others.

Click here to take the survey

This will help the entire Travel Blogging Community and we will share the results wide and far.

Second things Second

I have been thinking long and hard about what has made Todd’s Wanderings a success to this point, as well as what my next steps need to be. I have gone through a process of analyzing popular blogs, in and out of the travel world, and have reevaluated my own goals, vision and strategy.  You can preview and critique my new blog design to see where I’m headed.

By now your thinking, great what good will this be for me other than making sure that Todd picks up the tab when we meet in person? Well the benefit is that I’m planning to layout my whole process here on the TBC. I want to help you build up your blogs, earn more money, and be able to take me out to dinner (drinks included) when we meet up :)

Over the next few months I plan to lay it all out, build up a number of free tools for TBC readers to use, and I might even develop a more in depth course that goes into greater detail on each of the subjects I’ll touch on. I want this to be useful so keep the comments and the suggestions coming and I’ll step up my game.

Anatomy of a Successful Travel Blog

First off I want to make one thing perfectly clear: there is no one way to be successful. To that end it pays to be creative, and to establish yourself and your blog as a purple cow. But in general a successful travel blog will realize that a blog is not a business by itself. I have struggled with this concept as I desperately want my blog and my daily writing to earn money on its own. Unfortunatly, this is not the case. A successful travel blog is one that uses the medium of a blog to interact with an audience, and in that interaction develop a business.

What does this mean? It means you have to have a business plan that is linked to but separate from your blogging plan. It means that you need to have a plan to attract your audience through your blog, but then you have to have a plan of what you will do with them once they are listening and talking back to you.

Many bloggers, myself included, spend so much time focusing on producing content to increase our traffic numbers, but then we fail to take the next step. We naively assume that increased traffic will lead to increased revenue. Of course massive traffic can lead to more money, but of all the travel blogs I have seen very few actually reach the 1,000 visitors a day that we strive to meet here at TBC. This does not mean you can’t still earn money, it just means that you need a plan.

At the core of many successful blogs are three factors that work together:

1)   Find something that you love to do (I’m assuming that is traveling, exploring, getting drunk in odd places around the world)

2)   Find similar people who value your expertise at the thing you love to do

3)   Make sure that it’s something that people will pay for (yeah, this is quite an important part)

Travel Blogging Adds Extra Demands

The “how” is a very different thing from the topic of your blog. And this is where things become a bit more difficult for Travel Bloggers. Besides the normal blogging and business basics, we also need to be expert photographers, storytellers, researchers, writers, videographers, editors, marketers, and conversationalists. That’s a lot to ask from anyone. Oh, and you have to be up to speed on all the hottest trends in internet technology and where the kids are hanging out (what you don’t know what Google + is yet?).

Did I also mention that there are thousands of travel blogs competing for your audience, and a few smaller websites like Travelocity, National Geographic, Times, and just about every single newspaper on the planet?

Are you freaked out yet? Are your palms sweating? Have you cracked open another beer to ease the pain of what you committed yourself to?

Actually, it’s not as hard as you might think. In fact, if you have a good plan, work hard, and are talented you will have no problem :)

So that I don’t leave you hanging, here are a few of the topics I’ll be delving into over the next few months. Don’t worry; the structure will come as well:

  1. Website Design and Usability
  2. Branding
  3. Distinguishing yourself from everyone else
  4. Available Market and who your audience is
  5. Developing Content
  6. Providing Value
  7. Conversion (what you want people to do besides read your words and look at your pictures)
  8. Promotion (this goes beyond just the “use social media” or “guest blogging” suggestions. You need to have a strategy on who you want to attract and how you will target and engage them).

After we talk about all of this, we also have to discuss the nuts and bolts of travel blog writing, developing stories, getting people to care, and developing your voice.

Oh, and then we need to talk about the actual business blue prints that are working for travel bloggers, how to monetize, what your options are, and how to decide what works best for you.

Yeah, and you thought you had a busy schedule coming up!

And just in case you don’t believe me that anyone can earn money attracting an audience online, have a look at ShaneShane. It will blow your mind :)

What else would you like to learn about? Any essential travel blogging aspects that I missed?

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog, Business of Blogging, Make Money Blogging Tagged With:

Build a Niche Site or Blog in 18 Easy Steps

April 27, 2011 By 18 Comments

Easy steps to build a blog and websiteThis is an update to the Niche Travel Site Battle that is going on right now between yours truly and 4 other travel bloggers. You can follow all the updates over at the War Room.

Starting a blog or a niche site can be overwhelming, and this overwhelm can lead to paralysis, to putting off an idea because it’s difficult to take that first step when you feel like there are a thousand more still left to go. Building a blog, or a niche site does not have to be difficult and if you have the correct strategy you can get up an running in only 1 hour and just 18 steps (trust me they are not difficult).

I’m deliberately describing both blogs and niche sites here as my strategy for them is the same. It used to be that blogs where one thing and niche sites were static websites. Those days are long past and now it is easy to rank high with a blog, and use it as a static site that is easily updated with new posts and articles.

What follows is the process I go through whenever I build a site. I use a number of paid services but I’ll also include free options where I can as just about all of this can be done for free as well. This is a long post because you deserve the full process!

Step One-Web Hosting and Domain Names

For my blog and for my niche sites I recommend shelling out some money and hosting your site on a paid server. This not only allows you to retain full rights and access to your website, but it allows you to scale up if traffic increases substantially and offer a wider range of monetization strategies. There are of course free options like (Blogger and WordPress.com) but these carry subdomains that will make your site look less professional. The two hosting companies I use and recommend are:

Host Gator (you can get $9.94 off a package if you use the code TWHOSTGATOR or 25% off with TBCHOSTGATOR)

Dream Host (use the promotion code DREAM695 to reduce the price to just $6.95/month)

I won’t go through this process as the hosting companies have it pretty much covered.

I do get a small commission if you sign up using my codes or though the links. Thanks for your support if you choose to. I made the promo codes so they have the maximum discount possible so that we all benefit.

You can also buy your domain names from the same place you get your hosting from. There are cheaper places to buy domain names but I can’t be bothered to save the extra $2/year so I just usually keep everything in one place. Sometimes I use GoDaddy as they are cheaper, but I would not relay on them for hosting.

Step Two- Setting up the Blog

Free and Powerful. Or in another word, WordPress.org. This free blogging AND content management system (CMS) has leveled the playing field between large corporations that have the money to pay programmers and well, the rest of us who just want to work from home or the cafe. You can install WordPress.org in just one click through the two hosting companies I listed above. It is easy and quick. Please note that there is a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Both are free, but the former is for self-hosted blogs (the kind I’m advocating here) and the later is the free hosting based on the same software. We will be using WordPress.com later in our Niche Site evolution to help build the authority of our main site. But more on that in another post.

Once you have installed WordPress go to your admin page, to the left sidebar, and optimize it as follows:

Go to Settings and click General

1) Change Tagline to a SEO Friendly Tag that will show up in search engines. This describes what your site is about and should contain your main keyword phrase.

Go to Posts and click Categories

2) Create a new category called “News”.

Go to General and click Writing

3) Change the default Post Category to “News.” This way if you forget to assign a category to your articles it does not show up on the ugly and unprofessional category of “Uncategorized.”

Go to  Settings and click Permalink

4) Change to “Custom Structure” /%postname%/ This makes your URL address look pretty and helps Google know what they are easier.

Step Three- Choose a Theme

The theme of your website (how it looks and and is set up) is very easy to install and change at any time. There are thousands of themes available for WordPress.org some of which are free and some of which are “premium.” You have to pay for the later but you can get a more professional design with additional functionality built in and cleaner coding that makes it easier for Google to read.

I want to make it clear that you do not have to spend any money at all for your Theme. One great example of a free theme is SimpleFolio. It has a clean design and is easy to manipulate to make it look original. However, I can’t speak to the coding of it as I have not used it personally. This one can’t be found in the WordPress directory so you’ll have to download it yourself.

As you can probably tell, the TBC runs on the Genesis Framework. I chose this Theme because it is incredibly powerful when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and there are a lot of skins (designs based on the underlying Theme coding) to choose from and more that come out on a regular basis. As I run the TBC, Todd’s Wanderings, and my growing army of niche sites it made sense to buy the Pro Plus Package. It is expensive upfront, but now I have access to all the premium themes I want for life and can use them on any new site that I choose. For me this is a good option as I am comfortable changing the code to suit my needs. But for others you might want to stick with the free theme or a single premium theme that you like and requires less coding knowledge.

If you are looking for something stylish than I can also recommend Woo Themes. I love their clean designs and easy interface. You can buy a single use license or a developers license that allows you to use with as many niche sites as you can create.

Steps Four-Eighteen- Adding the Plugins

As you have noticed to this point I am not going into detail about any one step. Instead I’m trying to give the essential steps in the process and suggestions on what I use. The beauty of WordPress is the ability to customize and add functionality to it easily through third party software call Plugins. The following is my essential list of WordPress plugins. All of them are free! I use more for my main blog as it requires additional bells and whistles. I’m not going to describe all of these as I can see you are getting sleepy. So here is the list and you can read up on them:

A.  Activate Akismet (prevents spam)

B. Fast Secure Contact Form (let’s people contact you easily without publishing your e-mail address)

C. Genesis Featured Widget Amplified (available only if you bought Genesis Framework, this is a powerful widget that let’s you organize your posts on the homepage)

D. GetClicky (great plugin from getclicky.com to help you keep track of your visitors and where they are coming from)

E. Pingler (notifies Google and other directories of updates to your site so you get indexed first)

F. Redirection (allows you to change the link url for affiliate links so they look pretty and trustworthy. I have used this throughout my post here)

G. Extended Comment Options (tricks out your comments sections)

H. Google XML Sitemaps (helps Google index your full site)

I. Quick Adsense (makes it easy to insert adsense)

J. Whydowork Adsense (same as above but with different options)

K. W3 Total Cache (speeds up your site by caching pages. This can be tough to configure but well worth it)

L. Favicon Generator (allows you at add a favicon next to your web url)

M. Widget Logic (allows you to control which widgets get shown on which pages. Great for advertising!)

N. WordPress Hashcash (helps reduce spam)

O. All in One SEO Pack (essential for helping Google understand what your site is about. This is not necessary if you have Genesis as the functionality is built into the theme).

Content and Monetization

Sorry, but you are going to have to wait for these strategies in another post as this one is far to long. Basically, my content strategy is to write everything myself, and dish out the most useful information on Tokyo that I can. For monetization I’m relying on Adsense and assuming (so dangerous!) that people searching for Things to Do in Tokyo will also be interested in advertising that targets their trip to Tokyo. I will also be adding hotel reviews and tour options in the future.

The whole process above took me only 1 hour in total. Add another 1 hour to make a custom banner for the top.

Things to Do in Tokyo SiteIt took me 1 hour to write each of my articles on my site so far. I have three live so that’s another 3 hours. This makes 5 hours of work to get the site up an running. HOWEVER, it took many many more hours to research these steps, test out and decide on content strategies and map out my site. Lucky you, as you get to benefit from my hours of slaving over the internet :)

I have actually learned something very important about myself, I can’t do anything low quality. I hate the idea of creating information and having others read it unless it is truly useful to them. This means that I will be trying to make my site as much of an authority site as possible, which is a slight shift from a niche site but fits with my overall strategic theme of building up a Japan site for the future. The good news is that Google will love this. The downside is that it takes more time as I will be adding at least 10 more articles to the site over the course of the next few weeks.

By the Numbers

If you have gotten this far you get a reward and that’s an update on where my site stands with only three articles posted.

After pursuing my link-building strategy in a half ass way (more on this later), and exactly 1 month after going live with the site I am now on the 2nd page of Google and the first page of Bing for my main keyword phrase! My site is not getting much organic traffic but has somehow become popular on Stumble Upon and just got 200 visitors yesterday (the average previously was just 2!).

Money wise I have earned a total of .94 cents. Yes, this has been deposited in a high interest bearing account! But I’m not worried about this. I’m now moving full steam ahead with my link building strategies and hopefully I’ll get to the top of Google soon. I don’t want to write about my linking strategies until I have some proven success, or a massive failure. I want this process to be useful for you as much as possible.

I’d love to hear what you think. Leave a comment below and help me get my energy back after this very long post. Thanks for sticking with me!

Photo Credit Top

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog, Business of Blogging, Niche Travel Site Battle Tagged With: ,

Blog Homework 8: Discover New Blog Real Estate (you have More Google Page Rank Than you Think)

February 10, 2011 By 37 Comments

Find Internal Google Page Rank for all PagesI know, I know, I have been promising that I would post a homework on creating an advertising page and media guide. Each time I sit down to write the homework I discover an essential task that you need to accomplish before having a compelling advertising page and pitch.

You have More PageRank than you think

With the recent Google Page Rank update many travel bloggers are either rejoicing or burying their sorrows on a beach with fruity cocktails. Either way, you are happy. But I might be able to make you even happier. Chances are you have more Google Page Rank than you first thought. Many bloggers only consider the PR of their homepage and forget that as links build to other pages and posts they might be gaining PageRank.

Why Does More PageRank Matter?

Like it or not PageRank is ONE factor used to determine advertising rates. If you have a low PR than it is in your interest to use different criteria to set your prices. But if you have high PR than you might as well use it. Having more sites with PageRank means that you can sell more advertising space and at different rates. An advertiser might not have a budget for placing an Ad on a PR 4 page, but luckily you can offer a PR 3, 2 or even 0!

How to find the PageRank of all Internal Pages

I have yet to find a comprehensive online tool to search through all pages on your site. The best I have found so far is: http://www.diagnosticoweb.com/internal/ (the site currently is down). But this will only return 100 pages, which means you might miss some important ones.

I recently found http://www.cleverstat.com/en/page-rank-software.htm which is a free desktop application that you can extract URLs and then search for PageRank in bulk. My search returned 4,821 urls on Todd’s Wanderings. That’s a lot of  PR potential.

Once you have different PR pages, you need to be able to have advertisements only appear on those pages. You don’t want to sell an as for only the Homepage and have it show up on all pages. This would defeat the purpose of finding new ad space. I use the WordPress plug-in Widget Logic (just search for it in the add plug-in section). This lets me control which widgets appear on certain pages.

Todd’s Wanderings has a PageRank of 4. However, after searching I found a lot of pages that had been upgraded that I never knew about:

Page Rank 3: 12 pages

Page Rank 2: 25 pages

Page Rank 1: 8 pages

I have found the tool to be mostly accurate but curiously some page ranks don’t show up in my Firefox SEO tool bar and I had to use a PR checking website to confirm.

Today’s Homework

Today’s homework is to use the tools above and find out how exactly how much PageRank real estate you have. You can then use this information in your advertising pages, or in the price listing that you send out after contact.

Extra Credit: If you have already determined your prices, and you know how many ads your accept per page, calculate how much possible revenue your blog can earn.

As this is more of a personal homework assignment we are not linking it to he forums.

However, we’d love to hear what you discovered, how much you think your blog is worth, and any plug-ins that you use that are better than mine!

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog, Nuts and Bolts Tagged With: , , ,

Blog Homework 7: Write about Something you Know

February 3, 2011 By 21 Comments

How to Write a How to PostSounds obvious right? Well it is, so obvious that many writers, travelers, and bloggers forget that not everyone else knows how to do what they take for granted. Chances are, if you have learned to do something over time, had to gather information to learn a new skill or task, or have been frustrated by a lack of information available on a subject, than other people are feeling the same way. Often we try to write about what is new and fresh to us and forget about the skills or information we gathered when we first started traveling, or the skills that have grown with us slowly.

The key here is to write about something that seems so obvious to you that you don’t think its worth writing about. Write about something you can’t imagine how anyone could NOT know about it.

My most recent example of this is my post: How I Save Money and Travel Cheaply- Not So Secret Strategies

I’ll be honest, I just wrote about the things that seemed obvious to me. I did this on purpose as an experiment. I often read popular posts about subjects I can’t believe people are writing about. I read posts from people who don’t have an in-depth knowledge or experience about something. Why let them corner the market when you have more experience? It is this thinking that has led me to write my book about Japan. Why should someone who only visited for 6 months be considered an expert!

What’s Boring to me is NOT Boring to YOU

I am guilty of not writing about what I know. Seriously, I often feel that people don’t want to hear about Kosovo because I live here and I think it would be boring to others. The truth is the exact opposite. I want to write about what I find interesting, but forget that my audience is not me and they have no idea about Kosovo. In fact the first thing I did before moving to Kosovo was search online for information…I didn’t find much!

You could even write about your hometown. What’s more boring than your hometown? But I bet there are a ton of people looking for information on what to do in Jamestown, RI (yup, that’s a plug for my hometown).

Today’s Homework

Today your homework is to write an Obvious How To/Information Post. But you are to write a how to post that you can’t imagine anyone else finding useful. Well, that is not really true! Some readers should find it useful, but you should consider the knowledge to be obvious.

You will be amazed by the results and how the simple skills that you take for granted are highly valued by those who have never had the chance to acquire them. This assignment will not only help you to understand your readers better, but it will help to open up a wider range of topics you can write about as an expert.

Here’s another example from Michael at Go See Write: Basic, beginner travel blog tips and advice It’s a great piece, and one that many have found very useful. It’s also a post that many of you could have easily written.

Oh, by the way. Don’ forget to make your post interesting :) Just saying!

Extra Credit: Take your how to or informational article and make a video. YouTube has become the second largest search engine and is a hot bed for people searching for How To explanations. Be as creative as you like, but it’s as easy as filming yourself for 20-40 seconds and throwing it up online.

Share Your Latest Post

Once you have created your Obvious How To Post, share it with others in the forum at Blog Homework 7: Obvious How To Post. We can help spread it even farther!

If you are not registered in the forum yet, click the link to the top right to get started.

And of course we love it when you post your ideas in the comments so have at it. What do you think about simple posts, ideas, how to articles?

Photo Credit

If you liked this article please consider signing up for free e-mail updates

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: , ,

Blog Homework 6: Use Story to Hook your Audience and Make them Care

January 28, 2011 By 26 Comments

Power of Story TellingThis week I thought I would provide advice on how to create a compelling and convincing advertising page. However, along the way something wonderful happened that made me change course. Over the past two weeks I have posted stories on Todd’s Wanderings. The first was a  pure travel story about my experience almost dieing on a boat in Vietnam. The second story was more of a question about the difficult choices surrounding bribing while traveling. However, instead of presenting a flat statement against bribing and how it is horrible I told three stories of my experiences with bribing. I opened myself up in both articles and related the travel lessons I was writing about on a personal level.

The First Time I Almost Died- Halong Bay, Vietnam

When to Bribe, How to Bribe, Do you Bribe?

The Power of Stories

What made me change my homework assignment was the intense response I have received from these two posts. Comments have been longer, more detailed, and from people who don’t always comment on my blog (although I know that they lurk…yes, I’m watching you). I saw my traffic spike for the past two weeks, and it had nothing to do with Stumble Upon. Instead it was all through twitter and Facebook referrals.

Now, I have had posts go viral before, picked up by Lonely Planet and passed around. My most recent one was 10 Free Things to Do in Tokyo, which was retweeted over 200 times, shared on facebook 98 times and even landed in a new guide to Japan. But even with all that exposure and interest this List Post did not generate the type of honest and open commenting that my Story Posts produced. So, which is more powerful? I think they both have their uses, but the Story Posts allow the reader to connect with me, to get to know me and to hopefully like me as a person.

Readers respond well to a protagonist, and when reading a story they picture themselves as the main character. It engages them in the story and makes them care more about the lesson you are trying to impart. I felt incredibly uncomfortable writing parts of each post. I opened myself up to the world and described situations and feelings that people normally don’t share with others for fear of being rejected, laughed at or criticized. I have learned that once I start to get this feeling while writing I must be onto something worth reading. After all, if I have such a powerful emotional reaction to something, chances are the reader will too.

Today’s Homework

Today your homework is to write a story. Write your next blog post in a way that conveys a story, beginning, middle and end. It should have a protagonist and an antagonist and should engage and move the reader through the steps to the point, lesson, or issue that you want to discuss.

It doesn’t have to be story about adventure and death like mine. Actually, you will probably get even greater benefit to it if you merge it with a post about “quirky foods to eat in London,” or “shoppers guide to Marrakesh.” Weaving a story through a mundane post will help to elevate it to a great post. It will help to give it a fresh angle that sets it apart from the “Top 10 castles in Europe” posts floating around the internet. List posts have their value, but why not squeeze even more value out of them and get your reader to care about you along the way.

Because I love examples, and good stories, one of the BEST stories I have read comes from Wandering Earl: The Day US Customs Found a Bullet in my Pocket

Not only will you create wonderful, amazing content, you will boost the “shareabilty” of your posts. People share things on social media because it makes them look good. Spin a good yarn and your story has a greater chance of going viral.

Share Your Latest Post

Once you have created you story, share it with others in the forum at Blog Homework 6: Everyone Loves a Good Story. We can help spread it even farther!

If you are not registered in the forum yet, click the link to the top right to get started.

And of course we love it when you post your ideas in the comments so have at it. What do you think about using stories to hook your readers?

Photo Credit

If you liked this article please consider signing up for free e-mail updates

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: ,

Blog Homework 5: Tune up your Blog to get a higher Google Pagerank and lower Alexa Score

January 20, 2011 By 35 Comments

Make your website go fasterToday’s Homework is a guest post introduction by Mike Collins. It is long but extremely useful as Google is rumored to be updating its page rank in Late January early February and these can help you rank higher.

Alexa Rank and PageRank: Keeping Up Appearances

As a blogger you have probably heard, at least a handful, of terms that refer to making your website more appealing to Google. In the interest of simplicity I am going to use the term Google when referring to search engines. What is important to Google should be important to you. Why? Organic traffic and rumors, of course.

Let’s start with the rumors.

The two most important aspects to my website are Alexa Rank and PageRank. This is entirely false. But here is the catch, advertisers do not care if it is false. As a potential advertiser I can only see a few things from the outside. I can see what your PageRank is, I can see your Alexa Rank and I can see where you end up in Google when I type in a keyword. The latter is the least reliable because you can go from page one to page 50 in a day. From an advertisers point of view Alexa and PR are important to me because it gives me an idea of the traffic you get and the authority of your site.

Alexa Rank is the most misleading. You may get tons of traffic but have a high Alexa Rank (lowest is best). In order for Alexa to gauge the amount of traffic to a website the visitor must have the Alexa Toolbar installed. If there is no toolbar then there is no hit recorded. The average viewer does not use the Alexa Toolbar. Web developers on the other hand do. The Alexa Rank is a completely useless tool to use for yourself to gather knowledge about your own site. Yet it is vitally important to have a low Alexa Rank if you want to attract advertisers.

How to Improve Alexa Rank

Unless I am trying to attract advertisers I do not bother with it on any of my sites. When I want to attract advertisers it is a quick fix. (90 days max)

  • Increase all traffic to play the odds of having some visitors with the toolbar.
  • Target other web developers which most likely have the toolbar. [Todd here, its true. Travel Blog Challenge has gone from a 6 million Alexa rank to 106,500 in just one month because the target is travel bloggers with the tool bar installed]
  • Check my own site daily with the toolbar.

How many times a day do you look at your own site? When you open your site always click on a few different pages. This is important because it will show you have a lower bounce rate. This may sound like cheating; however, the game is rigged to begin with by having false stats.

What Will Not Improve Alexa Rank

Sites like Stumbleupon. If you notice the address bar when viewing a page from a SU link it is not your URL. So even if the person has a toolbar you will not get credit. You can get 1000 SU visitors and zero hits.

Paid services. There are many services which claim to increase your Alexa Rank by sending visitors.  This method works for a very short period of time and is a complete waste of money. No paid service or traffic exchange should ever be used under any circumstances. Google can and most likely will sandbox your site which can take a long time to get out of.

Google PageRank

PageRank is not a ranking for your page. It is an algorithm created by Larry Page that measures the weight of a set of documents in relation to another set of documents. This weight, or importance, is primarily judged by the links to these documents.

To better understand links, or backlinks as they are more commonly known, one should think of them as letters of reference. If you are a junior professor at a university that is applying for a position as a full professor at another university then you will want letters of reference. You will sit down and make a list of whom you want to get references from. The majority of the websites out there have a list that looks like this:

1.       My dry cleaner

2.       Barber

3.       Plumber

4.       Doctor

5.       Mother in Law

That list is not going to get you the job. Your chances are much better if the list looks like this

1.       Dean of the University

2.       Senior Professor

3.       Academic Association President

4.       Students

Now let’s assign a number from 0 to 10 to these references. The Dean gets a 7, Senior Professor gets a 5, Academic Association President gets a 2 and students a 0.

As a junior Professor your rank is a 3.  Even though you have references from people with a lower rank than you, it is still a benefit. Alone they would not do the trick, but combined with people that are your senior you have a well rounded list that shows you are a good candidate for the job.

Backlinks act in the exact same manner. They must be from related sites. Don’t ignore the lower PageRank sites just because you are higher, but still go after the higher ones.

These backlinks are the primary references to gaining a good PageRank. Note that I said primary. Just because you have the references does not mean you get the job. As a professor you need to publish publish publish. It has to be your own work. (Unique content). That does not mean that you cannot use other text books. (duplicate content) it is all about balance.

Your work must be neat and well organized. (Clean Code on your site)

Are you willing to sign a contract for this job? How long? 1 year or 5 years? When you register your domain you should register it for 5 years. This shows Google that you are not going to have a site that comes up “Site Not Found” in a few months.  It shows a commitment. This is why most sites do not even get a PageRank until they are over a year old. Google’s main concern is about user experience, not PageRank. No matter what you do on your site, if you keep user experience in mind Google will recognize it. No one knows how it all works. It is a well guarded secret of over 200 algorithms by Google.

Appearances

That is pretty much all we have talked about here. Alexa does not tell YOU how much traffic you are getting. PageRank does not tell YOU how important your site is. It is nothing more than the most important useless information a site can have.

Advertisers are becoming much wiser. Do not be surprised if they ask to see your Google Analytics. Your AR and PR may get you in the door but it will not close the sale. For this reason I suggest getting your site optimized and of high quality prior to worrying about the outside appearance.

Mike I have been traveling for the past 30 years. He is the force behind Exotic Visitors I have sailed the oceans of the world on my 42 foot sailboat “No Boundaries”, hiked thousands of miles through rain forests and the Appellation Trail. Life is an adventure and I want to absorb everything about it that I can. You can connect with Mike on twitter @capnmikecollins

Today’s Homework

Today your homework is simple and yet frightening difficult (I lost a lot of hair…yes more hair). Improve the speed of your blog and increase your chance of ranking higher in Google by following Mike’s instructions in the forum topic The Perfect Website According to Google.

Based on Mike’s advice, and the simple (yet difficult) installation of a few WordPress plug-ins you can really clean up your blog, make it run faster, and impress the ladies (well, OK maybe not the the last one).

I went from an AFFFFF to an AACBFF. Yes, I understand that you have no idea what that means, so go check out the topic Mike started and get yourself some learning.

Share Your Latest Post

Besides posting on Mikes forum topic feel free to share your web speed and Google Ranking progress in the forums. Share your speed statistics, improvement and challenges in the forum at Blog Homework 5.

If you are not registered in the forum yet, click the link to the top right to get started.

And of course we love it when you post your ideas in the comments so have at it. What plug-ins do you like best for improving the performance of your website? Feel free to insert links to the plug-ins.

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: , ,

Blog Homework 4- Are you making the most of social media to promote your blog?

January 13, 2011 By 61 Comments

Sexy Social Media

Who knew social media was so sexy

Let’s face it, we are in a new world of online marketing and social media is one of the best ways to find a willing audience, interact with them, and build long lasting relationships for your blog. Sometimes I forget what I didn’t know when I sent off my first tweet, dug my first article, or tried to figure out why anyone would care what my status was on facebook. A year later and a healthy dose of social media and I can say that Twitter and Facebook have been one of the largest contributors to my blog’s success (besides content worth its weight in gold). Hopefully, you won’t realize that online content has no weight…

The Right Way to Gain Influence

Nine months after signing up for twitter I am now approaching 2,500 followers. I like to think the majority of them are really interested in what I have to say. I have not built up this list in sleazy ways by following hundreds of people, unfollowing them after they follow me back and then spamming another 100 people. DO NOT do this. Unless you are OK with being a Di#@. But if you do do it, I will protest, unfollow you and ban you from TBC. Yeah, it’s all the justice that I can deliver in my small part of the internet.

One excellent way of gaining relevant followers is by having your content Retweeted. It is also an excellent way of driving new traffic to your blog if you have linked to your article, or someone tweets your article after reading it. Recently, while tweeting TBC Challenger posts I found a consistent glaring mistake: Not adding twitter names to the retweets that are going out from tweet buttons on their blogs. Not only are you losing the chance to have credit added to your post (by adding via @toddwassel or RT @toddwassel) but you also might be limiting the number of people tweeting your content.

I hate it when a person’s twitter name does not come up when I tweet from their blog post. Partly because it seems like the post is mine to begin with and I don’t want anyone to assume I am stealing another person’s idea. So, if the name does not appear then I don’t tweet it.

Another problem that I have noticed is that the Share This plug-in that people are using adds the plug-in’s twitter name (like @addthis). Why on earth would you want to promote another person’s twitter account with your wonderful content? The joy of travel blogging is that we are trying to create a life where we have time to travel. The more time spent writing, promoting, engaging with social media, finding an audience, and encouraging traffic is less time spent traveling and experiencing life. You should ONLY install social media buttons that help you do all of these things at once, while you are off diving a house reef in the Maldives or trekking to Machu Pichu.

Social Media influence is an asset that will add value to your marketing strategy and advertising bottom lines. Plus you get to meet tons of cool new people :)

Today’s Homework

Today your homework is simple but will reap significant benefits even while you are unplugged from the internet. Your homework is to optimize your social media buttons on your site. If you don’t have any social media buttons your first step is to get some! I have recently decided to try limiting the options to the sites I care most about (Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon, good old E-mail). Others like to give all the options in the world. Try both and see what works best for you (we will talk more about split testing in the future).

Now that you have the buttons installed, check every single one to make sure your brand, name, whatever is attached. This is most obvious for twitter but you want to make sure things show up easy to read and pretty in facebook as well.

If you want an example go ahead and TWEET THIS ARTICLE. No, seriously, tweet it, I dare you. You know what you will find? You’ll find my twitter name. To accomplish this I had to remove the twitter function from my ShareThis plug-in and use a different plug-in (tweetmeme). For me this little extra effort pays off big time.

Share Your Latest Post

Join the discussion over at the forum and see what others have done and what social media buttons they like best. Share a link to your own post in the forum at Blog Homework 4 and let the community here help spread your wonderful stories, pictures and videos. If you are not registered in the forum yet, click the link to the top right to get started.

And of course we love it when you post your ideas in the comments so have at it. What plug-ins do you like best for social media sharing? Feel free to insert links to the plugins.

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: , ,

Blog Homework 3: Create a Powerful Pillar Post

January 6, 2011 By 37 Comments

Pillar Blog PostWhy should I visit your blog? What do you have to offer me that will make my life better, easier, brighter? We all fall in love with our blogs. We love the little space on the internet that we have created, we marvel at the coding we learned to change the background color from gray to a slightly darker gray. We are sure that others must appreciate this work, the thought and energy that went into it.

The truth is harsh. Most people will give your blog 2 seconds before moving on. There are a number of factors besides great content that go into a decision to stick around and dig further into a site, layout and design, calls to action, rhetorical questions, something unexpected to name just a few (we’ll explore these in later posts). However, content is the quickest aspect to identify, test and change if needed. You can tell very quickly how social media reacts towards it, how often it is shared, and how much traffic it brings to your blog.

What is a Pillar Post?

A Pillar Post is the best content you have that feeds the burning desires of your target audience. It is what ideally you would want every reader to see first, to hook them and get them interested in what you are writing, the ideas you are advancing. Over the course of the life of your blog you will write a lot of content, hundreds if not thousands of posts. Within this gold mine you need to have a few posts that orient the reader to what you are all about, that provides structure, answers questions and like a good pillar holds up the mine from collapsing.

6 Characteristics of a Powerful Pillar Post

1.       It should be evergreen content. This means that the information in it does not go out of date. It doesn’t matter if someone finds it today, tomorrow or in 1 year. The message will still be relevant, useful and shareable.

2.       It should be relevant to your site and reflect the core values of your story and mission. People might love a “best wordpress plugins for travelers” but if your main topic is Family Travel than it will confuse your readers and the message of your site. It will also lack the authority you have built up in your niche. A better use of your time would be something like “5 Tips to Travel with Kids” or “10 Reasons Children Make Travel Better.”

3.       It should be scanable (yes I just invented a word). Breaking up posts with headers and sections is good blogging practice in general, but with Pillar posts it’s even more important. Readers should be able to grasp the meaning, sections and how it will help then in just a few seconds. They are more likely to read or at least skip to the sections they are interested in if you make it easy on their weary internet eyes. List posts make very good pillar posts for this reason

4.       It should answer a question or a need. A post that provides value to a reader, or solves a problem will be one they are more likely to bookmark and share.

5.       It should be SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly. This goes hand in hand with points 3 and 4. Google loves lists and sections as it can determine what the post is about easier. If you are answering a question or a specific need (i.e. how do I travel with kids?) your post is more likely to come up higher in the rankings. You should have 2-3 keywords and phrases that you want your post to rank highly for (more on how to do this well in future posts). But lay the ground work now and your life will be much easier in the future when we discuss link building and SEO.

6.       It should be prominent. If you’ve followed 1-5 and you have a rocking post it would be a shame if no one ever saw it other than when you first posted it. Build internal links to it on your site. Promote it consistently throughout the life of your blog. Show it off on your home page with links to pages like “Get Started” “What We’re All About” or continuing with our example “Family Travel 101.”

Pillar Post Examples

I have created pillar posts for both Todd’s Wanderings and for the Travel Blog Challenge that reflect the different focus of each site. For Todd’s Wanderings I concentrated on how to build a lifestyle that allows you to travel the world and get paid for it.

5 Steps to World Travel and Getting Paid to Do What you Love

3 Strategies to Help you Succeed and Travel the World

I also experimented with a more visual appeal with The Happiness Chart as a way to spread my message further and easier.

With the TBC I focused on the two main themes of the site: Building Traffic and Earning Money. You might not have realized it at the time but the 2 pillar posts are:

15 Traffic Building Tips From Some of the Internet’s Most Popular Bloggers

16 Money Making Tips From Some of the World’s Most Popular Bloggers

The fact that I was able to attach so many popular bloggers to both of these posts lends them weight and authority. It also has the added bonus of being flattering to these bloggers so that they have an interest in seeing the posts become popular.

Today’s Homework

Write a Pillar Post

Today your homework is to create a Pillar Post that incorporates as many of the above characteristics as possible. Even if you already have a pillar post your blog can only be strengthened by adding another (or 2 or 3 if you’re feeling ambitious).

Promote the heck out it and then promote it some more at least once a month. Find a place to link to it on your homepage, either from a Favorite Posts list or through a Popular Post link if it’s one of your most popular articles (if you did your homework well it will be!).

Share Your New Pillar Post

To make it easier to keep the conversation going and for new people to join in later I have decided to use the Forums as a way for us to share our work, get advice and hopefully help promote each other even more. Each blog homework will now have its own forum thread!

Join the discussion over at the forum and see what others have done. Share a link to your own post at Blog Homework 3: Create a Powerful Pillar Post. If you are not registered yet, click the link to the top right to get started.

I also love it when people leave comments here and share what they are working on. Or even their ideas on what makes a great pillar post. Please keep it up!

Photo Credit

Filed Under: Build a Better Blog Tagged With: , ,
Next Page »