Travel Blog Advice

Ways To Keep Your Travel Blog Safe When You’re Traveling

by Anil Polat

pad locked door This post originally appeared in foXnoMad.

Those of you with travel blogs know that they don’t usually go down, get filled with nasty comments, or have the design fall apart…that is until you’re not in front of it for a day or two. There are some easy ways to maintain and lock up your travel blog when you’re traveling and keep things running smoothly until you return..

Depending on how you host your blog, some of these precautions may or may not apply.

Comment Moderation

Unless you already moderate all of your comments, when you can’t be at your travel blog for a few days it’s a good idea not to allow every comment to be posted until you get a chance to approve them. I know that for many this might make you worry about slowing or discouraging conversations but it can save you a headache from filtering out spam, off-topic, and nasty comments when you return.

Change Your Password

Create a long (at least 10 character) randomly generated password for your blog before you leave on your trip. The Gibson Research Corporation has a free random password generator you can use. Write it down and keep it with you so you can log in to your account once you can bum a wi-fi signal.

I also recommend using the Login Lockdown plugin if you use WordPress. It locks out access to your WordPress blog login for 60 minutes attempts after 3 incorrect attempts. It’s a good deterrent against brute force attacks on your blog password.

Ask A Blog Buddy

handing the keys over Find someone who you know is online quite a bit to check in to your blog from time to time to see if it’s up and running well. Make sure you really trust the friend or family member and give them the instructions and (newly created random server and blog) passwords to reset things in case your blog decides to hiccup while you’re hiking in the Andes.

It’s a good idea to change your passwords when you return, preferably still using longer, randomly-generated passwords.

Wait To Make Those Design Changes

New plugins, themes, and other design changes should be avoided right before you go. This can be tough because many times right before traveling you have free time to tinker with your blog after preparing some quick things to write when you’re traveling. I’d also recommend carefully editing and rereading the posts you’ve prepared, you don’t want to write about a raping flight attendant instead of a rapping one like I did. (Guess when that happened – when I was traveling and couldn’t fix it right away.)

What Steps Do You Take, Any?

I got the idea to write this post after misreading somewhere else ‘How to Keep Your Bags Safe’ for “blogs safe”. It got me thinking about our little virtual homes that people all over the world can visit while we travel. Bloggers, what precautions or preparations do you make to maintain your travel blog when you know you won’t be right in front of it for a few days, if anything?

[photo by: Looking Glass, US Army Korea – IMCOM]

This post originally appeared in foXnoMad.

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Review of Matt Kepnes’ eBook: How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog

by Anil Polat

Matt Kepnes’ eBook, How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog, is one of the best resources budding travel bloggers can find on making, marketing, and monetizing their travel blogs. The eBook is short and to the point and covers the topic of search engine optimization (SEO) well. A topic that’s essential you be familiar with if you want to maximize the earning potential of your blog.

Building Your Travel Blog

Kepnes’ eBook is ideally read before you even start a travel blog and runs down the basics on choosing a hosting provider, blogging platform, and selecting a good design. How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog teaches you how to make the most out of SEO before you even choose a domain name. Most travel bloggers learn about SEO and try to maximize their reach much later in the game so you’ll be at an advantage if you follow Kepnes’ tips from the get-go.

Marketing Your Travel Blog

This is where Kepnes’ website, Nomadic Matt has been so incredibly successful. Marketing online is an essential part of getting people to read your travel blog. Of course, having useful, relevant, and interesting material is important but Kepnes shows you how to build links back to your blog, leverage social networks, and create additional travel blogs to increase your earnings.

To The Point

How To Make Money With Your Travel blog gets right to the important points of what it takes to start making money with your travel blogs (you need more than one) from a digital nomad who’s actually living off of his travel blogs. While everything in How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog isn’t new news (especially if you’ve been blogging for sometime) it is a good read and may cover some things you’ve missed.

How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog is available for download for $27 and recommended for all travel bloggers looking to monetize their sites.

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Making Imaginary Trips For Your Travel Blog Work

by Anil Polat

This post originally appeared in foXnoMad.

One of the topics to post on your travel blog when you haven’t traveled in forever is to make up an imaginary trip. Creating a series of posts on a place that you haven’t visited and writing as you have in an ‘imaginary post’ can be a source of interesting content for your travel blog readers if done well.

Imaginary posts can sound silly but with a bit of good planning and a touch of added personality they can refresh your travel blog and enhance your next trip.

1. Pick Somewhere You Haven’t Been

Pick a city or place they you haven’t been, know little about, or haven’t even thought about visiting. That’s why my recent whimsical 48 hours was in St. Petersburg – I knew little about it to start. This makes the process of researching what to do, where to eat, and where to stay more interesting for you. It also sets you up to rely more on your preconceptions and stereotypes. The mistakes you’ll inevitably make can help generate a discussion on your imaginary post and ultimately find out more about a place you knew little about before you began.

2. Research and Connect

Do some Google hacking and search the Internet, read travel forums, and get in touch with other travel bloggers specializing in the area or city for your imaginary trip. You’ll connect with other travelers and get some insight with a personal touch. These connections will inspire you to travel and are important to building a successful travel blog.

3. Write In a Personal Tone

Most travel bloggers don’t have much trouble with this one but you really want to put your imaginary feet in the city you’ll be ‘visiting’. Chose a journal-like tone but anchor it with some information about real landmarks, restaurants, and other sights to keep you on topic.

4. Find A Partner

Think you’re the only one who hasn’t traveled in a while? There plenty of other travel bloggers who are experiencing a travel drought at any given time. Get in touch with one of them and do an imaginary post exchange. Pick a city you haven’t been to and the other has and visa-versa.

I did this with Final Transit a few weeks back. I wrote an imaginary trip to St. Petersburg and he wrote one on Manila (we split them up in 2 parts). The following week we wrote posts comparing the others’ perceptions with the realities (again in two parts) as guest posts. This worked out very well and at the same time provided both of us with 4 days worth of posts, a chance to write for new audiences, and certainly inspired me to visit St. Petersburg and have some plain (not mixed) vodka.

(Priyank also is an excellent writer who takes amazing pictures which really made the exchange a success.)

5. Explain It Well

It’s important to let your readers know that a given post about a trip to a city is imaginary. You can play around with where you’ll disclose this (I prefer right at the top). Also make sure you explain the premise, especially if you’re exchanging posts, which can be tricky. (Looking back, I probably could have done a better job of it myself.)

Making It Work

Putting together an imaginary trip is easy and gives you a bit more creative latitude but is more ‘research intensive’, especially if your travel blog is more of a personal diary or log of your trips. Provide yourself with a very basic plan and structure to build your imaginary post around to make it work.

You can take this imaginary post concept in many directions and the keys to making it work don’t differ too much from any other travel blog post. Use the upside down pyramid and these 6 ways to keep a travel blog post interesting and have fun with it.

If you end up doing an imaginary post, send me a link or share it in the comments below – I’d love to read your take on them.

[photos by: MikeOliveri, bending light, Mrs.Maze]

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Why You Should Start A Travel Blog

by Anil Polat

Assuming you’ve asked yourself, should I start a travel blog, there are several good reasons to start one. A travel blog is not only a good place to document your travels but a great way to connect with other travelers. If you’ve been wondering why you should start a travel blog or why there are so many travel bloggers out there below are some of the biggest reasons you should join the community and start a travel blog.

1. Document Your Travels

A travel blog is a good way for frequent travelers to keep their friends and family up-to-date with pictures and posts as they travel the world. Travel blogs are only good tools to keep in touch and create an online record of your travels as long as you keep updating and maintaining your travel blog however. A travel blog can be a one stop place where people find out what you’re up to and get in touch easily without you having to email everyone individually.

2. Meet The Travel Community

There are a lot of travel bloggers online and you’ll discover that once you have your own travel blog. The travel community is generally an open and friendly bunch who will bring your posts to life with comments and motivate your with their own stories. You may also find some travel bloggers in your area or along your route that you can connect with and meet, adding another aspect to your trip.

Travel bloggers are also a great resource to find out about your next destination and have your travel questions answered. You’ll also be a part of this community and able to help others too!

3. Potential To Monetize

You probably won’t get rich off of your travel blog but you can have it make some money for you (here are a number of good ways to make money with your travel blog). Monetizing your travel blog can bring in a small amount of extra money that you can use to fund different things on your travels. It can’t hurt to monetize – at worst you won’t make any money, but not monetizing guarantees that.

Also, if you’ve got travel-related side businesses, work in the travel industry, or want to showcase your relevant creative work (i.e. photography) a travel blog is an excellent networking tool. You can have your travel blog work for you and grow your online presence. This isn’t a direct method to making money like Google’s Adsense but can benefit your interests down the line.

There are plenty of other good reasons why you should start a travel blog but keep in mind documenting a single trip isn’t one of them. A travel blog is an excellent networking tool that can ultimately make you a better and wiser traveler. You’ll learn from the growing online community of travel bloggers and enhance it as well with your own travel blog.

[photos by: Ed Yourdon, vial3tt3r]

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