Travel Blog Advice

When starting a travel blog it’s easy to come under the impression that “travel” is all the niche you need. Yet if you’re trying to reach a wide audience while managing a travel blog and at the same time generating post after post, a specific niche or angle can help keep you on the right track. The general travel blogsphere is a crowded one with many niches yet to be discovered or occupied. Without one your voice gets lost and leaves your screaming louder at deaf ears in a crowded room.

Covering It All

It’s tempting to try and cover every travel subject and topic for fear of missing out on any potential readers. Creating or falling into a niche doesn’t limit you from covering most any travel topic however, so long as you approach it from the angle you’ve developed on your site. If you don’t know where to start you can begin by asking yourself these questions:

1. What is my travel blog about?
2. How do people view my travel blog?
3. What do I enjoy writing about?
4. What posts seem to click or are more popular than others?

You don’t have to come up with something immediately, but the answers to these questions can help you get started thinking just what your travel blog is about. Figuring out a niche also helps you develop your voice and determine what it is you want out of your travel blog.

Your (Consistent) Voice Will Flow Like Water

When you have a niche your posts will begin to flow more like water, connected to each other by a common bond. It becomes easier for your readers to follow each post as opposed to having them bump down the road as you bounce around from topic to topic. Your posts should be like an open hand to any new readers and your voice is the path they’ll follow to keep hearing what it is you have to say.

• It’s Never Too Late – To refine your voice or focus in on a specific niche or angle to tackle the giant subject that is travel.
• Doesn’t Have To Be Dramatic – Take incremental steps to refining your voice. A niche isn’t some tangible place your blog is headed, but more of an outlook rather than a topic. Most people fall into their niche or voice and it’s a gradual process.

A good place to find or create your voice is to look at your tagline (or come up with one). What does that single line say about your travel blog to you? It says a lot to your readers and can be the spark to finding the niche for your site. On foXnoMad for example, my tagline “travel smarter” is what guides most of my posts. Whether it’s a tech post or one about how to bring your pets to the US, the approach is similar. Breaking down big travel tasks into smaller more manageable ones so that hopefully when you’re done reading you’ll be traveling smarter in one way or in a specific place. More than a niche it’s an approach but one that helps my determine how I want to take on a given topic.

Your Personality Is A Big Part Of Your Niche

The voice of your travel blog says a lot about who you are and your personality is one of the most important factors to building a successful travel blog. How you see the world and one aspect of how you travel can be your niche – your niche is inherently you. Do you like to travel luxury or perhaps are in love with China? Maybe trains are your thing but that doesn’t mean you can’t write about planes – the approach is just as important as the topic.

A niche for your travel blog, one that you can sum up in a sentence or two, not only focuses your travel blog but your writing as well. You’ll find it easier to write about travel with a path in mind rather than trying to approach it from a new angle every time.

[photos by: Joaquin Villaverde (shouting face), rogersmj (water flowing from tap)]

This is a guest post by Todd Sullivan, the co-founder of Globetrooper, a website that helps people travel together and meet up anywhere around the globe. Todd also writes for the Globetrooper blog, which is called Notes of a Globetrooper.

Bloggers have a love-hate relationship with their blog feeds. On one hand, a feed provides a constant connection to readers (when you publish a new post, it enters your feed and subscribers receive it within minutes). But on the other hand, your feed is not your blog. Your feed strips out all formatting and negates all of those hours you spent aligning pixels and making your blog look unique (people who read feeds rarely leave their reader software to visit the blog).

With the advent of other information-sharing mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and StumbleUpon, blog readers are slowly ditching their feed readers and increasing their visits to blog websites. This is of course a big win for us travel bloggers. But feeds are still hugely popular, and feed subscribers still make up a large percentage of blog readership.

With this in mind, I’ve put together a few tips to increase the effectiveness and attractiveness of your feeds.

Your Feed Doesn’t Have to Look Ugly

Have a look at the feeds of your favourite blogs. Images look particularly bad. They lose their alignment and often revert to their original size. You can insert HTML and inline style code into your feed, but be careful because you’re essentially reversing what makes feeds work so well. Keep it very simple; even the basics will make your feed look worth a million dollars compared to others.

If you’re using WordPress, I recommend the Feed Styler plugin. It allows you to apply styles to your feed. But again, keep it very simple to maintain compatibility across feed reading software. Check out the results of very minor adjustments to our feed (http://feeds.globetrooper.com/globetrooper).

Don’t Donate Your Feed to Feedburner

Most travel bloggers use Feedburner to activate feed analytics and to benefit from other value-add services. But, and this is very important, when you switch your feed to a URL like http://feeds.feedburner.com/globetrooper, you’ve giving up control of your feed. Feed subscribers are now subscribing to Feedburner, not Globetrooper. And once they subscribe, I lose all control of those feed subscriptions because I don’t own the feedburner.com domain.

But this is an easy fix. Feedburner lets you mask the feed with your own domain name using their MyBrand service (which is now free). For example, my Feedburner feed is now http://feeds.globetrooper.com/globetrooper. This means my feed subscribers see my domain name and I have full control of the feed (should I want to switch away from Feedburner or merge/manipulate feeds at a later stage). But you must do this as soon as possible. Once people subscribe to the Feedburner URL, it’s difficult to move them to a new URL.

Adding Sharing to Your Feed

Most of us travel bloggers spend an inordinate amount of time adding social sharing tools to our blogs (e.g. Facebook Like, Tweetmeme Retweet, Stumble, Digg, etc). But if many of our readers are reading our posts through feed readers, they won’t see that additional functionality.

If you’re using Feedburner, you can activate the FeedFlare service and choose from an array of sharing options. This is a handy solution, but the links are so inconspicuous that most people probably won’t notice them. But there’s another way. If you’re using WordPress, you can use a plugin called Feed Layout to add HTML and PHP code before and after your posts. For example, I added code to place a Retweet button at the top (and aligned right using Feed Styler) of my posts.

Accommodate Non-Techies with Email Subscriptions

Most people and most Internet users don’t know anything about blog feeds (most people are not blog/tech savvy). But that doesn’t mean they won’t love your content, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should neglect them.

Feedburner offers an easy way to implement email subscriptions on your blog (look under Publicize, then Email Subscriptions). You can add the email subscription widget anywhere on your blog. And it reads directly from your feed, so any improvements using Feed Styler and Feed Layout will apply to your emails. Try to add the widget somewhere prominent, because an email subscription is a highly valuable asset for bloggers.

If there’s anything else you’d like to talk about regarding blog feeds, don’t hesitate to email me at todd[at]globetrooper.com or leave a comment on this post. <Todd, thank you very much for this guest post, which I think will generate a bit of discussion as there are many ways to approach manipulating feeds. I look forward to the conversation.>

[photos by: Daniel F. Pigatto (RSS listening to headphones), sweetapathy (man fixing tie), jasonstaten (girls sharing headphones), Mzelle Biscotte (email line)]

The ebook Networking Awesomely by Colin Wright is a well written and entertaining read, designed to teach you how to leverage one of the most powerful blogging tools at your disposal, networking. At around 250 pages, the ebook covers many of the major topics related to networking and how you can tweak your approach to make the most out of many social situations. Networking Awesomely isn’t an ebook about travel blogging specifically, but many of  the lessons and advice are easily transferable.

Depth Of Networking

For $20, Networking Awesomely is unlikely to give most travel bloggers any completely new insights or aspects of networking, yet in the pages of its wide reach, the ebook’s strength is in its depth. Networking Awesomely strives to drive home the point that like any other aspect of blogging, it requires planning, setting goals, and maintenance. I was actually surprised at the level of planning Colin, and many of the contributing authors, take their networking methodology.

Networking Awesomely also includes some tips from several other bloggers (I add a few lines as well), writers, and entrepreneurs giving insight into just how connected the travel blogging community is with many other online industries. You might not be aware of how close you are to some of these people online and many are looking to make new contacts – an unadvertised, but yet another advantage of picking up a copy.

Mostly A Fun Ride

Networking Awesomely starts strong and then tends to meander from its focus in the final quarter. Despite the slow ending, Colin takes you on a fun ride of networking in person, making connections online, and his methodology on organizing all of your social contacts. For those of you looking to learn more about the art or breadth of networking, you’ll find Networking Awesomely by Colin Wright an enlightening read.

The second annual Travel Blog Exchange Conference (TBEX) 2010, held in New York City over June 26th and 27th, was like a slightly unfinished product with a few rough edges around some stellar moments.

Hundreds of travel bloggers and members of the travel industry came to the conference to meet with their peers, many for the first time. It was this excitement and energy that fueled the pre-TBEX events as well as the TBEX conference, helping to downplay the weekend’s shortcomings.

The TBEX Talks

It seemed as though the TBEX talks tried to cover all of the aspects of travel blogging, reaching out to a mixed bag of travel bloggers, making it difficult to be too focused any one group or topic.

• Many of the talks seemed to miss the segment of newer travel bloggers attending the conference.
• Gart Arndt gave a particularly enlightening talk on “travel porn”.
• The videos submitted by other travel bloggers and writers shown at various intervals of the conference were excellent. There were some great tips, ideas, and advice on editing and creating good travel videos.
• You can listen to the entire second day of talks here.

The talks were varied although the need for in-depth breakout sessions was clearly evident. Also, the talks themselves were also hampered by frequent late starts, some scheduling confusion, and a lack of wi-fi. All of that said, there were some very useful nuggets in each of the talks and good leaping off points for further research.

Networking, Networking, Networking

The highlight and strongest point of TBEX 2010 was the massive networking potential. There were parties, cocktail hours, and events in the days leading up to the actual conference. So many familiar faces and Twitter icons all floating around the same venues, it was impossible to try and connect with everyone.

• Getting together this many travel bloggers, digital nomads, and location independents, is truly a feat and was in itself, worth the price of admission.

In a digital world and industry, personal connections are still more powerful than any other kind. It was surprisingly nice to find out that so many people I had come to know through their travel blogs, Twitter, and Facebook were, in person, similar to their online personalities.

Planning For TBEX 2011?

Next year, TBEX will be held in Vancouver on June 11th and 12th. If you are planning on attending I’d recommend getting your tickets for TBEX 2011 as early as possible (pre-registration is now over) even if you’re not quite sure you’ll be able attending. The cost is $80 and if you find you won’t be able to make it, there will be plenty of buyers come closer to conference time. I suspect TBEX 2011 will sell out quickly so don’t miss out or get stuck having to purchase tickets above cost.

• I’d also recommend, if possible, arriving a week or at least 3 days in advance. There are a number of events scheduled and a good way to make the most out of your time at TBEX by meeting people in advance of the actual conference.
• Travel Blog Exchange has a complete round up of TBEX reviews and posts.

I plan on attending TBEX 2011 and arriving in advance to take part in some of the activities I missed out on at TBEX 2010. I’ve read that some of the shortcomings are to be addressed and the crowds to be even bigger, which can only mean an improvement across the board.

Are you planning on attending TBEX 2011, or were you at TBEX 2010? What were your thoughts and impressions? Feel free to leave your opinions in the comments below.

[photos by: galavantinggals (TBEX 2010 logo), z_everson (TBEX swag), Sue Waters (Twitter faces)]

Ant Stone is a traveling freelance writer (or a writing freelance traveller, depending on how much sleep he gets). He’s the creator of struggling travel blog, Trail of Ants and When in Wellington, and he welcomes you to follow him around Wellington, New Zealand or on Twitter.

Starting a travel blog is pretty simple: You buy a domain name; slip some money to a web host; and download WordPress. Then tip tap away until hoards of travelers instinctively flock to your website, bring down your web host, rip off your domain name and create lots of hard work. Right? Wrong.

Human instinct is powerless on the Internet.

This approach is akin to hitchhiking on the autobahn. You have everything you need, you know where you want to be, but everyone’s just whizzing carelessly by. Because lets face it, this is the Internet; you don’t just write stuff and shit happens.

As with Real Life™ business, you want people to visit and promote your blog, and the easiest way to achieve this is to score good inbound links. The reason links are important, is that it tells search engines like Google that X-number of quality site owners value your website’s content. Everyone else loves you, therefore Godly Google does.

The greater the perceived quality of the website domain that’s linking to yours, the easier the persuasion. Think about it as David Beckham endorsing your website, versus Dave from Peckham.

Creating a Travel Blog Directory

In the travel blog niche, this is most commonly achieved with a travel blog directory, often referred to as a resource list or blogroll. If you own or run a blog, you probably already have one, but are you using it effectively?

Bloggers need to know your links page has a good reputation, yet Google is famously snobby, and doesn’t like pages crowded with links. Its spiders (the things that crawl through the web looking for new content to index) look at these ubiquitous directories, shrug their spidery shoulders, and scurry on.

To convince the spiders to take notice, you need to apply the same SEO techniques to the blog directory, as you would your carefully crafted posts and pages.

The first step to appeasing Google, is to add some content to the links page: “This group of travel blogs features some of the finest examples of travel writing/photography/video on the Internet etc.”

Also, consider sprucing up this page with some tasteful imagery (not too much, as you need a quick load time), and consider engaging readers with a comment thread. Another good way of convincing Google that your links page is valuable, is to add small descriptions for each link:

Jimbo’s Travels: Discover some of the world’s best places to play frisbee with Jimbo, as he travels across Asia.

This is good place to include any keywords specific to your website.

Of course, if you’re just starting out and no one knows your site exists‚ and you’re yet to engage on any social media platforms‚ simply adding a bunch of travel blog links to your directory is a cheeky way of attracting the links’ recipients.

For example, if I link to Anil’s, How to Travel with Pets website, Anil will see this in his Google Analytics’ reports, and curiosity will almost always draw him in. I score a unique visitor, and hopefully I’ll wow him with my own brilliance, and he’ll add me to his own directory.

So you’ve given out a hundred links, which is great for everyone else, but not so great for yourself.

Promote your Travel Blog Directory

Travel bloggers are a tech-savvy community, and very easily approached. In my early blogging days, I kept quiet during the Great Link Rush. As a person, I prefer operating on the fringes.

I’m a natural observer‚ rather than an active participator‚ so I was reluctant to go all, “ME ME ME” against a predominantly American marketplace. Call it the English in me.

I saw little value in forcing my way onto dedicated link pages, because I knew they were smeared with mutual links, rather than well-researched and useful ones. I wanted to be useful, whereas Google didn’t much care.

I did create a links page, because it seemed a wonderfully blogtastic thing to do. Whenever I came across a website that made an impact, I quietly pasted it in there with a small description and went back to dunking my ginger-nut into my cup of tea. It was nice and cozy, but no one really noticed it (unless they were on it).

Then in April this year, something clicked. I was writing good content, but no one was reading it. I was completely off the radar of most relevant Google searches, new travel blogs (“harder, better, faster, stronger”) were appearing and I almost clicked the big red DELETE button and moved on with my life. But I couldn’t (could you?)

I supposed, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” (ME ME ME.) So I created a separate page, the whizz-bang T-Bag Travel Blog Directory. I knew straight away that the title had perverse connotations, but theorized this could work in my favor. It hasn’t, but there are a few things that have.

I looked at existing travel blog directories, and figured there was a better way. In this era of social media, it was obvious I needed to offer an option to incorporate Twitter and/or Facebook links (bloggers love this). I also needed people to be aware of the directory itself as a resource, not just a cheap link.

So I made it really easy for readers to tweet about it by giving them a one-click link, and for every submission to the T-Bag, I fire off a personalized and engaging tweet to my c.900 followers, which includes a hyperlink back (important) to the T-Bag Travel Blog Directory:

@JimbosTravels just bunged his baggy blog and quick-drying social media socks into the T-Bag Travel Blog Directory: http://bit.ly/aCBOxT

It couldn’t be any easier for genuine blog authors wanting to get listed, it just takes time to make people aware. The tweet also works because it begins a conversation, the conversation leads to more submissions, more submissions leads to more backlinks, more backlinks leads to a plethora of Google love which leads to more readers, which leads to… you get the picture.

Now people see the page as a resource. They respond well to the personal touch, and it opens up myriad channels to engage.

Don’t underestimate the power of your links page or blogroll; Make it relevant for Google, make it enticing for your readers, and make it engaging for your community. Over time, the spiders will stick around long enough to realize your good intentions.

Had you considered your links page to be such a powerful tool, or did you just see it as a bloggy thing to do? Have you come across a unique travel blog directory? And finally, would you like to hear more from me here at Travel Blog Advice?

[photos by: Profound Whatever (link), Bob Elderberry (woman hitchhiking), John ‘K’ (spiderwebs), comedy_nose (open mic)]

You can use the Firefox plugin Force-TLS to encrypt the connections and passwords between your computer and WordPress back-end admin pages using SSL. WordPress passwords are encrypted automatically (using a hash) but this method is not completely secure. Also, none of the data (i.e. the posts you type) are encrypted either. While for most travel bloggers this isn’t an issue, that can quickly change depending on where you travel.

This simple tweak of the Force-TLS plugin greatly enhances the security of the connections you make to your WordPress admin pages as well as your WordPress password. Not to mention it can also be used to force your browser to secure connections to all websites, like Facebook and Twitter – protecting the vector by which many passwords are commonly stolen.

Assumptions:

• You’re using Firefox.
• You’re running a WordPress blog. (Those of you using Blogger, your connections are already using SSL).
• Your site has SSL capabilities.

Step 1: Download The Force-TLS Plugin

It’s a free download and you can get Force TLS plugin here. Once it’s installed, you’ll need to restart Firefox.

Step 2: Modify The Plugin To Encrypt WordPress Pages

To get the plugin to encrypt connections to your WordPress blog you’ll need to add your blog url in the plugin’s configuration page. In Firefox, Click > Tools > and select Force TLS Configuration.

Step 3: Add Your Blog

Add your blog’s admin link as shown in the screen shot below.

Step 4: Use As Needed

Now if you don’t have an SSL certificate or your host doesn’t provide you one, this plugin might not work or give you problems when you try to log in to your WordPress blog. In that case you can simply uninstall the plugin (Firefox > Tools > Add-ons > Uninstall). Also, you should keep in mind that this plugin will encrypt your connection to every page on your blog, so if you don’t want to have every page encrypted, just activate it when you do any site work.

This Is Just One Option

There are many ways to secure connections to your WordPress travel blog but this is by far one of the easiest to setup and especially important to use if you’re on a wireless network you don’t trust or simply want to add some protection to the log on process.

[photos by: Darwin Bell (locked steel),

Links are what form the social map of your website for both your readers and for search engines. Internal links help search engines and your readers connect as many points from different parts of your travel blog as possible. It’s easy to increase the number of interlinks on each of your travel blog posts if you keep it in mind when you edit your posts and the same is true of external links as well.

How External Links Work

An external link is a link to your travel blog or one of your travel blog posts or pages from another website. External links are strong indicators for Google to whom has authority on the Internet and can greatly increase your search engine results. The basic external link components consist of the following:

• Keyword: This is the actual text that is linked. For example Sewri Fort, Mumbai or overnight stay in Papeete, Tahiti. (You’ll notice that the second link isn’t the name of the specific post but my own text.)

In terms of external linking, it’s better SEO practice to use very descriptive keywords when linking out from your website. Keywords like, this is so cool, are much less effective. That’s because the keywords and URL of the linked text are associated with each other by search engines so when giving out link love, using descriptive keywords adds more “punch” or impact.

• Follow vs. NoFollow – When linking (externally or internally), you can make the links either “follow” or “nofollow”. The difference is that search engines will ignore “nofollow” links. You can specify the HTML code like this: <a href=”http://www.travelblogadvice.com” rel=”nofollow”>KEYWORD</a>
• HTML that doesn’t specify links as nofollow will by default be regarded as follow links. When linking to other travel blogs or articles you like, it’s standard to give follow links in most cases.

For those of you considering selling text links, Google doesn’t approve of text link ads that are “follow”. To find out why, here’s a post on how to manage text link ads on your travel blog.

Big Fish, Little Fish

One of the easiest ways to understand how search engines (and Google especially) use and evaluate external links in their algorithms is to look at it as a vouching system. While there are many factors, for the sake of simplicity, let’s look at Google Pagerank.

• An external link from one site to another is like you vouching for a friend you recommend for a job to a prospective employer. External links work the same way – your link is saying, “hey this is the site to go to if you want to lead people to information on 10 train travel tips.” The higher that Pagerank, the more clout the “vouch” counts for (again, an oversimplification but the basic principle).

The more (follow) external links you have with a specific keyword pointing to your site from other authority sites, the higher your travel blog or post will come up in the search results. This is why people are willing to pay for text link ads and also why Google doesn’t like it.

Giving Is A Good Way To Get

External links to your travel blog or specific posts won’t come out of the blue at first. You’ll need to proactively go after them and one of the best places to start is on your own blog.

• Get good links for your travel blog now.
• Add your blog to the T-Bag Travel Directory.

It is also important to be generous. Keep in mind of, when typing a post, related posts on other travel blogs or websites you might have come across. If the link is relevant and natural, work a link back into your post. On most blogs (WordPress does it by default) a notification will be send to the site you linked to after the post has gone live. That person might come back to visit your site or even link back to a post of yours in the future.

• Search engines also take notice of how much you link out as well as link in. A blog that links out frequently is much more engaged in the eyes of the search engines and can add to your site’s SEO clout.

While typing up a post, you can also leverage social media like Twitter to ask if anyone else might have a related post about the topic you’re writing about. You can use those links to add to your post and potentially make a new online buddy as well.

Be Natural And Useful

It’s not good to link to things for the sake of linking. Make sure that your external links are relevant and useful but also fit naturally into the text. It makes for a much smoother read than by writing: “here is a post about this. Here is a post about that. This is a post that’s similar.” Instead just work the keywords into your sentences or use another way to work them seamlessly into your content. Also, for both your readers and a good SEO, use descriptive keywords. Most people get annoyed with vague links, leading to less clicks from both new and regular readers.

Giving external links is good for your travel blog and the other sites you link to. There’s no need to go overboard or to “catch up” with posts full of links if you forget after a few days. Add a few minutes after editing each post and pull some of your favorites from memory, ask around online, or do a few simple Google searches to find useful external links for your readers.

[photos by: greyloch (little spider-girl), lammikrb (over here), urlgirl (goldfish), MarcinMoga/Lolek (red gift box), alles-schlumpf (linked paperclips)]

Lately I’ve been asked several times by other bloggers if they could republish one or more of my posts or the other way around. They weren’t asking to be malicious and for no other reason than they liked what I had written or were hoping I’d re-post something of theirs. It was very flattering, still, I turned them down. Having your articles republished by other bloggers or websites can negatively impact you and it’s important to weigh the benefits against the disadvantages.

Relative Size And Rank

When you have two identical posts on two separate websites, in terms of search engines and SEO, the page with the higher ranking will take precedence. That means eventually the terms and phrases of a given post will be indexed so the higher ranked page may come up before the original in a given Google search. So if you’re offering one of your original (not guest) posts to another, bigger website, you’ll be at a disadvantage. You’ll end up competing with the site for the key terms in your post.

Potential Exposure

Now, if that other website or program (like Lonely Planet’s BlogSherpa) will greatly increase your exposure and you’re looking for direct traffic then you may gain a potential new reader base in return for what you give up in terms of SEO. It’s something you need to evaluate before joining many of the republishing programs – where do you think more of your traffic will come from in the long term?

Bigger To Smaller – The Power Of Guest Posts

It also doesn’t help your personal brand to have articles re-posted on other websites either. Duplicate content doesn’t benefit the bigger site since now there’s two copies of the same post floating out there; it devalues your travel blog’s brand as well. The smaller site on the other hand is unlikely to see any benefits either as they won’t be able to compete for ranking with the larger site.

• A better alternative is for either side to consider guest posting.
• Posting an excerpt and linking back to the original article is a better way to highlight posts from other sites you enjoy or find useful.

A guest post also shows off your writing skills to a new audience while giving some original (and search-able) content for the site you’re guesting on.

Content Is Gold

I don’t want to make it seem everything is about benefiting yourself – but when it comes to your content (your travel blog’s most valuable asset) it’s important to make the most out of your work. You don’t want to write an article on your own website, only to compete with it down the line. Create new content to show off your travel writing skills which will help you find new readers and give another site an SEO boost as well.

[photos by: jp.alvarez (looking in the mirror), CmdrFire (hello world)]

You may be seeing more requests and inquiries about text link ads on your travel blog, and now that you know how to handle requests and sales, you can dive into the nitty-gritty details of putting it all together. Text link ad requests come in different forms and advertisers are always looking for a leg up on bloggers who might not know what “normal” is.

There are several guidelines you can follow to make the most out of each text link ad you sell (if you sell them) and standardize how you process each request.

How Much To Charge?

You should have a set list of prices for your pages based on a combination of Google Pagerank, monthly page views, and unique traffic. You’ll save much time and be consistent with every advertiser by doing this.

• There is a great guide of rates in Nomadic Matt‘s popular eBook, How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog. I’ve reviewed it several times across my blogs and think it’s well worth the $17 price.
• Your rates should be monthly or yearly since you don’t benefit at all from selling permanent links.

Matt’s eBook breaks down prices by Pagerank and is a great guide to follow. Most advertisers will pay those rates – don’t be discouraged by the ones that walk. Become accustomed to many advertising options falling through. There are quality advertisers willing to pay for room on quality travel blogs so don’t low ball yourself for just any sale.

• Add Incentives – Along with a rate sheet and pricing structure, it’s a good idea to build in a series of discounts for multiple link sales as well as long term sales as well. I’ve found that this helps those people who aren’t as comfortable with bargaining and also saves some time with much of the back and forth that goes on in negotiating.

Remember, don’t give away advertising for too little – you’ll get many more offers than sales in the long term and you can bet for each email you get, the same message has gone out to other blogs of similar size. Many advertisers are simply trying to get whatever they can for any price, whereas the quality companies will pay for quality sites.

Don’t Sell Too Many Ads Per Page

Many bloggers chase money so much that they over-sell on their blogs blatantly and don’t diversify ad placement. This hurts your travel blog and monetizing efforts in several ways.

• You Jeopardize Your Pagerank – The higher the Pagerank on your homepage, individual pages, or posts, the more leverage you have with advertisers. Selling excessive links for next to nothing when your site is a common Pagerank 1, 2, or 3 hurts you in the long run.
• Harder To Negotiate – As I mentioned above, when your Pagerank and traffic numbers are low, you’ve got more competition. There’s always some other travel blog that will sell links for less than you – so instead of chasing people down, think up. Less competition and higher rates if you are practice good SEO (I highly recommend DIY SEO Guide to learn a lot about search engine optimization).

You might not be aware though just how much space on your travel blog there is to sell text links. There is a lot of space to sell and advertisers will try and get more out of every sale unless you know how to leverage your site.

How To Diversify Your Selling Space

Let me be clear – selling links can violate Google’s policy on the matter, but if you do sell them you’ve got more space than you think. Using the plugin Widget Logic or Widget Context you can have your sidebar widgets appear only on specific pages or posts. This can not only help clean up your site but also lets you sell text links on your homepage without them appearing elsewhere.

• Many of your blog posts and individual pages (i.e. category or blog pages) may have Pagerank. (You can check using the Search Status Firefox plugin.)

By having widgets for individual pages you can sell more total ads without having them clutter up any given page. Keep in mind that advertisers are generally concerned with Pagerank, so a spot on a single page is a single sale – you can still tack on additional pages though – a good way make use of your discount program and get more compound sales.

Understanding Contextual Links

These are links that sit within existing posts or can be hidden in new posts. Advertises go after these links for a number of SEO reasons and while you can’t charge much for them (depends on the Pagerank of that page) you’ve got many posts and pages to sell on. Contextual links are basically placed inconspicuously into posts and look natural in the text.

• Sponsored Posts – Before you read on, be sure you’re not giving away free advertising by reading the post, Dealing With Corporate Guest Posts. Many bloggers earn quite a bit of money by using services like ReviewMe or allowing advertisers to submit posts with several links in the body. The pay is usually much higher than for traditional text link ads but sponsored posts aren’t usually the best written or very interesting to your readers. On top of that, the advertiser typically inserts 3-4 links in a post for a one-time fee (which amounts to selling a few permanent links). Personally, I don’t think the trade is worth it for these primary reasons but a decision many are happy with.
• Contextual Option – You can always offer to sell contextual links in place of sponsored posts. The advertiser gets the same “link juice” and pays less (but by month or year). Start with your ranked pages and give advertisers the option of non-ranked (but much cheaper) contextual spots.

Part of the way your travel blog will build an audience and Pagerank is by having people read and link back to your stories. Most people won’t read or link back to sponsored posts so it can hurt your site if you overdo it.

Keep Track Of It All

One mistake people make in the beginning is focusing on the monetary numbers but not tracking where they place ads – and more importantly don’t note when they expire! Keep a spreadsheet or use a calendar program that will email you 10 days before an ad is to expire. Then you can email the advertiser to see if they’re interested in renewing and update your rates based on any new traffic or higher Pagerank.

Much of this post had text link ads in mind but a lot of it can apply to banner ads as well. It’s important to be firm and standardize your rates and policies – updating them internally if you feel something isn’t working. Don’t change how much you charge based on one lost advertiser, but rather stick to something for at least 3 months and connect with your peers to evaluate your policies from time to time. You can also supplement your private sales with these 4 simple ways to earn and make money with your travel blog.

[photos by: padraic (man juggling), Hkkuchera (text), jimmiehomesschoolmom (unfolding book), Steve Kay (camouflage), duncan (phew)]