Travel Blog Advice

Yesterday on foXnoMad I took a look back on 2009 with other travel bloggers sharing their best posts of 2009. Today I’d like to take a look ahead to the year to come and the goals you’ve set for your travel blogs as well as some of my own.

Your Travel Blogging Goals For 2010

• Stephanie (Twenty-Something Travel): Monetization is the biggest one; I’ve been blogging for about six months now and I think it’s time to get that ball rolling. Also, I really want to figure out how Stumbleupon works and how to use it to my advantage. Right now the whole thing just perplexes me.
• Chris (Amateur Traveler): I intend to build a business around the Amateur Traveler this year. As I announced recently I am leaving my day job in a few weeks so this is the big experiment.
• Sarah (She’s In Love With The World): My biggest goal is really just to keep up with my blog and get it off the ground and running. I want to maintain it while on the road and increase my readership, even though it just launched less than a month ago.

Carol Margolis has a good set of 5 specific goals for 2010 and Dave (GoBackpacking) entices use with the launch of his first digital product coming out in the first 3 months of 2010. That’s about the time Travels With Adam will begin his RTW trip.

• Chris (The Aussie Nomad): The goal for my little blog is to gather a few readers and share the experience with them. Money and all the like is nice but really I’d just love to share the adventure and maybe meet a few fellow bloggers along the way.

My Personal Travel Blogging Goals For 2010

I break down my blogging and professional goals into 3 month segments with 2-3 longer 6 month goals so my first set of milestones will be this March. These are just a few of my goals for the upcoming year.

• Continuing my blogging schedule. That’s 5 per week on foXnoMad, once per week for Travel Blog Advice and the Tech Guide For Travel, and once a month for How To Travel With Pets. I’ve been pretty good about this over the past year and hope to continue it through the next 3 months. After then I’ll consider expanding and updating some of the weekly sites more frequently.
• Write another eBook. Creating my first eBook, Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles To Traveling the World, was one of my proudest accomplishments. I write all the time but for some reason organizing and putting it into book format was very gratifying and I think it provided to be very useful content for people who want to travel the world (and overcome most fears for that matter). I hope to release my second eBook sometime by June.
• More meet ups. I’m a bit shy and don’t take the opportunity to meet other travelers in person enough. I’ve enjoyed meeting other travelers on the road recently and hope to harness the power of the tweet up more in the coming year.
• The usual suspects. I’ve got very specific RSS, page view, Google Pagerank, and the other common goals as well. I’m rather superstitious and don’t like to talk about details (until I’ve accomplished them). Overall I’d like to increase the numbers (who doesn’t) and have closer to 100% of my income come from my websites. (A goal I’m not too far off of on.)

Why Goals Are Important

Next week I’ll be talking more about how to set achievable goals for your travel blog. Well defined goals are critical for maintaining a travel blog for the long haul. I appreciate all of you sharing your goals for 2010 and wish you the best of luck. Hopefully Travel Blog Advice can be a part of that in the coming year.

[photos by: keylosa, brtsergio]

I won’t be posting today since it’s a major holiday in the US and many other parts of the world. So, I’d like to open up the comments to all of you and hear what you’re plans are for the upcoming year.

• What are your travel blog goals for 2010?

It could be monetizing your blog (and old favorite) or some more specific goals like sticking to a 3 times a week schedule. I’d love to hear some of your comments and what you’ve got planned for 2010. I’ll be posting the results and adding my own personal travel blog goals as well.

[photo by: opopododo]

Travel bloggers are among a physically shifting community and most are adept at social networking online. Take those skills and apply them to a powerful way to connect with other travelers – a tweetup.

Embrace Twitter

Next week I’ll be posting a number of resources to get you started with Twitter but you don’t have to be a Twitter guru to do something in the virtual world you do in ‘real’ life all the time. Talk to people and get to know them – it’s as simple as that. Twitter is a powerful tool and has become almost essential if you’re a travel blogger.

What’s A Tweetup?

Sometimes we forget that all of those little icons we speak to everyday actually have real people behind them. A tweetup is when you use Twitter to meet a few other people on Twitter at a common location. Whether you’re traveling actively or have a home base, you can see if anyone is available for some coffee (or a beer) from time to time. You don’t need thousands of followers either to do it either. Make connections with the people who do follow you and never take the human element out of Twitter or anything else you do online. You can also search for other tweet ups that might be happening nearby or where you might be traveling.

• Don’t prevent yourself from trying to organize a tweetup by worrying nobody will respond. Start in a small circle and work your way outwards.

Connections

I’ve been talking quite a bit about connections and the reason a tweet up is so powerful is because it’s the best way to connect with other people and learn more about them. In person. You see it happen all the time, in hostels, offices, and schools. When people meet face to face it creates a bond that can’t be accomplished online only. You’ll get to know people, hear their stories, and tell a little bit about yours as well. As a travel blogger you’re bound to find travelers coming to a city nearby where you are.

Don’t Be Shy

I’m a pretty introverted person and a bit shy in unfamiliar surroundings myself, but chances are that so are some of the other travelers you’ll be meeting. Travelers are typically a friendly group and they usually have plenty of interesting stories to tell you about. Tweetups in active places help too so there is enough going on around you to take off the edge or pressure. After the first few minutes though the anxiety will fade and you’ll be having fun.

Safety

People have asked me in the past whether I feel tweetups are safe. I do because I believe people are generally good and I’m not scared meeting people in public places. Also you’ll probably have an idea of who you’ll be meeting too based on their online personality.

Where To Start – Ask and Notice

Keep tabs on where people are tweeting from and if they may be headed your way. The tweeters who seem interesting or you’ve gotten to know online might be in town soon so ask if they’d like to meet up for a bit while they’re passing through. Don’t be shy and hop on in. Look for hash tags of the tweet up (i.e. #dcthh) and follow the conversation. Once you’re at a tweetup more are sure to follow and you can plan them on the spot.

That’s how I had the pleasure of meeting @RTWDave (GoBackpacking) and @20sTravel (Twenty-Something Travel) among several others recently in Washington DC.

A Few Resources

Still looking for more information on organizing a tweetup?

• Mashable: How To Organize A Successful Tweetup
• How Tweetups Work
• How To Host A Tweetup

You might be a bit hesitant to join, organize, or look for tweetups but after the first one you’ll realize they’re fun and a great way to meet people. A critical part of developing a successful travel blog is by cultivating your persona – your blog is tied with you personally – and there is no better way to show off your personality than in person.

[photos by: jeremy.wilburn, netzkobold, tibchris, Squonk11]

No matter how efficient you are or great your writing is, maintaining a regular travel blog is very time consuming. Whether you travel full time or have a day job you will continually be balancing the time you spend on your blog and everyone else. Your spouse, significant others, and friends may have difficulty understanding the rigors of blogging, networking, and managing a travel blog.

A big part of that is because you don’t realize how much work a travel blog is until your site grows a bit, you’re spending hours everyday answering emails, exchanging links, and using social networks to expand your travel blog.

Realizing The Wave

At some point if you stick with your travel blog you may begin to feel the “wave”. That’s the moment when you find your travel blog is causing more stress not only on yourself but on your personal relationships. You want to go out for dinner with a friend, hang out with your husband, and do all sorts of things but…you can’t. That is when you get hit with the wave – and it comes in the form of stress.

Set Limits and A Schedule

The single most important thing I’ve done for any of my travel blogs is to set myself a blogging schedule. I treat all of my blogging like a business with defined times for writing, social networking, and everything else. By doing so I end up with more free time and enjoying my friends and family when I’m with them. It goes both ways though, when it’s time to blog it’s like sitting in front of a computer in any corporate office – time for business.

• Separate your travel blog from yourself and create a schedule. That way you can focus 100% on the task at hand. By setting deadlines for yourself you’ll also force yourself to get more done in less time.

Ride The Wave

When you set your blogging schedule, try to keep in mind some of your personal commitments. Schedule around the things you want to do or have planned in your personal life so you’re not struggling to finish a post 5 minutes before your best friend’s wedding. Add variety to the length of your posts, take smart breaks, and use some of these quick post ideas.

In a company, the boss gives their employees time off. You’re the boss of your travel blog so it’s your responsibility to be good to your workers – in other words yourself.

Bring Them Along

Tell your family and friends some of your travel blogging goals and objects to help them quantify what it is you do sitting in front of a computer typing away so long. It might even work that someone you know wants to help contribute with written or photographic content, or behind the scenes with design or something as simple as signing up for your newsletter.

Some Things You Won’t Always Avoid, and That’s OK

Inevitably your travel blog is going to, from time to time, put a dent in your social life. You’ll just have to accept that unless you happen to be an exceptional planner that can do no wrong. Accept that there are some things you won’t be able to avoid.

Put boundaries on your blog so it doesn’t start consuming the other parts of what make you happy or prevent you from having fun with those around you.

[photos by: Mattong, Michael Dawes]

Making money with your travel blog is easy – how much you make is a different story. I’ve previously covered how to make money with your travel blog and reviewed Nomadic Matt’s ebook of the same name but wanted to focus on some of the effortless ways to have a few cents roll in every month.

How you leverage and scale these offerings varies and with a single blog you’re unlikely to be rolling in the dough. You can however monetize what you already have with relatively little effort using these technologies.

Note: Before incorporating any advertising into your main travel blog spend the time to make it blend well with your site. Don’t just throw ad banners and links up at will without considering design. Otherwise you’ll end up detracting from your content which is your travel blogs most important offering.

1. Google Adsense

Most travel bloggers begin their monetizing efforts using Google’s Adsense program. Setting up an account is painless and Google lets you run 3 banner (text, image, and video) ads per page as well as a set of links. Basically whenever anyone clicks an ad you get a bit of money and more money if people buy anything from those sponsors. The content for the ads are determined by the content on a given page.

Adsense Advice:

• If you put ads in your sidebar, make sure they line up. Having gaps or uneven borders looks bad and hurts your blog.
• Use Google’s Adsense heat map for blogs and place your ads where they’re most likely to be clicked.
• To avoid violating them, you’ll need to read Google’s terms of service (TOS).

2. Chitika

Chitika works like Adsense, advertisements based on search terms and you get paid per click. The only difference is that the ads only appear to people who find your blog through a search engine. This means Chitika won’t be visible to your regular readers. Chitika also doesn’t interfere with Adsense or violate any of the Google TOS.

Chitika Tips:

• In my experience the largest Chitika ads placed above post titles worked the best.
• Unlike Adsense, Chitika sends payments once a month no matter the amount earned. (Google pays per $100 you earn.)

3. Infolinks/Kontera

There are many in-text ad services but Infolinks and Kontera are both good companies with fair offerings. In-text ads pop up when the mouse hovers over them and like Adsense and Chitika you get paid per click. Both Kontera and Infolinks also let you restrict how many ads pop up on a given page and tweak the ad colors and look.

4. Traveler Affiliate Programs

There are a number of affiliate programs for products and services for travelers by travelers. You don’t usually get paid per click but rather a percentage of the revenue earned from a product or service sale. I’m only listing a select few below so please add some of your favorites that I’ve missed in the comments.

• World Nomads – Travel insurance banner ads, links, and more.
• Matador U – Find out more on getting approved into the program and becoming an affiliate for Matador’s travel writing courses.
• How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog – Matt’s book is very popular and recently went on sale. Join his affiliate program and earn 50% of each sale from your site.
• Commission Junction – There are many travel-related affiliate programs you can sign up for on Commission Junction.
• Overcoming the 7 Major Obstacles to Traveling the World – I run an affiliate program for my recent ebook. You’ll get 50% of each sale from your site and I’ve found the most successful affiliates to be those who reviewed the book on their sites.

A Little Bit Of Change For Your Travels

In the coming weeks I’ll be talking more about moving on to the next stages of monetizing and sharing some of my personal experiences with my travel blogs and websites. Although these methods listed above probably won’t get you an airplane ticket anytime soon they might by you a beer every now and again without taking much of your effort.

[photos by: alancleaver_2000]

Traveling and blogging are often in conflict with one another and it can be stressful for you as a travel blogger to maintain your writing when you’re active on the road. It’s important, especially if you want to establish and expand your travel blog, to maintain a weekly posting schedule by writing posts in advance so they’ll be up on your site even if you’re not in front of a computer. You can make better use of your scheduled posts by taking advantage of some “Internet slow time” and stretching out your blogging calendar.

Travel bloggers don’t often get many opportunities to take breaks from their blogs and rather than abruptly stopping your regular schedule as soon as your travel schedule picks up, choose some smart breaks from travel blogging.

Use The Right Holidays

You don’t want to write posts when people are unlikely to be reading. Using Google Analytics you can find out from which countries your readers are coming from and when they themselves are probably taking a break. A large majority of foXnoMad readers are based in the US, which is why I tend not to write on major American holidays. I’ve also found that many other English websites have a significant drop in traffic on days like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don’t stress yourself out trying to write on these days and wait until the holiday is over to post your best stuff.

When You Guest Post

A day or two after a guest post of yours appears on another blog use the opportunity to take a break on your own site. You’ve written a post that will hopefully bring some new readers to your site and you can use the opportunity for a break if you need it. Taking the break a day or two after you guest post lets your new subscribers see some fresh material so you don’t lose them in those critical first few days.

Look At Your Last Few Posts

Sometimes you end up spending so much time obsessing on the posts to come that you don’t take a look back to see what you’ve recently been writing. Having a series of longer posts sets up a good opportunity for a break or a simple post with some links recapping those longer articles. It’s much better to link back to good past posts rather than put up crappy new ones.

Margin Of Error

Look at your blogging schedule, whether it’s once a week or 5 times a day and give yourself at least a 5-10% margin of error. That is, out of 100 posts you’ll take 5 or 10 breaks here and there. It’s an acceptable amount and one that’s no going to stress you out or significantly hurt your readership.

• Plan those breaks into your schedule in advance.

Why Take Breaks?

Many travel bloggers don’t start out with set schedules but once you get on track with one you may feel enormous pressure to deliver. On foXnoMad, I write once every weekday and before I organized my blogging schedule about 2 years ago, I’d find myself often struggling to write for the next day. I’d end up putting posts up that I didn’t think were of the best quality and my frustration writing them would show in the post. (Remember if you don’t like your posts your readers probably won’t either.) I’d dread blogging when I was traveling when it should be the opposite way around.

Travel Blogging Isn’t All Writing

We all need breaks and taking them improves the quantity of your posts and can be a good time to focus on other aspects of your blog that don’t involve writing posts (jotting down ideas, setting goals, etc). There are also plenty of quick things to post on your travel blog when you’re traveling too much to write.

Taking breaks from your travel blog can be a good thing if you choose your breaks wisely. Your travel blog won’t fall apart and everyone won’t forget you. The worst thing to do if you’re going to take a break is to not enjoy it, recharge, and worry about blogging the next day.

[photos by: notanartist, floodllama, Francesco Rachello]

Many new travel bloggers are often discouraged by the lack of comments and discussions on their posts. Yet there are a few ways ways you can foster discussions immediately on your travel blog and encourage reluctant readers to leave a comment from time to time.

Develop Your Persona

A point I made very clear in the basics of building a successful travel blog part 1 was how important it is to develop your persona on your travel blog. People would rather have discussions with a person, the author of a travel blog, rather than just an anonymous website. Adding your picture somewhere (like the sidebar or about page) will go a long way. Open yourself up a bit so your readers can get to know you.

Start Commenting Yourself

There are several places you can get a good list of the travel blogs out there (here, here, and here) and get links back to your site at the same time. Add the travel blogs you find interesting to your RSS reader and start following those sites. Whenever you see posts that interest you, are about places you’ve been, or you enjoy reading, let the author know by leaving a meaningful comment.

When deciding whether to comment or not to comment, avoid generics like “nice post” or “that’s great”. You’ll find that when you comment the favor is usually returned by fellow travel bloggers and you can make nice friendships this way. If you’re worried about coming up with comments don’t be shy, the more familiar you get with each author the easier is gets.

Highlight Comments

One of the best outlets you have is your travel blog. If you like comments devote some time each month to highlight a few of them. The last day of each month on my primary travel blog foXnoMad, I do a post featuring the best comments of the month. One thing you can do if you don’t have too many comments on your blog is to highlight those you’ve enjoyed on other travel blogs. It’s also a good opportunity to link out to both the commenter (if they have a blog) as well as the travel blog the comment is on.

• You can also point out your most commented posts from time to time.

Use The Subscribe To Comments Plugin

Those of you on WordPress should install the subscribe to comments plugin. What this little plugin does is add a check box underneath each post that will email commenters anytime there is a new comment. It’s a good way to keep the discussion going since often people who comment never return or notice someone replied to their comment. I also find that it helps encourage you to comment on other blogs when you know you’ll be notified of a response.

Reply To Your Commenters

Taking the time to reply to the comments on your blog is one of the best ways to generate discussions on your travel blog. A discussion takes at least two right? Replying to the comments on your blog is a powerful way to connect with your readers, especially if you’re using the subscribe to comments plugin.

Destinations vs. General Travel Topics

There was a bit of discussion a few weeks back on Twitter on why posts about specific destinations don’t tend to generate as many comments as general ones. My guess is that writing about a specific place narrows your audience and therefore the number of people who might ultimately comment. I wouldn’t recommend not writing about destinations simply for the sake of comments but to vary your content from the general to more specific from time to time.

You can also make a destination post appeal to a wider audience by focusing on a particular aspect of a place rather than trying to talk about everything there is to know. (Breaking up your posts is also a good way to keep your travel blog going when you’re too busy traveling to write.)

Some Other Ways To Generate Discussion

• Use Twitter to jump start your travel blog.
• Title some posts in the form of a question.
• Be controversial.

Keep in mind however that generating discussions on your blog will take time and some patience on your part. Eventually you’ll learn with the ebb and flow of each post what works for your particular travel blog. My first 1 year of travel blogging I wasn’t getting consistent comments on foXnoMad but I was also just waiting for comments to appear on my anonymous travel blog.

Don’t get discouraged and be an active part of the discussions on your site. Your regular readers visit your travel blog to connect with you so be available to them. Remember leaving comments on other sites is a good way to to build discussions on your own blog. So tell me, how do (or don’t) you encourage the comments on your travel blog?

[photos by: eye2eye, premasagar, Marco Bellucci]

Matt Kepnes (Nomadic Matt) has released a second eBook to compliment the very successful How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog which I reviewed over the past summer. His latest eBook, How To Build A Travel Blog aims to answer the questions you may have about actually building a travel blog if you don’t already have one.

What’s Inside

The introduction opens with the disclaimer that this book merely lays down the very basics and isn’t close to a detailed resource on the topic of building blogs. It’s a very straightforward and reads like a manual. I couldn’t help but feel that the eBook made sense to me since I’m very familiar with setting up blogs, WordPress (the only blogging platform touched upon), and things like FTP. I’m not quite sure if a complete amateur would be able to take How To Build A Travel Blog and actually get a site running with it. It’s a better guide to take a long once you go through the motions a few times.

Covering The Basics

A little more detail would complete How To Build A Travel Blog and make it a very valuable resource. I’d also like to see a ‘best practices’ section which would cover important topics like database backups. Matt is available and mentions in the eBook that you can email him any time with specific questions you may have.

I did however learn a few things that I’ve been doing the hard way (WordPress gets easier to use with each version) and found Matt’s recommendations on plugins and SEO to be insightful and worth reading more about. If you’re new to blogging and have made your share of mistakes How To Build A Travel Blog is a good resource to see what you may have missed or if there’s an easier way to do something.

How To Build A Travel Blog comes free with Matt’s other book which I highly recommend, How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog. Stand alone How To Build A Travel Blog is $4 but you’ll really see its value by purchasing How To Make Money With Your Travel Blog and reading both together.

Often travelers become at odds with their travel blog. Either you’re traveling and too busy to write or sometimes not traveling enough and get short on ideas. Twitter and the concept of tweets are a good way to energize your travel blog when you’re short on time or inspiration.

Micro-Posts

When I find myself slowing down and finding it difficult to post on my travel blog foXnoMad, instead of getting frustrated in trying to generate longer posts I do the opposite. Twitter is all about brevity and you can use it in several ways to create micro-posts to tide your site over and relieve stress. (Once the stress is gone the ideas will probably start flowing again.)

• Create A Post Of Recent Tweets. Funny how when you’re facing writer’s block or have a short amount of time to get a post up you still manage to tweet several times before returning to your blank blog page. Use that material (including and good re-tweets) to make a short post of some travel-related tweets you’ve recently made. You’ll be able to give some useful links, highlight some other travel tweeters, and add a touch of personality to your travel blog.
• Highlight an Interesting Discussion. There are often heated debates and open discussions between travel bloggers on Twitter. These conversations bring up interesting questions and points you can highlight for your readers (and doesn’t take much writing from you). Take some screen shots and setup a few lines before the post. An example is when I asked, is English the universal language back in May.
• Twitter From The Road. Travel Sights With Lilliy has been posting tweets and pictures (using Twitpic) as she travels from the Middle East to the US. When you’re on the road you can do this using your iPhone/smart phone or have tweets automatically posted to your WordPress blog with Twitter Hack.
• #followfriday. Make up some travel categories and highlight (in 140 characters or less) some great tweeps to follow. Again, you’re expanding a bit on what you are already posting on Twitter.
• Pose A Question. This method is a bit more proactive than the others but you can easily pose a question for your followers. The responses should make for a good collection to post where hopefully the conversation will continue with more blog comments.

It’s important to keep to a weekly posting schedule which gets tough when you travel a lot or too little. Twitter is filled with good material for a quick post, and much of that is material you’re generating! Posting a series of micro-posts changes the pace of your travel blog which your readers will appreciate. Shorter posts where you let your ideas flow will also remove the burden of “I have to post something before my flight in an hour” and lead to less stress, more ideas and better writing in the long term.

[photos by: Mark Hamm]