I hope you are learning from the series of posts on Blogging Q&A, the point of creating these interviews is for experienced bloggers to share their experiences so that we can all learn together. That’s the aim behind the Travel BlogCamp, to open allow people to pass on their knowledge and learn.

Here is today’s interview.

Please introduce yourself and your blog?

I’m Keith Jenkins and I’m based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I first started blogging during a round-the-world trip last year (to share my experiences with my family and friends). When I returned to Amsterdam, I realised I was hooked on travel writing and blogging. I launched the Velvet Escape and I’ve been having a ball with it ever since. I’ve learned so much about blogging and social media in the past ten months that I decided recently to launch a new blog Velvet Connect. My aim with Velvet Connect is to share my experiences with social media and how it can help businesses.

What would you say are your biggest challenges as a blogger?

I think every blogger faces more or less the same challenges. To me, the main ones are building exposure and channelling traffic to my blog, and the technical side of the blog. I revel in the first challenge. I love communicating and engaging with people so the marketing aspect of my blog came naturally. Funnily enough, so did SEO! The second main challenge freaks me out. Seriously, I start to quiver every time WordPress launches an upgrade! So far, so good though. Fingers crossed!

Another main challenge faced by most bloggers is coming up with fresh content, especially when the inspiration is hard to find. I’ve learned several ways to get around this. I’ve created various themes so I have something to fall back on if I’m running out of new ideas. I love themes as they offer a structure from which to write. It’s easier to come up with new ideas that way. The themes I’ve had so far include ‘Plane Views’, ‘Culinary Journey’, ‘Lone Traveller’ and ‘Velvet visits’.

Another method I’ve learned is to have guest series. Having others write on your blog ensures a fresh perspective and, most importantly, nurtures goodwill. I often have ad-hoc guest articles on my blog. In addition, I also use themes (there you have it again!) as a guide for guest writers.

I’m especially proud of the ‘A World of Inspiration’ guest series, which ran for 20 consecutive weeks. About a month ago, I launched a new guest series ‘My velvet escape travel tip’ and I’m hoping this series will run even longer!

If you started your blog again what would you do differently?

I would have made it my dotcom instead of my dotcom/blog. My blog has surpassed (on all counts) my original dotcom site. One of the purposes of launching the Velvet Escape blog was to have a dynamic platform from which traffic could be channelled to my dotcom site. Now, it’s the other way around!

What’s your experiences with Twitter, do you think it is having a negative impact on blogs?

I’m a huge fan of Twitter and I certainly refute the idea that it is having a negative impact on blogs. The fact that so many bloggers are on Twitter surely shows that it’s having a positive impact. I use Twitter for a variety of reasons. When I first started out on Twitter, my aim was to market the articles on my blog and dotcom site. I then realised that the Twitterverse is the ultimate networking and community-building opportunity. Marketing my blog became a secondary issue after a while.

Yes, I still tweet about my articles every day and I’m thankful for the re-tweets but to me, Twitter has become so much more than just another marketing platform. I get lots of new ideas and tips from Twitter – in that sense, it is an amazing resource. Twitter is also a place where many new contacts can be made easily and by engaging with your followers, solid relationships can be built. Business opportunities, assignments and true friendships are the fruit of these new relationships.

What tips would you give someone wanting to start a travel blog?

Just be yourself. Make sure the layout (colours, font, etc..) and the content are a true reflection of who you are. Always inject a personal element into your posts, interact with your readers (on your blog or Twitter, etc..), be generous and always say ‘Thank you’!

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

I often see people using the buzzwords digital nomad and location independent loosly, as if it is cool and fashionable to call yourself one. The idea of travelling the world and working remotely sounds wonderful, but creating a site or blog and generating revenue is not as easy as some people like to make out so I asked the final Blogger Q&A interviewee, Christine Gilbert for her thoughts.

Please introduce yourself and your blog

Hi, I’m Christine Gilbert from Almostfearless.com. I used to be a manager in a large division of an even larger corporation. Last year, I traded my downtown office for life on the road as a full-time writer and constant traveller.

What would you say are the challenges writing a blog and working remotely?

Time management. There’s always so much to be done, and it’s easy to let your work life bleed over into everything else– especially when you don’t have the defined lines of coming to and from an office.

What tips would you give to someone who wants to become location independent, or whatever we call it nowadays.

Most people assume that the best way to be LIP or a digital nomad is to freelance or start a business. It’s a tough call because while this will allow you to work anywhere, there is a whole learning curve to switching from being an employee to being self-employed. If you’re taking this path, be sure to have plenty of overlap between your current job and getting your own work. In my experience, if this is your first time working for yourself, then I’d give yourself a full year to work it out and make it truly profitable.

If you don’t you’ll likely end up doing what I did and what many of my freelancing friends complain of: burn out. To make ends meet you bid on projects that don’t pay enough, then to compensate you take more projects than you should. You end up barely getting by, but you’re working nearly constantly. Not exactly the dream life, right? Giving yourself some time to work out your business model, build up some solid clients and to simply learn what works best for you– before you go– it is the best gift you can give yourself.

Also don’t overlook the idea of working remotely for someone else. This is the model my husband uses. He had freelanced in the past but found it too stressful. While he has to be ‘logged’ in at work during certain hours, it allows him the freedom of a steady paycheck with out the headaches.

What new skills have you had to learn when managing your blog

I’m lucky because I have a background in IT, so much of the more techie stuff– setting up tables in MySQL or writing PHP code– wasn’t something I had to learn. I think the number one thing everyone should focus on first is the content. If your content isn’t adding value and filling a need, then it really doesn’t matter if you have a widget with “most popular” posts or if you have 200K twitter followers. You can fake it a bit with self-promotion, a smart design and SEO tricks, but ultimately you’ll always be limited.

I’m constantly learning and trying to figure out what information people want, what keeps them reading and how to engage the audience more. There is no blogging trick, the posts people like just seem to do better. Getting the content right out-performs anything else I’ve ever tried with my blog.

What are your thoughts on social media i.e. Twitter and Facebook

They are very useful tools for bloggers. But they’re just that… tools. I remember when everyone was all excited about email, but eventually the hype fades and we get back to what matters, what the tool can do for us.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

We are getting towards the end of the Blogger Q&A interviews, and for travel companies it’s a good opportunity to understand about the experiences, the ups and downs that bloggers face. Okay, so some of us do it for the love of writing, some do it to earn revenue and some just want to rant. Here I interview Caitlin Fitzsimmons of Roaming Tales.

Please introduce yourself and your blog

I am originally from Sydney but I spent the past five years living in London and recently moved to San Francisco. The first time I lived abroad was as an exchange student in Germany when I was fifteen and I also spent time in Costa Rica and Guyana as a volunteer on community development projects in my early twenties. I am proud to be Australian but I also value my international perspective – I see myself as a citizen of the world.

In my professional life I am a journalist. I love to write and take photographs and I’m never short of an opinion or three so blogging is a perfect outlet for me. Roaming Tales combines two of my interests – travel and food.

I travel a lot for work and pleasure and I enjoy trying new food around the world, as well as cooking at home. I’m also greatly interested in some of the social and environmental issues connected with the travel industry and food production and my blog reflects that – hopefully not in a boring way!

The design of my site easily separates my food content (published under the banner ‘The Gooseberry Fool’) and my travel content (‘Roaming Tales’), though there is quite a bit of overlap between the two. I also republish my professional food and travel articles, and run occasional guest posts from other writers.

My aim for Roaming Tales is to inspire, entertain and inform.

What tips would you give someone wanting to start a blog for the first time

Get the basics right first – if possible, register your own domain and host it yourself as it’s easier to do this from the outset than port it later. Give some thought to what you are trying to achieve with the blog and work out a game plan for your first three months. If you want a personal blog with a limited audience you can write on anything and everything but if you want to build a following, then it pays to focus on a niche.

Don’t neglect the marketing side of blogging – it’s a myth that great content will automatically find an audience – but wait until there is some substance. I would wait until there is a bank of five posts before you start marketing it, through social media and your own networks, and by reaching out to other bloggers. Respond to commenters and try to cultivate community.

Don’t feel that you need to post every day but try to post consistently on a regular basis. I’ve found Problogger.net to be an excellent resource if you want to take blogging seriously.

What have been the biggest things you’ve had to learn about blogging

I started blogging partly to educate myself about it and it’s certainly been a tremendous learning experience. As a professional writer, I think this aspect was already fairly strong. My steepest learning curve was with the technical side – I self host using wordpress.org software and I have had to learn how to manipulate code, install widgets, even deal with a hacking incident. Also, it’s very gratifying seeing the traffic reports for my site and seeing how well different posts perform and why. I try to use that information when deciding what to write and how to promote it.

What are your experiences with Twitter; both positive and negative

Mostly positive. I am following a great bunch of people who give me great insights, links and feedback every day. As a blogger, I’ve found Twitter to be an essential tool for promoting my blog and networking with other bloggers. I have written extensively about how bloggers can use Twitter for the Media 140 blog (see part one and part two).

On the negative side, it can be addictive so I need to consciously monitor and curb my Twitter usage. Also, there have been some problems with spammers on Twitter, though this has not affected me too greatly.

Do you think ‘blogs’ will be called blogs in 5 years from now

They’ve been called ‘blogs’ for about a decade now so I’d say the name has stuck. Of course, I expect blogging to evolve as technology develops and people find new and interesting ways applications for it. The basic concept of people being able to publish their own material online is a long-term shift that is here to stay. However, I hope that journalism is able to reinvent itself and its business models too as a functioning Fourth Estate plays an essential role in democracy and blogging is not a direct replacement.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

One of the debates we had at last year’s blogcamp was around the word ‘blog’. I suspect the majority of consumers visit a site and do not differentiate between a blog or a website. That said, you have to stand out and be uniqueso for many using the term blog has helped them along the way, I know it has me.

Please introduce yourself and your blog

I’m Karen Bryan, founder and editor of the UK based, multi-author Europe a la Carte Blog which is about the best places to visit in Europe with emphasis on seeing beyond the usual tourist attractions.

What are the biggest challenges you face as an independent blogger?

In a travel blog network there are personnel/departments dedicated to specific tasks e.g. sales to find advertisers, IT support for technical support but as an independent blogger I have to be a jack of all trades. As readers aren’t prepared to pay for content, advertising is the only possible source of revenue. Therefore I have to spend quite a high proportion of my time on this crucial task giving me less time to research and write about travel.

What annoys you about blogging?

Being obsessive about my blog, I’m always thinking about things I could or should be doing, even during leisure time.

What do you enjoy about writing a popular travel blog?

I love writing about travel in Europe, finding great deals and visiting different places. If reading the Europe a la Carte Blog inspires readers to visit a destination in Europe that they hadn’t considered, or enables them to find a great deal so they can stretch their travel budget further, or if reading the blog entertains them, I feel I’ve achieved my aim.

Do you think the term ‘blogs and blogging’ will exist in 5 years time

I sometimes wonder if the word blog alienates potential readers who see blog and immediately think it must be something techie or nerdy, whereas it’s really just a term for an interactive online magazine. The whole issue of whether bloggers are different to travel writers or travel journalists is largely irrelevant to readers, if they find the travel content useful and/or enjoyable.

Earning revenue is difficult on blogs so what other projects are you working on?

I launched TravelBrandTwt this week. It’s a Twitter account management service to assist travel and leisure brands make Twitter work for them. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Twitter travel and leisure arena promoting the Europe a la Carte Blog, appreciating that merely having a Twitter account is not a magic formula to success. It takes a lot of time, effort and knowledge to maximise Twitter’s potential.

Based on my experience I’ve devised TravelBrandTwt to ensure that travel and leisure brands get the most out of their Twitter presence. I envisage two client groups, organisations who have not yet ventured into Twitter and are not sure how to get started and organisations who have a Twitter presence that isn’t delivering much benefit.”

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

Today, we continue with the series of posts on blogging experiences. I have often wondered why they appears to be so few Brits writing travel blogs considering we are a nation of people who like to travel. So, it was good to interview fellow British blogger Heather about her experiences.

Please introduce yourself

I’m Heather Cowper from Heather on her Travels. I live in Bristol, England and love to blog about my travels with friends and family, both in Europe and around the world. This year’s travels have included the French Alps, Berlin, Lebanon, Greece, Croatia and Brittany, not to mention a few trips in the UK.

I try and inspire people to enjoy the places I’ve been as well as giving them practical information about how to get there. I love to use lots of photos and am also starting to introduce travel videos and podcasts to the blog.

Why do you think it is that they are few UK travel bloggers compared with other countries?

I think the US seems to have a head start on us Brits when it comes to widespread use of the internet, but I’m sure we’ll be catching up soon. It’s surprising because the low-cost airlines mean it’s so easy and cheap for the English to travel widely.

You moved to your own hosted blog from Blogger, what are your experiences with this

For my first year of blogging I was on Blogger but I decided 9 months ago to move to a self-hosted blog on WordPress to provide a more professional and flexible foundation for developing my blog in the future. It took ages to transfer all my archives over as I did it manually – there are ways of automating this but I was scared of losing all my photos.

Since I did that, I haven’t looked back. There’s so much more you can do with WordPress and such a community out there helping to support and develop it as a platform. In retrospect I’d recommend everyone to start with WordPress, preferably on your own domain name. Although it can seem technically daunting, there are some great websites to help, and once you’re set up you don’t have to go through the pain of moving later.

What would you say are your biggest challenges as a blogger?

As a part time blogger with a full-time job and a family, I struggle to find the time to fit it all in. It’s become an all-consuming and addictive hobby and I don’t have time for much else (apart from travelling of course). The other challenge is working out the technical stuff related to setting up and developing a website, making videos and podcasts.

I’m constantly having to get help on forums and asking other bloggers to find out how to do the techie stuff and I recently enrolled on the Becomeablogger.com course to help overcome these barriers.

What do you enjoy about writing a travel blog?

I enjoy the creative side of writing and illustrating a post, sharing my experiences and hopefully raising a smile or a nod of recognition. I try to pass on what I’ve enjoyed about each place I visit. I always get a buzz when someone writes a comment saying how much they’ve enjoyed one of my articles.

It’s also great to make new friends across the blogosphere and feel you are part of the travel blogging community.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009