I am approaching my fifth year of blogging and it promises to be a very interesting one. Writing on Travel Rants has been a massive learning experience and I want to share what I have learnt and experienced through the ups and downs of writing the blog.

The Learning Camp arrives in Leeds

Next month, will be the first of hopefully many Travel Learning Camp’s in my home city of Leeds. The first camp is on the 25 February at a fabulous venue called the Chambers, just a short walk from the city train station and car parks.

Please contact me for more information.

Travel BlogCamp newsletter

So, if you want to learn more about blogging and social media from my experiences make sure you subscribe to my newsletter. It’ll be sent every now and again, and I will update you on future Travel BlogCamp events and provide you with tips and advice to get the best out of your blog.

More importantly the newsletter, tips and advice on this blog will be free. Sign up is easy.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

Next month I will be re-launching the Travel BlogCamp website and while it will continue to be where I publish information on future events, it’ll also become a place where you can learn more about travel blogging and social media from my own experiences.

Here are my travel blog tips to help plan for 2010

» Don’t be afraid of contacting the media or authority sites. Keep it short; inform them that you want to help by offering quotes or advice on future features and articles.

» Make sure you network with other travel bloggers. Participate on other blogs by leaving quality comments; show that you are knowledgeable about your travel niche.

» Not receiving any comments? Ask questions and engage with your readers. Within the content and especially at the bottom of your post, ask a question or ask for their opinions.

» At the end of every year highlight your goals for the next year. Do you want to increase traffic or RSS subscribers? Write down the tasks that you will have to complete to achieve that goal.

» Create a content calendar to plan ahead. I have created one on My Life in Leeds to highlight what I need to write about, i.e. romantic city break ideas for Valentines Day.

» Identify authority blogs within your travel niche and ask them if they would accept a guest post. Not only is this a good way to gain one-way links but it also increases awareness of you and your blog.

» Plan in an hour or two every week to learn something new. I always put some time aside to learn more about SEO, social media and marketing. No one knows everything.

» Step outside of your comfort zone. The best tip I can offer. I hated being filmed for the BBC consumer show, but I did it because I knew it would raise the profile of me and my blog.

» Be passionate about what you write about. If you cannot be passionate and think of topics for content then is this really the right niche for you.

» Analyse your traffic, it can help you with planning future content. What are people searching for, did that post really help them. If not, write a post on that topic.

» The most important lesson I learnt in 2009? You are responsible for any content you publish, no matter if its travel advice, destination tips, or ranting about the travel industry, that includes comments left by readers too.

These are just a small sample of tips that have helped me in the last four years. Even as a blogger you have to take risks, sometimes they pay off, many times they don’t and you have to re-evaluate where it went wrong. It’s important you know why you have created your blog, and what you want out of it.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

It took 18 months for Travel Rants to start receiving comments and mentions on other blogs and the media, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have done things differently. It’s those early months where most bloggers start to lose interest; when traffic is low and there’s no one commenting.

Learning from experience

On My Life in Leeds it took me 3 weeks to get a mention in The Times, Guardian and on the BBC Leeds website. See what I mean? That’s partly because of the people I have built relationships with online, but, it took me a while to realise networking online is vital to any new blog.

Today, I want to highlight common mistakes that I have noticed on blogs.

Permalinks

Within WordPress there is a feature called Permalinks, which makes the web addresses more search engine and human friendly, so instead of zyx.com/?p=4343 it is zyx.com/nice-keywords-here. All you have to do is switch on the feature, but it’s something I see a lot, especially on corporate blogs.

Blogger and hosted blogs

I believe if you are serious about making money or using a blog to promote your company then you need to self-host the blog. Don’t sign up to the likes of Blogger. Nowadays it’s cheap to buy a domain and hosting, and you have complete control over your content.

No interaction

One travel company emailed me a few months back and asked why didn’t their blog have any one leaving comments. When I took a look it was because they were not asking any questions. Don’t create a blog just to promote your products you can do that on any web page.

Lack of images

I know I know, they are no images on this blog post, but seriously, I love to see photos, especially on Travel Blogs; use your blog to inspire people. Add a few photos, or a video. In my opinion there’s nothing worse than reading a travel article with no images. Inspire me.

Be a human

No corporate talk please, it bores me. If your aiming your blog at a consumer, then, write like a human, try not to use loads of jargon. Cut out the buzzwords, and just tell it plain and simple. I think that’s what more people want when they are reading a blog post.

I would like to thank Kevin Gibbons of SEO Optimise for asking this question on Twitter this morning, it inspired me to write up a post about the mistakes that people make when creating their first personal or corporate blog.

Please add your tips in the comments.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

I have written and promoted a blog for over four years and I have learnt a lot in this time, and being a solo blogger you have to learn quickly. Sometimes, I browse a travel website and wonder why they haven’t created a blog because I can see so many added benefits.

Here are my five reasons why companies should create a blog:

Creating a new communication channel

Gone are the days where you would contact a company solely on the telephone. Now consumers want to interact with you through email and online using social media networks. A blog opens up new channels and if a consumer can contact with you quickly, you’re more likely to get that vital holiday booking.

Search engine optimisation

I have read thousands of articles about search engine optimisation, and while I am no means an expert I have found that attracting links to a blog is much easier than to a website offering a service or product. When you have a blog you are joining a huge community of travel bloggers who like to share quality content.

It is okay having a pretty looking website offering the best holidays on the planet, but if you have no content then you’ll not attract visitors from the natural search results.

Blogs and social media

Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter are great at raising awareness of your brand, so if you have a blog with content that you can share, you can use these tools to extend your reach out to travel consumers and to bloggers who want to share content within their own community.

Building trust

You might be a specialist tour operator who is selling boating holidays in Greece; as a consumer how do I trust that the people who run these holidays know what they are doing. Creating a blog can build trust, you can prove that your business knows what it is talking about and is an expert and can be trusted.

Finding value in a blog

If you want to engage with your customers, increase brand awareness, become more findable you will find value in a blog. I couldn’t see value for the likes of Thomson or Thomas Cook creating a blog, but I could see independent travel agencies writing about destinations and the types of holidays that they offer.

Creating a blog will not be right for every travel company. Bear in mind that you will want to find someone that is going to write content that people want to read. For most companies it’ll not be an instant solution to selling more holidays or increasing traffic to a website.

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

]]> http://www.travelblogcamp.co.uk/article/reasons-travel-companies-blog/feed/ 4 http://www.travelblogcamp.co.uk/article/challenging-blogging-tips/ http://www.travelblogcamp.co.uk/article/challenging-blogging-tips/#comments Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:29:17 +0000 Darren Cronian http://www.travelblogcamp.co.uk/?p=76 Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

]]>

I’ve been writing Travel Rants for over 4 years now and I enjoy it. A friend asked me what makes me continue to write the blog when it does not generate enough revenue to do it full-time. The answer was simply, I love starting debates, helping consumers and of course the media attention.

I thought I would highlight the challenges that affect me, so other people can learn from my experiences.

Lack of productivity

I am a lazy arse, and recently I got to the point where I could not face replying to emails, writing a blog post, especially when I’ve had a crappy day at work. Then I started to read about “getting things done’” also known as GTD and it has made me a little more productive.

Basically, you unload from your brain, every single task you have to complete, be it work, home, or business and either write it down on a sheet of paper or use an online tool like remember the milk. Once you have unloaded your brain of all of those tasks you will feel better, believe me.

Then, identify any tasks that will take you less than two minutes to complete. Set some time aside and complete all of these tasks, one after the other. I did this last weekend and what a sense of achievement I felt because so many tasks were completed and ticked off.

Mentally, my brain was saying ‘I can’t be bothered with working because I have too much to do!’ but because I highlighted those quick fire tasks, the to-do list did seemed less daunting. I still have a ton of tasks to complete, but it does direct your mind to the job in hand.

Learning new skills

You have to learn so much, not just writing content that people want to comment and link to, but learn about search engines, social media, and how to promote your blog. This all takes time, and I have tried to learn a little of everything to get me by.

My RSS reader is very varied, I read search engine optimisation, marketing, building communities, and small business blogs. I believe if you want to create a popular blog then you have to divide some of your time in to learning these topics.

Sometime next week I will list the non travel blogs I read regularly.

It’s a challenge learning all this as well as writing content, but you do not need to be an expert (I’m not) you just need to know the basics. One lesson I have learnt is do not trust everything you read online, and try and focus on reading content written by trustful sources.

Networking

I love networking with other blogger’s, with people who work within the industry, journalists, and yes, I even enjoy networking with PR people. For a new blog I realised early on that I had to find blogs in my niche and leave comments and start to build relationships with these people.

I still love doing that, but I am finding lately that I spend very little time leaving comments on other blogs, so I am trying to dedicate a few hours a week where I read new blogs and join in discussions. I’ve also started posted on one or two travel forums.

Content writing

Writing content is a learning process. You quickly realise what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes I think to myself are people fed up of hearing me rant then I will write a post that will get tons of comments and links.

You have to experiment, try changing the style of the post titles, write short posts, long detailed posts, ask questions, and don’t ask questions.

Everyone has a different writing style, and your readers quickly get used to yours. Just don’t be afraid to experiment.

These are my challenges, with a few tips thrown in, what are your challenges?

Post from: Travel BlogCamp 2009

]]> http://www.travelblogcamp.co.uk/article/challenging-blogging-tips/feed/ 0