Once upon a time, creating a travel blog was the last thing on the mind’s of travellers. We used to be consumed with malaria jabs, and how many condoms to pack. We left our mobile phones at home with the laptop, and went in search of wild times and wilderness. Things appear to have changed.
Now we’re apparently concerned with which WordPress plugins we need. Which social network to massage, and which blogging platform to choose.
This time of year always sprouts a healthy number of new travel blogs, and 2010 has been no exception. In this blog-eat-blog world, I empathise with those brave enough to build a self-hosted travel blog.
It can be brutal.
Help is on its way
Bloggers have to contend with Facebook and Twitter; they need forty-eight Google accounts; they have to boost their subscribers, reward their readers, engage with their audience, monitor the competition, and please their mothers; not to mention, score quality backlinks and spot a spammer from a hundred paces.
Oh, and it’s a travel blog, therefore one must also find the time to travel.
It’s go-go-go in a 140-characters. Everyone must Like you, Digg you, not to mention Stumble over you a dozen times a week, while they guzzle Google Caffeine.
You could feel extremely inadequate, extremely fast. I know — I’ve been there.
My biggest and most terrifying concern, is that the travel blogs are taking over travel. Blogs used to be the cool alternative to a handwritten journal — now they’re an altogether different beast.
Turning Point
I believe the turning point was monetisation. People make money off travel blogging. Fact. Some even write eBooks about it; which saves you time, and makes them money. Fact.
But think about it. Your earnings are going to increase exponentially with the amount of time and effort you put into your travel blog. After twelve months, you would be fortunate to be earning £200 a month from your blog. Over eighteen months, you would be lucky (and I really mean that) to have earned more than £2,000 (US$3,200).
Now, think about it. Do you want to taint your trip of a lifetime, by sacrificing day after day of this amazing opportunity, to earn £2,000 — or £3.60 a day — over 18-months?
I wouldn’t either.
Work to travel, don’t travel to work (unless you’re a “digital nomad” or an air hostess). You’ve got the rest of your life to sit in front of a computer.
Travel blogs are ultimately a good thing; they encourage a positive attitude towards travel, and blogger’s tips and tricks can save you money along your journey. They can also develop valuable skills; such as interaction with people of different cultures, and writing for the web.
Focus on the Good Stuff
Here’s a few more things to help you focus on the right things, which will help enhance your blog, while not taking up too much of your time.
It’s written with new travel bloggers in mind, but there are lessons to be learned for the most seasoned among us.
Five Things Not to Worry About
Statistics
Number of readers. Number of pageviews. Number of comments. These are some of the most common quagmires; simply because bloggers are always talking about them. In my opinion, you do not need to worry about statistics unless you have decided to go hard and use your blog as a platform to sell advertising. Sure, take a look every now and then, but it is one of the least important elements for new bloggers. Don’t get obsessed.
Advertising
“Everyone else is doing it, so I should too.” Running advertising campaigns on your blog might look great and make you feel a bit special; but as I’ve already touched on, you have to be semi-serious to make any money at all off it — especially for young, unremarkable blogs. The time you will spend trying to decipher the advertising process is much better spent elsewhere, and over time, decent advertisers may be attracted organically.
Rankings
Rank goes hand-in-hand with statistics. Your Alexa and Compete rankings can become the source of obsession. It’s empowering to watch that little number rise, and rise, and rise — until you smash through Dahl’s glass roof — but let’s be honest, everyone’s is. It’s the tide of the Internet. The only people that care about rank are other web site owners, and some advertisers. If you’re writing good content, your rank will find a natural level. Just don’t sit there staring at it.
Other Blogs
I have a lot of good friends. They’re great. They each have their own quirks and personality, and they all make me smile in their own special way. Blogs are like people. In the same way that you wouldn’t want to actually be your friend, don’t try and emulate someone else’s blog. The reason the platform is so popular, is that it’s an extension of our personalities. Some are ugly but full of good intentions, some are beautiful but full of crap. Break the rules, and be yourself. You’ll find a lot of reward in this.
Design
Everyone wants a good-looking blog. I respect good design, and it’s something I try to get across here on my own site. But let’s be honest, many of your readers aren’t even visiting your blog. They’re viewing them through RSS readers. In the beginning, just find a blog theme that isn’t fussy. Something that isn’t going to tie you up in forums. Something that isn’t going to break every five minutes. This site is built on K2 (although it will be changing soon) and it’s just about the most unfussy theme there is.
Five other things not to worry about — but are worth doing
SEO
Learning how to harness search engine optimisation (SEO) for your content, is well worth the time investment if you want to be found by curious strangers. It’s not rocket science, and can be quite interesting. In layman’s terms, SEO helps search engines understand what your content is about. If you run WordPress, install the All in One SEO Pack plugin (other plugins are available). A useful website for learning about SEO is http://www.SEOBook.com.
Social Media
There’s a high probability you found this post through social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) Loyal readers will keep returning without prompts, but social media remains the quickest way to kickstart the buzz around your content. Signing up for Twitter account, or creating a Facebook page is not the end of the story however. It takes time, and it takes commitment to build up a quality following to support your blog content. You have to be prepared to give as much as you take, but blogs aside, it’s a decision that will enhance your journey. Sites like Mashable will keep you up to speed on tips, tools and trends.
Content
I cannot stress this enough. Content is the number one thing you need to concentrate on. If you think of a good angle for a post, write it down, or scribble the context down as a draft (that’s how this post was born). Create a simple editorial plan and think a few posts ahead, by looking at your travel plans. Look at what’s trending across the entire Internet, and think about how you can turn this into a useful post. I believe all posts should be born of desire, not need. What makes you tick, not what makes me tick. Passion glows, apathy aches.
Learn HTML & CSS
This can be a veritable nightmare, not least because by the time you’ve learned it, it’s probably been superseded by a new version. Many bloggers don’t realise how much HTML is needed to create even the simplest of blog posts. Spend a little time learning HTML and CSS whenever you can, and it will ultimately save you time in the long run. The HTML, XHTML, and CSS All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies
Link Building
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but, by the time it was there were a hundred arrow-straight roads leading straight to Caesar’s bedroom. As you’re exploring other blogs (never, ever use the word blogosphere in my company) check to see if they accept link exchanges. They’re not the most powerful, but any link in the early stages is worth it if you want to improve your online presence, and support the online travel community. Once you’re in the swing of things, consider guest posting for other blogs to attract new readers (as I did, on this subject for TravelBlogAdvice.com).
Now you’ve read this, you should know that I have left myself wide open. I have tried to help you, but this will inevitably lead me to criticism. “Why didn’t you say this, do this, tell me this, do that yourself?”
I really don’t care. I just want to make sure travellers are getting the most out of their travels, and they are not getting blinded by less important matters.
Let us not forget, ten years ago we had no interest in “blogging”. And if you’re starting a blog today, you will still be considered one of the early adopters in one hundred years time.
Finally, if you’ve recently started a new travel blog, I applaud you.
You might feel that a lot of the work you’ve already put in “behind the scenes” has gone unnoticed. While that’s true in some respects, most seasoned bloggers do realise the amount of effort it’s taken for you to get those posts up, and those images in just the right place.
Keep things simple, and focus on the most important things — like making sure you’ve packed enough condoms.
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Thanks, Ant, for these helpful ideas. I’m probably older than everyone else in this forum. Travel blogging wasn’t the thing in my day. I wrote letters home (can you imagine!) in which I tried to be entertaining and engaging, and a once-a-year Christmas report (which looking back, probably annoyed people as they didn’t esp want to be reminded of my exciting life abroad).
Now that I’ve read your post, I’m so glad I didn’t spend all my time trying to feed a hungry blog monster, worrying about posting and tweeting and taking amazing photos. Because I wasn’t obsessed with blogging (let alone making a living from it), I could give myself over to the journey.
I have a blog now, though!!! It’s called “Seen the Elephant” and contains some of my reflections on the kind of travel I did (more of the expat scene than anything else, as I stayed put for many years in Britain and Japan) as well as on the challenges of trying to go home again (to the USA): http://seentheelephant.blogspot.com/
I just now did a “cornerstone” post on what I mean by seeing an “elephant.” I created a character called Eddie Expat, for which I tried to distill all the things I’ve observed about the kind of people who do slow travel. http://seentheelephant.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-recognize-at-glance-someone-who.html
My list of 10 “must knows” about Eddie include the fact that he’s a loner at heart and doesn’t especially care about communicating with people constantly (#6 + 7). I honestly believe that most travelers who are in it for the long term (whether as an expat or a backpacker) aren’t exhibitionists. They’re the kind who’d like nothing more than to plunge incognito into a crowd and observe how people behave.
At the same time, tho, they also believe that their experiences are worth writing about (#5).
Now, how do you fit that personality template (a loner, a writer) on to the Wordpress/Blogger template, that is the question!
p.s. I’d be curious to hear what you and others think about my Eddie Expat post.
@ML: Receiving a letter like that in this day and age would be amazing. I don’t think I’ve received a handwritten letter in my life!
The most basic elements of blogging for me are truth, transparency and accuracy (to the extent possible). I almost didn’t read the rest of your piece because you talked about malaria jabs. Malaria jabs? There is a malaria vaccine in development, but not for travellers, it will be for children who live in malaria-prone areas. Malaria tabs, okay. Jabs? Inaccurate. (see first sentence).
I know that monetization and living the dream of having people actually care what you say spawns a lot of travel blogs. The good news is that it probably won’t work for most people, and then they’ll be free to travel without blogging, and people who love to write so much they start each day with a sentence or a phrase on their fingertips can pick up the torch.
Or maybe you’ll all get rich. In the meantime, I’ll keep reading the people I’d like to meet, and who want to take me with them on their journeys. One day our paths will cross in real life, and chances are great we won’t be disappointed. Even if no one’s paying us.
@Eileen: Fair cop with regards the “malaria jab”. I think there will always be far more people entering the travel blog community to make money and feed off attention, than there will be writers. Which isn’t a bad thing, I think it can actually help good writers to stand out and in reverse, the not-so-good writers can feed off good writing. I’ve certainly learned a lot about writing from the travel blog community.
Ant, I am actually okay with your directory because you specifically state that you are linking to any quality travel blogger. The problem I have is with people who state, “Blogs I Love,” but then they link to anyone who will trade links with them. As Eileen mentions, that shows me that they are not speaking truthfully on their blog.
Manali and Terry, the photo question is one that I’m interested in as well. We use a lot of graphics and photography on our blog because that’s what we like but I’ve noticed very few other blogs that do the same thing. Photography editing does take a while and I end up splitting my time fairly evenly between the photography and writing side of things. Again, we use photography because we like photography but plenty of other bloggers don’t use much photography. I think it is all about what you prefer.
Ant, I’m sure you’re right,and that hopefully good writers (which is of course, a terribly subjective criteria) can spread the craft, and can learn some of the techier and prettier stuff from the people who specialize in that. But I’m going to try to stick to reading the good writing, as juried by my peers and by my own subjective criteria. Thanks for ceding that point. Plus the malaria thing. I’m a health geek.
Awesome post! Content is key.. i totally agree and a big, messy, dollop of personality;) Geez, cannot read blogs that are just regurgitating information from other sources.. I’d sooner gauge out my own eyes ..oh kill me now! LOL
Once again thanks for sharing, i feel like a better person just by reading it.
Quite honestly, one of the best write ups I have read on travel blogging. I will take some time to read all of the comments on this later.
However, I just wanted to say thanks for this. I have been writing as a travel writer for almost a year now on my Sacramento Budget Travel Examiner page. For me, this has been about offering tips, travel stories, destinations, and travel information.
However, I needed a more personal feel so in April I launched my blog. It has been slow to start but I am picking up steam. I find I write about travel as that as my focus. However, the content is what comes from inside. I still share tips and hope people enjoy what I write. I am very thankful for the guest bloggers I have had (many more to come!) and for the content they have provided.
This is my passion. I am not always the best writer nor do I always have the most interesting stories. Sometimes doing this can be discouraging for the reasons you mention above. However, it’s the most fulfillment I have had in “job” (or hobby) – doing what I enjoy. It’s hard feeling like such a small fish in a big pond but you have to start somewhere. And it’s my belief that working hard, providing good content, working to get better, having a passion, and believing in what you are doing will carry you a long way in this.
@Eileen: Wonderful, it’s important to have a two-way relationship with the web. Reading quality content, is arguably as important as writing it.
@agentcikay/ciki: Love it! Great comment, absolutely spot on.
@Jeremy: Sounds like a really positive approach. Blogging has some great rewards, but it can be a long hard road waiting for them to come along. I’ve been writing ToA for three years and if my blog was burning down, the thing I’d rescue is my reams of travel writing. They’re so close to my heart, and whether or not anyone reads them, they mean a lot to me as an individual. Keep it up.
@Anil: Thanks for the encouragement. I wish I could say I cared about the potential financial rewards, but honestly, I’d be lying if I said that’s what it’s about for me. I do love writing, about any and everything, but it scares the ever-loving crap out of me that it won’t be any good.
What I’m starting to realize is that it doesn’t matter. If my goals are to just write and hope people like it (any kind of reward coming from my writing would really just be an amazingly surprising bonus), all I really have control over is the writing, or content as we’re calling it here. The only thing I can really do is try my best and be me when I write. I’d lost sight of that. But I found it.
That all being said, I’ve started asking myself some of the questions you’ve suggested I ask myself, like what my goal is, etc. I haven’t posted anything in about a week because I’m still working on answering these and because all these comments have convinced me that it’s better to write gold less often than to write crap everyday.
Again, thanks Anil and Ant for your words and all the advice. You guys rock.
Tonnes of good advice here Ant. Even though I have been writing my blog for a year I have only really started to focus on it more recently (posting at least twice a week). So I am still, very much a travel blog beginner.
After I read this post I went and took down the stupid, ugly adsense widget which was cluttering up my pristine page (well… semi-pristine). I don’t know why I even put it there. I have had 1 click and every time I look at it it annoys me. This is not why I started my blog
.
@Verity: A positive move, Verity. I think your experience with AdSense is quite typical. Now you’ve reclaimed a prime plot of your blog, put it to good use.
For some months I have been thinking about starting a blog. Now, after reading this page, I actually decided to do it today. Thank you!
Great advice. I think with a blog, you really need to put things into perspective once in a while. The moment you get caught up in the number of hits, comments, views etc. is the moment the blog becomes a job rather than a hobby. For me, occasionally writing a post feels like a chore. When that happens, I need to tell myself that it’s okay to put it off till later, that there are no deadlines and I’m doing this for fun.
Same with blogging on the road. I recently went on a 12 day vacation to Honduras and there was no way I was going to write while there. Not only does it take a lot of time to put a post together (time I could be using to do awesome stuff), but the quality of the content would most likely have been lower. I think for a lot of travel posts, you need time to reflect and really look back on what you did.
Enjoy the time while you’re there and don’t spend it in an internet cafe furiously pounding a post away. Remember, it’s travel blogging, not traveling to blog.
Great job, I totally find myself in a lot of these scenarios and its good to hear them hashed out and hear other people in the same spots or thinking the same things.
@ JEN who said I’m thanking you because as a noob at all this and a closet writer I often times find myself incredibly discouraged. I ask myself a lot, “why should I write? Nobody likes or cares about what I have to say anyway?”
I completely agree and fell your pain. I mean I don’t agree that nobody cares about what you say but well I get what your saying. Let me guess, you find other sites and you think “they are better, why would someone come to my site?” Usually I come across these sites late at night when I come home. I’m to tired to really work on my blog so I just surf around looking for what’s going on in the niche. I come across stuff I didn’t know existed and sometimes it’s really impressive.
So then you run off to bed thinking, heck with it, tomorrow I’m becoming a chef. But then I wake up and I’m at it again and dreaming up new ideas. Am I dreaming up new ideas because It’s a necessary job or am I doing it because I like it. I think its because I like it. So if you like it, your doing the right thing by blogging for yourself. If you have the passion people will be like hmm…whats that? What’s she so passionate about? Wheres she going, I have to check it out. They will follow.
@Valerie: Good for you! A great decision, looking forward to seeing where you take it. Come back and drop the URL in the T-Bag Travel Blog Directory
@Paul: A great perspective, I think you have the right idea.
@Michael: Thanks for a great comment, and for encouraging a fellow blogger. Of course, you’re right: build it, and (with a little nudge) they will come.
Hi everyone!
I’m with you on the adsense thing. I’ve put ads on, taken ‘em off, moved ‘em about, shouted at ‘em and even cried over them. I get mail saying ‘great site’, ‘what happens next?’ ‘really enjoy reading it’. Ive never had one saying ‘great ads, I love the positioning and the different formats… whhooaaahhHH!’
I originally thought, if I put ads on the site, it should pay for some hosting space instead of using a wysiwyg with ‘their’ logo on every page. Now it doesn’t bother me. I enjoy reading many blogs and they are all quirky and unique and so is mine! It’s personality, passion and content that sells them.
Time to think outa the box for me, bin MOST of the ads off my site and concentrate on getting it all up to date. It’s taken 2 months just to get the format in a state that I’m happy with. Time I should have been writing and not stressing about which font, how many columns, where are the pictures going to go etc…etc…blah, blah, blah!
I don’t do Facebook, Twitter or own a mobile phone. It’s just me and my trusty Toshia NB100…Oh and a paper pad for my scribblings. Simple, but to some travel techs, it may seem a little outa touch with the potential audience. I think I’ve found my niche and hopefully it will develop over time. I have noticed that my writing style is evolving as time goes on and I’m not really aware of it until I look back to read older posts- has anyone else noticed this strange phenomena?
Tony
Great comment, Tony. Firstly, I can highly recommend Twitter. Not only as an extension of your blog, but as a tool to navigate and interact with the travel community. Facebook does the same, but on a more localised scale. I respect your decision not to use it, I used to be the same, but since I’ve embraced it, I’ve never looked back. I’m not as active as most people on the platform, but I know that should I need some input or ideas, for me and my travels, or my blog that I’ll find a responsive group in a flash. Just my thoughts.
In terms of evolving writing styles, certainly. This blog started out with a high level of humour, but as I dragged it through some of the more impoverished regions of Asia it mellowed somewhat into a stream of sickly prose. I’m trying to bend it back towards a reader-friendly format, but as quick as I change things, the style of readership shifts and I’m back to square one.
Very informative! Thanks for the pearls of wisdom and encouragement!
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