Business Blog Boost

In June 2008 I decided that in order to take the Europe a la Carte blog to the next level, it would need to become a multi author blog with more variety and volume of content than I could personally write. It was hard to let go off my baby and lose control of the content and the personality of the blog that I’d built up over 20 months. I’d looked at several multi author travel blogs and to be quite honest some of were seriously lacking in coherence.

It was crucial that the relationship between me and the blogging team would be mutually beneficial. I knew that from my own perspective writing for Wandalust, which I do to increase my personal exposure as well as that of Europe a la Carte and to gain experience writing about travel outside Europe. not primarily for the $140 a month. As Europe a la Carte is an established travel blog with a Google Page Rank of 4, it is an ideal showcase for travel bloggers/writers.

I advertised on Perfomancing.com for bloggers and was overwhelmed by the response. I initially wanted to recruit 5 bloggers, so each could write one post a week. I did spend a bit of time in the recruitment process to find bloggers whose style would fit with Europe a la Carte. I don’t mean that they had to write in a uniform manner but that there would still be coherence in the blog. I don’t consider myself a travel writer as such and was well aware that some of the new content could be of a superior standard to my own writing.

I thought that I’d better moderate posts from the new bloggers before they were uploaded, so gave the bloggers contributor status on the blog, however that meant that they couldn’t upload their photos so after a week, I changed this to author status. where the bloggers can publish their own posts.

There were one or two teething problems but it all seems to be going really well now with a big increase in page views.   Each of the 5 bloggers has their own style but their posts still fit well within the remit of “authentic travel in Europe on a modest budget”, whether that be reviews of travel sites, information about travel deals, events or destinations. Just as well I was prepared to be outshone as a writer, as it is happening but I’m all too aware of my own limitations.

In conclusion if you’re thinking of changing your blog to multi author:

1 Your blog will need to have a good reputation and established in its field to attract good writers who are looking for exposure.

2 Recruit carefully to find bloggers who’ll be a good fit for your blog and give them ground rules without being dictatorial. Be approachable and willing to take on board bloggers concerns and/or suggestions. Remember this relationship has to be win/win for you and the blogger.

3 You have to be prepared to let go and trust your blogging team and feel secure enough to recognise and praise good writing from your team.

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I’m trying to answer this question honestly after spending just over a month as editor of the Wandalust UK travel blog. I saw that Wandalust were looking for an editor and pondered if it would be a wise investment of time for me to write for another travel blog. Wandalust is part of Creative Weblogging, a media group network of 130 blogs covering a wide variety of topics. They generate revenue through adverts on the blogs.

One of the aims of blogging for your business is to raise the profile of your business and increase income. My decision to write for Wandalust wasn’t influenced by the pay, at £140 a month for 5 posts a week, I wrote that “writing for another travel related blog would be a good way to enhance my profile and reputation and increase visitor numbers to my site and blog.”

I’ve just finished an evaluation of my first month writing for Wandalust which is so far pretty inconclusive. I’m beginning to think that “Karen Bryan” is as much of a brand as a travel blogger and writer as “Europe a la Carte” is a brand for a European travel information site and blog. This just makes amy evaluation even more complex.
I can only say that if you are considering writing for another blog you have to be very clear about your reasons and aims for doing this and regularly monitor if these aims are being achieved.

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One of my favourite new sites is Alltop.com, a single page source for all the top stories in a variety of topics. I’m fortunate that my travel blog Eurrope a la Carte is currently listed third on the Travel Alltop page. It’s been bringing a fair amount of traffic to my travel blog. It’s free targeted traffic. visitors who are interested in travel.  Now isn’t that exactly what you dream of achieving by blogging for your business?

What I really like about Alltop is that it makes it easy to keep abreast of all the recent blog posts in all the topics that are of interest to you. Not everyone wants to subscribe to blogs.

If you hold you mouse over the titles of the five most recent posts of a listed blog you can read the first few sentences. This reinforces the importance of having catchy post titles.

If you’d like to see a blog listed in a category you can contact Alltop at info(at)alltop.com and convince them that your great blog should be included.

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Earlier this week I evaluated the marketing strategy in my travel business. It’s a competitive environment out there in the world of online travel and I need these travellers to find and purchase my travel product or service rather than my competitors

I started looking at the definition of marketing in Wikipedia.

1 Discern consumer desires

2 Design product or service to fulfil these desires

3 Direct consumers to purchasing your product or service.

It’s all very well reading three apparently simple marketing steps but the trick is how you translate these into actions that will be effective for your travel business.

I believe that there is a niche for Europe a la Carte in providing information to travellers who want to experience authentic travel in Europe on a modest budget. I see the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar and sterling as an opportunity for me to attract travellers who want to squeeze more of off their holiday euro but still travel in relative comfort. Also more UK residents are considering taking holidays on home shores and my site has a lot of content about Scotland.

Therefore in order to follow step 2 of fulfilling the desire of travellers to visit authentic Europe on a modest budget I write destination guides to less well known cities and regions where travellers can experience more of the real Europe away from the tourist crowds and inflated prices.

The blog plays a crucial part in part 2 by offering readers posts giving tips and advice about destinations, travel deals, accommodation and links to useful resources.

With regard to step 3, that should follow logically on from the content of the site and blog if my content can be found through the search terms used by potential site visitors. Around 50% my site traffic comes in through the blog, making it a crucial part of my marketing strategy.

With more than half of my site traffic coming from search engines keyword identification and search engine optimisation are crucial. However I find that visitors referred to my site stay longer and look at more pages highlighted the importance of having links on other sites and blogs.

However merely driving traffic to the site is not my aim, I need a percentage of visitors to go on to purchase accommodation, car hire or insurance through the affiliate links and/or click on ads on the site in order to generate revenue. I find that it’s contextual text links that bring the most revenue. You can’t just stick a few banners on your site and expect that to be effective.

You can see that my blog is an excellent fit in my marketing strategy as it is an integral part of satisfying my visitors desire for information to assist them in planning authentic travel in Europe on a modest budget through the content of the blog posts. The blog contains some Google Ads and affiliate links which generate revenue. The blog also has links into the destination guides and search and book facilities in the main site with the likelihood of further revenue generation there.

You really have to ensure that your blog is a good fit with your marketing strategy to maximise the potential of your blog to justify the time and effort you have to spend to research and write quality, unique content for the blog.

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I recently hosted a successful live blogging session on the topic of “What readers want from a travel blog” on my Europe a la Carte travel blog using Coveritlive software. This success was achieved from learning from the mistakes made in earlier attempts at live blogging which led me to write “7 Tips for Successful Live Blogging“.

Don’t be afraid to try new things and if they don’t work out at first be prepared to try again and build on the initial experience. It would have been easy for me to say to myself that I was never going to bother with live blogging again but thanks to some constructive criticism from an observer which I was able to take on the chin and my own observations I gave live blogging another try and it was a great success.

I believe that hosting successful live blogs can help establish you as an expert in your field. As your reputation grows you can invite other authorities in your field to be panelists on your live blog which will further enhance your standing.

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Jens of the Tourism Internet Marketing blog has put out a call for travel marketing secrets and tips. He’s looking for your best kept marketing secret to add to Tips from the T List ebook. This set me thinking about my marketing efforts in my travel business.  So here’s my tip.

Create and maintain a blog for your business by writing content which will inform, interest and/or entertain readers while building brand awareness and loyalty and increasing sales for your business.  Readers need to perceive benefits from your blog, they’re not going to spend time on blatant sales blurb. You need a financial return on the time spent writing and publicising your blog. Aim to achieve the balance of satisfying readers desires and wants and reaching and capturing customers for your product or service to realise the full potential of your business blog.

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Well according to PhocusWright who’ve invited to attend the PhocusWright Bloggers Summit in Berlin 5 - 6 March as a qualified travel industry blogger. The Summit is a wonderful opportunity for me to meet other travel bloggers, exchange ideas and examine the influence of blogging on travel businesses. Hopefully I’ll come back with some great ideas on how to improve my travel blog. It’s also a vindication for me as it’s very difficult to be objective about one’s own outpourings.

Berlin: Haus der Kultur der Weld by medienfrech

I’m also looking forward to seeing Berlin and doing some research for guide to Berlin for my site.

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Today, the 22 October 2007, is the first birthday of the my travel business blog.  A good time for evaluation and reflection.

1st Birthday Cake by PinkCakeBox

I looked back at the my second blog post, “Novice Blogger” where I stated that the aim of the blog was to increase awareness of my travel business without a large marketing budget. I think I’ve achieved this as the number of visitors to the site has more than doubled as have my turnover without any increase in expenditure. However it’s impossible to say exactly how much of this is attributable to the blog as I’ve been writing and publicising more destination guides on the main site. I also installed Google Adsense a year ago which has increased my revenue.

The blog made it into the top 100,000 of the Technorati rankings in September 2007, not bad, considering here are millions of blogs out there. However it has slipped a bit since then.

I’ve spend an enormous amount of time and effort on growing the blog. It’s been on the whole interesting and enjoyable writing for the blog. I was inspired to start this blog, Business Blog Boost, in June 2007, to offer advice and tips on blogging to boost your business to other small business owners, based on my experience creating and growing the travel blog.

I suppose one measure of the success of the travel blog is that I’m now making a bit of extra cash by writing sponsored posts. The best paid so far has been $30 for ReviewMe but the most regular is Blogsvertise which pays between £10 - $20. I know it’s hardly a fortune and I do have concerns about sponsored posts undermining the integrity of the blog.

Well, onwards and upwards, I’ve to keep focused on writing quality content for the blog, so it can keep boosting my travel business. What’s been your experience of blogging for your business?

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One of the reasons why a blog is good for your business is because it provides your website with a flow of fresh content, assuming that you are writing posts regularly. Search engines like fresh content and this helps you come higher in a natural search. The higher you come in a search the more web visitors you will receive without paying out for a massive advertising campaign.

A blog is a very low cost way of promoting your business. I use the Wordpress application which is free, you just need to integrate in into your website.  Of course all the time and effort that you spend researching, writing and marketing your blog must be taken in consideration.

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