Looking for your tips on Audience Building and Monetization for new post | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Hi Everyone,

I'm about to launch a new website called Travel Blog Challenge, where i'm building a community of travel and lifestyle design bloggers to prove (or disprove) that money can be made. It basically a place to talk shop around increasing earnings, and building traffic in the travel and lifestyle niches and like here, helping each other out.

I'm writing 2 pillar posts that will be involved in the launch on the top creative tips other bloggers have for a) increasing traffic and b) monetizing. I woudl love to include ideas from people here to help you gain more exposure to a new audience (my main travel/lifestyle blog Todd's Wanderings is hovering at 106,000 for Alexa).

 

If you are interested please respond with a short sentence or two to each of (or just one) of the topics below. I'll include a link to your homepage and the advice of each blogger. I'll put in a deadline of Monday December 13th.

Monetizing:

What is a creative/unique way you
think Travel and Lifestyle Bloggers can monetize their sites? Or what can bloggers do today to start monetizing?

Building Traffic:

What are your quick and creative ways for building traffic to your site? Something that someone can start doing immediately.

Also, if you are interested in guest posting (there is lots of great advice from different niches on these topics) I woudl love to have you. Just get in touch at tawassel at hotmail.com and I can give you more info but the topics include: 

• Increasing traffic and find a readership
• How to make money
• Building and optimizing web sites (the nuts and bolts)
• Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media
• Tools
• Writing compelling content
• Efficiency and how to spend less time blogging and more time traveling
• case studies of your own site (where you started and where you are now)

Cheers,

Todd
__________________________________
Todd Wassel
Travel Writer/ International Conflict Management 

TODD'S WANDERINGS
Travel, adventures, and advice from over 10 years on the road 
http://www.toddswanderings.com

E-mail: tawassel@hotmail.com Twitter: @toddwassel Facebook: Todd's Wanderings   Do what you Love; Love what you do

Hey Crystal,

 

Thanks! This will go out as a list type article with credit given to the bloggers and websites. Can I use your words as is? or do you want to include a plug for any specific forums? Such as Yankezie :)

 

Cheers,

Todd

Chris Guillebeau from The Art of Non-Conformity has a big travel publication series.  He makes a lot from it.

I agree with BuyLikeBuffet – a "challenege" is a great way to go.

Starting in 2011 we plan to make either one post a day, or a weekly post outlining how we acted "sustainable", "green" or "socially responsible" for each day of the year.  This, we hope, will give readers something to follow while learning tips on being nicers to the earth and fellow humans.

We are also kicking around the idea of attempting "The 100 mile diet" during the summer for a period of 3 weeks with bi-weekly updates on our progress, and the challenges, of attempting to eat/drink things that are produced within 100 miles of our home.  No sugar or caffeine or beer! Eek!

 

My piece of advice is to find a niche that has not been over-covered by other bloggers which you think people may care about.  We truly care about sustainability and personal finance and thus decided to launch a site discussing the marriage of these two topics.  We didn't find a lot of sites that focus on this type of content, so we found our under-covered niche.

Hope you can include us even though we're a mere 3 weeks old (on Friday).  We don't plan to disappear.  5 months 1 week until we can officially join the Yakezie challenge!

Todd – I love your 1000-1000 challenge idea! I'm not a travel writer but would definitely be interested in participating in that. Perhaps that challenge can be expanded even beyond travel bloggers?

I'm planning on starting a similar challenge, The Saved Quarter Challenge, encouraging readers to start saving an emergency fund. I'll be using a "linky" once a week to have readers come and share posts on their blogs. I link to several linkies each week that receive hundreds of posts and thousands of hits just that one day a week (Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie.com and Works for Me Wednesday at wearethatfamily.com). Since each post that links is supposed to link back to your blog, it's a great way to get your name out there associated with your challenge and adds a lot of backlinks fast.

I also really like Max's idea for increasing traffic. Getting your name out there is really the best way to drive traffic, and forums, guest posting, comments, and networks are the standard fare for that. :) Good luck!

 

Sustainable PF said:

I agree with BuyLikeBuffet – a "challenege" is a great way to go.

Starting in 2011 we plan to make either one post a day, or a weekly post outlining how we acted "sustainable", "green" or "socially responsible" for each day of the year.  This, we hope, will give readers something to follow while learning tips on being nicers to the earth and fellow humans.

We are also kicking around the idea of attempting "The 100 mile diet" during the summer for a period of 3 weeks with bi-weekly updates on our progress, and the challenges, of attempting to eat/drink things that are produced within 100 miles of our home.  No sugar or caffeine or beer! Eek!

 

My piece of advice is to find a niche that has not been over-covered by other bloggers which you think people may care about.  We truly care about sustainability and personal finance and thus decided to launch a site discussing the marriage of these two topics.  We didn't find a lot of sites that focus on this type of content, so we found our under-covered niche.

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I did the 100 mile diet (not hard in Northern California where we live) and loved it! I did a blog about being a locavore before my daughter was born. It was fun and there are groups that you can link up with. I'm thinking of One Local Summer a few years back. Might be a good way to bring in new readers. I also read a blog with the one-a-day green idea for a year, Green as a Thistle, that might be worth a glance. Hers wasn't so much financial, though.

Thanks to everyone who submitted thier ideas and generally for the support on the new site! I'm also really happy that there is interest in the 1000-1000 challenge! It is open to both travel and lifestyle bloggers at the moment but i'll see how i can work others in.

 

The Travel Blog Challenge site will go live on Dec 20th, but I'll update everyone when it goes up. A bit delayed but really excited about tackeling a new topic that just doesn't fit on my main blog http://www.toddswanderings.com

 

Cheers,

Todd

The Saved Quarter said:

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I did the 100 mile diet (not hard in Northern California where we live) and loved it! I did a blog about being a locavore before my daughter was born. It was fun and there are groups that you can link up with. I'm thinking of One Local Summer a few years back. Might be a good way to bring in new readers. I also read a blog with the one-a-day green idea for a year, Green as a Thistle, that might be worth a glance. Hers wasn't so much financial, though.
 

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You live in a great area to do this diet.  We'll take the challenge I think.  I will miss beer during the summer months and cottage season.

Thanks for the heads up on the 365 green site – I figured it wasn't a new idea but we'll do it anyhow.  Content is king, right? ;)

Hi Todd!

 

Thanks for posting my tip and site link. Looks like these were very popular posts!