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Looking for your tips on Audience Building and Monetization for new post

UserPost

3:08 am
December 7, 2010


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

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

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs139.ash2/40279_151322864883444_119788831370181_506325_1939413_n.jpg

E-mail: tawassel@hotmail.com

Twitter: @toddwassel
Facebook: Todd's Wanderings

 

Do what you Love; Love what you do

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

6:51 am
December 7, 2010


Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Member

posts 3048

Interesting idea!  In regards to building traffic – I'd suggest joining a few forums and commenting as much as possible on other blogs.  Simply letting people know your name and how you think will start building traffic for you.

Crystal

Yakezie Member Site: 

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Ebook:  How I Make Money Blogging:
The Beginner's Guide to Building a Money-Making Site

Email:  budgetingfunstuff *at* gmail *dot* com

You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook

7:00 am
December 7, 2010


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

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

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

7:17 am
December 7, 2010


Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Member

posts 3048

Great point!  Yes, definitely include a shout out to the Yakezie!  :-)

Crystal

Yakezie Member Site: 

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Ebook:  How I Make Money Blogging:
The Beginner's Guide to Building a Money-Making Site

Email:  budgetingfunstuff *at* gmail *dot* com

You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook

12:44 pm
December 7, 2010


MaximizingMoney

Guest

Travel and lifestyle blogs are in a great position to take advantage of affiliate marketing, because there are so many travel affiliate programs like Expedia or Travelocity as well as niche affiliate programs that could fit into any type of lifestyle blog.

 

If I was looking for a unique way for a community of travel bloggers to help promote each other while affiliate marketing at the same time, I might consider a Top 10 Extreme Travel Challenge Contest if there were 10 bloggers involved.

 

You could have each travel writer put together their most extreme travel itinerary and post about it, and then you could have a contest for readers to vote on the best trip, and this contest could be posted across all of the different blogs involved, with links back to each other's extreme travel itinerary.

Each reader votes and maybe one reader is chosen for a special prize, like a weekend getaway or something, or even the actual winning itinerary, if that could be afforded.

 

The trick is then that for each itinerary, you incorporate travel affiliate programs to market airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, or whatever other types of travel services you use along the way to save money.

 

It would probably create good SEO for everybody around the terms Extreme Travel or whatever else you wanted to use, plus everybody would benefit from the affiliate marketing because of the extra traffic driven by reader exposure from each other's blog.

 

Anyway, that's just a rough idea, and maybe I'm being too specific for what you're looking for, but affiliate marketing is definitely the way to go for travel blogs I would think.

 

Thank you, Max

3:47 pm
December 7, 2010


Buy Like Buffett

Member

posts 1682

You can build traffic by taking up a challenge and getting readers to visit your site daily to view your progress. The challenge could be some some major lifestyle change and how it has affected your life for better or worse.

 

 

Mark

Learn how to build wealth at Buy Like Buffett.

Learn about making money online at Mark Riddix dot com

Follow me on Twitter

5:33 pm
December 7, 2010


Eric – PersonalProfitability.com

Portland, OR

Member

posts 2120

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

12:33 am
December 8, 2010


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. Yes, I know about Chris and I am already in touch with him.

Sorry if I wasn't clearer above, but here is what I'm looking for:

 

Advice from YOU on what is working for you. Something creative, out of the box, that others might not know about yet. These are going to be list posts where I share "ideas and secrets from established and upandcoming bloggers." Though my other site toddswanderings.com I know a lot of the names in the Travel and Lifestyle blogging world.

But it is great to support people here and to get advice from outside the niche to bring in fresh ideas. I really want to help support the Yankazei members and since I don't write about personal finance I thought this is a perfect way as traffic building and monetizing are cross cutting themes.

Here is an example of what I'm looking for from someone who has already responded:

 

Building Traffic:
1. Develop something that is useful, helpful or entertaining
"To build traffic to your website you first have
to develop something that is useful, helpful or entertaining to your
target audience. You have to effectively answer the question 'why should
I visit your site instead of one of the thousands of other choices out
there?' Once you've nailed that, it's all about getting the word out
about your site through social media and by interacting with other
influencers in your space."

Corbett Barr, Think Traffic

 

Thanks everyone.

Todd

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

7:07 am
December 8, 2010


Sustainable PF

Member

posts 2759

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.

Visit us at Sustainable Personal Finance

Or Earth and Money

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and RSS!

7:32 am
December 8, 2010


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

Thanks Sustainable PF. Sound advice all around. The new site will actually have challenge componenet too the 1000-1000 Challenge. Everyone will be helping each other reach 1000 visitors/day and earn $1000/month. This is how we will prove that travel blogging can earn money if you go about it correctly. And at the end we will have a great list of bloggers with high quality sites (like here) to leverage for advertising.

 

Keep the ideas comeing :)

 

Todd

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

8:34 am
December 8, 2010


Sustainable PF

Member

posts 2759

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!

Visit us at Sustainable Personal Finance

Or Earth and Money

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and RSS!

6:06 am
December 9, 2010


Frugal Confessions

Houston, TX

Member

posts 1622

Hello Todd!

 

I love your original blog, so good luck on your next one!

Here's my tip: Many national newspaper websites will allow anyone to start up a blog and post whatever they want. Because there are literally thousands upon thousands of readers, your blog will likely create a much larger readership then a private blog you start on your own. You can start up a private blog, like I have done with http://www.frugalconfessions.com, that is parallel to the blog at the newspaper (I actually use most of the same content on both sites) but funnel some of your newspaper traffic to to your private blog in order to increase traffic, and down the road, revenue. Here is my newspaper blog: http://www.chron.com/channel/m…..sions.html

 

~Amanda

Frugal Confessions

Amanda L Grossman

Frugal Confessions

Frugal Confessions @ the Houston Chronicle

email: frugalconfessions@hotmail.com

11:14 am
December 9, 2010


The Saved Quarter

Member

posts 531

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.


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.

12:10 pm
December 9, 2010


Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Member

posts 3048

I'd also be in that 1000-1000 challenge if it ever extends outside of travel blogs!  I'm already nearing $1000 a month regularly, but I am nowhere near 1000 visitors a day!

Crystal

Yakezie Member Site: 

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff

Ebook:  How I Make Money Blogging:
The Beginner's Guide to Building a Money-Making Site

Email:  budgetingfunstuff *at* gmail *dot* com

You can also find me on Twitter and Facebook

8:29 am
December 16, 2010


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

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

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

9:54 am
December 18, 2010


Sunil from The Extra Money Blog

Member

posts 362

i have a niche travel website as well and the following have worked extremely well for me:

 

monetization

1) affiliates

2) ads – private and publlic (i.e. adsense)

3) digital products – mostly ebooks

4) donations – you will be surprised

 

traffic

1) blogging / rss ping

2) integrated discussion forum – travelers love to research and share

3) contests through my newsletter and blog

The Extra Money Blog– Expedited Wealth Building Through Multiple Streams of Active & Passive Income (Entrepreneurship, Internet Marketing, Personal Finance)

7:24 pm
December 19, 2010


Sustainable PF

Member

posts 2759

The Saved Quarter said:


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.
 


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? ;)

Visit us at Sustainable Personal Finance

Or Earth and Money

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and RSS!

1:31 am
February 14, 2011


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

Hi Everyone,

 

Thanks again for all the great tips. I wanted to let you know the articles are live, the site has been live for 1 1/2 months and the pillar posts you help me build were a huge success.

You can find the posts here:

http://www.travelblogchallenge…..-bloggers/

http://www.travelblogchallenge…..-bloggers/

 

Enjoy!

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

7:31 am
February 14, 2011


Frugal Confessions

Houston, TX

Member

posts 1622

Hi Todd!

 

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

Amanda L Grossman

Frugal Confessions

Frugal Confessions @ the Houston Chronicle

email: frugalconfessions@hotmail.com

7:52 am
February 14, 2011


Todd @ Todd's Wanderings

Kosovo…at the moment

Member

posts 41

Thanks Amanda. Unfortunately i couldn't use every one's suggestions as some just did not fit the style. But yes, they were very popular and helped launch the new website very well. In fact the new site after just 1 1/2 months has a lower Alexa ranking than my main blog at 57,000!

http://www.toddswanderings.com -Do what you Love; Love what you Do

http://www.travelblogchallenge.com -Earn More | Travel Longer

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