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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At some point you’ll have to decide whether you are going to approve unflattering or negative comments on your blog. You have to be prepared to take some negativity once you start airing your views in your blog.

I wrote a post entitled “No place for good advice on the web” in response to having an article turned down. I’s not that I can’t take rejection, hey I’m really thick skinned after working for more than 20 years as a market research interviewer. I felt I had a valid point that some readers may be looking for some boring good advice when there’s so much emphasis on writing for search engines and attracting attention in social media sites. I received a comment describing me “as pouting on the sidelines” after my rejection. You can judge for yourself from reading the post.

How are going to react? Ignore any criticism or take it on the chin, approve the comment and respond to it?

I think it’s a good thing if there is some lively discussion and disagreement on blogs, as long as it doesn’t become too vindictive or personal. Bloggers, just like anyone else have differing opinions. However if you have a business blog you should keep your posts and comments related to your business and maintain some professionalism. The blog isn’t a sounding board for you personally. Hard to achieve, as in some ways, a lot of the identity of the business may be intertwined with that of the owner.

I believe that readers will have more respect for you if they see that you do publish negative comments and that you respond to them in a logical, calm manner.

What are your personal guidelines for dealing with criticism/negativity on your blog?

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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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You can now host live blogs on your site with free software available from Coveritlive.com. With live blogging you can interact much more quickly with your audience but you can still moderate comments.

I think it’s a great resource as it’s really easy to set up, even for a non techie person like me.  You just register and then set up the subject, date and time for your live blog and then copy the code into the blog post.

I had my first live blogging session on my travel blog today. Everything went really smoothly technically but I didn’t receive any comments which was disappointing.  However I still think it’s a great free tool to assist you in growing your reputation as an expert in your field during interactive blogging sessions.

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I love the HotelsCombined affiliate scheme because it makes money for me and it’s a great resource for my site visitors enabling them to quickly and easily find a great deal on hotels through a price comparison facility.

Finding the best affiliate schemes for your site is crucial. You want to maximise revenue by using contextual links which have a high utility value to your site visitors leading to a high click through rate.

I rate the HotelsCombined affiliate scheme as excellent because:

1 I can personally endorse the site through frequent personal use.

2 It’s a useful resource to my site visitors who are going to shop around for the best deal, so why not on my site.

3 A vast array of easy to use affiliate tools.

4 You can choose which commission structure suits you.

5 One year cookie so you can earn commission for longer.

6 Good back up support.

I first used HotelsCombined as a consumer to search for the best accommodation deals for my own business and leisure stays. The site searched over 30 accommodation suppliers such as Bookings.com, Octopus, Laterooms and Venere, There’s usually a wide choice of accommodation with some real bargains, so it’s a great resource for travellers. Whenever I’m thinking about a trip, HotelsCombined is my first port of call in my quest to find the best hotel rate.

I noticed HotelsCombined had an affiliate scheme so I decided to sign up. It’s a great asset to have a hotel price comparison site on my travel site as I know that visitors are going to shop around for the best deal, so if I provide that facility on my site, visitors are more likely to stay on my site and perceive my site as a useful resource.

The affiliate tools are extensive, you can make country, city or hotel specific search boxes to add to your site or construct links to any page on the HotelsCombined site. It’s really useful as an affiliate to have such a variety of links to use contextually on your site which I believe lead to a much higher click through and purchase rate than flashing banners.

You can earn commission in two different ways. You can elect to receive a 70% of the average click through fee paid to HotelsCombined by suppliers in their database. which averages 42 cents per click. The other option is to receive commission through your direct relationship with the suppliers in which case you don’t receive any click through fee. This option isn’t yet available for all suppliers. You have to judge which commission model is most profitable for you. It’s easy to change the commission settings you just have to type in your affiliate tracking number, so you can experiment.

The other great thing about HotelsCombined is that their cookie last for one year, which could generate a fair income from frequent travellers.

I’ve contacted HotelsCombined a couple of times with queries and have received helpful replies within hours. It’s really good to have the back up of good customer service.

My only criticism is I’d like there to be the possibility of a direct relationship with all the accommodation suppliers. I’ve requested an affiliate search box which fits in the margin and was told they will look into developing one soon.

So if you’re looking for a great affiliate scheme for a travel related site I’d recommend HotelsCombined.

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I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and start a monthly Europe Travel Blog Carnival on my travel blog. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a topic. I’ve been submitting posts to travel blog carnivals for the last couple of months. I think that blog carnivals are a great idea to help you promote your blog to new readers and to build up links and increase your Technorati ranking.

However I would prefer the carnivals to cover more specific topics. Some carnivals are more like a mere list of links, lacking in coherence. I think this represents a missed opportunity to build up a regular following of readers interested in topic and enhance the reputation and profile of the host blog.

It’s really easy to set up your own blog carnival but you then need to promote the carnival to ensure that you receive submissions. You can write a post about it in your own blog, email contacts and leave messages at Facebook groups and blogging sites.

In the Europe Travel Carnival I aim to collate the best posts with brief summaries in categories such as destinations, accommodation, travel tips, transport and activities. I’d like the Carnival to inform, entertain and inspire anyone who loves travel in Europe.

The first Travel in Europe Blog Carnival will blast into the blogosphere on Monday 3 March 2008 and appear on the first Monday of every month.

I decided to start with a monthly carnival until I test the waters and see how many submissions I receive. Initially I will host the carnival on my own blog but there is the possibility for other related blogs to be hosts. In some ways this is better as it means that regular contributors get links on different blogs. The downside is that I lose editorial control of the carnival, that could also be seen as positive thing to have some different perspectives. I’ll be asking the bloggers who are featured in the Europe Travel Blog Carnival to link back to my site from their posts in order to further promote the Carnival and to build up my links.

Have you or are you going to set up a blog carnival? Let me know how it goes.

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