Starting a travel blog – all you need to know
The prospect of online marketing and meeting the requirements of Google’s continuously updated algorithms may seem daunting but it is one of the easiest ways to rank within Google. The most effective way to do this is with a blog that is regularly updated with fresh, relevant content.
Often people will mistakenly believe that they can write a few posts and then sit back and be part of the magic that happens online. This is most definitely not the case. An RSS feed is not enough to keep Google happy – yes, they are the “overlords” of the internet and we do need to keep them happy to be rewarded with good rankings – and they want continuous original content from you.
Just keep the following in mind before publishing your blog:
Don’t disappear or your clients will too
1-3 blog posts a week really is manageable. If you want to post more often, then just keep the content relevant and diverse, such as a long article, a gallery of images and then a shorter ‘listicle’ piece for example. If you post less than weekly, your clients won’t be talking about you nearly as often as you need them to in order to remain in their thoughts and create new business.
Less is more, most of the time
400 – 500 words is an acceptable length of a good travel blog post. Any more than that and online readers will lose concentration. This does however, depend on whether the writing is effectively grabbing the attention of your target market. If your travel blog is about a controversial issue or encompasses an in-depth review then a longer blog post may be better. Still not sure? This post which should help you decide your post length.
Stay focussed
Choose a theme and stick to it for at least a couple of months before moving on to the next theme. This makes a blog much easier to write as it targets a specific readership and maintains a comfortable level of consistency. If your blog is about student travel and you start posting articles about property, you will lose credibility with your existing followers and with Google too.
Use visual literacy
The travel industry is spoilt for choice when it comes to the use of images to grab people’s attention. Images add a colourful element to writing, which readers love. If you link to your blog on Facebook using an enticing image to get people to click through, then make sure that the person who has clicked on your link is not disappointed by seeing only reams of text on your blog. Free images are available on platforms like Flickr under the Creative Commons license, but if you’re in the travel industry, consider using some of your own pictures for your travel blog.
I took this picture 🙂
No man (or blog post) is an island!
If a place or song for example, is not the topic of your blog but still gets a mention, then remember to link to relevant outside sources. Wikipedia is a great source to link to for facts on people and places and YouTube is great for music, adverts or talks.
Linking to other relevant blog posts and pages within your own site is also acceptable and even necessary to lead people to archived posts, but should not be done too regularly. Link to other peoples travel blogs is also good for SEO and you can gain followers by getting someone well-known in the industry to write a guest blog post.