Should the Democrats focus on John McCains many houses?
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Setting up a successful travel blog should be a daunting task. Producing a quality travel blog takes time, writing flair and the ability to connect with our readers. In this article we look at four key principles which make up successful blogging. When it comes to writing a quality, informative and interesting travel blog, it’s almost second nature to try and sound clever. In fact, it’s often easy to spot the new travel blog simply by the lofty language that tends to be used. Unfortunately this style of writing tends to alienate readers straight away. As a rule of thumb, if there is an easier word use that. Keep it simple. Apart from over-using the thesarurus, the next most common mistake for new travel bloggers is the length of the blog post. The most successful bloggers tend to blog frequently but in short spurts. Most blog readers are looking for short, factual and easy-to-read articles on the subject they have searched for. A long blog post tends to looks like a reading assignment and can quickly send the average reader running. Instead of writing a thesis why not split it into two or three medium size posts? That way you have more content, more posts and are more likely to get your readers to return for part two. Keep it short. Travel blogging is a careful balance of opinion and information. When you start travelling blogging it can be easy to see your role as a famous travel writer but this puts the balance out of equation. Unfortunately search engines don’t rate blogs by how fancy the language or ideals are, but rather whether your article is relevant to the searcher. Likewise your readers are going to be looking for information about a topic with a little bit of human opinion put in there for good measure. Keep it informative. Of course when you set up a travel blog, or any blog for that matter it can be easy to see your readers merely as readers. One of the major differences between publishing a magazine article and a blog post is that readers can comment directly on blog posts whereas magazines tend to just select a few random reader’s letters. Read your reader’s comments carefully and encourage them to comment and participate more in your blog. This way you’ll keep your hand on your reader’s pulse and at the same time produce unique and varied content that will make your blog stand out from the crowd. Keep your readers in mind. Setting up a travel blog is a straightforward task. Whether you’re a New York publishing company running a travel guide to America or a Portuguese bed and breakfast producing an Algarve blog the principles are the same. When writing your next post, keep it simple, short, informative and keep your readers in mind and you will be on the track to a better travel blog.
All the hype about the sale of Weblogs Inc. to America Online (AOL) has given rise to the now famous question – How much is your blog worth? In acquiring Weblogs Inc., AOL has provided some concrete metrics to future valuation of blogs. How much will traditional media be willing to pay for a blog? Conversely, how much would you sell your blog for? AOL-Weblogs Inc. Deal – Benchmark for Future Blog Valuation Weblogs Inc was established by Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey in 2003. It is a network of blogs which includes under its wings successful blogs such as Engadget and Autoblog. Jason Calacanis pointed out that Weblogs Inc. earns in excess of $1 million yearly in Google Adsense revenues alone. AOL purchased Weblogs Inc. for a confidential sum assessed at somewhere between $25 – $40 million. After said purchase, Tristan Louis came up with a blog valuation scheme based on the deal. He created a chart of blog value using the value of each inbound link to Weblogs Inc. as the basis. It is common knowledge that blog readers follow links. Search engines also act as users and primarily determine blog quality rankings based on linkage data thus direct and indirect value links are a great proxy for value measurement. In the blogosphere, conversations that nurture connectivity represented by links and indexes like Technorati give a vantage view of the value of a blog. Tristan Louis itemized the publicly available data (list of blogs indexed) at Weblogs Inc. network including the number of inbound links (Technorati blog numbers) per blog divided by the purchase price to determine the value of an inbound link to a blog. At the rumored price of $25 million, the estimated value is $ 564 per link. At $30 million, it is $677.57 per link and $903.42 at an acquisition price of $40 million. Interestingly, the consumer segment chalks up the biggest percentage of linkage. Engadget represents over a third of the overall network traffic. Applying Tristan Louis’s Weblogs Inc, sale, Dave Winer has also sold http://Weblogs.com to Verisign for a rumored price of around $2 million. Blog entrepreneur Nick Denton, founder of Gawker Media has signed a deal with VNU Media to publish Gizmodo (gadget blog) across Europe in six languages. VNU Media is a leading worldwide information and media company which owns ACNielsen, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, among others. With this deal, blog publishing has hit big time. However, the value of a blog is not calculated based solely on links using AOL’s purchase of Weblogs Inc. Jason Calacanis, the man behind Weblogs Inc., disputed using links alone as proxy for the value of the blog network. He reiterated that the acquisition price was based also on the ever reliable revenue, earnings, management and other metrics. Tristan Louis based his valuation scheme on links to a blog but he also acknowledged the significance of technology, talented management team, financial performance and growth. There is direct correlation between links, traffic, revenue and earnings capacity of a blog or blog network but it takes sound management to maximize all these potentials. Value of a Blog – Some Metrics to Consider How much is your blog worth? There is no one standard gauge yet. But one way to measure the value is to look at certain factors to gain a better perspective on how to measure the future value of a blog. Aside from number of links as mentioned earlier, traffic level is a key factor in determining blog value. Highly trafficked blogs definitely have a bigger potential for earning compared with those blogs with few readership. A blog’s success is highly dependent on visitors/readers. However, ascertaining the value of traffic is a thorny issue. Some bloggers value traffic anywhere from $3 to $10 per hit a day. From this data, a blog with 2000 unique visitors (page views) would be worth between $6000 to $20,000. The downside to this valuation approach is that some traffic is more valuable than others. A personal blog might have 1000 unique visitors but more difficult to convert to revenue than a blog with 1000 readers that blogs on the topic of digital cameras. Aside from diverse traffic streams that come from bookmarks, direct links or RSS subscribers will make risk of losing traffic low. Social bookmarking sites are inching their way to becoming prime sources of traffic, with peer referral at times carrying more weight than search results. There are a number of well known bookmarking sites you should link to. Top bookmarking sites include Furl, http://del.icio.us, Diggs, to name a few. By leaving an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed, you can feed you readers’ desire for information. Visitors can get automatic updates whenever you provide new content. Having a fairly good base of bookmarkers and subscribers ensure a steady flow of fans and repeat readers – the all-important traffic. In the blogosphere as in any other field, revenue or earnings is a major focus. a logical approach to blog valuation would be to base its worth upon current and projected earnings, assuming that your blog is earning something to start with. Again, there are varying views on how to use current earnings to measure a blog’s value. Some bloggers opine you should expect six to eight months earnings as your blog value. A blog with a daily income of $150 would be worth between $27,000 – $36,000. Still, others determine a blog’s value as being two years of current earnings. A blog earning $150 a day would be worth $108,000. Again, there is a huge disparity between these methods of assessing value. Having diverse streams in the form of multiple affiliate programs also increases blog revenue. An affiliate program is an advertising model in which a blog owner markets via his blog a given product, on behalf of another company. The blog owner is reimbursed a percentage of all sales sold thru his affiliate link. Reimbursement rates can vary from 1% and upwards. Google Adsense is a prime example. Visitors access blogs throughout the Internet primarily through search engines. If your blog does not have a post appearing in the top ten search engine rankings, the chances of visitors reaching your blog is low. A blog’s presence on relevant search engines is a significant medium for maintaining a blog’s success. Search engine ranking and pages indexed in search engines is critical for generating traffic to a blog. Having your blog among the top results of a search or receiving a high Google PageRank (a system for ranking blog posts) would increase your blog’s overall value. High quality content will always be a key factor for determining a blog’s value. As has been said time and time again – Content is King. Moreover, search engines can only “read” a blog. What attracts a search engine are the words, the content of a blog that explains, informs, shares and educates readers. Good content increases blog value. All these aforementioned objective metrics can be considered in assessing the value of a blog. Added to all these, a talented management team behind a blog, its underlying tools and blog technology in use can further help to estimate the future value of a blog.
So your home business blog is doing pretty well. Hundreds or thousands of visitors flock to your site each day, dedicated readers who return nightly to absorb your profound wisdom on life, foreign policy and the human condition. They’re receiving your priceless insights into the world, and you’re not making a dime. All that hard work isn’t doing anything for you except maybe making you feel good about enlightening the world, but come on! There’s got to be a way to also benefit financially from all your hard work. It’s time for you to hear about affiliate marketing.
Simply put, affiliate marketing is a partnership with other websites. You put a link on your site to their site and get paid for each click, registration and sale. If you use affiliate marketing well, you can generate a high Return on Investment (ROI) with respect to the amount of time and effort invested in your home business blog. Used poorly, however, affiliate marketing can just be a waste of space on your site. Here are some tips on how to use affiliate marketing as more than placeholders. 1. Make the links relevant
Your readers come to your blog for a reason. They come to read about your exploits in the jungles of South America or your forays into the vicious world of international politics. Chances are readers in these areas aren’t going to want to go to a site selling Barney toys. Things they might be interested in are products that will save the jungles of South America or a book about an international diplomat. You don’t have to totally exclude the random Barney toys, because maybe some tree-huggers are into Barney, but make sure that most of your affiliate marketing links are related to your content. Users will be more likely to click them. 2. Imbed affiliate marketing links in your articles
If you just discovered a great charity for saving the jungles of South America that has an affiliate marketing program, include the link in the body of one of your articles. Links on the side can get lost by resized windows or ignored completely as useless advertisements. Anything within an article, however, will be read and considered, because the author of the article, whose opinion the reader respects, feels that the other site is useful or worthwhile. The reader will be more likely to visit the link, and you’ll be more likely to make money. 3. Change the affiliate marketing links
This is especially important if you have a returning user base. If your affiliate marketing links never change, people will not go to them because they will be old news. Always be on the lookout for new affiliate marketing opportunities that you can take advantage of. New links will add mystery and intrigue to your site. Users will be more likely to notice changes than to let the links simply fade into the background. 4. Make text of the affiliate marketing links exciting and inviting
Most people aren’t going to click on a button that says ‘Click here.’ Other than pure curiosity, which admittedly should never be ruled out, there is no incentive for users to follow these directions. “Save the South American Jungle From Certain Slaughter” has a much more enticing ring to it, what with the alliteration and all, and is sure to get your tree hugging audience interested. Along the same lines of interesting and exciting, whenever possible include some kind of picture or banner with the links. A list of blue underlined words on the left hand side of a page is tough to wade through; a banner with a forest fire draws immediate attention, and drawing attention to your links should be the goal of any affiliate marketing plan. 5. Don’t rule out unpaid opportunities
Some affiliate marketing programs are simply an exchange of links, a ‘you link to me, I’ll link to you’ deal. While these don’t directly make you money, they do increase traffic to your site, and increased traffic means more money. While your marketing plan obviously can’t be using all this kind, they can be useful in boosting traffic, and through traffic, revenue.
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Texas
September 6, 2010, 5:51 pm
 Cloudy 29°Creal feel: 33°C
current pressure: 1012 mb
humidity: 71%
wind speed: 6 m/s SE
wind gusts: 6 m/s
sunrise: 7:00
sunset: 19:37
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