Taking off Travel blog

This is Part 2 of Seven Steps to Setting Up A Successful Travel Blog. If you missed it, here’s Part 1.

4. Keywords

Keywords are not the be-all and end-all of good content. In fact, over-emphasis on keywords can make your posts unreadable. However, using the right keywords will help people to find your posts. They are also a useful source of post ideas. Use a free online tools such as the Google Keyword Tool to find keywords that people are searching for in your niche and use these to help you generate content for your new blog. Use keywords in the title, first paragraph and near the end, and maybe a couple of times in the body, but make sure it’s useful and readable rather than getting hung up on keyword numbers.

5. Design

When you buy products in the supermarket, you’re attracted to the ones that are nicely packaged and appeal to the eye. It’s the same with a blog. Sure, you could keep the default theme, but why would you want your blog to look like thousands of others? There are hundreds of different themes for your blog, many of them free, which will give your blog a visual edge. If you’re stuck for ideas, think about the sites that you find most appealing in your niche and see what theme they are using. Many themes allow you to change colors and fonts so that you can achieve a completely different look. If you’re looking at your blog as a long term investment, you can also consider a premium or custom theme that will include exactly the functionality you need.

6. Sharing

When you set up your first blog, you know your friends and family, plus any contacts you’ve made online will visit it at least once. You need to make it easy for them to follow your updates and to share them with others. That means making email subscriptions available, having a prominent RSS feed button and including social sharing buttons with all your posts. Sometimes you will be able to do this with a plugin, while at other times you will need to edit some code. Whichever method you choose, buttons for Twitter and Facebook are a must, and you should also consider Google +1 or a catch all button service such as Add to Any.

7. Conversation

Blog conversation is a two-way street. Attract commenters to your blog by including CommentLuv (which links to commenters’ previous posts) or a Top Commentators plugin. And share the love by visiting blogs in your niche and leaving relevant, useful comments. The blog owner will check your blog out and you may make a new online relationship.

These seven steps will give your new travel blog the best chance of success? And if you’re already an experienced travel blogger, what other tips for success would you add?

(Photo: salendron)

So you’ve decided to set up a travel blog – congratulations! But before you get carried away with the excitement of your first online venture, there are a few things you should think about before you start.

1. Free Site or Self-Hosted?

It’s never been easier to start up a blog. With Blogger and WordPress.com, as well as other free blogging platforms, you can go to a free site and be up and running in a few minutes. I’ll come to the question of which platform to choose in a minute, but first, here’s why I think it’s best to go self hosted. Think about how you feel when you go to a major site and it doesn’t have its own domain name – instant credibility loss. Do you want that for your new travel blog? I didn’t think so. Spend the money it will take to get a domain name and hosting – it will be well worth it. The exception? If you’re not really committed to the idea, then a free site can make a good playground, but make the move to a self-hosted site once you’re sure that you will stick with it.

2. Which Platform?

Blogger, WordPress or TypePad – there are so many options out there that it’s difficult to know which one to choose. I’ve used all three and definitely have a WordPress bias. WordPress is available with most web hosts, is easy to customize via themes and plugins and since it’s one of the most popular blogging platforms, many people are already familiar with it. And if something should go wrong, you’ll be able to get plenty of help from the many experts out there. Of course, that also applies to the other platforms, but I’ve found WordPress the easiest blogging platform to use and millions of people agree with me.

3. Finding a Niche

Travel is a crowded niche, so you will want to identify an area that makes you stand out from the crowd. What are you bringing to the table that’s different from what’s already out there? Is there something in your background, experience or current life that gives you a competitive edge – or just makes you interesting? And what are you passionate about? Is there something that inspires you enough so that you will be able to keep blogging about it for years? If you can’t answer these questions, think about whether having a travel blog is the right move for you. If you’ve ever read a blog post and thought, I’d do this differently and I’ve got tons of ideas, then maybe you’re onto a good thing.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of Seven Steps to Setting Up A Successful Travel Blog. (Photo: salendron)

It’s time for another edition of Friday Five, highlighting some of the best travel posts we’ve seen recently. Here are this week’s picks:

First, from Anil Polat at FoxNomad, a mind-bending series of three posts called Combating 2.5 Million Years Of Evolution – How To Prevent Your Paleolithic Brain From Scaring You Out Of Travel: Part 1. (Here are Part 2 and Part 3). Why mind-bending? Because the series goes inside your brain to see what’s really holding you back . My favorite bit was about cognitive dissonance, two words you don’t often see in blog posts, and the whole series is worth a read.

Second, it’s another series, from the Ciao Bambino blog, which shows what you can do in 72 Hours in London with Kids. (Here are part 2 and part 3). I know London pretty well, but I’ve not explored it from the viewpoint of what would interest a child, so this was a fascinating exploration, combining sightseeing with just walking around and happening upon interesting experiences.

Third up is Mike CJ, who explores Lanzarote in a wheelchair, coming to some uncomfortable conclusions about how accessibility laws are applied:

Everybody is doing the right thing, from finding a way to help people get onto the beach, to providing great toilets for them to use. But it’s the attention to detail that lets these things down.

Fourth, on Woman Seeks World, an article on 6 Ways To Stay Motivated To Achieve Your Location Independent Goals. This article advocates good planning, inspiration and celebrating successes, which seems a great recipe to me.

Fifth and last, Travel Online Partners examines current travel trends after a visit to the US Travel Association’s International Pow-wow. This article outlines some food trends and highlights some unusual travel experiences – you’ll be surprised at what some people are doing.

Happy reading!

If you’ve been following Park Ride Fly USA on Facebook or Twitter, then you’ve probably already heard that we’ve kicked off our new focus on guest posting on travel sites with a post on BestTravelWebsites.com. It’s all about the thorny issue of packing and it’s called: 8 Online Lists to Help You Get Packing Under Control. In the post I review some online packing list tools (yes, I have tried them all) and decide which is the best option. Head over to Best Travel Websites and check out the post.

You’ll have noticed some changes on the blog recently – shorter, more newsy, more frequent posts. This is all part of some behind the scenes geeky goodness going on at Park Ride Fly USA.  We’ll still be rounding up the interesting travel articles we find online, though, in an occasional feature called the Friday Five. Here’s the first collection:

1. Threats to Traveling Data – New York Times – an article on the increasing security threats caused by the rise in working from mobile devices.

“Laptops and mobile devices have numerous vulnerabilities, starting with loss and theft. McAfee, a security technology company, also noted, in a report last month, a 46 percent increase in the amount of malware created for mobile devices from 2009 to 2010.”

2. Traveling Disaster: 6 Unfortunate Mishaps And How to Deal with Them – Sharing Travel Experiences – an article on handling the things that go wrong when you travel.

3. How to Travel on a Third-World Passport – on Matador Network – the title says it all.

“There are ways to make travel possible on highly complicated passports — the main trick lies in being as prepared as possible and getting your paperwork in order.”

4. Six Essentials for Airline Travel Survival – on The Street – which ones do you agree with?

5. America for Beginners – I liked the concept of this blog:

“Anna blogs about her everyday observations. Her ultimate goal is to bring American culture closer to new immigrants.”

Happy reading, and enjoy your weekend!