I often tell people the story of how I started to take my blog seriously back in December 2007 when I was in Hong Kong.
If that was my great blogging awakening then I’m currently undergoing my second great awakening.
The first step in this is creating an editorial calendar. So far everything has been sort of willy-nilly as far as what I post when. By creating a calendar I’ll know exactly what and when something will be going online. I have an idea what I’ll be doing every day of the week now, which is actually a rather nice feeling. I’m starting the posting schedule on Monday. Here is my tentative lineup:
Monday: Links and misc
Tuesday: Gear
Wednesday: Destintation
Thursday: Commentary
Friday: Photography
Saturday: Podcast
Sunday: Other travelers
I have more than enough destination articles to stay busy forever. Gear and photography is something I’ve done in the past, but not extensively. Nonetheless, a lot of people enjoy reading those posts.
Commentary will be almost anything that isn’t about blogging. I might occasionally do an article on it, but no more than maybe once or twice a year.
I’m also going to be opening up the site a bit more allowing some guest posting, but only for particular subjects. I will never take unsolicited guest posts from people just for SEO.
I’m also setting a goal and limit of editing 500 photos a day. Maybe less. I have 5,800 in my queue right now and I think it will be better if I go through them slowly rather than doing them all at once.
Finally, I’m close to finalizing my guest post strategy for August and September. Hopefully, everyone will be sick of seeing me soon 🙂
As far as traffic goals, I’m setting a rather short term goal: I’m going to increase the total number of visits to my site by 50% in August. That seems like an enormous one month jump in traffic, but I think I can do it by just writing and not doing anything special. My organic rate is pretty high and I think I can boost that by just giving people a reason to read something.
I’m also looking to boost subscribers by 2,000 in August. That might be a bit harder, but we’ll see. Half that number would be acceptable.
I’m also looking to feature other travelers on my site ever Sunday. This something I started earlier in the year but never kept up with. I’m not looking to feature travel bloggers per se, but that is obviously a big group of people. If you have an interesting story and would like to be featured, let me know.
8 replies on “The Second Great Awakening”
Tonight I leave for Seattle/Vancouver/Whistler, all for the first time. I’d love to guest post if you would ever be interested–I’ll come back with a lot of great photos (brand new DSLR!), and hopefully great stories.
Daily posting? Bold. I never have that much time to write but getting an editor and creating a posting calender has helped me greatly!
Love to read these posts Gary!
Congrats on setting up an editorial calendar and putting it in writing. Writing consistently has really been a challenge for me. Good luck and keep us updated.
Does your blog software allow “future postings”? I’ve seen other bloggers successfully use such a feature to build up a buffer of pre-written posts for when they won’t have time/access to blog.
I schedule posts all the time. The issue has been finding time to write and do everything. Now that I have some time I am already working ahead.
Very interesting seeing behind the curtain of your upcoming revamp. It all sounds smart. I don’t know if you find my story interesting, but I’d like to be featured on your site.
Hey Gary! I’m having a great awakening right now about my blog too. And I think we are trying to figure out our editorial calendar and like you said, making a reason why people should come to the site everyday. With other blogs I read (that aren’t travel related), they all post 5 days a week and that is the norm, but most travel bloggers don’t. I’m not looking to follow just travel bloggers as I want and hope other types of people are coming to the site, and I think this is one way to break out of the mold. I’m interested to see how your monthly goals go. Good luck.