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Blogging

Travel Blogger Mentoring

I was astonished at the response I got from my comment on this article about why your blog doesn’t have more traffic.

I probably have had over 30 people who in one form or another asked to be part of my offer to mentor bloggers. I didn’t realize the response would be so great from just a comment.

What I’ve decided to do is a series of webcasts where I’ll be talking about blogging and traveling and answering questions. I’m guessing each session will run 60-90 minutes.

I’m not going to be talking in the abstract. I’ll be using my site as an example of things which have worked and things which have failed. I’ll also be mentioning other sites to show examples of what I think are good and bad practices.

There will be no cost to these webcasts. They will be open to anyone and everyone. I will probably be running them on ustream and I will try to record the sessions.

Here is a tentative list of topics I’ll be discussing:

  1. Authority, expertise, and personality. Why the hell should anyone listen to you? Personal positioning and branding.
  2. Working with and in the travel industry.
  3. Expanding your audience outside of the travel blogger echo chamber.
  4. Building a following as opposed to getting traffic.
  5. Monetization: Beyond selling links, Adsense and affiliate marketing.

You’ll notice this isn’t the usual “SEO and make money” approach to blogging you often hear.

I’ll also be working a small number of bloggers on an individual basis. I’m mainly going to be working with people who are somewhat experienced bloggers and writers. I think this is the best use of my time.

I’ll be taking questions during the livestream and you can all leave questions in the comment field of this post. Avoid extremely broad questions like “How do I get traffic?”, because that just tells me you haven’t put any thought into this. If you have to ask a question that broad, I don’t think I can help you.

Also, the reason I’m doing this is because it is in my self interest to improve the state of the online travel media industry. The stronger it gets, the more it will help me. There is a LOT of bad advice floating around out there and I want to do what I can to set people straight.

I’ll be providing details for the time of each session about 48 hour before each one. Because of my travel schedule, I can’t plan too far in advance. I’ll be announcing it here and on Twitter.

I’m planning on doing the first session on Friday, March 11 at 9pm EST.

By Gary

3 dimples. 7 continents. 130 countries.

3 replies on “Travel Blogger Mentoring”

Gary,

I admire you a lot and would really appreciate an opportunity to meet up in LA if you have time. I am starting a little social enterprise focused on matching travelers with locals, because local interaction is what, in my opinion, makes traveling truly unique. You mentioned during the webinar that you will be in LA for 4 days. Would you have time to meet fellow traveler?

Hope to hear from you soon!
Aigerim

Hey Gary, I just crawled out from under by Japan earthquake experience and came across your webcast and mentoring idea from the Backpackingmatt discussion. I have to say it sounds fantastic and if you recorded the first one I’d love to know where it is.

I’d love to benefit from your experience and am always looking for ways to improve the quality of my blog and connections with my readers. I’d also love some ideas on monetization that get away from the text links, affiliate etc etc. This has become a very popular topic on Travel Blog Challenge and I’d love to show a different side to it.

Cheers

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