Tips for bloggers Archive

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Taking Your Blog to the Next Level

It’s been a while since Travel Blog Exchange ‘11 in Vancouver this past June so I’m a bit late on the guest-post writing bandwagon. However, I know many TravelBlogs readers will be interested in some of the take-away items from the event. This post is mainly for those wanting to take their blog to the next level – be it audience, revenue, marketing, tech and so forth. You might have been blogging for a while and are now considering ways to monetise. Or you might want to promote your freelance writing abilities through your blog. It could be that you just want to focus on better content. So, without further ado, here are some tips straight from some of the TBEX speakers.

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Why Are They All Talking At Me? (The TBEX10 Experience – Day Two)

Morning Talk – Travel Porn: If that isn’t a title to start off a morning, not much else is… Gary Arndt (Everything-Everywhere) captivated the audience because he has presence, speaks dynamically and cuts to the chase. The true topic dealt with photography – the use of photos to increase traffic to your site. (It isn’t all about video – pictures have purpose.) Ultimately, the use of photographs allows your reader to travel to places they may never experience for themselves. It was equated to reading National Geographic: you buy it for the images first, the stories (behind those images) second.

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Why Are They All Talking At Me? (The TBEX10 Experience – Day One)

Pre-Conference Jitters: The end of June (June 26th & 27th, to be exact) had me quaking in my proverbial boots for a few weeks prior – mentally trying to digest what a conference dedicated to bloggers would actually entail. Though an editor and a blogger, I had not attended a function such as this in the past. I was filled with excitement and trepidation simultaneously. Listening to Hayes Carll’s “I Got A Gig” during the flight to NYC washed away all of the anxiety. I had a gig: Look, Listen & Learn. Period. I looked, I listened and I learned.

How to Blog from a Cyber Café

For a large portion of my travels I did not have a laptop. When it came to blogging about my travels this brought up a heap of new problems. I had no choice but to use public computers, some located in pretty dodgy cyber cafés. Others located in shut up tight ultra modern machines that don’t let you do anything but surf. Here are a few tips and tricks I used when travel blogging from cyber cafés.

My Travel Blog Saved My Life

I’ve never been very good at keeping in touch. I expect my Facebook status to skip hand in hand with my Twitter account around the fires of my Flickr pages and the result be that everyone knows just enough. When my laptop allows Skype into its inner quarters, I begin my conversations with “so sorry I haven’t been in touch…” and The Other End routinely console me. My Myspace is slumped in a shiver and a dozen ‘RE: Where are you?’ lie beneath dust and disgrace in any one my three spam-infested inbox’s. Postcards? I’ve sent a couple. Text messages? Reserved for belated birthdays.

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