Please help me with my new blog - trivialtraveler.com (1 Viewer)

[Joe T]

The response I've gotten on my more recent posts has been really encouraging, thanks in no small part to some of you guys. So I've been doing some research, and it seems I don't have to turn a profit, or even come close, for the first couple of years to claim my blog as a business to the IRS and use it as a tax shelter

That is, as long as I can justify that I'm really working at it as if it is more than a hobby - things like printing business cards, keeping and diligently maintaining a separate bank account, and continually trying to grow the business and improve my brand. I just bought some books on blogging, web developing, and travel writing, and there are a few conferences out there that I think I could really learn a lot from. I know local laws vary, but it's encouraging to know that at the federal level, there is an incentive to go out on my own and try to build a business from the ground up, no matter how profitable it ends up being.

Does anyone here have experience with starting a small business? Am I understanding this correctly? Do you have any additional advice on proving it's legit?

Now a shameless plug - I've been able so far to discuss one new topic each day that I personally think is pretty interesting. So please give it a visit and bump my traffic.

www.trivialtraveler.com

I eventually set up an LLC, but I believe at first all you need is a 'dba' - doing business as. At least that's all I needed in Texas. It cost about $10 if I recall at the County Court House.

By the way, I like the site. It looks good. In my experience, content is 95% of what matters. Spend your time focusing on great content (which you are) and no time on Yoast and other SEO b.s.

 

[Honus]

Have you been to all the places you talk about or is it a mix of ones you've visited and ones you just know about?

When you do visit you may want to consider doing a video blog about the places you are visiting.

It's supposed to be just places I've been to, the lone exception so far is Point Roberts. Haven't been there, but I have plenty to draw on from places I have been so I ought to be able to keep coming up with ideas. I've got a list of about 50 places that would make good articles, but I'm always looking for more. I intend to do plenty of traveling to see things I've never seen before thus generating further inspiration.Most of the pictures I post are ones I snapped myself. I'm trying not to get sued by anybody.

 

[Joe T]

Are you using any seo optimization tools like Youst?

I'm pretty sure these don't work.

I may want to retract this. Early results for this are pretty good.

I have two sites about the same size and traffic and testing it on one of these. All I did was load Wordpress SEO by Yoast and it seems to be having an impact. I haven't even optimized any individual pages yet.

Interesting...

 

[Honus]

Are you using any seo optimization tools like Youst?

I'm pretty sure these don't work.

I may want to retract this. Early results for this are pretty good.

I have two sites about the same size and traffic and testing it on one of these. All I did was load Wordpress SEO by Yoast and it seems to be having an impact. I haven't even optimized any individual pages yet.

Interesting...

I set up Yoast and started adding pages to Stumbleupon last week. It all seems to be helping a little, but it's really too soon to tell. Let me know how your experiment goes.

 

[Tick]

I think you should write about interesting stories concerning how state lines were negotiated and drawn, or fought over, for that matter.

Yup, that's one of the themes I'd like to explore, like the PA / DE border, which is the only round surveyed border in the country. There's a story there, and if I can make it interesting enough, I aim to tell it.

And Abraham, I went ahead and installed Yoast to enhance my SEO per your suggestion. It has some pretty great reviews, so I'm encouraged. Very helpful tip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wedge_%28border%29 That one?

 

[Tick]

Alaska and Hawaii are in the US. Alaska doesn't have counties, but you should show the boroughs on your county map.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The Galleanists - well that's an interesting story.

 

[Honus]

I'm not sure that stumbleupon is making a difference. Yoast maybe, I don't have much traffic from search engines either though. It's been three weeks, and I've posted content nearly every day - I think it's pretty good stuff, but I'm really getting frustrated. Somewhere, I read that you need to give something like this six months before you can definitively tell that you suck at it. I think I've got enough material for that, so maybe I just really need to be patient.

So far, Facebook and Twitter are doing all the heavy lifting. I don't know a thing about tumblr or digg or Pinterest or any of the other ones. If anyone has further suggestions on how to boost traffic aside from constantly adding good content, I'm all ears.

 

[Honus]

Well, trivialtraveler.com has been up and running for a month now. I'm adding new posts almost every day, trying to put good content out there so I can grow some organic traffic. I've got 27 entries now, covering fourteen states.

If you took a look before and found it at least mildly interesting, maybe you can head over and check out the new look. Suggestions are always welcome, especially any ideas for future trips so I can have more to write about. I've already written on a few topics suggested here and have more to come.

Feel free to bash me too if you think it sucks. Any feedback at all is helpful. Thanks again for all the encouragement.

 

[drummer]

Your site is terrific man. Well done. Thanks a lot for it.

 

[Joe T]

Hmmm, I'm not sure I like the upgrade. Might be personal preference, but I don't like a lot of borders and frankly I don't see a lot of sites with borders so heavily used.

Yesterday, I was looking at these. http://fathomaway.com/slideshow/fathom-2014-best-travel-blogs-and-websites/1/

They might give you some ideas. There are some common threads there on what they do right. Some of those sites have huge amounts of traffic and the site owners are obviously doing the work full time.

I still think you have a good idea for your site. But there is no doubt it takes time & effort to get to the level of any of the sites in the above link.

 

[Joe T]

http://www.adventure-journal.com/

Here's a good example of what you should shoot for one day. Cool site. Similar to yours... but obviously much more seasoned. Like I said, it just takes time.

 

[Otis]

I agree I'm still not crazy about the presentation and layout. The content is awesome but you could make it look a lot better.

 

[Honus]

Wow. Yeah, those do look pretty sweet. I absolutely lack the creativity to come up with a layout of that caliber, but it's something to shoot for. I do have a small budget I can work with, so maybe I can find a designer to do some mock ups and take it from there. I've just been trying to roll out content.

 

[Tick]

I'm not sure that stumbleupon is making a difference. Yoast maybe, I don't have much traffic from search engines either though. It's been three weeks, and I've posted content nearly every day - I think it's pretty good stuff, but I'm really getting frustrated. Somewhere, I read that you need to give something like this six months before you can definitively tell that you suck at it. I think I've got enough material for that, so maybe I just really need to be patient.

So far, Facebook and Twitter are doing all the heavy lifting. I don't know a thing about tumblr or digg or Pinterest or any of the other ones. If anyone has further suggestions on how to boost traffic aside from constantly adding good content, I'm all ears.

I've pretty much shifted to Twitter to remind me to check websites. I follow a few columnists and websites I like, and when they put up new content, they tweet a link. I find that I never ever go to Grantland.com to see what's here, but I follow probably 50% of their links from Twitter.

If you set up a Twitter account for this, post it here and I'll follow it to remind me to read your latest entries.

 

[Joe T]

Can we get an update on how this is going?

 

[shader]

Well, trivialtraveler.com has been up and running for a month now. I'm adding new posts almost every day, trying to put good content out there so I can grow some organic traffic. I've got 27 entries now, covering fourteen states.

If you took a look before and found it at least mildly interesting, maybe you can head over and check out the new look. Suggestions are always welcome, especially any ideas for future trips so I can have more to write about. I've already written on a few topics suggested here and have more to come.

Feel free to bash me too if you think it sucks. Any feedback at all is helpful. Thanks again for all the encouragement.

Honus, I started a blog a year and a half ago. I currently make about 10-20 bucks a day and the plan to monetize hasn't even started yet. I think I could help you out a bit.

First of all, the whole nature of your blog seems to be obscure/cool places, so doing well in the google search engines is probably not going to be your primary source of traffic. BUT, you still want to optimize each page.

For instance, no one is going to type into google "Got Fries, or things to do in Boise when you are bored".

But you COULD change the URL and web title to a more SEO friendly title. For instance, your link to that page could be the same as it is now on the front page.

But the TITLE of the page could be Things to Do in Boise. The url could be www.trivialtraveler.com/things-to-do-in-boise

(I'd also get the date out of your URL as it serves no purpose, and makes the url longer, which isn't a positive thing for SEO.

But the bulk of your traffic should be from pinterest, twitter, facebook. YOu need to create profiles on there, start sharing your info, start following people with similar interests and building a social media following. You can start getting a good bit of traffic from there.

Your best hope is a word of mouth blog that people save and continually follow.

When you are established (say 90 days old or so), and you have 300-500 visitors a day, you can start putting in google adsense. Doing it now would be a waste because you probably don't have enough visitors to do anything more than earn .25 cents a week.

Also, make your pictures bigger. They seem a bit small. Visually larger pictures will draw more people in.

Just a few random thoughts, hope they help.

 

[(HULK)]

 

[Honus]

Next week, I will be driving up to New England as part of my ongoing attempt to visit every county in the USA, and I need some ideas for sights to see that would make good blog topics - places that are somewhat off the radar, but are still historically or culturally relevant enough to be interesting. Stuff that lends itself to fun trivia.

I'm going to try to hit every county in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, plus the Adirondacks if I have the time, but really, any ideas for stops between there and PA would be helpful.

For anyone interested in seeing how the site is coming along, it's www.trivialtraveler.com

Thanks all.

 

[Don Quixote]

To mention a few places in those spots that I've been... I think you did center of the country, in Maine, you could do easternmost--West Quoddy Lighthouse in Lubec. It's also pretty close to FDR's summer home on Campobello Island in Canada.

In Vermont, I've been to Chester Arthur's birthplace. There is some dispute as to whether he was born in Vermont or Canada, and the site gets into that.

 

[rascal]

Save the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle and Southeastern Colorado areas for last. You may not make it to the end if you go before.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I'm sure most of you won't recognize me, I'm far from a prolific poster here. But I have been around for several years now, and I do try to weigh in if I have a strong enough opinion about the topic of the day. I know what an awesome community this place is and I love the way we have a place to spend our free time in a civil society where healthy discussion is encouraged and we all have a voice. It reaffirms my faith in humanity.

So here's the deal, I've always been a bit of a know-it-all, kind of like Cliff Clavin, and in my former life, I was a cartographer, so it goes without saying that I love maps and geography in general. I even maintain a map of all the counties in the U.S. I've been to colored in. 1284 out of 3141, fwiw.

So I got the idea to start a blog - The Trivial Traveler (www.trivialtraveler.com) where I take time each day to discuss some point of interest or geographic oddity that is well off the beaten path. These are things that I personally find interesting as they lend themselves to trivia, or fun facts, if you will.

I'm trying to get this thing off the ground, both for my own enjoyment, and the distant dream that it might one day be a source of income. So I would really appreciate it if any of you here could take a moment of your time and take a look. If you like what you see, maybe it could be worth a bookmark. If not, no problem at all. Certainly any feedback, be it constructive or destructive is welcome and appreciated.

Finally, as I'd like to include topics covering the entire US, and I'm only really informed about a few regions, I'd love it if anyone had ideas for content - topics I could research and cover in future installments. If you've got any ideas, just reply to this thread, shoot me a PM, or contact me through the blog. Oh, and I should also note that I know jack squat about blogging, web publishing, even twitter, so if anyone has any advice on how not to look like an idiot, please tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks folks. I hope you like it.

I know a guy that started a travel blog.... and he's been living in Paris for years now. He basically uses it to generate tours, which is how he largely makes his living.

http://francerevisited.com/

The layout may help.