Keep Your Travel Blog Going With A Weekly Posting Goal

• 16 years ago

Travel blogs often go quiet when an unprepared travel blogger is spending most of their time traveling. As Cuckoo has realized, the more you travel the more difficult it is to keep writing. Blogging requires sitting in front of a computer on a regular basis and traveling removes you from that medium. You can keep your travel blog going with a weekly posting goal that you set for yourself so that your blog lives on, whether or not your in front of a computer everyday.

Set A Weekly Posting Goal

It’s important to be consistent in your travel blogging, otherwise your ‘travel’ blog becomes a ‘trip to Cancun’ blog which teeters on then dies out. If you’re serious about travel blogging, you need to post on a consistent basis.  Set a goal of the number of posts you want to publish every week and then every month. Say for example, you want to post 3 things per week, which means approximately 12 per month. Now take away 15% of that (2 posts) and count those as freebes for when you’re flying, can’t find a good Internet connection, or just want a break.

You can skip 2 posts per month with the goal being to stick to 3 per week. The important thing is, whether it’s 1, 2, or 10 posts – whatever the goal – try to stick with it.

Why Does Having A Weekly Posting Goal Make It Easier?

1. Wastes less time. When you get your topics set in advance you can organize ideas for each post ahead of time. This is the biggest time hang up for most writers, coming up with content for a story or post. The easiest way is to jot down some titles on a few days in a paper or online calendar.
2. Develops your voice. You’ll be able to get a natural feel for the ebb and flow of your posts and notice some being longer, more serious, or upbeat. Being aware of this rhythm helps to generate ideas and improve your writing by mixing up the tone of your posts.
3. It relieves stress. Having your posts planned out, even if it’s just by topic, ahead of time clears your mind for whenever you actually get to sit in front of a computer or bum some free Wi-Fi.
4. Forces you to break it down. As I’ve mentioned before, when you’re too busy traveling to post on your travel blog, instead of taking a long chunk of text and scaring your readers away, break it down into a series. A 5 paragraph post about a single trip to Amsterdam is a 5 post series that can cover an entire week. Better yet, make it a weekly series and now you’ve got, for example, your Fridays for a month covered.
5. Keeps your travel blogging passion alive. I used to be all over the place in my writing, just posting things as they came to mind, which resulted in lots of posts of low quality. Blogging became a chore until my wife convinced me to set a schedule and ultimately a weekly posting goal. If it’s a chore for you to write, it’ll be a bore for people to read.

Although many of you have different definitions of a successful travel blog, the general consensus is that readership is important. In order to keep your friends, family, and others coming back on a regular basis you need to keep your travel blog interesting on a regular basis.

Traveling is one of the best topics to blog about, especially if you travel frequently, not despite of it. It’s a matter of planning and balancing the content and ideas you have to their full potential with a clear mind. A weekly posting goal is an important step in that direction.

[photo by: faerie~dust]