Colm recently asked me to participate in the So you want to be a travel blogger post on Hostelworld.com’s blog.

I was happy to, and — when looking for inspiration — I realised that relationships are king.

What do you think?

Lately I discovered something that’s helping to drive my creative output goals. It’s simple, it’s elegant, it works for me.

It is 750 words.

750 words is an online text editor that tells you when you’ve hit 750 words and gives you badges if you do it daily. A streak of three days gives you your first badge and, after 17 days of use, I still haven’t managed to hit that.

The hit and miss rate for 750 words

That’s OK. The trick is, when I open up 750 words in the morning, I’m reminded that a big part of my life is writing.

• I write blog posts
• I write emails
• I write books
• I write guest posts
• I write messages to friends
• I write status updates
• I write articles
• I write podcast scripts

At the end of the day, a lot of my life has become about writing, and — in some ways — the more writing I do (or commission) the more money I make. Admittedly there’s more strategic planning and organisation to be done, but at the end of the day, more writing = more income.

750 words is a great way to ensure I’m getting at least 750 words of creative output each day. After writing online, I drop the text into the right blog setup or Scrivener folder, tag it appropriately, and edit the crap out of it. Then it can be sent for editing, scheduled, laid out or just published depending on the type of material it is.

A part of your brain tries to sabotage your life’s work, and I love little tricks like this that can come into your life for a time and force you to do something that creates a good habit.

Do you have any little crutches that make your life a better place? 750 words has become one of mine.

Travel Blog Success relaunches today and it’s better than ever. I’ve known Dave for a few years and was quite impressed with Dave’s material when he launched it back in February 2010. Now, he’s made it awesome value. You can see all the benefits on the site, which I won’t copy here.

There’s a lot of good advice floating around — and there’s free stuff, like here on Make Money Travel Blogging –, but no-one’s put together a course that shows you how to make money and get press trips in year one in quite the same way Travel Blog Success has. Because it’s organised and constantly updated, information is easy to act on.

It’s so good, I’m making Travel Blog Success the main affiliate partner for Make Money Travel Blogging this year.

At just $149 for the professional level, this is undoubtably the most focussed, most valuable resource for travel bloggers that want to go pro. It gives you access to private discussion groups on a forum and on Facebook. It gives you up-to-date reports and information. It gives you access to bloggers like Dave (with a US$36,000 turnover in 2010) and me. Now $36,000 isn’t a lot of money for some people, but it’s more than a starting wage in most of the world — and I know Dave is going to make a pile more in 2011.

We all know I make money if you buy through this affiliate link, but the dirty little secret is that you might too. $150 is a small ad sale, or profits from a month’s sale of a cheap ebook. I believe that you can make that back within 12 months; heck you might even be able to make it back this month if you have an existing blog.

If you’re ready to transition from blogging as a hobby to blogging as a business, invest a little: Join Travel Blog Success today.

For people who book through my affiliate links, I’ll put together a private audio recording sharing what I did right and wrong last year when it came to making money, and what I’m doing to improve this year. (We’re about to hit the end of our first full financial year, and it looks like the company will just turn a profit after paying for operating expenses, a new 13″ MacBook Pro, a new 11″ Macbook Air, a new iPod touch, a new camera, a bunch of hard drives, and two people’s travel through 27 countries.)

Clear your cookies, join TBS through this link, and email your receipt to me at craig@indietravelmedia.com before the end of March 2011.

Maybe I’ve done something really, really dumb when it comes to business. I’m giving up over 100 hours of my time and tons of my creative energies to an event that makes me no money, gives me no backlinks*, and slows down the already behind-schedule projects that are in the pipeline. And this is in the last month of the financial year when targets need to be met.

So, what on earth is going on?

I’m spearheading blog4nz — a massive social media project aimed at helping New Zealand after the Christchurch earthquake. I talk about it here, on national radio in New Zealand:

But blog4nz is good for my business, and it’s great for travel blogging as a whole.

• It gives me a good excuse to get in touch with bloggers I haven’t spoken to in ages.
• It gives me a chance to work with bloggers who I like and respect. And meet new people like that.
• It gives the whole industry a focus point, a chance for more traffic, a reason to rally.
• It gives all independent travel bloggers a chance to be seen and heard by major industry players in Oceania.
• It increases my experience with working with a blogging team and project planning.
• It increases my knowledge of how PR and mainstream media work.
• It will, hopefully, have a bit of “glow” that passes onto the work that Indie Travel Media Ltd does. But I’m not banking on that.

My question to myself: I’m doing this for idealistic reasons, but is there a way to capitalise on the experience I gain?

My question to you: Are you signed up? I’m looking forward to seeing your posts on March 21-23!

Craig and Linda with some Australians, a 2010 famil trip on Kangaroo Island

Make Money Travel Blogging is going to see fresh content, fresh ideas, and a renewed emphasis on talking about the travel blogging industry and community, while helping you meet your goals.

What are your goals for 2011? Mine are currently scrawled on a piece of paper that I found during a long bus trip somewhere between Adelaide and Alice Springs. I need to refocus on core projects. They are:

• Indie Travel Podcast
• Art of Solo Travel
• Art of Couples’ Travel
• Seriously Board
• Make Money Travel Blogging

And a new, secret project that should be launched in Q3 if not before.

For each of these projects I’ve got goals for marketing, money and community. Have you taken the time to set your goals for 2011? Have you broken them into monthly or quarterly goals and come up with some short-cuts or plan Bs if things don’t work out?

If not, grab a napkin and a pen, wipe the beer off it, and jot down some thoughts. You’ll be able to firm them up over the next week.

Oh, and welcome to 2011! I look forward to catching up with you all on the road.

When it comes to figuring out what posts are doing well and how your traffic is growing overall, you’ll probably be using an analytics package. Like many, I favour Google Analytics because of the depth of their analysis and customisation options.

However, there’s no simple way to filter out your own visits, especially if you’re a traveller visiting your site from multiple IP addresses. A snippet of WordPress code to the rescue.

How to stop Google Analytics tracking admin visits in WordPress

This method seems to work best when manually editing your theme. I’ve had problems with the “analytics code” section of Woo Themes and other customisable themes.

Load your footer.php in a text editor and add in the following code:

<?php global $userdata;
get_currentuserinfo();
if ($userdata->user_level < 2) {
?>

<?php
}
?>


The if statement stops WordPress Administrators (i.e. YOU!) from triggering the analytics code. After you re-upload your footer.php file, you’ll find your traffic drops … but down to a true level. This is good: it helps you see where your audience goes, rather than inflating your favourite spots.

With more accurate analytics data, you can make better choices for your audience and make more money travel blogging.

Also see: Travel blogging and Analytics: What analytics are important for your travel blog.

Last week I sent out some great affiliate advice, and a WordPress master trick, to the Art of Solo Travel affiliates. And now I’ll share it with you.

The thing is, every affiliate link you get looks scary. I mean, it doesn’t look like your site, or a normal link. It has question marks and strange combinations of numbers and letters — this puts people off clicking the link, because it takes away from their confidence.

At the end of the day, a click-through from your visitor drops a cookie and if they’re interested in buying, more clicks means more commissions.

So here’s what you do:

1. Go into your WordPress plugins page and click “Add New”.

2. Search for “Redirection” and install the Redirection plugin by John Godley.

3. After you’ve activated it, you’ll find a new option, “Redirection” in your Tools menu.

4. “Add a new Redirection” where the Source is http://yourdomain.com/link/solotravel and the Target is your affiliate link from e-junkie.

5. Test this by visiting http://yourdomain.com/link/solotravel in your browser. You should see it quickly redirect through e-junkie and land on the http://artofsolotravel.com/ page.

This technique allows you to work wonders with your affiliate programmes. You’ll see increased click-throughs on these links and, if you’ve pre-sold the visitor just a little bit, you’ll see an increase in your affiliate sales.

Of course, this doesn’t just work for Art of Solo Travel; you can use it whenever you’re linking to a tricky URL or create your own shortcut links for pages like Facebook, etc.

One of the best parts about this technique is that if you’re changing your affiliate programme, as happens from time to time, you don’t need to change hundreds or thousands of links throughout your site: just change the redirection Target and your new affiliate partner will be linked from all of those existing links.

I like using the /link/ part of the URL so people don’t get shocked by landing on a different site. When you make it look like another part of your site (e.g. http://yoursite.com/solotravel) people are expecting to land on one of your pages. Giving them a surprise can break confidence too.

When we started doing this, we found an immediate uptick in our affiliate commissions – and I think you might too.

Let us know about your affiliate issues and successes in the comments.

I am currently struggle out on design projects: two sites for clients, upgrades on one site and an entire redevelopment of content and design on Indie Travel Podcast. That last one has been in the works for three months now!

The upshot is that I’m thinking a lot about focus. Where do I want people to look? What do I want them to do?

I recently read a report on people’s attention and how it effects their choices. I’m taking some of these things into effect as we work on these sites:

1. Have no more than seven design elements in any menu.

2. Use hotspots for calls to action. What’s most important: subscribers (which type?) or ad clicks (raw numbers or affiliates).

3. Colour plays a large part in where people’s eyes are drawn.

4. Always give people a soft option when doing a hard sell. (‘Buy now or find out more’).

5. Incentives and bonuses motivate people. Use them wisely.

6. Write for humans, code for machines. Make things keyword tight for your machines, but ensure people read them with ease … or even eagerness.

7. Quality and relevance are the keys to long-term growth never sacrifice them for a quick sale.

That’s seven elements … can you use them to improve your blogging profits?

Why does it feel so dirty to write about making money?

I’ve been writing Make Money Travel Blogging for a few months now. It’s a hobby for me; a good chance to talk shop and share what I’m learning. Sure, I’m recommending products with affiliate links, so it’s a business in that sense, but there’s no editorial calendar, no planning, no business plan.

But for some reason, writing about money feels dirty.

Whether I’m talking about how much we made when we changed x for y, how to make money with a travel blog, or reviewing one of the dozen courses and ebooks available, I get these guilty twinges from time to time.

I have no idea why this would be, but there must be some cultural taboo buried in my subconscious on the topic. What do you think? Should we be talking money like this?

Two resources, Affiliate Marketing for Beginners and Why Your Website Sucks have me thinking about what travel blog visitors are like. And what they like. And what they would like. And what I’d like from them.

As we prepare for a massive change in structure on the Indie Travel Podcast website, I’m thinking a lot about organisation: finding places to add value for readers, making information easy to find, and increasing the chance for us to make money. In that order.

These two resources have me thinking about the ideal visitor. Why your website sucks asks you to identify one person that would be a perfect match to your product (the example is a holiday spot) and how you’d communicate with them.

Who is the ideal visitor to your website? Who are you writing to?

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners makes me wonder what would motivate those visitors to click an affiliate link. It’s got me holding in mind that it’s not my job to sell the product … That’s the job of the landing page, whether it’s an ebook or a flight aggregator. It’s just my job to send interested traffic.

I would posit that most travel blog readers are not travelling soon. Our readers love us: our stories, our voice, our destinations, but they might never visit the places we’re talking about. They might never take a one-year career break or even take that week-long trip to the Cinque Terre. They might just want to read stories.

Here’s the thing: If travel blog readers are in the research part of the buying cycle, there’s not much point doing hard sales. There’s little to gain from pushing a product down our reader’s throats. Rather, by giving ideas and inspiration that keep them coming back, they’ll be more likely to take your advice and recommendations. And, of course, you’ll have a healthy dose of affiliate programs behind the products you’d naturally recommend.

But you can’t recommend products to people you don’t know. Will a backpacker bus, self-drive rental or a luxury coach tour best serve my reader? If I don’t know my ideal reader, how can I make ideal recommendations?

If you create no community, no passion, no voice you don’t have much chance of recommending great solutions which fit people’s needs. And you don’t make money travel blogging.

Chime in below. Do you have the perfect affiliate offer but no passionate audience? Are your readers passionate, but always browsing and never buying? Is there nothing you’d feel comfortable recommending to your blog readers?