Episode 33Oct 21, 2022· 42:41
Replay - Chatting About Travel Blogging with Maria Stefanopoulos of Ingenious Travel
About this episode
In this episode, I'm chatting with Maria Stefanopoulos of Ingenious Travel about all things travel blogging!
https://www.ingenioustravel.com/
More Show Notes From This Episode:
What’s up my bloggy friends! I'm slowly updating the show notes for this and every episode of The Bloggy Friends Show. My new home base for all things Bloggy Friends can be found here: https://www.famousashleygrant.com/podcast/
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Full transcript
00:00
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends show.
00:15
What's up my bloggy friends?
00:16
Famous Ashley Grant here and today I am bringing you an interview with Maria of Ingenious Travel.
00:22
We are jamming on why your business needs a blog.
00:26
There's a lot of good truth bombs in this one and you're going to want to take some
00:28
notes so let's dive in.
00:30
Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do and also state your name.
00:35
Who are you?
00:38
Maria Stephanopoulos with Ingenious Travel.
00:41
I run a full service travel agency where we help you experience the world in a way no
00:46
textbooks, smartphone or tablet can so that you are fully immersed in the food, magic
00:51
and culture of the destination you are visiting.
00:55
We focus on a lot of culinary and culture because well I'm Greek and I grew up that
01:00
way.
01:01
Food has always been a part of the culture and I'm also a die hard sports fan so my
01:07
number one sport is hockey but I watch pretty much any sport.
01:13
That's fantastic.
01:16
The reason that I wanted to bring you on is you have not just a travel business but you
01:20
actually have a travel blog.
01:22
Tell me a little bit about when you started blogging for your business and why you started
01:27
blogging for your business.
01:29
Well, so I've had my business since 2008 and I've been blogging almost as long as I've
01:37
had my business.
01:40
The reason for it is when I started my business blog was all the rage.
01:45
I mean there was social media but it's nowhere near the extent of what it is now and one
01:50
of the only ways to show credibility was that you were talking about what you did and that
01:56
for me was through blogging and people would comment on a blog.
02:01
I don't get that quite as much anymore because of social media but that's how I would find
02:06
out that people were reading the blog and that I was resonating with my audience based
02:12
on what it was that you were putting out.
02:17
I think it really made a difference especially at the beginning and it still does actually
02:20
today.
02:21
Okay, and before we actually started recording this you had told me something about one of
02:26
the blog posts that was on your blog actually led to you getting a client.
02:30
Can you talk a little bit about that?
02:32
So it was a blog post that was written over a year ago and it was about the difference
02:38
between escorted, hosted, and independent tours.
02:45
I live in the Tampa area and I got a call from a lady in Elk Creek, New Mexico wanting
02:50
to put together a 40 plus person trip over Christmas for this year and you know with
02:55
her being in Elk Creek, my first question to her was how'd you find me?
03:00
And she's like well we were looking to do a group trip and I found your article on the
03:05
different kind of tours and thought you would be a good fit for us.
03:10
So that is currently in the works.
03:13
That's fantastic.
03:14
So she just found you because of something that you had on your blog.
03:18
Yes.
03:19
I love that.
03:20
I love that.
03:21
And like I said it was over a year ago and it's an article that you know you put out
03:26
so many blogs you don't think about all the blogs you have out there and so when somebody
03:30
references that they found you because of something that you put out for the public
03:35
it's refreshing to know number one that your information is being seen and then that the
03:40
fact that it is turning into there's a conversion from it where now we're working together and
03:44
putting that trip together that's like okay I was doing something right.
03:49
I'm going to keep doing it you know because I don't know what other business I'm going
03:52
to get from these articles moving forward.
03:55
I love that.
03:56
So now how often do you post onto your blog?
03:59
Bi-weekly.
04:00
Bi-weekly.
04:01
Yes.
04:02
Oh that's fantastic.
04:03
Okay.
04:04
I keep being told that I should be doing it weekly.
04:08
My readers get enough information they don't want it weekly.
04:11
It was one of the things I did check with them on.
04:14
Could I do it within the last year?
04:18
Really because there was a lot more time on our hands because people weren't traveling.
04:24
I mean don't get me wrong like a lot of other travel agents or advisors spent a lot of time
04:29
on the phone canceling trips and trying to rebook our clients but at the same time I
04:35
could have moved it to a weekly blog but it would not have been sustainable now that travel
04:39
was being backed up again.
04:41
Okay.
04:42
Now you said you actually checked in with your readers to see if they wanted it to be
04:46
weekly.
04:47
What about that?
04:50
So basically I just asked in one of my newsletters because I use my newsletter or my blog in
04:58
my newsletter as my featured article and it links back to my website.
05:03
In the introduction area I talk a little bit about myself and stuff that's going on in
05:06
the news, what I've been doing that's travel based and you guys have been with me for quite
05:12
a while now.
05:14
I have a little survey, I'm just kind of doing a temperature check of where they're standing
05:18
on everything and with it were the types of destinations and the different content they
05:23
were looking for and when I asked how often I alert the bi-weekly radio dial was checked
05:31
the most.
05:32
I love that you were saying that you use your blog in your newsletter because I'm a huge
05:36
fan of repurposing content.
05:39
I'm like addicted to it.
05:40
I talk about it all the time.
05:41
So now do you use your blog to repurpose into anything else?
05:47
Not like I should.
05:48
Okay, okay.
05:51
I'm actually in the process of redoing my website and so I will be doing a little bit
05:56
more of that with the new website because with definitely linking it to other posts
06:03
that were written about particular destinations or whatever the topic is in particular along
06:08
with for itinerary use and then using those to break them down a little bit more to use
06:13
for social media snippets.
06:16
Okay, I love that.
06:17
I've been seeing a lot of people that are like what was his name?
06:21
I can't remember his name but there's a gentleman that has been doing a lot of videos about
06:26
how to take a single blog post and turn it into seven pieces of content and then there
06:30
are other marketers that talk about the same thing and that's something that kind of fascinates
06:33
me and I like how you can have one blog post and then you turn it into not only social
06:38
media but then you turn it into a like YouTube video and then you add some more audio and
06:43
you turn it into a podcast and then you turn it into other stuff and I just I think that
06:49
kind of stuff is kind of awesome because you do the work once and then you get multiple
06:53
things out of it and so big fan of repurposing.
06:57
Yeah, I actually need to get a little bit more creative with what I do.
07:01
However, again with travel picking up not something that I can do myself.
07:06
Time wise not enough hours in the day.
07:09
I definitely can relate anyway.
07:11
So you said that you have been in business since 2008.
07:14
Yes.
07:15
How has I know you already said that you don't get as many commenters as you did because
07:20
social media has become more the thing but how do you think blogging has changed since
07:24
you began versus where you are now?
07:27
Well, that's a good question.
07:29
With the way Google is, they're always they're crawlers are looking for new content all the
07:36
time.
07:37
So you have to have a blog so that you stay relevant and I know for me a challenge has
07:43
been making sure that I'm coming up with keywords that are being searched for which that was
07:50
important before but it is more so now because there are more blogs out there.
07:54
There's more competition in that respect and if you don't use the right keywords, you're
07:59
not found.
08:00
You might be found, you know, it's not that you're never found but it may not be for what
08:07
you're thinking you would be found for.
08:11
Again Google with their web crawlers, you have to post content on the website.
08:16
They're looking at a lot of you know, you can't put junk up.
08:20
Not say you put junk up before but it's more important now again because of the competition.
08:25
Would you say that I mean because you did make a really good point, there's a lot of
08:29
travel blogs out there.
08:30
Is there even a point in trying to jump in and blog at this point or have we missed the
08:36
boat?
08:37
That's a good question.
08:38
I would say yes for your if you're in niche especially in travel.
08:42
Yes, definitely because you're going to be searched for by certain whatever your niche
08:49
is like with me I do culinary, I do sports travel, I do soft adventure.
08:53
Those are my three areas that I have to stay cognizant of when putting any information
08:59
out there.
09:00
But then I also have to step back and think if I'm looking for this topic, what words
09:05
am I using?
09:07
Whereas before you didn't have as much competition so your keywords could be a little bit broader
09:14
and you could still come out because you had one at least one of the keywords they were
09:18
looking for if not two or three at that time.
09:21
Now if you're too broad you may not pop up at all in their search even though you could
09:26
be a very good fit for them.
09:28
So you think that as long as you are niched you can still succeed with blogging like in
09:33
your business but you have to be a lot more cognizant about the keywords you're using.
09:38
Yes, thank you for saying that so much more succinctly than I did.
09:41
That's how I do.
09:47
Anyway so now in travel there's a lot that could be written about.
09:54
How do you go about like I know you said that you sell different types of travel but how
09:58
do you decide okay even though this could be relevant to this niche I'm not going to
10:04
use it or I'm going to use it.
10:05
How do you choose what content you're actually going to post?
10:09
Walk me through your specific process.
10:12
Okay so some of my clients are river cruise clients and so I don't necessarily want to
10:20
call out one supplier in particular because there are only so many rivers and you have
10:25
multiple vendors that handle those rivers.
10:27
However if there's a theme so let's take wine for instance because it falls within my culinary
10:33
niche I'm going to look to see where those stops are which ports they go into what's
10:39
in that area and then I will highlight a cruise per se based on the destinations that they're
10:47
stopping at what you can do there what you can see there what you can experience by taking
10:50
a Danube river cruise and again not saying vendor specific but if I'm taking this this
10:57
is what I can do there.
10:59
You know and I think too it's also important to highlight how there are things that somebody
11:05
may a company may be offering just kind of off the shelf kind of an experience where
11:11
myself is a travel advisor can work with somebody to put together a very special experience
11:16
they can't get otherwise and talk about that to help set me apart from just anybody who
11:22
sells a river cruise.
11:24
So if something's themed like I mentioned with wine I can work with a particular winery
11:31
so that we're doing a wine tasting with the actual vineyard owner or if there is a sommelier
11:38
there because there's also a restaurant attached we can do something private and special that
11:42
they may not their general public can't necessarily get.
11:48
What's really great about what you just said is that as you're sharing this you're truly
11:53
setting yourself up as the subject matter expert in what you're discussing and so I
11:58
like that when you're when you're blogging about travel you're showing your public hey
12:04
I know my stuff I know exactly what I'm talking about and this is why you should book with
12:08
me because not only do I know it I'm showing you that I know it and I'm giving you like
12:15
an open an open seat at my table to learn everything you want to know about where you're
12:19
possibly gonna go visit and hey maybe they're gonna look at it and they're gonna see it
12:24
and they're gonna go you know I wasn't really thinking about a river cruise but after reading
12:28
this oh my god I need a river cruise in my life.
12:31
Yeah or even um to set something up well you know I really don't like the water but can
12:37
I do this on land?
12:38
Yes.
12:39
And then how do you set up doing that on land?
12:41
So I kind of provide a framework not telling you in the blog how you put it all together
12:46
just giving you the inspiration of what you can see do and experience but then that also
12:51
gives us the option of well even though the rivers aren't very deep and the way the river
12:55
boats the cruise ships are designed you don't need a lot of water you don't want to take
13:00
that chance of getting seasick and ruin your whole vacation.
13:03
Great let's kind of mimic that into a land itinerary you can decide if you want to go
13:07
independently you want to you can decide if you want to go with some of your close friends
13:11
and do a small group or maybe you know your friends with a sommelier yourself and you
13:16
want to bring the sommelier along and have them do a big wine trip again just using wine
13:21
as an example but it's something that can be done in a multitude of different ways.
13:28
So what do you say to the travel agent who is just starting their business and they kind
13:32
of want to start a blog but they don't really know if they should what would you say to
13:36
them if they were like I'm not going to do that I'm just going to focus on Instagram?
13:40
Well with a blog depending on the platform that your website set up on as well because
13:45
that's going to be an important factor you own your blog content.
13:50
Instagram can be taken away at the blink of an eye.
13:53
I had my Instagram site hacked about a year and a half ago where I was getting people
13:59
let they were letting me know hey you know you got porn on your Instagram site.
14:04
I couldn't reach anybody at Instagram I kept trying to access it through because I had
14:09
my business page from Facebook connected and since Facebook owns Instagram I was trying
14:14
to message them hey you need to check out my site it's been hacked you know you got
14:20
to take it down do something.
14:23
I got no response whatsoever so all that work that I had done to build that up was gone.
14:29
I'm so glad you said that I forgot about the Instagram hack.
14:33
You know it's interesting you say that because I've actually been writing about this for
14:36
a lot of my clients that social media people keep forgetting that these are platforms you
14:42
do not own.
14:44
You know your newsletter you own your email list you own your blog you own and if for
14:49
some reason you were to get hacked and you lost it tomorrow you probably have the backup
14:54
that you can just reload.
14:55
So if you're building your entire business on a borrowed platform you are asking for
15:00
trouble and so I'm so glad that you brought this up that you know your page was hacked
15:06
because you know the blog you can keep writing content that is direct to your users your
15:13
ideal customers and yeah you can do that on Instagram too but you could lose it tomorrow.
15:21
And I don't think it's the same though because on social media people don't want to read
15:25
a blog post.
15:26
And so you know you've got to be cognizant of everybody's attention span as well and
15:32
social media goes so much faster that it's funny because I'll see people travel agents
15:37
as well as others posting these really long Instagram posts and I'm all I'm not going
15:42
to read all that.
15:44
I wouldn't think that my potential clients or my clients would either if they want to
15:48
read something more in depth they're going to read my blog social media you know you
15:52
talk about that two second attention span they're not going to read it.
15:56
Absolutely and they're going to look at the pretty picture and hit like and they're going
15:59
to move on.
16:00
Exactly.
16:01
Yeah exactly.
16:02
Yeah I love that.
16:03
So now do you think that I mean obviously I already have a bias I do believe this but
16:09
what do you think about using blogging for other businesses.
16:12
Oh I think it's I think it's important.
16:16
No okay it's going to be subjective to what people are looking for obviously but I when
16:22
I go to do searches for things that I need information on I'm looking for blog posts
16:27
not looking at social media because again the snippets are usually short and that doesn't
16:31
usually answer my question.
16:33
So I'm looking for either a blog or YouTube because I know a lot of them too are converted
16:39
like you said being multipurpose to be able to answer my question.
16:44
You have a lot of blogging content.
16:46
Yes.
16:47
What do you plan on doing with all of it.
16:49
Do you have any future plans for all of the content that's already on your page.
16:56
Not exactly and a lot of it is because I from when I started I did a lot of it more piecemeal.
17:02
I need to really sit down and put together a more structured format for my blog so that
17:10
I can turn them into lead magnets and they make more sense to go together.
17:15
Again talk about repurposing right so I need stuff too that I can just easily update especially
17:24
now after how the world had shut down because of COVID and we're opening back up and unfortunately
17:30
not all the restaurants I've talked about in the past are still there some of the tour
17:34
operators and excursions that we were able to do no longer exist and you know so to be
17:40
able to have something like that that's fluid I really need to do I just I need to get a
17:47
better plan with what I'm doing with my blog as opposed to just getting content out there
17:50
to be found by certain keywords.
17:53
Okay so would you say that making a plan making an editorial calendar is critical for success
17:59
in blogging for travel or for any business actually.
18:03
I would think so.
18:05
Yeah.
18:06
I think I for me and I know and I know that not everybody reads the content every week
18:12
so if I were to do two or three posts that are around the same subject the likelihood
18:17
of too many people reading all three is very low just because that seems to be what it
18:23
is you know.
18:24
Now if I had more following I might think a little bit differently but trying to find
18:30
the balance of how often to post on which topic and have it still be relevant where
18:36
I'm not boring people where somebody says oh she just wrote about this last time you
18:41
know so that's something that moving forward I'm working on.
18:48
Well with the world being such a big place do you find yourself with too much too many
18:53
content ideas or do you find yourself struggling to come up with something new to say.
18:59
A little bit of both and to get over the hurdle of the world being such a big place by being
19:07
rich that really does change a lot because it's not everything you know I'm not historically
19:13
haven't sold a lot of Caribbean even living in Florida I still sell prime a lot of Europe
19:19
well the Caribbean's been pretty open through all of this so even though I'm still writing
19:24
about Europe I'm not seeing conversion if I started writing about the Caribbean I probably
19:29
would get more Caribbean bookings but that's not what I want to focus my sales on moving
19:34
forward so I'm still staying with Europe if that makes sense.
19:41
You know I get the whole all right I'm gonna write about say like a wine theme river cruise
19:46
this week and next week I'll write something about golfing in Scotland.
19:53
Those are two extremely different articles and trying to decide okay well do I have too
20:01
many articles already that I've written on golfing in Scotland because there are only
20:04
so many golf courses.
20:05
They're like no because not everybody's read the old stuff so I can still use some of the
20:09
old stuff to put in this blog instead of just refreshing the old one so to speak give it
20:16
a different blog title and add some other things that weren't in the first one.
20:20
But yeah like well how many times can I talk about the Danube River there are only so many
20:26
steps along it you know so trying to come up with some different angles to keep that
20:33
information fresh knowing that's kind of a catch-22.
20:37
I get that so knowing what you know now is there anything that you've done with your
20:42
blog that you would do differently?
20:45
I think I would have started with a truer editorial calendar sooner when I first started
20:50
in travel I was not sure what I wanted to sell.
20:53
I just wanted to sell travel.
20:54
It didn't matter where it was what it was I wanted to do it and since the company's
21:00
been around now so like I said since 2008 that I focused a lot more on what it is I
21:07
want to sell I'm doing a lot more for those surrounding the destinations that will fit.
21:14
Now some people will say well you've got to eat anyway so doing food focused travel can
21:21
be done anywhere well I can but then what is it that I want to focus on to sell?
21:25
Like I said I don't sell a lot of Caribbean it's not because I don't like the Caribbean
21:30
that's just not where my focus is and I feel especially here in Florida there's so because
21:35
the Caribbean's so close that there are already a lot of travel agents doing that.
21:39
Well and plus I mean if you think about it just because you are let's say niching for
21:45
wine cruises or river cruises or whatever it doesn't mean you can't sell a Caribbean
21:50
trip it just means that that's not your focus for your blog.
21:53
Exactly yeah if somebody were to call me and say they wanted to go to St. Lucia for a
21:58
honeymoon absolutely I can book that that's not a problem I have the contacts and the
22:02
wherewithal and the know-how and to do that but that's again yeah like you said that's
22:08
just not the focus.
22:10
Now do you think that travel does better with blogging than another business would?
22:16
Not necessarily I think you might see more pictures than you would say for a doctor's
22:22
blog because not everything that you have to write about for a doctor's blog is going
22:27
to be appealing to the eye and so you know and I know it's going through your head right
22:33
now I'm pretty sure but at the same time you know okay a photographer's blog obviously
22:42
is going to have a lot of pictures but I think as the old adage goes a picture is worth a
22:48
thousand words I think that's very true and I think in a sense to be able to read it and
22:54
well I guess it's all visual as far as reading and then seeing the pictures that to me creates
23:01
a fuller picture pardon the pun on that.
23:05
I didn't realize what I was saying till I said it but it really does give you a fuller
23:11
idea of the experience that you can have while visiting a destination.
23:16
Now I have to bring back something that you said earlier we mentioned that with social
23:21
media you know we have a two second attention span so how long should a blog post be for
23:29
a business if everybody has such a short attention span should we do short posts long posts what
23:34
do you think?
23:35
Combination and I think it's a good topic.
23:38
Oh I'm so glad you said that because I completely agree.
23:41
Well and you know it's interesting as I mentioned a little while ago I'm redoing my website
23:47
because my website had also gotten hacked and so there was malware on it and there had
23:52
been a website audit done and one of the things that came up was that there was more code
23:57
on my page than text and that was they said because the my blog posts were too short between
24:04
three and five hundred words.
24:05
I have some that are longer but you know again I want people to keep coming back so I'm not
24:10
going to give you the whole enchilada in one blog post right and that gives me more topics
24:15
to write about that way.
24:17
So you know I asked a friend of mine who designs website about designs websites about the animal
24:24
so they're saying that I've got this error here that there's too much code and I showed
24:29
him the blog post in question and he's like yeah no because I don't know where they're
24:33
getting that metric from.
24:34
He said your blog posts don't need to be more than 250 words if you don't want them to be
24:40
but again depending on what I'm talking about some things can be that short but if I'm doing
24:46
say a site inspection of a hotel that I've never been to and I want to sell I'm going
24:51
to include pictures but I'm also going to talk a lot more about that hotel.
24:55
Why would I recommend people go here?
24:56
What makes it stand out from the competition?
25:00
Where it's located?
25:01
How long it's been around?
25:02
Some of the history of it to you know paint that picture to entice people to stay there
25:07
that's more than 250 300 words.
25:10
Absolutely and it's really about the purpose the purpose of what you're trying to do with
25:15
that specific post that determines the length.
25:19
And I think where I do think travel has an advantage is by using images it helps to break
25:25
up the content so you're not just reading one full page.
25:29
Well and after all they do say a picture is worth a thousand words.
25:32
Exactly.
25:33
So if you want a 250 word blog post just add a picture.
25:37
I don't think it works quite like that but close.
25:43
You know if you're you're going to show off the different room categories yeah you know
25:48
you could put in a slide option in your blog post so that you're you are a carousel where
25:54
you can see the multiple pictures but that's not going to be the whole thing.
25:58
You're going to explain what might make them different what each room type is and where
26:04
where it's located in the hotel and you may not want this kind of room type because this
26:08
is where it's going to be and it's too close to the elevator and you're not going to get
26:11
any sleep at night if you're in New Orleans near Bourbon Street because you're going to
26:16
hear it not just the noise outside but the elevator going up and down at all hours of
26:20
the night.
26:21
So I mean to you know I mean that's an extreme but to be able to explain that okay maybe
26:29
I'm a little wordy but you know I think you understand what I'm getting at as far as it
26:36
the purpose of it again like you said is going to make the difference.
26:39
Yes and and speaking of if you're going to have the cheaper room that's near the the
26:45
Wells elevator invest in a really good set of earplugs.
26:48
I learned that in Thailand.
26:52
I really wished I had earplugs.
26:57
Let's kind of go out of the travel niche for just a second.
26:59
Let's talk about other businesses in your opinion.
27:04
In doing all this blogging for your own business do you think that there are any businesses
27:09
that aren't blogging that really should be?
27:13
Something that I've been looking at has had a blog of some sort so I really don't know
27:18
of any that don't I mean like restaurants don't because their purpose is different.
27:22
You know people are there to see what their hours are what their menu is if they're having
27:26
any kind of entertainment you know that kind of stuff as opposed to.
27:31
I partially agree with you but I partially disagree with you.
27:35
There's actually one particular restaurant that I actually want to go to more because
27:39
of their blog because they're giving away the recipes to the very things that they're
27:43
serving and that's Bahama Breeze in Tampa.
27:47
I started going there more because I would look at their recipes and go damn this is
27:52
going to take way too long to make.
27:53
This is going to be way too many ingredients and so now that I see what it is that they
27:57
do I'm like okay I'm more comfortable now going to happy hour and ordering you know
28:02
that mango salsa that is going to take 17,000 ingredients that I don't want to keep.
28:07
Okay well and that makes sense that really does make sense.
28:10
Yeah so yeah I just I guess I was just curious because you know there's there's all these
28:16
people talking online about blogging is dead blogging is no longer a thing you don't need
28:20
to blog you just need social media you just need you know YouTube or whatever but there's
28:25
still something to be said about the written word.
28:30
There is and again going back to all the social media stuff you don't own those platforms
28:36
you lose your account it's gone.
28:39
I mean so with my virtual vacations now I will fully admit I have been bad at keeping
28:44
up getting them the recordings on YouTube and connecting them to my page or to my site.
28:51
However if something were to happen to YouTube and those go away all I have to do is delete
28:55
that page from my website and it I still have everything else that I own.
29:01
You know that's just one piece that's no longer working.
29:04
You know if I try to do everything through social and and don't get me wrong a lot of
29:09
people can monetize social but there's there's a lot of truth to that but you can't have
29:14
that be your only stream of revenue because again you know Facebook and Instagram both
29:19
owned by Facebook.
29:20
Something happens to Facebook there go two streams.
29:23
Well it's interesting you said the thing about YouTube because earlier this well no now it's
29:29
last June earlier last month I received an email that from YouTube's terms and conditions
29:36
reminding people that their terms and conditions have changed and that even videos that are
29:42
not monetized they reserve the right to add an ad to it.
29:46
They can put an advertisement on it and what's interesting is one of my clients that I'm
29:49
blogging for that I'm doing the ghost blogging for their top competitor keeps buying ads
29:56
on their YouTube videos.
29:58
And so every time I go and watch a video for this this particular client I keep seeing
30:04
ads for their top competitor.
30:07
What do you think about that?
30:11
I don't know if they have any well no they don't have any control over that.
30:14
Yeah at all.
30:16
I mean it sucks unless they want to buy create their own ads and buy it for their own you
30:21
know their own videos which I think is horrible.
30:24
But I don't think they have any kind of recourse to it because of the fact that it's not their
30:30
platform.
30:31
They can't you know they can't block things they can't I mean they can only add so much
30:35
even it's not even as they have full control over what they're posting per se because if
30:42
they change their terms of service yet again which we know these social platforms are doing
30:46
quite often now there's another roadblock for you to get through if you can get through
30:52
it made you may find out that it's not a viable option for you anymore.
30:55
Yeah that's actually been happening with Twitter one of the influencers I follow every single
31:00
tweet she does with a video has an ad in it and I don't think she's the one that's doing
31:04
the ads.
31:05
I think it's just something that because she has a large following Twitter is adding ads
31:10
because they can.
31:11
I mean how else are they supposed to monetize their own free platforms?
31:14
What is it there was an amazing quote that I read and of course I'm going to forget who
31:18
said it now I'll have to add it to the show notes but the quote said if you are not paying
31:23
for the product you are the product and that is so true when it comes to social media and
31:30
YouTube and things like that and it's it's not surprising to me that so many businesses
31:33
are taking all of their videos off of YouTube and they're now getting paid accounts on Vimeo
31:38
yeah because they don't want competitors getting the chance to monetize off of their hard work
31:44
their following.
31:45
Yeah so we talked about the length of blog posts we talked about attention spans we talked
31:52
about platforms something very important that I want to bring up we've been talking about
31:56
repurposing and we've been talking about you know how you own your blog you're selling
32:01
travel on your website but in your opinion is there any benefit to taking your blog and
32:09
using it to monetize in other ways to add an extra revenue stream to your business?
32:16
There probably is and I'm not 100% sure on what that is I'm not going to open it up to
32:22
you know for Google ads I don't want my competitors and on my side I don't want ads on my site
32:28
like that you know there are a lot of people that don't that doesn't bother and they're
32:35
definitely open to it that's not me actually no I do think you can so when you talk about
32:41
like Bahama Breeze and them having the recipes on their website I'm going to start posting
32:47
more recipes on mine as well because of all the different destinations that are becoming
32:51
open and I want to entice people to go visit I can take those recipes that I've gotten
32:56
from my supplier partners all around the world and create a book with it and sell it that
33:01
way so yes I do think there is a way to do it across all industries not sure but actually
33:09
yeah I mean if you look at sports industry like golf for instance if you've got somebody
33:13
talking about the right mechanics for a swing and they've got a short video even that they
33:19
can use in the blog well because of all the ebooks and the electronic options out there
33:24
they can easily then put all those together and you have a visual book if you will showing
33:32
you the correct positioning for the different swings how you should stand what kind of stretch
33:36
you might need to do anything like that that's related to that and turn it into a monetizable
33:41
product I love that and one of the things that I'm noticing a lot of my ghost blogging
33:47
clients what they're doing is they're all creating resource pages with affiliate links
33:51
for instance one of them is a is a coach for businesses and so what she has done is she
33:58
created a resource page for you know all the different email services that you can have
34:03
all the different web hosting providers all the different things that a business person
34:08
would need like your kajabi and your courses your thinkific and all that stuff and every
34:13
single one of those links in her resource page is an affiliate link and she actually
34:19
talks about in each of these things like to keep it authentic she discusses what she thinks
34:25
of them and whether or not she thinks it's worth it so she's still authentic but she's
34:29
still making money if anybody buys based on those things and I think you and I have actually
34:35
talked about this in the past about doing affiliates affiliate links for travel and
34:40
I'm curious as to what your thoughts are in terms of if you were to add affiliate links
34:44
to a travel business blog how that would look like how you think it would go I'm not sure
34:54
if I would have it just as the links or if I would add them as a store okay to be able
34:59
to purchase anything from travel supplies like if they wanted travel cubes for packing
35:07
if they wanted some kind of electronic whether it be say a battery charger or an adapter
35:14
when they're traveling internationally to as I mentioned earlier doing golfing in Scotland
35:20
well you also have Scottish whiskey so maybe I'm selling whiskey in the store as well for
35:27
those who want to go on a safari I have safari type clothing that would be you can wear anything
35:33
to go there's a better kind of clothing to wear when you actually go on a safari because
35:38
of the weather conditions and you want to somewhat blend in with your surroundings so
35:42
you don't want to go with something say neon pink or yellow or that so something like that
35:49
that would fit travel but still instead of just affiliate links not saying that if I'm
35:54
doing a blog for holiday gift ideas or for something for Mother's Day or Father's Day
36:00
yes I could definitely see an asset of what to get for that traveler that has everything
36:07
and you can have a bunch of different items that are affiliate links yeah not all the
36:11
time right number one and then as a store I think it sets it apart but yeah some of
36:17
that stuff can be pulled in to some of your blog posts yeah and I think it's a long-winded
36:22
answer to that question no no I love it I love it because it definitely like shows it
36:27
not shows but speaks to the fact that a blog can be more than just words it can be it can
36:35
be a gateway to not only more monetization opportunities but also to more giving your
36:43
audience the knowledge that they're looking for it's it's a way to connect with them it's
36:48
a way to build the relationship it's it's so much more than just words and I guess that's
36:52
one of the big things that I keep trying to tell my ghost blogging clients is if you do
36:56
not have a blog you are closing off a communication stream you are you are preventing your people
37:04
that need to hear from you from hearing what you have to say and what they need to know
37:10
and so you're basically saying hey I know some stuff but I'm not going to tell you my
37:16
competitor might know it definitely speaks to your credibility yes yeah so if using
37:23
travel again if I've got a small business owner because I work with small businesses
37:27
as well to create group trips to help strengthen that relationship with their clients but we
37:32
just do it through travel so if they want to see whether or not I really know what I'm
37:36
talking about by them going to my website and seeing my blog and the kind of content
37:41
I put out there that reinforces whatever conversation we have we may have already had or we're about
37:48
to have because they were able to you know that's my online brochure and it's more than
37:53
just a few pages you know they're seeing that because I post it often and the different
37:58
destinations that I've covered that yeah she she knows what she's doing I and again like
38:04
with the the different recipes from the different tour operators and suppliers that I work with
38:10
around the country or around the world it shows I know people who are there if something
38:15
were to happen there's a contact right there boots on the ground that's an extension of
38:20
my company that's there to help them so that I think reinforces that safety factor that
38:26
people want to make sure they have especially now but if I didn't include those kinds of
38:31
things on my blog they're not going to know that about me they're not going to know that
38:35
yeah she knows what she's talking about she's got somebody who can help me if I need it
38:40
while I'm traveling because let's face it is something you know god forbid something
38:45
happens on a trip you can call me by all means I don't care what time of day it is but it's
38:50
a lot faster for you to call somebody who's right there same time zone who can help you
38:54
get exactly what you need in real time is there's going to be a bit of a delay calling
38:59
me and then be calling them I am more than happy to do that right but again that's showing
39:06
I've got that connection to help you feel secure while you travel and ladies and gentlemen
39:11
that are listening to this this is all the more reason you should use an actual travel
39:15
agent instead of one of those online booking sites that we shall not mention just had to
39:19
give that little plug there and I appreciate that and I'm gonna just to reiterate to whenever
39:24
everything was shutting down last year those people who booked the DIY errors that booked
39:29
online they were waiting hours and hours a lot of them did not get refunds they weren't
39:37
able to just change their travel dates we help with all that so it just yeah and some
39:43
people are still not getting refunds from all that stuff when the pandemic hit and you
39:47
know I you see all the horror stories like there are reddit threads like all about oh
39:53
we have no recourse they basically told me tough luck and there's nothing you can do
39:58
about it and so that's why it's so important to I know we're basically now turning this
40:03
into an ad for why you should have a travel agent but it but it's but it's basically it
40:08
kind of goes back to the blogging as well in the sense that you know showing off your
40:13
expertise shows your ideal customer I know what I'm doing and I can help you right so
40:21
Maria I have to ask you a very important question and I've only recently started asking this
40:26
but I have to ask you will you be my bloggy friend of course I will oh thank you so much
40:33
I appreciate that now where can people find you on the interwebs so ingenious travel.com
40:39
is my website and I am also on social media because we have to be facebook.com ingenious
40:47
travel I also have two facebook groups eat drink and travel is one of them take a virtual
40:55
vacation is another my youtube channel is up and coming and I am on instagram as well
41:02
as in genius travel as well yes yeah okay and we will leave all those sexy links in
41:07
the show notes now is there anything else that you wanted to add well because we did
41:14
that shameless plug for using a travel advisor if you don't use me that's fine I am not for
41:18
everybody but use one because travel is an ever-changing landscape with everything that's
41:24
going on and I would hate to see you spend a lot of money on a trip that you that's a
41:30
bucket list trip especially and you get to the gate and find out either you didn't have
41:33
the right test or you didn't have the right paperwork and they don't want you bored because
41:38
there's nothing around that that gate agent at the airport has the authority to turn you
41:42
away oh that's good stuff I mean this I think we've had a lot of really good truth bombs
41:50
but thank you for doing this with me I really appreciate you seriously let's do this again
41:55
soon hi again my bloggy friends thank you so much for listening to this episode with
41:59
Maria of ingenious travel all of the links will be in the show notes on bloggy friends.com
42:05
and until next time may your page views be high and your bounce rate below.
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