Blog101

Travel Blogging Niches – Are City Blogs the Next Big Thing?

Downtown Pittsburgh

Since returning home from our long-term trip, we've been brainstorming a number of business ideas that we could pursue from home. As much as we love sharing our international travel stories here, which we plan on doing for a long time to come, we needed to do more in order to meet our income goals and achieve financial independence.

One of the ideas we had was launching a new travel blog focusing on a specific city. After researching the idea further we realized that the potential for these style of websites in the travel niche is far greater than anything we could do with this global travel blog, and Discover the Burgh was born.

Like general travel blogging, running a city blog does have its pitfalls. You have to be active in the city. A lot. 

This means frequently going out to restaurants, trying every attraction there is, and spending a lot of money before you may bring that back in. It may sound a little daunting, but this one came easy to us.

We were going to do that anyway.

So other than enjoying the city you live in, why should you consider launching a city blog and why did we do it in Pittsburgh?  These are the questions truly worth answering.

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Looking for Blog Marketing Tips? You Better Start Advertising

Page Views on Travel Blogs

Learning how to become one of the best travel bloggers is often a lesson in what not to do, as the formula for blog marketing is not identical for bloggers (even in the same niche). In the past nine years since founding this site I can safely say that I know a lot on that topic. So much so that if there would be a master in the topic of what not to do, it would be me.

Through the trial-and-error process of launching several travel blogs over the years, with most of them ultimately failing, there is only one thing that has helped us start a blog from nothing to the next big thing.  It is simply this: social advertising.

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Sony a6000 Review – Is it The Best Camera for Travel Photography?

New Sony Mirrorless a6000

There is no secret why the Sony a6000 mirrorless camera is the best camera for travel photography. It is small, powerful, and takes incredibly gorgeous photos for a price point that wont deter most photographers.

As I am someone who loves to rant on Sony cameras after having several point-and-shoot failures, and even once made a promise to never buy one again, I am voluntarily putting my foot in my mouth for buying another (and publishing this Sony a6000 review to publicly state my love for this camera).

Ignoring my misgivings against the point and shoots, I always stood by the fact that in terms of image quality, my HX20V and HX50V cameras were the best I ever had- possibly even beating my old SLR. So it should be no surprise that when I made the leap to mirrorless photography, I ended up buying the Sony a6000 despite my reservations.

It has been well over a year since that purchase, and I am not looking back- the Sony a6000 is worth the price.

If you are looking towards buying the same, especially if you are using the camera for travel photography, the following are the most important things you need to know.

These Posts Won’t Help You Get 100,000 Page Views Per Month

No Blogging Help Here

I've Googled a lot when it comes to improving a travel blog. 

Weeks worth of searching for every tip, piece of advice, or insider secret there is in order to build my blog to 100,000 page views per month (and a dream $100,000 per year blogging income). Why is this arbitrary figure important to me? I really have no clue, but it certainly sounds nice, doesn't it? For me, this represents a five-fold traffic increase from my current figures, and seemed like a good 12-month target to give myself.

So I began searching for what to do in order to make that happen.

What did I discover from that search?  The people who write about hitting that magic figure have no idea how they got there.  Seriously!

I'm here to tell you that nearly everyone who tries to explain how they got X number of page views within just a few months of work is absolutely, 100%, clueless.

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