My New Niche Travel Blog

October 18th, 2007 1 Comment

A month or two ago I finally took the plunge and purchased my first site, ever. Kind of embarrassing since I’ve been in the blogging arena awhile, but I had always been weary of taking the plunge. I always figured I could just develop a better version of every blog I saw by myself, which is probably true. But with the longer/non-existent PR updates, and the extra time and resources it takes to build content, I finally figured buying was the way to go.

The New Site

I purchased Cancun Blog .org for $200 over at Sitepoint. The site had a shabby design, the theme was broken, no revenue, and the content hadn’t been updated for a year. So I guess I just liked the domain, PageRank of 4, and its micro travel niche.

When I saw the blog was for sale, I made a thread over at Digital Point looking for writers. Two of the three applicants were really good, and the writer I ended up with has a condo in Cancun and has been there several times. He agreed to write for $.01/word and advertising space for his condo. So it is a beneficial deal for both of us.
Marketing

I’ll just be trying to optimize the site for search engines as best as I can. Here are my plans.

Link my three travel blogs to Cancun Blog
Participate in several link exchanges with other Mexico blogs
Participate in Blog Carnivals. The Carnival of Cities is golden, and will be a perfect fit.

Monetization

The usual Text links, Adsense, and sponsored posts will be my main advertising right away. Eventually I will want to utilize the blog’s micro niche and get some direct advertisers from Cancun businesses, since I see they are advertising on a lot other Cancun travel sites already. Once I get some of these direct advertisers and partnerships to maximize the micro niche aspect, I’ll be in the money and consider the blog successful.

So wish me luck. You will be sure to hear more from me regarding my successes and failures with the site.

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