Attn: Vegas Bloggers

I'm getting ready to launch my very own Vegas blog. I know that there are a number of resident bloggers on the board (as evidenced by a great 7 month old thread I found with blogging advice) and I'm looking to both network with and learn from some of the more experienced bloggers here.

So, current and past bloggers:

What tips can you offer a new blogger starting out?
What's the best thing about blogging? Why do you do it?
How do you feel about guest posting? Reposting?
If you no longer have a blog, why? What happened? Would you ever do it again?

Please answer any or all and include a link to your blog (if it's not in your signature already). Thanks, I'm looking forward to your responses!

 

I blog for a way to document my experiences in one centralized place. I don't write for an audience, so I don't keep a schedule. Since it's all done on my terms I haven't experienced blog burn out and I've been at it five years.

Know what kind of blog you want. Be you. If you write for an audience, keep a schedule you can manage. You will lose readers without consistent content.

I personally blog to remember those details that are long forgotten weeks or months later. By sharing it with the public, readers can benefit from my experiences. I am fortunate to live in a city that is a major tourist destination (and I travel to numerous others). If I can make one person's trip a bit more smooth or memorable, I'm a happy camper.

I have hundreds of blogs in my reader, if there is a guest blogger, I skip that day's entry. I subcribe to a blog with that specific author in mind, if I wanted to read a guest blogger's writing, I'd read their blog. I also do not like reposting. It's fine if you are linking back or doing a year in review, but reposting for the sake of reposting? No. I hate reruns.

 

Not sure I can answer all of your questions, but at least I am a blogger and maybe I can be of some use.

Don't know what the best platform is.

Best advice is to write what you know. I know about video poker trips to Vegas. I know how to wring some discounts and value out of the casinos, and I'm still learning.

My blog is centered around my gambling activities, particularly, chronicling my trips to Vegas, usually in real time.

Why do I do it?

Well, a few reasons. I like to stay stupid stuff and people seem to find it funny and/or entertaining. I like a chance to express myself and sometimes I vent about things that are less than ideal in my world. But I'm not sure people like reading about that stuff unless it is really funny.

And, let's be honest. I like the attention that comes with publicizing your most humiliating semi-funny moments and having people laugh along with you.

This bounces back into real life - my trips take on a new dimension as I am always thinking about what would amuse my fickle readership of (now) well over 10 readers. So when something really shitty happens to you, there's a silver lining, because it makes engaging reading.

Guest posting? Never thought of it. But who knows.

One of the toughest parts of it is posting regularly. I tend to do well around my trips, and in between I fall off. The last 3 months have been a personal shitstorm and I don't feel very fucking funny. So I stopped blogging about my life for the time being.

It does take time and both physical and psychic energy.

Overall, though, it's been a huge lot of fun for me and a great way to be creative. Because my day job making size 7 grommets is about as creative as throwing a skid full of butter off the back of a truck onto the interstate at high speeds.

I don't really know what that means. But you should blog.

 

I'm fairly new to blogging and I don't have a Vegas blog per-se but I think I can offer you some advice...

When I started I planned on doing a niche blog -- about travel (mostly my 2 favorite places, DisneyWorld and Vegas) and about food. Shortly into it, I found that I was killing myself to find specific topics to talk about each day and quickly lost interest. Not to mention, I didn't have many readers. It felt forced and not fun.

So one day I just decided the hell with it and started blogging about whatever. I got on Wordpress.com and just let it fly. Whatever mood I'm in each day, whatever I want to talk about -- I talk about. If I want to be funny one day and serious the next...then ok. monday's are usually my busiest day and I don't have much time to blog -- so I post an easy "Muppet-themed" post. (I love the Muppets). If I made something good for dinner and want to share, I post a recipe. If I took a trip, I post a trip report with pictures....if I am planning a trip, maybe I'll talk about that but I don't ever worry about having to talk about one specific thing. It just didn't work for me.

Now I have about 140 followers of my blog and it has received almost 8,000 views in a few short months. I also frequent other bloggers blogs and REALLY READ their posts. I comment...I ask questions...I get involved in THEIR lives....in turn, they support my blog too. It's one big happy blogosphere family and I've met some great people doing this. I love it.

Whatever you choose to do -- have fun with it and much luck to you!

 

Hello! I would love to learn from all of you.

I go to Vegas 4-5 times per year for gambling, concerts, conventions, special events, fine dining, shopping, etc. I take plenty of photos and videos. It would be nice and wise to create my own blogs to keep up with good memories from Vegas.

Please share your suggestions and tips with a blogger newbie (me). Thank you very much.

 

I started a blog in 2007 on the MyCommunityNOW sub-site of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. When I started... boy did I have ideas. I couldn't blog fast enough and had entries (seemingly) every day or two.

Here is an example of a blog that I whipped up after reading an article on my lunch hour. I had skads of these ideas and postings a few years ago.

The thrill wore off after awhile, but I still kept at it. Around mid-2008, fortune gave me a few extra $$ allowing me to continue to bowl the National tournament each year, as well as a separate yearly trip to Las Vegas.

Considering I blog for a suburban newspaper, I write way, way more about Las Vegas and Reno than I do about home.

Now the blog is a chore. I hate it. I force myself to write every couple of weeks, but I don't find it interesting any more for two reasons... (1) I've said everything that I've wanted to say (Star Spangled Banner is not a love song, I complain a lot, I watch a lot of TV, etc) and (2) Facebook is way, way easier to be an angry old man and get instant recognition.

So why do I still do it? Well, in part, the trip reports that I started after a May 2008 trip to Manhattan are so detailed (and humorous, though not in the Royal Flusher realm) that they act like a journal. Throw in some links and pictures, and I can go back and read them and feel like I am there. Since that 2008 trip, I've been to New York a second time, Albuquerque, Vegas five times and Reno twice. If I told West Allis NOW that I no longer wanted to blog, where would my content go? I don't want to ask, so I just force myself to continue.

Another reason is even more selfisher... I can get press passes on request with the Professional Bowlers Association, Major Indoor Soccer League, and just about any activity at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. In fairness, I do take the time to blog about the event that I am passed into (as a matter of fact, this blog entry had one of the highest external clicks of any of West Allis NOW's to that point).

To give a "tip"... I don't know that I can. I don't want to be a killjoy here, but it takes an awful lot of time to do as a hobby, and unless it leads to opportunity to write full time (and I don't have journalistic credentials to do that) or you can pull in advertisers (which in my case would all go to the publisher) it is so easy to get burned out. The last blog I did - this one - I thought was pretty good, but only got 72 unique page views in the first week, and most of those were family and friends who have it on their RSS feed. Why should I spend an hour or two a week for 72 people, most of whom read my Facebook posts anyway?

Luckily for by blogging public (and you), I will be back from Vegas at this time next week and will already be working on my next blog posting. Maybe if I post it in enough locations, I can get 100 people to read it.

 

Wow. Thanks for all taking the time to respond. It sure seems like a mixed bag of experience. I have picked a bit of a niche topic, so I will eventually start to run out of things to say... This I know. I'm not sure what I'll do then, maybe it will become a more static page. Here's where my mind is at a few days ahead of "launch":

I'm chosing to write a blog because I want to share the many interesting things that I have discovered in my numerous trips to Vegas. I love helping friends plan trips, I love passing on a travel tip or a favorite restaurant. I also want to learn more about web hosting, social metworking, wordpress and stuff like that. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll meet some cool people, learn about some new place or gain access somewhere I wouldn't otherwise get the chance to go. I haven't decided if I'm just going to pay the expenses out of pocket or try to get some ad revenue to cover them. I find it highly unlikely that this could ever turn into a profitible venture - and even more unlikely that it would ever be more than a hobby.

I think what I'm trying to accomplish is to create a travel site for those intersted in Las Vegas, and what it offers beyond the Strip. I want to build it one post at a time, and I want to inject some personality into it. I have a fair amount of material for it already, and it should give me an excuse/reason to seek out new experiences each time I travel to Vegas (typically 3-4 times a year). I don't plan to do "trip reports" so much as offer reviews and advice.

So my plan is to start with three posts in the first week to get things started, then settle into a post a week routine. Once a month I plan to do a contest where I post a picture of someplace off the strip in Vegas and ask my readers to identify the location. I think this should be fun, easy to write, and help bridge the gap between trips.

Right now I have my "about" page written and I have at least a rough draft for about a dozen posts ready to go. I have been playing with a mockup of my page offline to see what it might look like once I get some posts up. I've snagged a domain name, hosting, a facebook page and a gmail account for the blog. I cut together a handful of videos to accompany some articles/reviews and posted them up on youtube.

So now that you know a bit more of where I'm coming from: Do my goals sound reasonable? Am I on the right track? What dangers lurk ahead?

Oh, and to the poster that was concerned about losing their content if they stop blogging: (I'm using Tapatalk and can't see your post/name) check your url at www.archive.org in the top middle section called "the wayback machine." there you will find archives of webpages going back a number of years. If yours is in there, as long as you know what the url was, you should be able to access it there for years to come.

 

Atom it sounds like you have all the bases covered for your preparation. I would add 2 things, get your Twitter account and secondly, back up your entire blog from time to time - it sounds like you've done quite a bit of work customizing the look etc.

This is just my 2 cents, I don't even really know how to use a computer. Fortunately, my dog Chippy occasionally hits the right buttons.

 

Hey guys

I started my first Vegas blog about 6 months ago. No real 'goal' in mind, just wanted to build it up at first.
I stopped updating it for months, but then decided to get back into it. Decided I wanted to try and make $2/day off of the blog. That would mean in a year, it would make enough to cover my flight to Vegas!

I've kept it up to date with whats being going on, and its been doing well! I'm over my daily goal, and have been linked to from USAtoday and Forbes surprisingly!
They key was to pick something specific about Vegas and try and get top spots in googles with SEO
(I am a web designer/developer, so that helps).

Regardless of $ from blogs, its something I enjoy for the most part, so its something I'll stick with for a while!

 

RoyalFlusher,

Thanks for the additional tips. I had thought of getting a Twitter account, and then discounted it because I couldn't figure out what I would do with it. Your suggestion made me rethink, and I just set one up. Even if I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, it makes sense to snag the Account/User names now. Also, when I get around to it I can use it to follow what's happening in Vegas more closely, which may ultimately lead to more material.

i hadn't considered backing up - my text is backed up, but not all the code surrounding it. That's a really good point. I'd hate to loose all my hard work.

MagicMan,

Would you mind posting a link to your blog. I'm very interested in the caliber of writing/seo skill that got you noticed by the big boys, and I'm also a little curious what you are using for a revenue stream. With the sort of traffic I expect I figure my best bet is to get an affiliate link or two and try and encourage my readers to use them to help support the blog. Does this make sense?

Does anyone here have experience with registering for an affiliate link?

 

Hey Atom

My blog is http://www.projectlinqvegas.com
I definitely don't consider myself a particularly good writer or anything, but I've had some good luck with SEO. Nearly all of my traffic comes from Google

-> top searches this month are "linq las vegas" and "the linq las vegas".

Revenue is 100% Adsense.

Affiliate links can help, I'm not sure what Vegas-related options there are though... travel booking I suppose? Any in particular you're looking at? (if you don't mind me asking)

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions etc!

 

One thing you can do is post to twitter and have it feed to your Facebook automatically. Its just another interface for your followers who may not be looking at your blog right then, but have subscribed to your twitter feeds. So I pump out more realtime stuff like pictures through twitter while I'm on a live trip, and then follow up with the write-up on the blog later.

Generally it builds a confused excitement that you are posting the same junk in 8 different social mediums.

 

MagicMan, Thanks for getting back to me. All I had really considered this far is Amazon affiliate. I plan to write a book review that I woukd be able to link up with it. Other than that I'm not really sure... Maybe groupon or restaurant dot com... I've used both for my Vegas trips in the past. I really have no idea what they offer web site owners, or what it would take to qualify.

Adsense requires a certain minimum number of pageviews, right?

When I have a few more free minutes I'll be sure to check out your blog. Great subject choice!

 

Sounds interesting. I'll have to think about that. I'm not yet sure I want to do live updates. I sort of plan to collect material on my trips, then write up and post in the time between trips. Maybe if I discovered something I knew I had to write about I could use twitter to generate a little buzz in advance. Will people bother following a Twitter feed if it is mostly silent?

 

No problem!

Adsense doesn't require any kind of minimum pageviews, just sign up, generate the ad code for the size you want, and throw it on your site. Thats it!

You do need to verify with google.. they mail you a pin number to your address, then theres a bank deposit (for wiring money)... the whole process takes a bit of time... but they won't wire any many or send a cheque until you've made at least $100 anyway.

 

If I was getting paid for my blog, wouldn't that make me a per-fessional? And in that case, couldn't I then write off my trips as expenses?...

 

If you register it as a business etc etc etc - then yes you can. If you made money off a Vegas blog, as long as you went to Vegas and got new material and wrote about it, the trip could be written off as a business expense. A friend of mine has a massive sports site, and any traveling he does, as long as he hits up some kind of sporting event, he can write the trip off as a business expense. (disclaimer: This is in Ontario, Canada - I don't know 100% of the rules and I'm not an accountant or lawyer...lol)
Just saying I do know a few people who make their living off their sites, and they are able to do that!