Note: normally we won’t cover blogging questions focused primarily on driving traffic for monetization with for Adsense. But this question and it’s answer hold so much valuable education for business owners marketing their own products and services with blogs, I just had to share it with you.

Blogging for Business Question:

I recently stumbled upon your blog about business blogging and I really got a lot out of your coaching posts. I have a question that I think you might be able to help me with , so here goes.

Is it possible to host my own blog in a subdirectory of my own url and post, edit, and publish this blog with a web based admin panel? I am setting up a adsense website about travel before I head out to travel the world myself for a few months, and I would love to be able to host a blog on my site that can be updated while AI am on the road.

Obviously, I will not have access to my home computer and would need to be able to publish from internet cafes around the world. Any help on this or feedback on my idea would be instantly helpful.

Thanks a lot.

Zach

Advanced Business Blogging Answer:

Aloha Zach,

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I was traveling myself and returned home to Hawaii last week with lots of rain (24-inches in 4-days at one point) plus intermittent flooding over the last two weeks.

Anyway, to answer your questions…

Hosting your own blog in a subdirectory

Yes you can definitely host your own blog in a subdirectory. I’d recommend using WordPress since it’s open source and gives you a very nice online admin panel to work with from anywhere in the world. It’s what the vast majority of small business owners we work with use to run their business blogs.

This type of setup on your own domain(s) will give you MUCH more control over your keyword relevancy and ranking. Plus, all the work you put into the keyword relevancy and ranking of that domain is portable (it’s your domain to move/host where you want.) That’s not true with third-party hosted services like Blogger, TypePad, or BlogHarbor. Since you seem to be building a network of traffic generating blogs — this should be of primary interest to you.

Check out this video to learn more about hosting options for your business blogs

Some feedback, ideas, and coaching on your ‘adventure blogging’ focus

I think it’s a great idea what you’re doing linking your upcoming travels around the world with traffic generation. One suggestion I would make is coming up with a narrow focus for your adventure/travel blog. Something that will really attract an interested/targeted audience.

Business owners often make the same mistake when blogging. When an owner is going to market their own products or services with business blogs, targeted traffic is the key. And when you get creative with a blogging format or use a blog in a journaling/diary format — whether for fun or to monetize the traffic with Adsense — a narrow niche focus is just as important.

To help explain what I mean more fully , let’s set up an imaginary scenario as an example. To do this effectively, I’ll need to me create a few assumptions about your personal passions and areas of interest so this example makes sense.

Let’s say that your mindset and beliefs are that:

1. You’re very entrepreneurial (as you seem to be)
2. Willing to work hard for what you want
2. You would love to start, run, and sell one or more thriving businesses
3. You believe that America and our free market based on capitalism is the most fertile place in the world to accomplish those goals

Well in this example, as you travel around the world you’re likely to notice a lot of differences in the level of government intrusion into the markets of the various countries you visit. You’re also likely to notice many other socio-economic impediments or stimuli to entrepreneurial growth in each country as well.

With that focus and passion you can then share all about the same sights, adventures, and other cool things you normally would. It’s just that now you relate it all directly to that special niche focus.

Now you can write/podcast about that specific topic related to the country/town you’re in. And you can even relate those sights and adventures to your niche focus when there’s a direct linkage.

To make sure I’m making sense in explaining this strategy, let’s expand on this point and extend this example with more detail. Let’s say you’re traveling along with your girlfriend from country to country ,blogging as you go with your niche focus.

You get to Paris and decide to visit an open market. As you head downtown at 2 in the afternoon, you notice how many of the cafes are packed with locals. So much so you comment to your girlfriend that it must be some type of national holiday.

Finally you weave your way down the busy streets to the market you were old about. As you start making your way around visiting the merchants, you notice that there’s not much action going on compared to the feverish buying and selling that goes on at similar markets in LA or San Diego.

Eventually, you end up talking for a while with one particularly chatty merchant and your questions start getting answered.

No — it’s not a national holiday. Most people with jobs have 2-hour lunches. The merchant tells you that they’re not too worried about getting back late because they know government intrusion into business is so slanted to employees that it’s nearly impossible to fire them.

And yes — this is a normal day at the market. There are not many vendors because every one has has to pay an exorbitant permit fee. And they’re not that aggressive in the marketing of their goods because the tax structure is such that the government takes more than half of what they earn anyway. As the chatty merchant explains, they just sell enough to get by.

On the way back to the hotel, you take all that in and think about how good it is to live as an entrepreneur in the US. Now you’ve got something to write about on your adventure/travel blog. Something you can write/talk passionately about,. And it’s something people with similar passions will eagerly await updates on.

The critical difference that generates more traffic

You’d still share about your visit to Paris, and you might share pictures of the cool little market you guys found. But now, when you recount the days adventures, you’d write about what you learned about all the things working against entrepreneurs in France. You’d highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly and relate it all to running a business in the US. Now there’s a focus to your blog that’s got a much bigger draw/audience than a blog simply about your travels.

I’m not suggesting you have to structure every single post this way, although the majority should. And of course, you can choose any niche/topical focus you’re passionate about from skateboarding to art. The point is to relate your travels and adventures to a tight focus.

If you don’t take this type of topical approach, more than likely the only ones who’ll be reading your blog will be your friends and family.

But with this type of relational focus, you’ll begin attracting a highly targeted audience that would otherwise ignore a blog that chronicles your ‘adventures’ and travels. Small business owners who business blog have to keep a tight rein on their focus, and so do you if you want to build sizable amounts of targeted traffic.

Hope that helps Zach.

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John-Paul Micek is a published author and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. As a Click-and-Mortar Business Coach he helps small business owners integrate offline and online marketing strategies for rapid, reliable business growth. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].