Branding for Blogging or Is It Blog for Your Brand?

Travel Blogging Isn't Easy

Oh sure, anyone can create a website and start writing words on it. How easy is that?

But the real test is in how well you write, how well you get your message across to your readers.
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And that is where branding comes in. Branding is the overall theme to the content you put out there. ​

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Know Your Audience

You want to stay on message every time you write. At least that is what I’ve learned from everything I’ve read so far. (I’m always reading so maybe there is something that is contrary to that concept and I haven’t come across it yet)
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You have to know who your audience is to get that message to the right people. Because if the wrong people are coming to your website, they’ll leave as fast as they arrived. They leave because for some reason your content got put in front of them and maybe they clicked to read something and decided it wasn’t what they were looking for or they simply had no interest in the content.

Are You a Traveler too?

In my case my readers are interested in travel. That’s a broad reach and can span to literally millions of people around the world. That’s not good enough however, to rank in the search engines. Why? Because there are already millions of travel blogs out there all with their own message trying to reach their specific audience. It’s a competitive world. You have to know where the edges are to fit your narrative.

So how do you differentiate between your content and the millions of others out there? --Without having to stand on your head and post silly videos of you standing on your head.
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I’m not really interested in gimmicky things to post just to draw attention. It works for many people but it’s not my thing. ​

Relationship Building with Clients

​I’m interested more in the integrity of my content, so my message can be heard by the right kind of people who resonate with the things I say. I want real connections with real people looking for ideas to help them with their own travel adventures. I want somebody to say to me, “you know, I was thinking of going to Taiwan and started reading up on it. I came across your website and read your article on Taiwan. In your post you said “Kaohsiung has bad air quality, well, I didn’t know that. I just assumed the air was good there. I didn’t know a lot of people wear air filtering masks as they walk around in Kaohsiung.” The take-away from this reader was that they learned something new. Something that was helpful to them. It may be miniscule and seem inconsequential to other readers, but the point is that if even one person is helped with a bit of information it makes the difference to that person. So now when that person travels to Kaohsiung they’ll be on the lookout for the bad air quality. Maybe they won’t find much of it, maybe they’ll have to buy a cheap air mask like I did. In any case, some relevant information was passed on to the reader. ​

Share Yourself Authentically

And that is my goal in sharing my travel journeys. I wanted to first document my travels with the photos I took all for my own personal posterity. The second thing is to share it with people, after all, there is no point in just keeping it to yourself.
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So what started out as something “simple” ahem, writing a travel blog, has become something even more in terms of branding what you write about (content) to fit yourself authentically. ​

Trademark Your Brand

Travalerie was the name I picked for my company brand because it was a clever combination of the word “travel” and my name of Valerie. No one else was using it so I trademarked it for 10 years. I set up my business LLC (Limited Liability Company) around it legally. I did this to protect my own interests. In other words, this is my corner of the world and don’t infringe on it please. It's legally trademarked and registered with the USPTO.gov.

Follow the Growth of Travalerie, LLC

Then on to the business of branding that company trademarked name through what I write about and what I advertise. All of it must somehow relate to the business of travel information. In time as I progress with my blog I will probably narrow down my niche to something more defined. I have so many ideas on what that can be – you will just have to stay tuned to my website by signing up for updates to see how Travalerie evolves the brand.