Introduction
Hey there and welcome to TravelUpdate! We're thrilled to have you as part of our team, and this blogger handbook is here to provide you with all the information you need about partnering with us. Please take a moment to read through it and don't hesitate to reach out to us at help@boardingarea.com if you have any questions.
Our Mission
At TravelUpdate, our mission is to bring together the best travel bloggers on the web and provide them with the tools and support they need to grow their readership and influence. Our goal is to offer sufficient support, management, and guidance in a positive and fun environment.
Our Duties
As a partner, we're committed to providing you with the following services:
SEO Management
Comment Spam Protection
Monetization Management
Skill set education opportunities such as writing tips and best blogging practices
1:1 Google Meet when onboarding
Newsletter, social media, and BoardingArea feed promotions
Networking opportunities
1:1 marketing and writing advice when requested
Read more on the Become A Blogger page.
Blogger Duties
Create rich, informational, and timely material that is your own.
Post once a week.
Manage your blog's social media.
Inform the TravelUpdate team if you need assistance with anything. We can be reached at help@boardingarea.com.
What You Need to Know
WordPress
We'll host your blog on WordPress Engine, which allows us to provide backend support if your blog ever loses functionality. You'll have Author-level access, which lets you write, draft, delete, and publish new content, as well as upload content and images to the media library and edit reader comments. From time to time, there may be WordPress Engine updates that we'll notify you about promptly.
Learn more about how to use WordPress. [video tutorial to be made include an overview, recommended Dashboard setup, adding new posts, media library, comments, gallery, tags/categories]
Learn how to fill in your author profile for the Our Bloggers page. [video tutorial to me made showing how to fill out the bio, social media accounts, and upload headshot]
JetPack and Yoast Analytics
Your blog's stats will be tracked by JetPack and Yoast Analytics, which we provide at no cost to you. You'll need to set up your own account and sign in to the plug-in to see your own statistics. Our team will review your analytics each month to help you grow your blog.
Read more about Yoast on our Knowledge Base. (remove everything before 3)
BoardingArea Facebook Group
You'll receive an email invitation to join our BoardingArea Facebook group, where you can communicate with us and other bloggers, share and learn from each other, and find promotional and exposure opportunities. We encourage bloggers to interact with each other in this positive environment.
Best Practices: Posting
If you're new to blogging, it can be challenging to know where to start. Whether you're an expert in travel points and miles or another travel niche, there are some general tips that can help you create successful blog posts.
Choose topics using analytics and current events: It's essential to write about topics that your readers are interested in. One way to do this is to use analytics to see what topics are popular on your blog or other blogs in your niche. Additionally, stay up-to-date with current events and trends that relate to your niche, so you can provide timely and relevant content.
Utilize SEO best practices: Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to getting your blog posts seen by your target audience. It's important to use relevant keywords and phrases throughout your content and to optimize your titles, headings, and meta descriptions. To know which keywords to use, do keyword research, and use tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.
Use Yoast plugin: Yoast is a popular WordPress plugin that can help you optimize your blog posts for SEO. Yoast is installed for you on TravelUpdate. On the post-editing page, you will see Yoast below the text edit area. On Yoast, you'll see colored lights at the bottom of your post. Green means your post is good to go, yellow means it needs improvement and red means you have a lot of work to do. Yoast also offers suggestions as links on the plugin to improve your post's SEO, including tips on improving your content's readability.
Show, don't tell: To make your writing conversational, use storytelling techniques to make your posts more engaging. Instead of just listing facts or tips, tell a story that relates to your topic. This helps readers connect with your content and can keep them coming back for more.
Additional tips: To create the best blog post ever, here are some additional tips to consider:
Make sure your post is well-organized with headings and subheadings.
Use images and other visual content to break up text and make your post more visually appealing.
Use social media to promote your blog post and engage with your audience.
Don't forget to proofread your post carefully to catch any errors or typos.
Finally, be authentic and write in your own voice, as it will help you stand out from other bloggers in your niche.
Read more on the Knowledge Base:
Posting Frequency
We strongly encourage posting once a week. Those who post more, see greater success. But just like you, we are human, and we completely understand that life can get in the way. If you can’t post once a week, consider reviewing your analytics and seeing which days and times your posts do best. You can use the schedule feature and schedule posts in advance to help keep your blog active. However, with that said, do not push content just to meet the weekly goal. Since TravelUpdate is a multi-author site, SEO is shared between all, which means if life happens and you can’t post regularly, your SEO will not decrease.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Content Restrictions
We do not support any material that is hateful or offensive to TravelUpdate or its partners or the travel community.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Images
We highly recommend using featured images and photos in your posts. But be sure they are appealing. The images should be colorful, clear, and vibrant. Always remember to credit the photos if you use from another source other than yours, please see Plagiarism and Fair Use.
We suggest a featured image size of at least 1,200 pixels on the longest side.
Here is a great article about fair image use practices, where to find images, and other best practices.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Headlines and Titles
Headlines are what get your reader interested and clicking on your post. Remember you are competing with articles across the world. Here are a few things to keep in mind when creating a title or headline for your blog post:
Keep it simple
Keep it short (according to Google: if you keep your titles under 55 characters, you can expect at least 95% of your titles to display properly.)
Keep it exciting
Don’t give too much away
Avoid misleading clickbait headlines
Your title will also affect your SEO or Google ranking. When creating your title use keywords that someone searching would type. Think like the reader.
Read more in our Knowledge Base:
Content and Rights
You will maintain ownership of your content. TravelUpdate retains the use and distribution rights to content published while on the TravelUpdate network.
Read more in our Knowledge Base:
Best Practices: Plagiarism and Fair Use
We do not tolerate and accept plagiarism. In a case where plagiarism or an un-proper citation is suspected, the BoardingArea staff will investigate and take necessary actions, which could result in removing the blogger from the TravelUpdate partnership.
Plagiarism
The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
Steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own
Use (another’s production) without crediting the source
Commit literary theft
Present as a new and original idea or product derived from an existing source
Correct Citation
Borrow words or ideas, you need to acknowledge their source. The following situations almost always require citation:
Use quotes
Paraphrase
Use an idea that someone else has already expressed
Make specific reference to the work of another
While we do not recommend posting more than three lines of material from other sources, we understand that it may sometimes be necessary to support your article. If you choose to post more than 3 lines of material, please be sure that your original content is at least double the number of lines used.
If you are quoting more than 3 lines of material, you should do the following:
Change the font to one noticeably smaller (in a document that is a mostly 12-point font, you should use a 10-point font, for example)
Double indent the quotation -- that means adjusting the left and right margins so that they are about one inch smaller than the main body of your paper.
If you have this option in your word processor, “left-justify” the text. That means making it so that each line begins in the same place, creating a straight line on the left side of the quotation, while the right side is jagged.
Do NOT use quotation marks for the entire quotation -- the graphic changes you have made already (changing the font, double indenting, etc.) are enough to indicate that the material is quoted. For quotations within that quotation, use normal quotation marks, not single ones.
Whenever someone else’s work has been critical in developing your ideas.
What is Fair Use
In its most general sense, fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as fair use, then it would not be considered an illegal infringement.
So, what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general rules, and varied court decisions because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation.
Most fair use analysis falls into two categories: (1) commentary and criticism, or (2) parody.
Commentary and Criticism
If you are commenting upon or critiquing a copyrighted work — for instance, writing a book review — fair use principles allow you to reproduce some of the work to achieve your purposes. Some examples of commentary and criticism include:
Quoting a few lines from a song in a music review
Summarizing and quoting from a medical article on prostate cancer in a news report
Copying a few paragraphs from a news article for use by a teacher or student in a lesson, or
Copying a portion of a magazine article for use in a related court case.
The underlying rationale of this rule is that the public reaps benefits from your review, which is enhanced by including some of the copyrighted material. Additional examples of commentary or criticism are provided in the examples of fair use cases.
Parody
A parody is a work that ridicules another, usually well-known work, by imitating it comically. Judges understand that, by its nature, parody demands some taking from the original work being parodied. Unlike other forms of fair use, extensive use of the original work is permitted in a parody to “conjure up” the original.
If at any time you find that your content or images have been used without your permission, contact us immediately and we can help.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Best Practices: Social Media and Newsletters
Social Media Platforms
Always invest some time in Facebook and Twitter, these are great for reach. If you don’t have time to be so active on both, pick one to be the focus of interaction and set the other up with notifications when a follower messages/comments on a post or tweet.
If you enjoy another social network (Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, etc.), tie it to the blog and use it regularly. Make sure to include your blog's link in captions, so users can click on it after viewing a post. Some of these aren’t great for a clickthrough to the blog, but they build your brand and can lead to a dedicated group of regular readers. I mean who doesn’t love photos of your airplane food?!
Active on more than one? Make sure to cross-promote them. Note which networks work well together and utilize them (Ex: Instagram/Facebook or TikTok/Instagram Reels/Facebook Lives).
Please note that any negative feedback on social media that reflects poorly against TravelUpdate will be subjected to sad faces and a review of our partnership.
Auto-Posting to Social Media
The TravelUpdate Twitter and Facebook social media accounts use an auto-poster called dlvr.it. dlvr.it checks for posts every 5 minutes. Posting times may be delayed and not instantaneous depending on when the feeds sync with your post's publish time.
For your own social media feeds, you could also use the JetPack plugin for social media accounts to automatically post blog entries on your social media. The free version limits posts to 30 monthly.
If you use an auto-poster, be sure to go into the settings of the social media networks you set up and schedule the posts to go out at a delay since TravelUpdate will also post them on the TravelUpdate Facebook and Twitter social media accounts. People sometimes follow both your blog's social media and TravelUpdate's social media but won’t always be online to see one or the other.
Newsletters
Newsletters are very important in helping drive readers to your blog. TravelUpdate’s newsletter is run by the TravelUpdate team and is a daily RSS-fed post summary of all TravelUpdate posts.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Design
Logo Requests
BoardingArea is proud to have great designers on staff, but with our many different bloggers and blogs, they can get busy. We are happy to work with you on designing a logo, but timing is key.
Submit your logo design request to help@boardingarea.com and a BoardingArea staff member will contact you and guide you through the process.
Best Practices: Growth
BoardingArea Feed & Featured Rotations
TravelUpdate posts aggregate into the BoardingArea feed every 7 minutes.
TravelUpdate will be featured on BoardingArea.com for two weeks each year. The feature will go live at 9:00 AM MDT. We suggest having evergreen, interesting, and engaging content ready for these two weeks to take advantage of being placed in the top three spots of BoardingArea.com’s feed.
K Club
Blogging is hard work and everyone here at TravelUpdate recognizes this. That’s why we think you should be honored for special blogging milestones. We have created milestones that recognize your progress—like a loyalty program’s status levels. We have 1K, 2.5K, 5K, 10K, 20K, 30K, 40K, 50K, and 60K levels (and hope to one day award even higher milestones).
The TravelUpdate team will manage and track these milestones for you and notify you when you have successfully reached K Club status.
These milestones represent a blog’s ability to grow its readership to the next level. For example, the 1K club represents that a blog has at one point achieved 1,000 sessions/visits daily for a continuous period of seven days.
The idea is to have some fun, recognize the steps in success with your blog, provide visual goals in identifying traffic accomplishments, and provide encouragement.
TravelUpdate will be announcing new K club members and honorable mentions at the beginning of each new month.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Best Practices: Advertising
To have a seamless presentation on TravelUpdate, blogs will display 5 ad units on the pages of their blog. The ad units will be as followed two Leaderboard ads (size 728x90) and three medium rectangle ads on all pages. Ads will be provided utilizing the BoardingArea ad network.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is permitted on TravelUpdate. Affiliation links cannot replace the TravelUpdate display ad units without prior approval from the TravelUpdate Advertising department.
Direct Sales
The advertising department will in good faith negotiate ads to be run on the BoardingArea Network. All bloggers can negotiate direct deals with advertisers for their blogs. Any direct deals put in place by a blogger will require that all details of the said agreement be provided to the Advertising Department before finalization. Revenue generated using direct marketing will be split accordingly with TravelUpdate based on the agreed TravelUpdate revenue share.
Sponsored Blog Post
Bloggers will have the opportunity to learn about sponsorship opportunities. All potential sponsorships will be communicated through the TravelUpdate Facebook group.
Ad Revenue Reporting
Reports will be provided every 60 days. Reports will provide a breakdown of gross revenue, net revenue, and page views.
Compensation
All bloggers will be compensated for their posts and pay is based on monthly analytics within the advertising department.
TravelUpdate revenue share is 50%.
100% of revenue generated by affiliate marketing is retained by the blogger.
Any direct deals negotiated by the blogger are subject to the TravelUpdate revenue share.
Bloggers are paid by direct deposit or PayPal
To get you paid, please be sure that your contact information is always up to date in our system. If you move, please notify us ASAP.
For all questions related to compensation, please email accounting@boardingarea.com.
Read more on our Knowledge Base:
Leaving TravelUpdate
What happens if down the road you decide TravelUpdate isn’t working out?
Since we have no contract and we don’t cache or own any of your content it’s pretty easy to hand over your site to you. For us, it’s a small matter of removing our network plugin, packaging your site into a zip package, and providing you a download link.
To make the transition away from TravelUpdate smooth, we recommend:
Initiate a content freeze before we create your site's package zip file, so you have the latest and most accurate representation of your site. The package will be a snapshot of a moment in time, so it may be out of sync if the site changes in any way after the package is created.
Downloading the package before the link expires. The download link expires 7 days after it is created.
Your TravelUpdate hosting will expire 30 days from the date we are notified you will be leaving the network. This means that your site will be removed from TravelUpdate's WPEngine host and all of your site's data will be permanently deleted.
We understand that not all partnerships work out, so we will do our best to maintain a positive line of communication along the way to leave things on a good note.
BoardingArea Office
The entire BoardingArea team can be found at the BoardingArea office in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Often our bloggers come to visit, and we welcome them with open arms! We will arrange meetings with each staff member vital to your blog, so that way we can all plan, discuss and reflect.
If you are interested in stopping by the BoardingArea office, please notify help@boardingarea.com at least 2 weeks in advance, so we can prepare for your arrival.
Hours
Monday-Friday 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM MDT
But of course, our staff will be on call when an emergency arises. Our priority is to make sure that your blog is alive and well.
Read more on our Knowledge Base: