Travel Blog Promotion Blog

I run many blogs, and often get requests for guest posts. The other day, I received this monstrosity of a post in my inbox, from a young lady called Kim at Fresh Egg SEO in Enland. She told me she wanted to write a guest post on a travel blog. She said:

I’ve tried to make it sound more personal rather than too salesy but let me know if you’d like me to re-jig it. I’ve put a link in the main text and a small resource box at the bottom but if that’s pushing it feel free to take on out if you have to.

This is what I replied:

Hello Kim,
Thanks for sending across your article, I have had a look at it and there are a few points I would like to make:
-It sounds like a clichéd sales page, and is completely unconvincing
-It provides no value for our readers.

Sorry if that was a bit blunt, but call a spade a spade and what not. What I am trying to do with this blog is to create a resource for travel bloggers to help them promote their travel sites. What I think would be of value is perhaps a tip or technique or example on SEO, focused on travel sites. You could use your insurance client as an example, thus cleverly inserting the link into the article.

The blog is aimed at people who are travel writers first, not SEOs, so the examples can be very simple.

Well, she never got back to me with her "rejigged article". And this from a so called professional SEO company. I suppose you are dying to read the terrible post she sent me, so here it is in its entirety, minus link and resource box. Sorry Kim.

The Dangers of Cheap Holiday Home Insurance

When I was a young child my Aunt moved out to Mar Menor in Spain and I loved going out to visit her. For those of you why aren’t fanatical about your Spanish geography Mar Menor is located towards the southern right hand corner of Spain and a few meters off the coast is a small strip of land creating an almost enclosed lake that was always warmer than actual sea and stayed shallow for ages which made it perfect for swimming in.

When my aunt first got her apartment she had the forethought to take out a holiday home insurance policy on her new apartment, she only planned to stay there throughout the winter months when England turns into on giant ice rink and she planned to let it out for the rest of the year to make a bit of money on it. She opted for a Spanish policy and she has always claimed it wasn’t because they were cheap but she thought it made more sense than taking out a policy in the UK for a property hundreds of miles away. Here are just a few things that happened to her which maybe some of you could learn from.

Initially she didn’t see the point of taking out an insurance policy for two reasons, the first was that she’d done her research and found the Spanish have a scheme called the Consorcio which basically is a government tax scheme whereby money is put into a big pot and in the event of a natural disaster (flood, storm etc) that government money is used rather than the individual insurers to pay for the damage. Secondly when she purchased her apartment she was informed community building insurance was included in the fees for the building. Her Spanish wasn’t very good at the time so she got her (English) Spanish teacher to translate the documents and a few vital clauses were overlooked.

The first thing that happened was her neighbour directly above her accidently left his tap on one day and she returned home to find her apartment badly water damaged. Although initially panicked she remembered that the building was covered by the community building insurance and the Consorcio definitely mentioned something about floods. On later inspection she was informed the community building insurance only covered communal areas and the Consorcio was only for natural disasters and only if you’ve paid into it through your insurance provider. Luckily the man above felt so bad he helped her sort the mess out and his insurance even covered some of the damage.

She learned her lesson and took out the Spanish insurance policy assuming she’d picked up enough Spanish by now to read the small print, she made sure water damage was covered and her new provider paid into the Consorcio fund. As originally planned she headed back to the UK and had a few guests lined up to stay there over the summer through friends of friends and an ad in her local paper. When the first guest arrived about six weeks later they immediately called to tell her someone had broken in and stolen the television and some of the electrical equipment in the kitchen. After several calls to her insurance provider (and the realisation her Spanish wasn’t as good as she’d thought) she was informed she wasn’t covered for two reasons. The first reason was that her property was left vacant for more than 30 days, this is a common clause in Spanish insurance policies and not one she was expecting and she’d also invalidated her policy because she’s had one of the shutters taken down because she liked to get the sun into her bedroom. Her policy clearly stated specific shutters and bolts must be used throughout the apartment. Both these are things that we wouldn’t even look for in a British insurance policy but they prevented her from covering her stolen goods.