9 Things Bloggers Really Wish PR Firms Would Know and Do

We receive pitches from PR firms just about every single day on our sites, and almost every one of them falls flat in one way, shape, or form.

There is seemingly some disconnect between PR firms and bloggers such that PR agencies don't seem to understand us, and perhaps bloggers do not seem to understand them in return. 

To help with this, I thought it would be fitting to publish a few things that bloggers wish PR firms would know about us, as there are some rather easy explanations for why your campaign pitch fell apart, a blogger ignored you outright, or they quoted a fee for the promotion you are looking for. To help unravel some of these mysteries, and to help educate PR firms about bloggers in general, this post was born.

This article is specifically dedicated to PR firms- agencies that are hired as a 3rd party to represent a brand, product, or destination. While some of the following points are also applicable to DMOs, CVBs, and companies who represent themselves in marketing, a few points are tailored specifically to third party PR firms exclusively. 

So while all marketing teams and agencies may find the following useful or insightful, a few are purposefully written for these firms only.

*Note: I did not crowdsource any of these points. So while I may be speaking solely for myself here, the below echoes many sentiments I have seen in private Facebook groups from my fellow bloggers. 

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A Blogger’s Perspective into Advertising and Sponsorship Values

Are you a PR representative or represent a brand in their marketing efforts and are looking to work with bloggers, social media influencers, or other non-traditional media and don't know where to begin? We're here to help!

We will be the first to admit that this field is quite murky as everyone looks at blog sponsorships and advertising differently. But as not all advertising is created equal, and to help you know what you're getting into, this guide was born.

So depending on what you're thinking of for your next campaign, the following outlines many things you need to consider!

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Why Your Affiliate Marketing Stinks (And 3 Ways to Fix It)

Affiliate marketing is a tough nut to crack, and I would know.

Three years ago, in my 9th year of blogging, I was barely making $100 per month on affiliate marketing, despite having over 150,000 monthly page views on my two sites combined ($0.66 on an RPM, revenue-per-1000, basis).

After many months of testing, optimizing, re-optimizing, and learning about best practices, I've overhauled my process to consistently make $1,500 to $2,000 per month in affiliate marketing on 225,000 monthly page views ($6.66 to $8.88 on a RPM basis- over a 10x increase!).

During this process, I learned the reason why my affiliate marketing sucks, and realized it is the reason why most blogger's affiliate marketing sucks. So today, I wanted to share more about this, and give the three biggest lessons learned in the entire process- whether you're a beginner looking for how to start affiliate marketing or are a bit more advanced and want to increase your earnings.

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What Happened When I Removed Dates from My URL Slugs

When I started my first blog in 2008, I had no idea what I was doing. In many cases I opted for whatever the default setting was in Blogger (my CMS at the time), and, as blogging best practices weren't established just yet, I had no idea why some settings were terrible.

This has come back to bite me many times throughout the years.

Having dates in my URLs was one such setting that I was unaware could pose a problem down the road. 

It only took 11 years for me to pay a developer to remove dates from my URL slugs on that site, and quite frankly it was something I should've done a long time ago. In this one, I wanted to share the results of this change.

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Pitching Tips for Bloggers with Lavina Dsousa

A lot of the time in the blogging world, opportunity doesn't present itself on a platter, and that means you need to understand how to effectively market yourself. Perhaps the most obvious way that we seek out opportunity is through pitching. In short, “pitching” is the practice of reaching out to new potential clients or partners to showcase why you'd ideal to work with.

It could be because you've got a stranglehold on their niche, or because of your access to a strong community that heeds your advice, your proven professionalism, or any number of things. That, ultimately, is for you to know and convey in your pitch.

Pitching, as you probably already know, is more an art than a science, so it's always worthwhile to see how other people approach it. And that's why today we've got an expert who knows a thing or two about pitching. Don't forget, by the way, that we feature an expert every week on everything from SEO to affiliate marketing, YouTube to Patreon. But today, of course, it's all things pitching, so we'll go ahead and introduce our expert!

Lavina is an Analyst, Entrepreneur and the founder of ContinentHop.com which strives to inspire professionals to invest in immersive travel and make the most of their limited holidays while ensuring they get to explore the world no matter how short the duration. In addition to being a content creator, she is also a freelance writer, photographer and mentor to numerous women, helping them to start working remotely while working full-time. 

To empower women she met on her travels, she set up untraditionalhumans.com, a space for South Asian women to share their stories about breaking free from norms and to inspire others to never give up. 

She's also been to 52 countries across 5 continents, while working full-time. She has been nominated for various awards including one by Saveur magazine for her expertise in food, culture and travel, and has worked with numerous brands like Intrepid Travel, Skyscanner, and TripAdvisor to help them get the most from their marketing campaigns. She's also been featured by Lonely Planet and the Times of India to name a few.

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Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers with Kayleigh Zara

Affiliate Marketing Advertising Commercial Concept

It's difficult to imagine a blogger being able to turn their passion into a profession without harnessing the power of affiliate marketing. It's probably not the very first thing you think about when starting a blog, but once you start to gain traction an audience, then utilizing affiliate marketing in your content strategy is almost a no-brainer.

For those who may be closer to the start of their blogging journey, affiliate marketing is simply the commission you earn from promoting somebody else's product. This can be a product for a company, or for an individual, and the rates and agreement will usually be a little different depending on what it is you're actually promoting.

Of course, the larger your site is, and the more traffic you have, the more potential there is for your affiliate marketing partnerships to pay off. That's why utilizing SEO best practices is vital, as well as continuing to learn about blogging best practice from experienced bloggers.

We'll step aside and stop talking about affiliate marketing, so that we can let today's expert shine. Today, we're very fortunate to be joined by Kayleigh Zara.

Kayleigh is a 24 year old full time freelancer based in the UK. Her main blog can be found at Kayleighzaraa.com, but she currently runs and manages three blogs in total. She, like us, has the belief that with a little bit of guidance anyone can make money online. When she's not blogging, she's a PhD student, and really enjoys black and white movies, caffeine and martinis!

We like her style.

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LinkedIn for Bloggers with Katherine Banks

We're doing our best at This Week in Blogging to cover a wide breadth of topics with our interviews, and, with this interview, our aim is to offer some insight on LinkedIn for bloggers.

For a long time, LinkedIn was the stuck up platform that you immediately thought of as useless the moment you stepped out of company culture and into content creation and blogging. But that's a tired trope that doesn't necessarily hold weight anymore. LinkedIn has been on a massive growth spurt as of late, and in the process, the door has opened wider as to just who LinkedIn is for, and who it can serve.

It used to be a headquarters for the powerful narcissists of business, but nowadays, it's a more creative, vulnerable and supportive space than it's every been. More than anything, LinkedIn has finally made it kosher to sprinkle in a bit of personal with the professional, while staying focused on being a “business platform.”

Our thoughts aside, we wanted to chat with someone for whom LinkedIn has been a game-changer. Enter, Katherine Banks, a social media marketer who specializes in travel destinations at Traveling Greek, but is known in particular for her unique usage of technology (blockchain + AI) in her content creation strategy. Thanks to Katherine for joining us!

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The Best Blogging Tips From Longtime Bloggers

Blogger on Computer

We'd like to think that we know a few things about blogging over at This Week in Blogging, but, at the same time, we also recognize that there are certain times when it really makes sense to crowdsource from the blogging community. An article on blogging tips? Well, that seems like it's one of those times.

And that's because each individual blogger has had a unique blogging journey which, by proxy, ensures that their advice will also be unique. We could share all the blogging tips we want, but there's something different and, well, better about propping up the voices of so many experienced bloggers at once.

The more the merrier, as they say.

We thank each and every blogger who took the time to share their expertise.

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SEO Best Practices with Gemma & Laura of Make Traffic Happen

Gemma Laura Make Traffic Happen SEO For Bloggers

Unfortunately, Make Traffic Happen has shut its doors in 2023 after a long, successful run. While the site and products no longer exist, we are keeping this interview live for its valuable tips all the same.

When I first started blogging in 2010, I can assure you that SEO best practices were not at the forefront of my mind. In fact, my blog was little more than a public travel journal, and yet most of my articles still caught like wildfire. Fast forward to the present day, and that's far from the reality. In fact, at This Week in Blogging, we feel like it's not an overstatement to suggest that understanding search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for any content creator looking to find success in today's competitive landscape.

And Gemma and Laura have teamed up to try to ensure that they can help bloggers find that very success with SEO. In our previous interviews for bloggers, we've featured Bex talking about brand partnerships for bloggers, Ben talking about virtual assistants, and Bruno talking about sponsored content. Today, we're very fortunate to feature the expertise of a duo whose hard work has made a difference in the lives of many a blogger. So, before we get ahead of ourselves, who are Gemma and Laura?

Gemma and Laura are full-time bloggers, SEO consultants and content creators, with 10 websites between them, all of which are successful because of their SEO strategy, which they teach in their online course, SEO the Easy Way.

They manage an SEO and traffic generation website, Make Traffic Happen, and a free Facebook group for bloggers of all niches.

They started blogging separately in 2014 as travel bloggers. Their SEO success led them both to quit their jobs and become full-time bloggers.

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How To Revive a Dead Instagram Account – Test Results

One of the unfortunate side effects of being a travel blogger that only travels periodically is that I do not generate enough content to have a continual “live” feed from where I am in any given day.

Before going full-time with my blogs to where I could travel more, I used my library of photos from the past to compensate for this problem with various themed photosets. But at times I slacked off in my posting schedule, and at one point only posted about three weeks out of an entire year. 

Oops.

Over time this added up, and the performance of my account dipped- so much so that at one point I concluded that my account was more or less dead in the water. I had to do something, and my test to revive a dead Instagram account was born.

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