Taking a Vacation from Blogging – What to Do to Stay Active
Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on January 30, 2023.
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As full-time travel bloggers, Chris and I travel a lot- upwards of 100 days a year each if not more.
When we travel, we very rarely work on our websites. While travel writing is our job, we treat the “work” of travel as a vacation experience first and proper work second. As you can imagine, this begs the question of what to do before departing as leaving a blog and its corresponding social channels without updates for days and/or weeks is often a bad idea.
So in this one, we thought we'd share what you should do to keep your blog active to ensure you get the most out of your site while away!
Should Bloggers Use AI? When (and When Not) as Written by AI
Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on December 20, 2022.
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In a recent post, we discussed when bloggers should use AI and, perhaps more importantly, when they should not.
This was a fun piece for us to write about because the use of AI in blogging is a grey area at best. Some love it, some hate it, and some are in the middle.
But in writing this particular article, we thought we'd have a little fun with it and flip the script a bit. To put it simply, we thought why not make AI write the article. We did this briefly in the original post, with a 100 word segment used as an example, but in this one we wanted to go a bit more robust.
So we ran off to ChatGPT and put in a simple prompt: “Write a 1,500-word article about why bloggers should AND shouldn't use AI”. The following is the final product of the prompt.
Please note: This was the only direction we gave ChatGPT. The below article has not been edited in any way. We will provide our commentary at the end and note when our own thoughts resume. The featured image is a stock photo of our own selection.
Should Bloggers Use AI? When (and When Not) to Use AI Tools
Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on December 20, 2022.
Disclaimer: This Week in Blogging uses demographic data, email opt-ins, and affiliate links to operate this site. Please review our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Artificial Intelligence seems to be taking the content creation world by storm these days, with new tools coming on the market every month for creating text, images, graphics, and more.
While some of these tools do appear to be fascinating and, dare we say, possibly quite useful for bloggers at large, we have to take a step back and think about an ethics question that is on everyone's minds: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Wait, no, that is Jurassic Park. But we'll run with it because the same ethics concern applies. Just because it is there, should we use it?
Let's dive into that one today looking at three broad AI uses that may be of interest to bloggers.
Note: We used AI for some elements of this article purely to illustrate points. These will be clearly noted. Otherwise the content featured herein is 100% original.
How to Prepare for First Party Cookies and Ad Revenue Flux
Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on October 16, 2025.
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Whether we like it or not, third-party cookies on Google products will be leaving us shortly (although the “when” element of this question remains to be seen- first it was 2023, now it appears to be at least 2024).
With this comes a lot of uncertainty about just what happens after that, as third-party cookies are used for so many things. For bloggers, one of the biggest uses of third-party cookies revolves around all things ad revenue, as these cookies are used for targeted advertising on our sites based on user's search history. The better the targeting, the higher ad rates you have historically achieved (and we're talking serious money here- my single best day was $83.90 RPM).
The shift to first-party data will change a lot of this, and ad services, like Google's exchange, are testing a variety of new targeting methods to help deliver ads to users while keeping their privacy in mind.
Naturally, this will impact earnings. Google tests have shown that there could be a collapse in ad revenues upwards of 60%, while others, like Mediavine, counter that first-party cookies will only impact Chrome traffic (as other browsers have already phased out 3rd party cookies) and that Chrome accounts for roughly 63% of market browser share outright (although it is 35-50% on our sites). So that 60% drop may be more like 20% to 40% for most of us once the dust settles.
The good news is that these figures are all based on cookies disappearing and no other solutions coming about. Ad networks, like Mediavine, are working hard on first-party solutions to help protect member revenue (and even improve it!) after the switch. The bad news is that the same may not be able to be said for those on other ad networks, as it will likely take time for everyone to settle on what is the “best” solution.
In this one, we wanted to mostly ignore what ad networks are doing for a minute and instead focus on what you can do as a blogger to be prepared for the first-party cookie switch. The solution to this revenue problem is on us as much as on our ad networks!
How to Minimize Spam to Your Facebook Group in a Few Steps
Published by Jeremy. Last Updated on November 7, 2022.
Disclaimer: This Week in Blogging uses demographic data, email opt-ins, and affiliate links to operate this site. Please review our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Oh Facebook spam, you are never-ending. This is especially true in popular Facebook groups where spammers and bots like to take advantage of loose entry rules to put their garbage in front of the eyes of thousands of users in just a few clicks.
But if you're suffering from Facebook group spam in your own group, don't worry! We've got some ideas on reducing spam postings significantly in just a few setting changes.
Note: This article describes how I manage spam in my 50k+ member Facebook group for our city blog. Your mileage may vary on whether some of these are necessary and how you may want to approach spam differently depending on your group setup. As such, treat this as a starting point for ideas and not a complete list of spam reduction techniques.