Interviews Archives - This Week in Blogging

Optimizing Hotel Affiliates – Interview With Stay22’s Fred Aouad

December 18, 2023April 25, 2023

Stay22 has seen a rapid rise in popularity in recent years from travel bloggers using their curated deep linking, maps with live API pricing, and pop-up tools to really supercharge their hotel affiliate earnings.

Jeremy has been particularly fond of Stay22 as the service helped him increase his travel blogs' affiliate revenue to over $1,000/month (a roughly 5x increase from past monthly averages). He shared more about why he loves the company in his full Stay22 review and also shared a tutorial on how to use Stay22 as well.

In this one, we sat down with Stay22's Chief Revenue Officer, Fred Aouad, to ask some burning questions about Stay22, how they got founded, why they are so useful to bloggers, and, of course, insider tips and advice. Let's get into it now!

Note: This article was sponsored by Stay22. As always, all opinions are our own.

WordPress Blogging Tips and Tricks – Interview with Chris Richardson

July 4, 2022July 4, 2022

For the travel bloggers in our audience, you likely know Chris Richardson quite well. Not only has Chris been an active member of the travel community, he has offered some pretty great WordPress services to bloggers all over the world with his company, RTW Labs (including migrating Jeremy's travel blog from Blogger to WordPress back in the day).

Since then, Chris has revamped his company to be called Assistant and offers all of the services we know and love (and then some) under the new branding.

We recently caught up with Chris to talk about all things blogging, his work at Assistant, and more in this great interview!

Everything You Want to Know About Yoast with Edwin Toonen

February 22, 2021

As you might imagine, here at This Week in Blogging, we get a fair amount of questions as it relates to WordPress plug-ins, SEO , and all the rest of it.

One question that has been asked of us over and over again is whether bloggers and content creators should have Yoast as their primary SEO plug-in. Furthermore, people want to know whether Yoast Premium is going to be worth it for them to purchase. We decided it was best to take your most commonly asked questions, and ask them of the Yoast Team themselves.

On that note, we want to thank Edwin Toonen, a Strategic Content Specialist at Yoast, for taking the time to answer our questions. We hope that this serves our readers and subscribers well.

What You Need to Know About Clubhouse with Monica Ortega

February 8, 2021

The rise of the Clubhouse app as of late has been nothing short of meteoric. Many an iOS user has taken the plunge, and downloaded the app to see what all the fuss is about, while many an Android user is wondering just when the heck they'll get a chance to dive in.

To that end, in a recent blogpost Clubhouse has said, “we are thrilled to begin work on our Android app soon, and to add more accessibility and localization features so that people all over the world can experience Clubhouse in a way that feels native to them.” But, of course, “soon” is awfully ambiguous, so time will tell. At This Week in Blogging you can be sure we'll keep tabs on the comings and goings of Clubhouse in our weekly newsletter, so be sure to subscribe if you aren't just yet.

You may be wondering, what exactly is Clubhouse? And that's where our interviewee for today, Monica Ortega, is going to swoop in and save the day. We're always looking to see what's next, so we're big on blogging predictions, and looking at new trends like Google Web Stories. But today, it's Clubhouse time!

So, who is Monica?

Monica Ortega is a professional on-camera host, speaker, and actress. She created the online travel show Monica Goes in 2015 to inspire others to break out of their comfort zones and go on adventures. As someone who's afraid of everything, she'll put herself through almost anything to show that if an average everyday person like her can do these things, anyone can.

She's produced and hosted over 100 episodes, created destination videos for over 40 DMO's, and been featured on Matador Network, USA Today's 10Best, Insider Travel, REI, and more!

Monica speaks at events, emcees at some of the biggest music festivals in the U.S., and has been seen in over 20 commercials on TV. She is also a co-host on the podcast Stumblin' Forward which is all about the missteps of entrepreneurship and life and publishing her book “The Power of Pivoting” which should be out Spring 2021

When she's not traveling, Monica can usually be found out on a hiking trail with her adventure dog Millie exploring their new home in Denver, Colorado.

Leveraging Your Photography as a Blogger with Laurence Noah

February 1, 2021February 1, 2021

Photography and blogging go hand-in-hand as a single image can illustrate a scene better than a thousand words (not to mention, the vast majority of social media runs on images).

As photography is an integral component in blogging, in this interview we reached out to our friend Laurence Noah of Finding the Universe to talk more about why photography is so important, how to leverage it on social media, and, perhaps most important of all, keeping your site blazing fast while sharing beautiful images.

So with that, we'll jump straight to it!

What to Know About Google Stories with Victoria Yore

January 18, 2021

When Google rolls out just about anything, we've got to be paying attention in the blogging community, and Google Stories are certainly no exception.

We know that the initial reaction to Google Stories among bloggers and content creators was something like “oh, fantastic, another thing to worry about since I'm not already doing a million other things, and not already burnt out.”

However, the bloggers and content creators who have made the time to get better acquainted with Google Stories seem to have found out that it was time well spent. There's also something exciting about the idea of testing out the virality or reach of a brand new platform or method.

So yes, we do need to make time for wellness in 2021, but we also need to stay on top of the emerging trends that can pay serious dividends for our respective sites. It's a fine balance that we think all full-time bloggers and content creators are regularly tightrope walking.

To take some of the stress and unknown from Google Stories, we've invited Victoria Yore to chat with us today, and enlighten us.

Victoria runs a multitude of successful websites across a variety of niches and industries, and has a following over a million on social media across her platforms. She's an expert on creating digital content, and is known for her aptitude with Pinterest, TikTok, SEO, and now, of course, Google Stories. If you want to follow-up with her directly after reading this interview for any reason, you can reach her at [email protected].

Blogging Predictions for 2021 from the Experts

January 5, 2021January 4, 2021

Many outlets love pull out the crystal ball and predict where the blogging industry is heading in the new year. While no one can truly know for certain what the year has in store for us, major players in the industries often have let out clues to where they're headed in 2021 and beyond.

For example, we know CLS is going to be a factor in ranking in Google here soon. Browsers are doing away with 3rd party cookies and making ad networks re-evaluate how they do programmatic display. Social media networks are becoming more and more expensive to advertise on, and that trend doesn't seem to be going away. These are many of the topics often discussed in prediction-style articles on what the year will bring.

For us here at This Week in Blogging, we didn't want to publish an article just with our own voices. As we do in our weekly newsletter, we decided to ask some of our favorite experts to prognosticate where our industry is headed in 2021 over an array of topics. In this one, we share some of the responses!

Note: This article is being updated regularly to add more responses from our experts as we received them. Check back soon for more!

Pitching Tips for Bloggers with Lavina Dsousa

December 14, 2020

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.

Affiliate Marketing for Bloggers with Kayleigh Zara

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020

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.