I have spent some valuable time and energy debating with myself about the future of this blog site and the possibility of a change in name.
On the one hand, my posts make sporadic demands on my time and effort, especially while travelling. Every post is sent to an audience that I hope receive and enjoy the content. But, this is an audience that is unable to directly engage with me by commenting on what I post, a feature I enjoyed in previous posts. I became so inundated with moronic spam via the comments field that I stopped allowing comments.
However, I am keen to continue to print books about our travels and other experiences. The text and photos I use for the posts benefit me by generating 75% of book content. Also, I know that a number of members of my audience really appreciate hearing about our adventures.
I am aware that my audience size has remained the same over the past few years. This results, in part, from me neither being engaged nor experienced enough with SEO to really promote my site to the world at large. With regard to this, I recently invested some time and money getting advice from a specialist. Her advice was to focus my blog on either travel or photography, otherwise google gets confused. If I were to continue writing about my travels, my URL would need to change.
I have eventually come to a decision, as follows:
To continue posting about our travels and experiences
To discontinue posting about the subject of photography (although photos will continue to play a significant role in my posts
To change the name of the site to ‘Travel Snaps’ and rebrand it accordingly (see above new logo)
To commit to at least a further year of posts
To make an effort to learn more about SEO
I have re-enabled the comments field, so if you would like to comment on any of the above, I would be delighted to hear from you. (I will continue this for as long as I can put up with the spam.)
My current hosting subscription expires on 14 January, so there will be a short period during which I will be working through the transition. Once this has been completed, I will let you know.
In the meantime, I am so grateful to you for subscribing and hope that you continue to enjoy my posts in 2026 (and hopefully beyond). Thank you
8 Responses
I love your posts seeing it as a way to keep in contact with the both of you now that we live in different states. I have missed the comment ability but now understand why you stopped it – shame on them.
All the best and look forward to your future posts.
Thank you, Janeen, lets see if we can avoid too much spam in the next few posts.
keep going… I enjoy reading about your travels !!!!
Thank you Gus, I am pleased to hear that you are enjoying my posts.
Thanks for the update, Martin.
I really enjoy both aspects of the posts that you do. I love reading about the adventures and the stories, even if I don’t think that I will ever go to many of the places that you mention. The photography side of it really interests me and I always look for the tips and hints that are transferrable to my situations and scenarios.
Love the rebranding and I wouldn’t have considered the issue of Google being confused about the two sides to it.
Thanks for the update.
Thanks Colleen, I am sure I will be able to sneak in some photography specific info for you.
Martin
I enjoy reading of your travels – especially seeing Robert and I don’t seem to go anywhere or do anything exciting.
Cheers
Ruth
Thank you for the feedback. You know you are welcome here any time.