:cool:Was brainstorming yesterday about some of the ways to build an online brand. All take time, passion, creativity and desire to promote your website. All of these are used – some are more “under the table” then others and some are certainly very legit.

Getting in early?
I’ve read several interviews with prominent travel bloggers indicating they got in early (usually between 2006 and 2008) – and that has been a big part of their success versus the thousands of travel bloggers who have gotten in later. That has not been my experience at all. I’ve seen a number of prominent bloggers start their sites in the last 2 years. I know of a number of ‘old’ blogs/travel sites that don’t have anywhere near the recognition that newer ones have gained. With that said, time is certainly a valuable asset to help build your brand and build amount of content.

Be a Speaker
You have to have the personality and be comfortable with this. Speak at blogger conferences, travel industry events, do radio interviews and tv interviews. Become and expert in certain aspects of travel.

Create excellent content
This should be number one – focus on what you do best. Humor sells, Edgy content sells – or tabloid content like Yahoo creates certainly sells – fear, violence and celebrity crap. Take your pick. Prob not recommended for a travel blog. Or alternatively, skip the crap and focus on personality – bring your thoughts and feelings and daily life into your posts. People enjoying reading about other people’s lives especially if it is well personalized.

Promote via Social Media
Hit up the main social media sites – promote yourself, but also promote other items of related interest. Promotion is give and take – and interaction is important in building online relationships.

Guest Posting
Get your name out there on other travel sites. Guest post on prominent blogs for additional exposure.

Interviews
Find sites that interview travelers such as yourself – reach out to them and put yourself on their “radar” for a possible interview.

Building Numbers
This is probably fairly common – the evil facebook now lets you essentially “buy likes”, follow and unfollow twitter until you are blue in the face (still free) – can make it easier to do by using a program setup for this, such as Twitter Unfollow- in essence either spend the time focusing on building numbers or pay for social media presence effectively making you look more popular than you are.

Bragging
Whether its about how much money you are making each month, how many countries you’ve visited, over inflating your visit stats etc. Not recommended, but it happens.

Let us know your comments and suggestions for how to build an online travel brand. These are certainly just a few ideas. Post yours here!