Name of your website?The Dusty Traveller
Your name?
Rosie
Your Location (city, etc)
Halifax
Please give us a short summary of your website?
A comprehensive travel site put together by travellers for travellers.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I was originally keeping a travel blog on my recipe site "Whats the recipe today Jim?", as a way of keeping friends and family informed of my whereabouts while my partner and I were on the road in Central America. We were gone for 3 months and my recipe site started turning into a travel site. As we're are planing on doing a lot of travelling over the next few years the next logical step was to start another site with the type of content that I would find useful when planning a trip.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I had been toying with the idea of learning HTML when I first moved to Morecambe in 1998 and I was so impressed by their summer season of events that I thought it would make a good project.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We had been staying on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast of Belize for a month. The roads when we first got there we're all sand and dirt and I was forever washing my hair. By the time we left though, a large portion of Front street, in the centre of town, had been paved.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
It will contain my travel blog! Actually most information on my site can be found else where but you would have to trawl through a lot of different sites to find it.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I would like to eventually make money from my site through affiliates and the like, but I'm also hoping to provide a useful service.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
The site is still very young and I am putting in a fair bit of work but it's fun so i don't mind - and besides it makes a change from playing cards! The money isn't a problem as it hasn't cost me anything apart from the domain name and hosting.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
There are several features that I intend to set up on the site once I have learned how to do them but being somewhat lazy I'd probably hand it over to a professional team to sort it and to give me some advice on content structure as I am rather haphazard in my approach.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Hopefully. I am lucky in that my partner and my son are far more computer competent than myself and I am sure they would step in if I needed help, especially if there was a few bob in it for them.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None. Well, none of them were unexpected!
What has been your biggest challenge?
I used a template thinking it would be a quick way to start. It's always difficult hacking someone else's code especially when you don't have a clue what any of it means!
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I have only just starting promoting the site so hopefully this will be. For my recipe site it was entering blog events.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It hasn't.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up.. if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site only started a few months ago and I will keep it up indefinitely. Even if it doesn't gain popularity outside of my family and friends I will still keep it as a travel blog.
Wher do you go from here?
Portugal!
What is your website address?
The Dusty Traveller
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