7 Links Blog Challenge

We interrupt this media week to bring you the 7 Links Challenge brought to you by Problogger

As many people know that have been following our blog, we are working on the business end of things this summer.  Well, the most important business aspect of blogging is keeping your site interesting, keeping people on your site for longer than one little blog post and expanding your readership.

The best way to keep people on your site is to build links.  Give people a place to click to read more articles by you and to make sure that your content is interesting and encourage conversation.

Problogger is the biggest Blogger on the Internet and when he recommends trying something new on your blog, we follow.  So we decided to take his 7 Links Challenge. The concept is to make a link to 7 specific posts in your blog.  He even gave guide lines as to what posts you had to link to.  It was a challenge, but we finally came up with the links for the following posts listed below.

Check out our 7 Links Challenge and then start your own!

Give us the link when you do at the bottom of this post when you do, so we too can check out your links challenge and read the older posts on your site.

• Your first post
• A post you enjoyed writing the most
• A post which had a great discussion
• A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written
• Your most helpful post
• A post with a title that you are proud of
• A post that you wish more people had read

My first Post - Training What Training?

Wow, theplanetd blog has come a long way. Our very first post was sent out to family and friends and maybe 10 people read it.  It was about the training that we were doing before our cycle across Africa.  I sort of like this post. You can see that I am excited about starting a blog to write about our experiences leading up to our adventure, and you can see that I am excited about taking off to Africa soon.  The formatting needs a lot of work, but the same feel of the blog that we have today is still there. Honest, excited and maybe a little too much information.

Dave and Deb, Camping through Africa

Enjoyed the Most - 10 Least Romantic Situations Traveling Together

I loved writing this post.  Everyone always talks about the great parts of travel, like travel is some kind of utopia world.  Travel can be tough, tiring and downright disgusting at times.  This article shows just how much Dave and I love each other.  If we can survive these situations and still have romantic feelings toward each other, well, we can survive anything. It is these moments when traveling as a couple that either make the relationship stronger, or it all falls apart.

A Great Discussion - India is Filthy

This was a post that had to be written.  We were on an emotional roller coaster in India.  One minute we loved it and one minute we hated it.  One thing that never changed though was our feeling of just how dirty India is.  We have been to a lot of developing nations and India takes the cake for complete filth.  It stirred a lot of emotion in our comments section and while it isn’t our most commented blog post, it is definitely the most passionate blog post.

A Post on Someone Else’s Blog that you Wish You’d Written – Top 3 Temples by Travelers Around the World by Vagabond Quest

There are countless blog posts that we wish we wrote, we are constantly going through our RSS feed of blogs we follow and loving what people write about. This was difficult just picking one! So to choose, we went with the most recent post we read that we wish we had written.  I love this post because they have created a community of people contributing their top 3 temples from around the world.  We have been to many of the temples listed and when I read it, I thought to myself, Why didn’t I think of that? Asking for contributions from other Bloggers is an excellent way to drive traffic to yours and their site and to form a friendship with other people on the Internet while sharing excellent information.  This is definitely a post that I wish we had thought of.  Especially the 3 tips by different travelers.

Your Most Helpful Post – India Rail Travel Tips Part 3

It gets a lot of hits even today so I think that it must be helpful.  India Rail was difficult to figure out at first. We made a lot of mistakes and shared what we learned in a 3 part series.  Part 3 is the most helpful because we provide links to the first two posts and we have summed up everything that you need to know to travel on India Rail. We cover the process of booking your tickets online or at the station step by step to getting off the train at your destination.

Colours fly through the air during Holi in India

Title I am Most Proud of - Holi Mania it’s Spring in India

This was the most difficult link to add. We are terrible at writing titles. I am not very witty and I am always trying to let people know exactly what the post is about so that there aren’t any surprises.  Most of our titles are very boring and SEO friendly. At least Holi Mania it’s Spring in India was a lot of fun.  It would make me want to read more and see what Holi Mania is all about.  I am not sure though, titles are something that we are going to work on making more exciting this summer.

Post that I wish more People Read - Ian Redmond Talks About Gorillas

We really thought that this post would get more traffic.  Ian Redmond is an amazing man.  He is the foremost expert on gorilla conservation.  His mentor was Dianne Fossey and not only was his character a main part of the movie Gorilla’s in the Mist, he was also a consultant on this academy award winning film.  When we met him, we were astounded and honoured to be able to talk with such a respected man.  A UN Ambassador and star of countless BBC documentaries, our conversation with Ian Redmond deserves a second look.

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