Learn from Bloggers: Meet Natalie Tarin of The Travelling Foxes
If you want to learn more about blogging, the best way is to learn from others. In this series of articles, “portrait of a blogger”, I am choosing an advanced Filipino blogger to tell you about their tips, mistakes and own insights about their blogging journey. And this to help yours. As they took the time to answer those questions, I am thanking them in advance, and I am inviting you to check their website and work.
Today, we are with….
Who are you?
My name is Natalie Tarin, I am a Sales & Marketing Consultant for SME’s and Start-Up companies, and I also am a travel blogger and vlogger in my spare time.
What is your blog about?
The blog and vlog which was created together with Co-Founder Natasha Villaroman aim to inspire our readers and viewers about the benefits of travel.
Here is our website: The Travelling Foxes and our YouTube Channel.
Our topics include travel tips, discoveries – which are places both around the Philippines and also in other countries all around the world. We also want to inspire our readers to travel smart. So, we share tips on how to do sustainable travel and eco-tourism.
When and why did you start this blog?
The last few corporate roles I had, I was Head of Marketing, so I would be analyzing a lot of statistics and creating strategies, but I never learned how to generate my own report. I never knew how to do Google Analytics as it was the job of external Digital Marketing contractors. They just gave me the results to read and strategize on.
So, one motivation to create the blog was to understand how the back-end worked, how to customize and generate these reports so I can discuss it with my Co-Founder.
Technical question: what hosting service and what blogging platform do you use?
We use WordPress with Go Daddy as our host.
And how do you get your traffic?
Most of our traffic is coming from Google/ Organic Search. We spend a lot of time using keywords that work (SEO), so it is easily searchable for our audience.
Since the majority of our topics is still Philippines based, most of our traffic comes from Philippines viewers. The topics that gain the most views are our ‘travel tips’ and ‘travel guides’.
What is your greatest achievement since the beginning of your blogging journey?
Greatest achievements include working with a TV show and other prestigious brands such as an airline, a news-based television channel, and gadget companies.
We still get a lot of traction on brands wanting to work with us, but I have been very selective and ensuring these brands reflect what The Travelling Foxes stand for.
What is your greatest failure (or worst experience) as well?
I don’t consider any experience a failure, but learning. One of these learnings includes a Business Partner who was using our content for other platforms. This was not under contract, so important learning for all aspiring bloggers is to always protect yourself and your content with a contract, or a term-sheet to avoid getting into trouble with copyright issues.
What would your advice to people who want to start blogging or who are new into blogging?
If you want to do it, do it. Don’t let anyone stop you. The passion has to come from the heart because you will encounter times where you don’t want to work on creating content anymore. Maybe you are disheartened about the number of views or feedback from peers, or maybe you are just lazy.
That is bound to happen, and if you are not passionate about your project, it is bound to fail. Even if it is a passion project, it takes work, a lot of it, to keep it interesting. It takes a lot of time to learn the different tools and the different websites to make it better. It takes time to sharpen your photography and editing skills. Your SEO skills. Your writing and headlining skills. You will need to dedicate time to learn all of it.
Who are the bloggers you follow and why?
Every since we launched our YouTube channel, I have lessened my interest in blogging and focused a lot of my free time into making videos.
I don’t enjoy writing as I do video editing, so I follow content creators such as: JR Alli (he does video editing tutorials), Gary Vee (inspires entrepreneurs to keep creating content), and Peter McKinnon (shares tips about camera gear).
Any last word to say to the readers?
Blogging is a fun passion project, it is a voice to express what you stand for in this world, and is also a good platform to share your experiences. If not for your readers, but for yourself, so you have something similar to a “time capsule” when you plan to look back and read about your life in the next 30-50 years.
If you want to know more about this travel blogger, feel free to visit their website. And leave a comment if you like that article 🙂
