Melaniedreaming

I’ve always enjoyed traveling — even the not-so-glamorous and often time-consuming research required during the early stages of planning a trip. I’m downright meticulous when it comes to scouring the internet for all the can't-miss attractions and local food spots each destination has to offer. To ensure I make the most of every vacation, I like to create detailed day-by-day itineraries and a dedicated Google Map that includes all potential points of interest. While I enjoyed casually sharing my travels on Instagram, I began to feel that I could offer something more of value than just "pretty pictures". Thus, the idea for my travel blog, Melaniedreaming, was born.

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Using Wordpress and a responsive theme, Melaniedreaming is my little corner of the Internet where I can share my past, current and future adventures, as well as post trip itineraries, city guides and any useful travel tips I’ve picked up.

Creating this blog has given me insight into on-page SEO. The Yoast SEO plug-in helps ensure that all my pages have click-worthy meta descriptions, my long-form content is keyword-focused and that I include internal/external links where relevant. To improve my website speed, I utilize the reSmush.it Image Optimizer plug-in to compress the many images that my blog hosts.

Additionally, I use Google Analytics to track where traffic is coming from, whether it be from organic searches or my Instagram profile. Even though I was not able to create new content during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, my blog continued to attract travelers from all over the world.

Below are some interesting blog stats and insights:

  • From July 25 to October 25, 2021, my blog had 877 visitors. Compared to the same time frame in 2020 which saw only 398 users, we can see just how much travel has opened back up.
  • Since its inception in October 2018, my blog has received 13,000+ page views from 5,550+ visitors in 84 countries over the past three years.
  • My most popular blog post (which ranks first on Google when you search 'Monday' and 'Cohenhagen') is “What to do in Copenhagen on a Monday.” It's no surprise this post brings in most of my site's organic traffic on Sundays and Mondays. If you’re ever heading to Denmark’s capital, do check out this blog post which includes a nifty infographic I created!

    • Now that international travel is coming back, I'm excited to get back into blogging and plan to share my most recent trips to Spain and Northern Italy — stay tuned!