Yesterday morning I received a message from a certain Liane Pilch which says below:

“Hi there, if you haven’t seen it yet, congratulations on your award! Keep up the great work! 🙂 “

I was like, “Really? Wait, what?”

It was 6 in the morning, I could barely open my eyes. I clicked the link on my mobile phone and I had trouble navigating through the list. So, finally I got exhausted and gave up. I thought that I wasn’t really on the list and she only wanted me to visit the list to see what’s what.

I went to the office and thought of the message. Ok, it wouldn’t hurt to confirm.

There were tabs on the page which made it difficult to browse on a mobile phone. I went to SOLO category and found TRAVELOSIO under SILVER award. Yey!

It definitely made my day. I am honored and proud of the achievement that my blog received. What’s even more exciting is that, I ranked higher than the veteran travel bloggers out there.

So, here’s how they ranked the travel bloggers. They analyzed every travel blog in 7 different categories. One could reach a mixumum number of points for each category:

Design (max 15 points)
The first impression is very important. They looked for a trendsetting design which fits the travel blog’s niche. Also, if there is some kind of Corporate Identity e.g. the logo, the colors etc. If pop-ups (which were most of the time really annoying), e-books etc. are integrated well in the blog’s layout.

Content (max 20 points)
Most important for a good travel blog is, of course, the content. They checked the quality AND quantity of pages AND posts. They read at least one featured and one recent post of every travel blog.

Usability / Speed / Visibility (max 15 points)
Readers want to find the information they are looking for in no time. They checked for example the blog’s menu, but also how fast the pages and posts load, and how the blog is displayed on mobile devices and on a different browsers e.g. Safari, Firefox or Chrome.

Photos / Videos (max 15 points)
Travel blogs should inspire with great stories AND some great pictures/videos. One can, of course, reach the max points without having both, pictures and videos. IMPORTANT: For a photo blog or a vlog the pictures/videos have another evaluation.

Activity (max 20 points)
This is so important for a good blog and I am sure every blogger agrees. A great travel blog needs to publish a new post 2-4 times a week.

Social Media Activity (max 10 points)
Social Media is getting more and more important. 5 posts, shares, tweets or pins per day are the minimum and a MUST nowadays.

Creativity (max 5 points)
While comparing the travel blogs, they realized that they very often look the same and write about the same topics. This is absolutely fine! Nobody compares as many travel blogs as we did 🙂 But some travel blogs really surprised them with great ideas and therefore they added this category.

THE FINAL RATING

If you sum up all the max points, you should get exactly 100 points. All you have to do is to divide the total points by 20 and you’ll get your final result. Some examples:
81 points : 20 = 4,05 Final stars = 4
74 points : 20 = 3,7 Final stars = 3,5
64 points : 20 = 3,2 Final stars = 3

You can browse the complete thru here: Top 100 Travel Blog 2015

All the extra hours I put into blogging paid off faster than I can imagine. A few weeks ago, I had FREE accommodation from De Luna Diving Resort and Punta del Este, now this! I feel ecstatic and blessed.

Thanks a million BobAroundTheWorld for the recognition. You have no idea how much you’ve inspired to do more and better.

Cheers to wanderlust and happy travels!