- Trains on the Brain

Advertise on a Leading Train Travel Blog

Reach a targeted, international audience of active, independent travellers and rail enthusiasts through one of the world’s leading sustained, independent rail travel blogs written in English.

My readers are not just a bunch of anoraky trainspotters, they’re discerning travellers, highly engaged with train travel, green and slow travel and all manner of independent travel, reflected by an average of 12 comments per blog post.

Key Stats

Average of 4000 views per month

Google Page Rank: 4

Moz Rank: 4.6

Ranked in the top 5% of all travel blogs by Technorati

Alexa Rank: 251,335

Alexa UK Rank: 14,144

Social Media

I maintain an active and engaging presence on social media, meaning that my content often gets shared multiple times across multiple platforms.

Twitter followers: 2,800+

Facebook page fans: 340+

LinkedIn contacts: 500+

Google+: 300+

StumbledUpon followers: 580+

Demographics

Readers in 136 countries, including Kazhakstan, Bahrain and Namibia.

Readership is stongest in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, India & Germany.

According to Alexa, ‘trainsonthebrain is visited more frequently by females who are in the age range 55-64, have no children and are college educated.’ Make of that what you will…

All stats are correct as of December 2011.

Advertising Options

I’m pleased to offer the following options:

Site-wide simple text link

12 month insertion: £10 per month

6 month insertion: £15 per month

3 month insertion: £20 per month

Standard square 125 pixels x 125

12 month insertion: £20 per month

6 month insertion: £25 per month

3 month insertion: £30 per month

Bigger square

250 px x 300

12 month insertion: £25 per month

6 month insertion: £30 per month

3 month insertion: £35 per month

Full Banner 468 x 60

3 month insertion: £50 per month

Skysrcaper 160 x 600

3 month insertion: £60 per month

Leaderboard 728 x 90

3 month insertion: £80 per month

Minimum booking period: 3 months

Positioning

All ads go in the left hand sidebar.

To discuss other options and special positions (in post, above the fold etc) please contact me.

Payment

Payment is required in advance please.

BACS is my preferred payment method, but a 4% surcharge applies if paying by paypal.

Please note: all paid links need to be declared as such, under the banner ‘Site Supporters’ in the main sidebar.

Sponsored posts

I accept sponsored posts from companies offering travel products, services or those closely related to the business of travel and tourism. I don’t accept posts which have no obvious travel link, nor those with dubious content.

I ask that you make the effort to tailor posts so that they relate specifically to train travel and are useful or interesting to my readers.

My standard packages are below, but please feel free to contact me if you have something more specific in mind and we can discuss something that works for you:

Gold deal:

1 post live for minimum duration of 12 months
max of 2 links
max 5 web-ready images
Author bio

Cost: £150

Silver deal

1 post live for minimum duration of 12 months
max of 1 link
max 5 web-ready images
Author bio

Cost: £125

Copy

If you would like me to write the posts, please note that I charge a supplement for this of £50 per 700 words. Alternatively you can supply your own copy.

Guest Posts

I also accept guest posts too, from individual bloggers only on application.

I’d love to receive guest posts from other independent travel bloggers and writers. If you represent a travel company then please see above for advertising opportunities.

If you submit a ‘guest post’ with no reference to a personal blog and suspiciously commercial links in it, I won’t publish it, so please don’t waste your time!

Want to blog about your amazing rail trip across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australasia or Africa? Wherever you’ve been, here’s the perfect place to share it. If you’ve got great photos, videos or travel tips, so much the better. I’d love to make this an exhaustive archive of inspirational train journeys worldwide.

I don’t see the world through a rose tinted viewliner window and I don’t expect you to either. So feel free to suggest more critical pieces on train travel too, but nothing libellous please!

Or maybe you have some journey planning or ticket booking tips to share or itineraries to suggest?

Feel free to suggest other topics too, but note that the subject of all posts should be agreed between us in advance.

Guest Post Guidelines

Ideally all guest & sponsored posts should be between 400-900 words.

Please supply least one high quality image without any copyright issues, more if you like.

It needs to be your own work.

Free of any content which I would deem libelous, factually inaccurate or offensive.

Written in a good standard of English and fact checked.

Please include a short biography about you or your blog. One sentence is best.

Please submit them either in the body of an email (preferred currently) or in Microsoft Open Office.

I ask all guest posters to make an effort to reply to any comments their post receives.

Promotion on social media to your own networks is always appreciated too.

Photo essay submissions are fine, please contact me to discuss.

They can be things you’ve already posted on your blog or bespoke, whatever’s best for you.

Of course I’m always keen to return the favour too.

My promise to other indie guest bloggers

I greatly value guest posts and am keen to support anyone who takes the trouble to submit something.

I will link back to you within the post, push them out via my Facebook page and ReTweet your posts several times or more via Twitter.

If I can’t use them for any reason or if they don’t meet any of the above criteria, I will let you know and give you the option to re-submit.

Linklove

We all love links now don’t we? I list plenty as you can see. If your blog is one of these, please consider returning the favour. If it’s not, just drop me a line and – assuming it’s fairly relevant – I will add it in.

While you’re here why not..

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