When I moved to the USA almost 8 years ago, I started a blog, in Dutch, to keep everybody back home informed with our adventures here in San Francisco. Before I knew it, I was getting more and more questions on my blog. The questions were coming from Dutch people interested into traveling to San Francisco, either for work or for a vacation. These questions ranged from things to do in San Francisco, how to get from the airport SFO to the centre of the city or where to stay. So to be able to keep up with the incoming flow of questions, I started a new site, with tips about San Francisco; San-Francisco-Tips.com.
The site served me well over time, as I learned a lot from it with regards to the travel vertical, as well it provided me with some seasonal revenue upside to pay for other side projects, in particular in the San Francisco hotel booking and airline tickets from AMS to SFO space.
Fast forward a couple of years, and just imagine how I can use the knowledge on the travel patterns, search keywords and best converting topics I learned from my side project in my job at Airbnb at a larger scale. Introducing longer form content articles to service our community of travelers;
This is just a start, but we can say welcome to the first longer form content articles on the San Francisco Neighborhood pages from Airbnb; which are around two specific topics which are important to anybody traveling to SF; Transportation to, from, and around San Francisco and When it’s best to go to San Francisco. In total, there are 6 helpful articles, all six in Airbnb style and design, with loads of beautiful pictures. These are:
- Getting around in San Francisco
- Getting to and from San Francisco
- Ridesharing
- Travel seasonality
- Events
- Dressing for the weather
These six represent a good start.
Side Project vs Work Project
As long as I managed people in my job, I encouraged them to have at least have one side project. As long as the project does not conflict with the work you’re doing, it can actually be a great learning experience, something you would be able to apply to your daily work, where you become much more effective. So how do you turn your side project into a valuable work project? Well, I can say; there is no magic formula, but a common element I’ve seen making side projects successful, while these also add value to your work in the workplace is this: be passionate about your side project, where eventually you will find a way to make your passion your work. For me, it is still the way I can combine exploring the city I live in, with the rush I get to drive traffic through SEO, which ultimately will help me becoming more successful in my job.
And what is more interesting; I get fired up to work on my old project again, where I’m now exploring new ways to get more information for the Dutch traveler to San Francisco on my website…
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