Many people dream of traveling around the world for a living; in fact, some people can do this. They are not pilots, stewardesses or businessmen. These people are called travel bloggers, and they get paid by visiting and writing about their main hobby in life-travel.
Before you think it’s just a dream, it’s time to expose some myths and tell you the truth about how to build a travel blog site. ?
The fact that travel blogs
Who doesn’t want to be a travel blogger? The cost of travel is high, and the idea of others paying for it is certainly tempting. But not all trips have to fly first class to Paris. A travel blog is like a job.
It is not easy to write a travel blog. What most people see is that you get paid for your travel and stay in top hotels. They do not realize that while trying to open a travel blog, there are still many difficulties to overcome.
Here’s what you need to know before you start becoming a travel blogger:
- This is a saturated niche market. Everyone wants to be a travel blogger, thinking that everything will be as bright as sunshine-as long as you have a travel blog (and some fans), you can apply for accommodation discounts in a five-star hotel. But the truth is not that simple. Many travel bloggers take a long time to build their empires before they get any special allowances (or compensation).
- Most of the time, you can only work in front of the computer. Being a blogger is like owning your own magazine, which combines editors, photographers, writers and stylists. Some bloggers now have their own teams, but at first, you were the only one. Shooting and editing photos and / or videos, writing articles, SEO, social media scheduling: all of these tasks require you to spend a lot of time in front of your computer.
- Writing disorder. The company pays for content, and to be a successful travel blogger, you have to meet deadlines like any other ordinary job. It is not easy to experience the local conditions and customs of each place while creating wonderful content, especially if you just want to relax and the deadline is tight.
- The income is not fixed. Like the average freelancer, your income depends on your next project. At first, you have to treat travel blogs as an expense. After all, how do you start writing about places you haven’t been? You must invest some money to travel as your content theme.
- If you are a blogger traveling alone, it may be lonely to walk from one place to another. And because you won’t stay in one place for long, you will continue to build and break friendships and contacts.
- I don’t know what to do next. Being a travel blogger can be exciting at first, but you have to keep planning the next step. Maybe one day, traveling will make you lose your passion, or your money will run out, and you need to make a plan accordingly.
If you just want to learn how to create a travel blog just to share your travel experiences, then these principles may not apply to you. Your expectations and ambitions will be based on self-realization (and perhaps sharing your adventures with friends and family), rather than building a brand to attract sponsors.
How to set up a travel blog
Not intimidated by the cruel facts of travel blogs? Here is how to create a travel blog step by step:
Hippie in Heels Travel blog
Choose a niche market
There are two basic ways to get started: travel first, and then find a way to start a travel blog, or plan to start a travel blog before you travel. The former may be motivated by a channel to share travel experiences with family and friends, while the latter is more suitable for those who plan to expand their travel blog and make a profit in the future.
Like food blogs, travel blogs come in a dozen, so it’s best to start with a niche (especially if you eventually want to make money from travel blogs), which will help you stand out from many blogs, because travel blogs generally don’t perform well in search engine optimization.
The subdivision of tourism blog
There are many niches for travel blogs that you can think of and meet your needs. For some people, their niche comes naturally. For others, it takes a while to make a decision. When determining the positioning of a travel blog, you can ask yourself the following questions:
- Why should I write a blog?
- What do I love to tell or teach to others?
- What are my skills, strengths, interests and expertise?
- Can I write on this topic for a long time? The niche should not be too wide or too narrow.
If you are looking for inspiration, here are some of the more popular travel niches:
- City blog: follow your city (you don’t have to go that far, and you probably know the subject better than most people)
- Focus on the country: destinations across the country
- Region / region: such as focusing on South America or Southeast Asia
- Focus on population: such as travel blogs aimed at Americans / US passport holders
- Budget travel
- Luxury tourism
- Travel alone
- Female travel
- Work travel
- Adventure travel
- Family travel
- Empty nesters / elderly travel
- Travel for the disabled
Or, if you are really ambitious, you can even record your trip around the world on your blog, as Gary Arndt did on the “Everything Everywhere” website. He sold his house in 2007 and began a journey around the world (more than 175 countries, growing).
Travel around the world blog
To make sure someone wants to read your blog, search for your competitors (to see if your ideas have an existing audience). You can even use tools such as Ahrefs or BuzzSumo to find the hottest content in a segment, such as “Travel to South America”, to find out what other bloggers are writing. Then ask yourself, can you do better?
Travel in South America
Or you can try to be the first person in the niche market. If you can, find the market gap. If you find yourself asking, “Why hasn’t anyone done this before?” Then do it yourself!
Build a brand
Most bloggers market themselves as brands. Your brand is your popularity and reputation. When people see your content, they will say, “too XX!” .
Blog brand building includes the following aspects:
- The name and location of your blog
- The overall appearance of the blog: theme, font, logo, hue, picture, etc.
- The tone of your writing
Draft the name of the blog
The name of the blog is important because it is also the name (brand) of the blog. Although you can change a lot of things about your blog over time, you should stick to your blog name. Please think about it before you decide on the name.
Don’t know what to call your shiny new travel blog? You can start with your own name, use a homonym of your name, or mix your name with travel-related words. Several general rules for determining the name of the blog (which is also your domain name):
- Must be easy to remember and spell
- Not too long.
- Cannot contain hyphens or numbers
For more tips, see our guide: how to choose a domain name (8 tips that stand out).
Some great travel blog names worth learning include: Nomadic Matt (a man who travels the world), Adventurous Kate (a girl who quit to travel around the world) and The Blonde Abroad (a blonde traveling alone, you guessed it). And Tanks that Get Around, a travel blog / travel vest shop.
Nomadic Matt Travel blog
Set up a blog
A professional blog needs to set up three technical elements: domain name, blog platform and virtual host.
Choose a blog platform
There are many free blogging platforms, such as Blogger, WordPress.com and Tumblr. Any of these choices are good for personal blogs, but if you plan to monetize your site, self-hosted WordPress blogs are your best choice.
Other platforms have their own limitations, but with the self-hosted WordPress site, you are completely free to customize the site. Self-hosted WordPress also allows you to grow without having to worry about having to change platforms when your travel blog suddenly becomes super popular. Learn more about the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.
WordPress has 43.3% of Internet users, a super-friendly user interface and flexible customization options. It is used in many different types of websites, whether blogs, e-commerce sites, news portals or commercial websites. Because of its open source, WordPress can be used for free, but it may cost some money to create and maintain a website.
Although the content management system you choose is free (assuming you choose WordPress), you need to pay for professional domain names and virtual hosts.
Select a reliable virtual host
A virtual host is where you store your Web site files. Hosting plans can be as cheap as $4 a month, and as blogs grow, they can be upgraded to provide visitors with more storage space and bandwidth.
It is important to choose a virtual host that is reliable, stable and does not have too much downtime. If you are just getting started, it is best to choose a shared host, which means you will share a server with other blogs. The disadvantage is that your blog may load more slowly due to sharing resources with other sites. In addition, you may need to spend more time playing with your website.
Many web servers provide application hosting, database hosting, and WordPress hosting services, which have advantages for those who are interested in how to create travel blogs.
Because when you are on the road, the last thing you have time to worry about is downtime or disrupting your server. In addition, you may not always be able to use the best network connection to solve the problem. Relying on reliable hosting can actually save you money.
You can also use a variety of tools built into the website server provider, such as database backup, which makes it easier for you to manage your site.
Customize the appearance of the blog
Once you have installed and set up the free WordPress content management system on your virtual host, you can focus on setting the look and feel of your blog-an important aspect of branding.
Customizing the following will help your travel blog become your own blog:
- Theme: you can choose a paid or free theme. Some topics are specific to travel blogs. When you start, don’t think too much about blog topics. You may want to start with free, because unlike the name of the blog, you can change the design later.
- Header: the header is at the top of the blog. You can use the header to share the blog name in text, or upload a photo file with a logo. The Blonde Abroad uses its own logo (and other brand elements) in the header:
To help make it easier to choose the overall appearance of the blog, you can make a brand board. The brand board includes:
- Color matching: there are two or three complementary colors (any more will distract you).
- Fonts: up to 3. One for the logo, one for the title, and one for the text.
- Picture: what do you want your blog to reflect when visitors visit your website? Brand section on Pinterest:
Use plug-ins to add blog functions
Plug-ins are code that you can install to add functionality to your website. Since you are just starting to use WordPress, please consult an expert. Blogging Wizard shares some of the necessary plug-ins that can help with search engine optimization, analytics, backup, security and speed up blogs.
In addition, there are some plug-ins designed for travel blogs that are worth considering. These plug-ins include:
Travel Map: show readers where you have been
Whereabouts: set your location so that readers can see your current world location
You may also want to add an Instagram plug-in to display your travel photos on your blog.
You can also consider installing the federation plug-in, but we will discuss it in more detail later in the monetization section.
Content creation
The most important part of the blog is the content. Content should not be limited to articles (or text), but can also be in the form of photos (graphics, infographs), video and audio (podcasts).
Of course, you shouldn’t start adding all these different types of content all at once-you won’t know what to do. On the contrary, when your blog begins to grow and master operational skills, you can start to add new content types.
To get some inspiration, we suggest you take a look at these guides:
- How to become an independent content marketing ninja
- How to create evergreen content using WordPress (17 tips and tricks)
- 5 things that are more important than content length
Content
There is no right or wrong in writing. Many people keep a diary to tell people about their day or experience, while others use articles on how to guide the type.
The best blogs are those that provide many types of content. Many people who read travel blogs are looking for the information you can provide about a place, and your unique voice (which is part of blog brand building) is the key to attracting readers.
If you plan to travel after setting up a travel blog, you can plan what to write, where to introduce, and from which angles to write. Ideally, you should have at least 15 articles ready before launching your blog. This gives you time to keep posting while writing your next article, while leaving enough content for the reader to stay and read.
Skills of optimizing content for search engine Optimization
There are no hard and fast rules on the length of content and its ranking on Google, but in general, the longer the content, the better.
Although the connotation and denotation of correct page SEO are beyond the scope of this article, here are some quick ways to set up content for success:
- Use headlines to organize articles (and use keywords strategically)
- Write headlines that arouse people’s curiosity so that they will share your article, but don’t have a click-through rate (that is, really support the article with great content). In addition, write the title the way people search.
- Use keywords in URL slugs
If you want to learn more about SEO (but still suitable for beginners), please check out our SEO list and some recommended SEO plug-ins.
Asher Fergusson, a successful travel blogger and client of Kinsta, says the secret to his rapid growth in organic search rankings is a controversial survey. After a nightmarish Airbnb experience in Paris with his wife and 10-month-old son, he decided to review more than 1000 horror stories to see what was most likely to go wrong. As a result, this article is titled “is Airbnb secure?” The article appeared on the home page of Reddit and was reprinted by dozens of mainstream media. This has enhanced the search engine optimization strength of his entire website.
Photography
People are visual animals, which is why platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are so successful and developing rapidly.
Taking wonderful photos or videos to make visitors feel immersive or immersive will attract more visitors to your blog. The photos will also be used for blog promotion; beautiful photos with eye-catching headlines will attract people’s attention on sites such as Pinterest.
When considering pictures, don’t forget to optimize them, considering both performance and search engine optimization. You can’t just upload full-resolution photos to your blog and expect them to load quickly. You need the help of optimization tools or plug-ins. Give your file a meaningful (and short) name, because Google takes these factors into account when choosing the content of the Google Image search index. You can read our guide to learn about the tools and methods for displaying photos: the best WordPress Photo Gallery plug-in.
Optimize photos for travel blogs
sales promotion
There are three main ways to promote blogs:
Social media: the easiest way to promote travel blogs is through your own network, but social media has hundreds of millions of monthly active users and is also known for targeted advertising, which means it can help your content reach the people who are most likely to follow it. Hand Luggage Only’s Instagram is an example of a beautiful travel photo diary. Pinterest is another great platform for promoting content. We have written a detailed guide to the best marketing techniques for Pinterest.
Travel photos on Instagram (photo source: handluggageonly)
Traditional media: publishing articles in newspapers and magazines is a good way to expose, even for online entities. In fact, the popular blogger Nomadic Matt quickly increased his fans in this way.
Search engine: the largest potential source of traffic, but the competition is also fierce.
Writing guest articles is another way to get backlinks to your site from more famous travel blogs. In addition, collecting email addresses and sending email newsletters are also effective ways to get more views because it allows you to establish direct contact with subscribers (unlike social networks, social networks may limit your contact with existing fans).
Nomadic Matt, arguably the most popular travel blog, recognizes the potential of these strategies, but chooses a different direction. He posted a guest post on his financial blog about how to travel to save money. He also posted guest posts on startup podcasts about how he built his business through his travel blog.
These strategies made him stand out from others and introduced his website to a number of different audiences.
Monetization of tourism blog
There are several ways to make your travel blog profitable, but it can be difficult when you start. Many travelers (or “digital vagrants”) accept jobs as virtual assistants, freelance writers, consultants or other types of services in order to maintain their travel lifestyle during the journey.
Ways to make money through travel blogs
In addition to using your personal brand to win customers for services you might be interested in, there are many other ways to make money from your travel blog:
Affiliate marketing: alliance marketing is all-inclusive! Travel accommodation, travel insurance, travel equipment, and even website hosting. Every time someone clicks on the link and successfully buys it, you can earn a small commission. While many bloggers make a lot of money in this way, it’s important to note that merchants pay relatively little commission on each sale, so you’re not expected to make a lot of money-especially if you’re just getting started. When you don’t have a lot of traffic (here’s how to bring more traffic to your site).
The Points Guy is a travel blog that makes money through allied marketing in areas such as hotel reservations and credit card reviews.
Sponsored articles: some companies will ask you to write sponsored articles in exchange for money, but the downside is that your readers may find it clever to do so.
Sample sponsored articles on The Savvy Backpacker
Sponsored travel: cooperate with private companies or brands and the Tourism Bureau. The Tourism Bureau usually hopes to encourage more people to visit their country through the media. They usually pay for food, accommodation, activities and sometimes even air tickets. Because they want the resulting posts to reach a wider audience, they may only offer this service to those who have more fans. Some companies may also invite you to join a sponsored trip and launch their products-at your own expense.
Display ads: the company pays for advertising space on the blog; ads can be placed in the sidebar, header or footer. This monetization strategy is the easiest to set up, but the profit is not high (most people are slow to respond to advertising). Another disadvantage of display advertising is that it relies entirely on high traffic to achieve success. For starters, the benefits of this approach are not high.
Check out Johnny Jet to learn how to integrate display ads into it.
Make and sell digital products: many bloggers offer digital products, which is a good way to make money. Digital products provide unlimited inventory with extremely low production costs (you can even outsource the production of digital assets). Even if the price of your product is very low, as long as you can sell it, you can earn regular / passive income. Common examples of these products include e-books and online courses. Easy Digital Downloads is our favorite plugin, and you can use it to sell e-books and guides.
Nomadic Matt takes the creation of digital products to the extreme.
Workshops: after accumulating a following and being recognized as an expert, you may be invited to attend a lecture or seminar, for which you can charge a fee.
Blogs don’t make enough money? Take a look at these 65 + ways to make money part-time online, while continuing to develop your travel blog in the hope that one day it will support you financially.
Firstsiteguide’s guide also includes some ideas if you are looking for an opportunity to start your travel blog.
Summary
Travel blogs are a great way to record and share your love of travel, and it is also possible to generate revenue. First of all, determine whether you are blogging for passion or profit, and then follow the above guide to help you understand how to start a travel blog.
