In this post, I’ll share with you how to start a travel blog that actually makes money.
Every day I see new travel blogs pop up from people that are planning to travel for a long period.
A lot of them are really entertaining but I’ve noticed that most of these blogs don’t get a lot of attention.
Blogs have the potential to fund you while you’re traveling but that won’t happen if you just aimlessly write content. You need an effective strategy that involves not only creating quality content but also marketing and monetizing.
I’ll share with you:
- How To Choose A Niche
- How to create a website for your blog and why it’s important
- What kind of content you should create
- How to market your blog
- How to actually start making money with your blog
Now let’s take a look at…
How To Start A Travel Blog And Actually Make Money
Choose a Niche
You might think traveling is already a niche on itself what it is of course but if you really want to get eyes on your blog I’d advise you to choose a sub-niche within travel.
This way you’ll have less competition and the chances of people subscribing to your blog will increase because they’ll know exactly what to expect when they go to your website.
Your blog might be about traveling exclusively by boat or maybe you only write about specific countries, or hotels their all kinds of ways you can go with it.
Website: Create A Blog Without Boundaries
The next thing you need to do is create a website. It’s possible to create a simple blog on WordPress.com but I strongly advise against this. The reason for this is because you aren’t allowed to advertise on a wordpress.com website.
Instead of creating a blog on wordpress.com create a wordpress.org website. You can use so much more features and it’s allowed to make money with them.
How to Create A WordPress.org website
To create a wordpress.org website you need two things.
- Hosting
- Domain name
Hosting
A host provides you with a space on the web to store all your content.
Domain name
If your internet browser is your navigator then a domain name is basically the address of your website. You need it so people can get to your website.
Almost every internet provider provides you with these two things but not every provider is equal in price and quality.
Content Creation: Give Your Readers Value
Once you have hosting and a domain name the content is the most important part of your blog. It’s the reason people come to your website but just writing without purpose isn’t going to get you anywhere.
You’ll have to categorize your content and all assign it a purpose. Here are some I’d suggest with the thought of making money in the back of my mind.
Free flowing content
This content is meant to show your audience your personality. The closer they feel to you as a content creator the better. Write about whatever you want expression is key.
Keyword rich content
This kind of content is meant to get your website on the first page of Google. Most of the time this content contains tips and hacks about your travel niche.
It could be about the best hotels, Parks, Countries to visit, etc. They are mostly based on questions people type into Google about travel. Your goal is to pop up when they type these questions into Google.
Imagery
For a travel blog imagery is very important. Take as many pictures as you need and then take even more pictures. Most successful travel blogs make you feel like you’re actually going traveling with the writer to see all kinds of amazing sights and have adventures.
Reviews
Depending on how you’re going to make money with your blog reviews can be very useful. You can review products you might need when traveling such as suitcases, credit cards etc. When we’ll get to the monetizing part of this post I’ll show you why it’s important to review travel products on your website.
Marketing: Getting Eyes On Your Blog
With the state of the internet nowadays just writing posts won’t get you, viewers. You might have some friends and family that’ll read your blog but that not nearly enough to make real money.
You’re going to have to learn some marketing. There are three ways that I think would do well when it comes to marketing a travel blog.
- Search Engine Marketing
When I first heard about search engine marketing I thought it was a joke but then I realized how many people are looking for specific things on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo.When somebody types into Google 10 reasons you should go to (country) your website should pop up. This way you can get a lot of people on your blog.Also cool is that once you’re on the first page the chance that you’ll lower in rank is pretty small so you don’t have to be active with your marketing.
- Social Media Marketing
Especially with a travel blog, social media can be a useful tool to get people on your website since most travel blogs work a lot with images. Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest can turn out to be your greatest asset. - Reddit and other Forum websites
There are a lot of websites with online communities dedicated to specific niches just like travel.These online communities can be a great way to get new people to your blog. Become a member of those communities offer value and don’t spam them.
Monetizing: Show Me The Money!!!
There are multiple ways to make money from a blog but I want to highlight these two because I have the most experience with these.
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate Marketers promote products for companies and in exchange for every sale, they get through your website they’ll give a commission.
It’s a popular way of making money online because you don’t need to create a product and you don’t need money to get started.
You could use the product reviews I was talking about earlier to review the affiliate products you’re promoting and direct people to the companies that made them so they can buy it.
Advertising
You can join Google Adsense which is an advertising network owned by Google that let bloggers monetize their website by CPC marketing (cost-per-click).
Basically what you do is put up their ads on your website and everytime someone clicks on the ad you’ll receive a small amount of money.
Both can get you money but since with CPC you only get a few cents per click you’re going to need a lot of clicks to make the money you’ll get with affiliate marketing.
One last thing
I realize this might be a lot to take in and I haven’t given you an exact step by step method.
Don’t worry I got a tip for you.
There’s this platform called Wealthy Affiliate where they train people to become bloggers that promote affiliate products. Wealthy Affiliate is active in 193 countries and has more than 1.4 million members.
They also have a free starters course that teaches you how to set up a website and get it SEO ready. Interested? Then take a look at my Wealthy Affiliate review to see what it’s all about.
Click Here To Check Out My Wealthy Affiliate Review
That’s all for now. Any questions or you just want to show some love leave a comment in the comment section.
See you at my next post!
