How to Start a Money-Making Travel Blog

Create your first blog entry by

Make a first blog about yourself after you’ve finished with your about page. Explain why you began the blog, what it’ll be about, where you’re going, and where you’ve been. Your start is how readers will learn about you, and it will help your blog get off to a good start. Start posting it on social media once you’ve finished writing it – Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest are great places to start.

Don’t be afraid to show off your personality:

don’t be dull. I was so concerned on seeming professional and knowledgeable when I agreed to launch a travel blog that I winds up writing dull posts and read like Wikipedia articles. I had no idea that it’s your personality that will persuade others to subscribe. My traffic increased once I embraced her inner idiot and began writing about just the ways I’d screwed up on the road. It’s crucial to have had a personality when blogging; don’t try to be a how-to manual. Make yourself a person. Be true to yourself. Even if you’re a complete oddball. Writing my blog entries as I would talk, then tidying up the language and sentence structure later, is one process that helps them achieve this.

Make a business plan:

This is something that no one talks about, yet it’s crucial! If you want to be successful with your travel blog, you must handle it as just another business. How are i going to achieve your goals? What are your plans for monetizing your website? How will you attract a following? In three months, where do you like being? Or in a year’s time? Which businesses do you wish to collaborate with? Where would you like to be highlighted? Start thinking long-term, set down your objectives, and act toward them right away.

If I were starting a travel blog in 2021

I’d join dozens of Fb pages to stay connected with other travel bloggers, look for travel blogging guest blog room to develop links to my site, focus on Pinterest to increase traffic, write 3,000+ word resources that are stronger and more detailed than any on Google’s first page, and earn $500 per month. Within 3-6 months of establishing your travel blog, you should really be able to meet your income target.

Install Google Analytics:

You’ll need Google Analytics to keep track of how many people visit their site each day. You’ll be able to track you traffic and learn more about the readers this way. But don’t get too worked up over it! It’s way too simple to lose track of time by gazing at your live stats for a whole day. Check in every few days to monitor which posts are getting the most attention and whether it’s rising or falling over time.

Do things differently to appeal to the masses: Tens of people of travel blogs are now available. What will you do to make yourself stand out in a crowd? Because I’m a contrarian, I attempt to do the polar opposite of what everyone else is doing in order to discover a niche.

I refuse to go on press trips

stay in sponsored hotels, or accept free things for review. Why? Because every world traveler does all of the other things, and I figured it was one of their followers’ least favorite aspects of their blogs. I chose to pay for it all myself more and travel like a non-blogger, and I’ve gotten nothing but positive feedback as a result.

I don’t give tips as to how to travel throughout the world. Instead, because no one else is doing it, I write over how I mucked up while traveling. And thus, despite the fact that travel isn’t always fantastic, many travel bloggers claim that it is. Instead of pretending that my life is wonderful and that I’m living the dream, I write occasionally about my struggles with mental illness and what it’s like to travel while dealing with a psychological problem. I write as to how it feels to get disoriented in every freaking city you visit, how it feels to be scammed for the nth time in a year, and how to deal to your boat sinking in Thailand.

Everyone advises you to stick to a posting schedule. However, I did not begin by posting on a regular basis, and I have never done so. Bloggers recommend posting 2 – 3 times a week, yet I’ve posted every week for months at a time. When I secured a book deal, I only posted every three months, yet my audience climbed nonetheless. Surprisingly, when I updated every day for a month, my traffic plummeted! The most crucial thing is to concentrate on your writing quality. If it means sacrificing the quality of your work, don’t rush to submit as much as possible.

There are a few things that will assist you in achieving success, which is why everyone is doing them. Self-host with Bluehost, emerge with a clever name, choose a lovely theme, and figure out how to market yourself. Everything else, on the other hand, isn’t as vital. You can post whenever you want, travel whenever you want, & write about almost anything interests you. Be true to yourself. That is how you create an effective travel blog.

Establish a about page

You should create a about page before you publish your first post. When I initially visit a travel blog, the first step I do is look up that whoever the blog is, what they’re up to, and why I still be interested in them. The importance of a about page cannot be overstated. It explains why potential readers should join you on your trip. That was also the spot where you can show off your personality! Share strange facts about yourself, explain why you wish to travel, and demonstrate that you’re a real person worth following. This is your moment to grab your readers’ attention and persuade them to stick around, so don’t be dull.

HOW DO YOU MAKE MONEY BY BLOGGING ABOUT YOUR TRAVELS?

Many travel bloggers advise waiting until you have a huge and engaged following before considering monetizing your page, but I don’t believe this is necessary. There are numerous strategies to begin making money that will not impede your progress or irritate anyone who views your website. Here’s how I suggest you get started:

Adsense is the simplest way to begin earning money through advertisement. Signup, customize your ad settings (I’ve had the most luck with a 300×250 banner placed beneath the first line of a post), and you’re ready to go! Also, get the Instant Adsense plugin, which makes setting the ad code wherever on your site a breeze. Experiment with various positions as well.

If you have enough placements, you should be able to produce as much as $1 every 1,000 visitors to your site, and while that may not seem like much, if you hit 25,000 monthly visitors, you may quit Adsense and join Mediavine to start generating 10x more money without advertising. Many new travel bloggers achieve 50,000 monthly page views in under a year, which with Mediavine translates to roughly $750 in ad money per month, which is enough to survive on in cheap countries like Vietnam.

If you choose to get started using online advertising (and you should — affiliate marketing is how I make that six figures every year! ), Amazon is a great place to start. For newbies, Amazon Associates is the greatest option. You can utilize Amazon Associates to search for a product every time you mention it on your site, and then incorporate that link in any post. You’ll get a commission on any sales made by your readers who click upon the link and opt to buy something. Start with packing lists, in-depth assessments, and gift guides to see how much money you can make on Amazon.

I have packing lists for my site that bring in over $300 per month, so once you can write a thorough packing list and have it rank top in Google, it’s a terrific way to make money and you’ll have a large audience. Could you write any of them? So now you’ve got $1,000 streaming in on a monthly basis.

Other affiliate programs: There’s no reason why you can’t join various affiliate programs as well, as long as you don’t go crazy and cram every paragraph with just a ton of sponsored content (which can be tempting!). Booking.com, GetYourGuide, and Skyscanner are some of the most popular ones I use and recommend. I use Booking.com to link to places I’ve stayed, GetYourGuide to promote excursions, and Skyscanner to talk about finding cheap flights.

When you write a lengthy travel guide for a location, you’ll be able to recommend the hotel they stayed in, tell your readers how you discovered affordable airfare, and suggest that they make the most of the time by taking excursions. Then, of course, you may profit from anyone who clicks on those links and follows your advice.

You can see how profitable affiliate marketing can be by looking at an one post on my site that pulls me $1,500 per month in Hotels.com commissions alone.

Most importantly, I use each and every one of these firms and have done so from the day I began traveling. If you despise Skyscanner and not use it, for illustration, you should not recommend it to your readers only to make money. You must act ethically!

The best part about affiliate marketing is that you may start earning money right away. If you start your travel blog by writing an Athens trip guide and it ranks on the first top of Google within a month or so, you might add affiliate links to that piece and make a good amount of money from it – even if your whole blog doesn’t get a lot of traffic.

That’s all I’d like to concentrate on right now. In the beginning phases, if not forever, I’d avoid monetising using social media, attempting to get free vacation, and conducting branded content articles/sponsored posts because they’re most likely to anger your readers.

HOW MUCH DOES STARTING A TRAVEL BLOG COST?

• Let’s look at the initial costs of maintaining a blog now that we’ve covered how to make a profit with your site. Here are a few possibilities:
• You want to keep your friends and family updated on your travels by starting a blog: free
• There’s no need to invest money up front if your goal is to create a record of your trips for your friends to go along with and not to turn it into a business. Instead, I suggest going to WordPress.com (rather than.org) and creating your site there. You won’t have to pay for hosting, and you’ll have access to free travel blog templates.
• You want to launch a competitive travel blog but lack the financial means to do so: $109
• There are surely methods to save money on your travel blog without affecting its overall quality.
• I have yet to encounter a prominent travel blog that isn’t self-hosted, therefore this is a must. When it comes to themes, I believe that having one that is smooth and modern will
• provide a better second impression, so I believe that is also crucial. In this situation, a ThemeForest theme for roughly $50 will have you well on your way to creating a fantastic travel blog.
• If you’re wanting to save money on your logo, use Canva. They offer some very beautiful banner designs that you can use for free, and you can consult a decent designer later on if you’re successful. Skip everything and anything that isn’t free at this stage; you can invest in those after your site starts producing money.
• If you’re on a tight budget, you’ll pay $59 for Bluehost hosting and $50 for a good theme up front, and that’s it!
• You’re dead set on starting a successful, money-making travel blog as soon as possible: upfront payment of $150
• You’ll be looking at hefty up-front fees if you have money to spend and are willing to devote as much time as possible to getting your personal website off the ground. You’ll probably start earning money within the first year of posting, if not sooner.
• With a three-year Bluehost hosting package ($100), you’ll cover the basics, then splurge on a WordPress themes theme for under $50.
• If you’re me, your monthly income is $330.

Ha! I’m on this list because you’re probably curious about how much money you’ll be spending on a website after you’re successful. The following is a breakdown of my key monthly expenses:

• Cloudways charges me $35 per month t host my website. Over the years, as my site has developed, I’ve experimented with a variety of providers, paid as much as $300 per month in the hopes of making my site the quickest on the internet. Finally, I chose Cloudways because it provides an outstanding combination of speed and cost.
• SEMRush costs me $100 every month. This is an SEO device that lets you to discover which keyword your site ranks for in Google, identify which articles you should write next,
• analyze your competitors’ websites, find out which domains have linked to yours, record social shares online, and a whole lot more. It’s pricy, but the knowledge it gives me with easily pays for itself every year, so call it a must.
• ConvertKit charges me $700 per year for newsletter services.
• Tailwind costs me $600 per year to arrange pins on Pinterest.
• With Xero, I pay $400 per year for accounting software.
• Crashplan charges me $250 per year to keep my travel images online.
• It may appear to be a lot, but bear in mind that my travel blog earns me well over $10,000 each month, so these are all expenses I can justify.

IS IT TOO LATE IN 2022 TO START A TRAVEL BLOG?

I get a lot of letters and comments from people who are worried about starting a travel blog too late. Is that correct? Nope! No way. It’s not too late, believe it or not.

And what about the pandemic? Many travel bloggers gave up as a result of it. While the holiday blogging community used to be densely packed, it has thinned out in recent months as writers who rely on press trips have ran out of cash. And now that things are beginning to normalize, those of us who focussed on making money are still doing better than before, with less market than before.

It’s a fantastic moment to get started.

What’s more, you know what? There are a lot more ways to make money than what it used to be. There were just a few travel bloggers that made $1,000 per month when I first started out, and they were the ones who’d been posting for several years. There are several dozen travel bloggers who make six figures a year these days.

I see young bloggers revealing how they made six figures in only a 12-month period two of blogging in Facebook groups – something that took the first travel blogger 4 – 5 years to achieve.

I’d be likely to access my current salary in two years if I started my travel blog today. So don’t be put off by the large number of travel blogs on the internet today; focus on driving traffic and then monetizing your audience, and you’ll be well on your way in no time!