How to start a Travel Blog and make Money

How to Start a Travel Blog and make Money

A Travel Blog

Since I started this blog on 27th May 2020 the question “How to start a travel blog has been popping in almost all my platforms.

I decided to answer you`ll in this blog post.

This is a huge topic to cover in just one blog post but I will summarize and give you all the essentials you need to start a travel blog but before that.

Please note the following.

If you intend to start a travel blog or just any blog for the money. Am sorry this is the minute to abort the mission.

The brutal honesty is that you will be very disappointed! Am not trying to discourage you but just being honest with you.

They will never tell you this because they want you to buy their damn expensive blogging shitty courses.

Some will even go ahead and convince you how they started making $5000 in a month in the first 6 months.

Pause! If it was this easy everyone would be doing it.

Who wouldn’t want to be paid to travel? To be able to work anywhere at any time you feel like?

Let passion drive you as you depend on other income as you build your travel blog. During your free time sponsor yourself and travel to give your readers first-hand experience.

Money will come way later! If you`re ready for this sacrifice then you`re good to go on reading how to start a travel blog.

However, don’t keep your pace of publishing new blog posts too slow since google is like a small baby who depends on food for growth.

In this case, fresh content is the food. We shall be looking at that in detail.

Without much ado, let’s delve in and disseminate the steps on how to start a travel blog.

1.) Pick a Name.

I don’t regret the name I choose for this blog, Into Safaris but I should have included my name to make it sound more of a personal blog than a tour agency.

This is the step where you should be keen since once you build a brand it will be hard and costly to change. However, try to be quirky and creative at the same time picking a name.

When choosing a name for your Travel Blog avoid cliché names like a nomad (Name), vagabond (Name), Globetrotter (Name) etc.

Also, keep away from naming your blog posts like the already established travel blogs. You will always look fake and a wannabe.

Tip: Readers here like it if you are yourself, be simple, be you. Don’t try to fake to impress the truth will always catch up with you.

NB// It doesn’t matter whether it is a travel blog but whenever you`re choosing a business name always remember: –

  • To keep the name short.
  • Easy to remember
  • Easy to pronounce
  • If possible, make it a one-word, e.g. Fubu, Nike, Centum.
  • For a travel blog, it will not be easy to make it one-word but two will be okay. E.g. Into Safaris, adventurous Kate, Kemzy Kemzy etc.

2.) Hosting.

Now that you have selected an incredible name to start your Travel blog. It is time to choose a hosting company.

Web hosting is whereby a hosting company gives or allocates space in their servers for your website to store files. You will simply upload your website files to a web server.

Bluehost is a great partner since you don’t have to pay for domain registration for the first year. It is free, unlike other hosts.

Furthermore, Bluehost is quite affordable starting from $2.95/mo. They are not only affordable, give you free domain registration for 1 year but also provide quality and meaningful 24/7 support.

3.) Install WordPress.

How to start a blog - Install WordPress
How to start a blog – Install WordPress

No doubt WordPress is the King, well, you may have heard of other website builders Joomla, blogpost, Wix, Weebly, web. Com, Zyro etc.

You should just cut the chase and install WordPress.

According to Wikipedia  “WordPress is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database.”

It is said 41% of the world websites are built with WordPress and as a beginner, you will never go wrong with this choice.

Tip: For you, to Start a Travel Blog Choose a self-hosted WordPress account which means your website files is stored in your host servers and not WordPress free Account.

You will be able to advertise in your blog and have google analytics, which is necessary to monitor your website traffic and growth.

Once you Sign Up with Blue Host you are good to go. All you have to do is choose a theme. Not just a theme but I encourage a lightweight theme as explained below.

4.) Download Lightweight Theme.

Google Page Speed
Google Page Speed

Have you ever been hurt so many times when it comes to love but on the verge of giving up you find your soul mate and live happily ever after?

That is exactly what happened to me. I was almost giving up when I found my all-time theme.

Despite having ads on my website Astra Theme has proved to walk with me all through.

At the time of publishing this blog post, my website is/was scoring 95 Mobile 100 in desktop in google page speed.

You can test my website in google page speed to commensurate the above data. NB// Test twice since the first test has cache.

5.) Develop your travel Blog brand.

This is the time to get quirky and eccentric with your travel blog. You choose the type of colours your travel blog will rock on.

It is time to design your Logo, you can use canvas or outsource for a designer.

Try and keep it simple, the goal is to be easy to remember.

For example, the most memorable logos are simply the name of the blog or organization. The likes of Coca Cola, if you must go outside the name then make it as simple as possible e.g. Facebook.

6.) Download Plugins.

How to start a Travel Blog - Essential Plugins
How to start a Travel Blog – Essential Plugins

The rule here is to keep your plugins not more than 10 and if possible 5. Just keep the necessary plugins. These are the ones I regard as essential when starting a travel blog.

Yoast Plugin is Probably one of the most important plugins you will ever download!

This plugin will help you with your SEO while starting your Travel blog.

It will make you know the basic SEO knowledge since if you need to succeed in blogging there is no short cut you must be well vast in SEO.

Akismet Essential plugin for filtering spasms, once you start getting the traffic you will be receiving all kinds of spam in the form of comments and this plugin will do the job for you making you save loads of time.

Contact Form BY wp Forms This plugin will help in communication, especially if you have not provided email for obvious reasons.

Someone who needs to reach you will key in details then a short message of the reason why they would like to contact you.

It is only then you will decide whether to respond or ignore if it’s spam.

WP Super Cache This will help you speed up your website

MailChimp for WordPress Ever heard of the newsletter? This is the plugin that will enable your newsletter. It is free for the first 1000 subscribers.

7.) Pick Blogging Tempo.

This is a tricky part if you want to make a business out of your blog and at the same time grow your travel blog.

You will have to have a frequency you must stick to.

If you decide to publish 3 blogs post a week, then stick to that.

A frequently asked question on how to start a travel blog is the frequency formula for posting a new blog post.

The first year you should try to post at least 3 times a week. This is what I did and sometimes I would post daily though it was not before long I burned out.

After the first year, you should have blog posts ranging from 100 plus posts and minimum traffic of 10,000 sessions.

Read my first year Blogging, step by step for the first 12 months and how each month traffic grew.

After the first year, you can start posting twice or once a week. However, if possible, continue with the first-year frequency.

So, what happens if you don’t keep up with a frequency and don’t post regularly? Your building traffic will crumble and die a natural death, you don’t want that after all the hard work.

Tip: When you start a travel blog avoid short posts, aim for anything above 1500 words and if you must write a short post then let it not be below 1000 words.

This is in regards to SEO and your readers they don’t like shallow work.

Give both quality content. Exhaust your topic so that your readers don’t have to start searching again because you didn’t give the full details.

8.) Time to Monetize your Travel Blog.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing

Congratulations on getting this far. It is time to start getting something from your travel blog. So, how do you do it?

The first thing you should start with is affiliate marketing and I don’t advice AdSense at this early stage. We shall be seeing why.

Now, travel niche doesn’t have many affiliate options however the ones we have we utilize to the maximum.

These are the Options.

Amazon This is where you will sell all the travel essentials, the likes of what to pack for a Safari or Beach. The essentials you need for hiking.

Guide books, adventure books and basically anything related to your travel niche.

Jumia This is an African version of Amazon, so when you start a travel blog and you have African traffic you can kick in Jumia and give your readers a choice to compare prices with Amazon.

Booking. Com so far this is my favourite affiliate marketing. It was the first method I used to make the first few dollars.

It wasn’t much but the first income you will make out of your travel blog no matter how small. It will make you giggle like a toddler.

World Nomads This is an affiliate marketing for travel insurance, everyone including myself needs insurance whenever travelling.

Sponsored posts: Write sponsored posts that you feel will be helpful to your readers. Don’t write for the sake of it and money.

Be relevant and value your readers more otherwise this is a great source of revenue for your travel blog.

9.) Why you should avoid AdSense when starting a travel blog.

This is not ideal for a travel Blog but any other blog. You should not run in placing AdSense and this is why.

Your website will be cluttered with AdSense and your little to no traffic will barely bring you any revenue.

This is the moment to concentrate more on creating authentic content and not placing ads.

They will slow your website; you are barely new and inexperienced to this competitive niche. This will hurt your SEO with a high bounce rate and give your new readers a not so good friendly user experience.

So, what should you do? After you start a travel blog, give yourself like 3 months, apply for Google AdSense they don’t have traffic requirements.

It may take you long before they accept you but once they do. If you have not hit the 10,000 sessions a month.

Just place 1 or 2 ads per page, to keep your account active, however, once you hit the 10,000 sessions you can place Auto ads.

This is also the time to Apply to Ezoic, a Google certified Great Ad platform that uses artificial intelligence to test ad placements.

Ezoic will make you sensible revenue out of your travel blog. Since I moved from AdSense to Ezoic my revenue Tripled.

Conclusion.

Blogging is a business just like any other. Keep learning a thing or two a day about travel blogging. There are so many materials to read on and offline.

Learn from our mistakes and take the possible initiatives to make blogging a sustainable source of income and be able to work from anywhere anytime.

Interact with fellow travel bloggers exchange knowledge and grow steadily. Just remember travel blogging is not for the swift but for marathoners.

Congratulations once more for starting a travel blog.

2 thoughts on “How to Start a Travel Blog and make Money”

  1. Traveling opens our minds, expands our horizons, and enriches our souls. It allows us to discover new cultures, try new foods, and make unforgettable memories.

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