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Are you adventurous and looking to explore the world? Do you want to turn this lifestyle into a sustainable livelihood? If you answered yes, you’re in the right place. There are many ways to make money as you travel such as selling photos and videos or becoming a travelling bartender, however today we are going to focus on travel blogging.
Continue reading to learn more about the steps to start and make money as a travel blogger.
Step 1: Pick a niche
When it comes to travel blogging, there is a wide array of topics to choose from. Whether it be travelling to a specific country or area, backpacking, luxury travel, or anything else, it is important to select a niche that you will enjoy doing and be passionate about blogging as it will work best for you long-term. Additionally, by focusing on a few specifics, you have greater opportunities to build a high traffic blog and improve.
Step 2: Select a domain name
Your domain name should be simple and easy to remember. When you’re just starting out, you should be looking to select a name that you can build into a brand. It could contain your name or be a variation of it, in the end, it is important to ensure that your domain name is one that will attract people back to your site.
Learn more with a complete guide to custom domains.
Step 3: Pick a website builder and start building your website
A website builder allows users to create and design a website without having to code it from scratch. You can also manage your domains here as well. A popular choice for users is Wordpress, where you can build your own website without having to code. When using a program such as Wordpress, you will also need to find a place to host your website, such as GoDaddy.
A simple, elegant alternative to Wordpress is Jemi. Jemi is a drag and drop website-builder where you can easily link your custom domain and host your website. With tons of templates to choose from, Jemi easily takes you through the process of creating a blog while doing most of the work for you. Just pick a template, move around the blocks to your liking, edit the content, and link your domain!
Step 4: Choose a travel blog theme and design your website
The theme of your blog will determine how it looks. A visually appealing, polished, and professional website will draw in visitors. Additionally, a functional website including fast and practical navigation options, is key as first impressions are essential for visitors and this can lead to increased customer retention and may translate to increased sales.
User experience (UX) on your website plays a key role in incentivizing users to visit and stay on your website. When creating your website's UX, ensure you have clear and logical navigation with consistent layouts to attract people.
Luckily, Jemi offers a wide variety of modern and highly customizable templates to help you design your ideal travel blog.
Step 5: Create and add content
Now that you’ve done the technical work and set up your website, it’s time to start travelling! You can write about anything that interests you, from travel essentials, day in the life, or best food destinations in your favourite city to visit, there are endless possibilities!
Step 6: Build an audience
There are many channels to build the audience for your blog. Social media can be an effective tool to leverage into building and sustaining a loyal audience for your blog. By creating socials such as Instagram or Pinterest and linking them on your site, it can help your content reach your desired audience.
In addition, it is important to learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and topics like keyword research. SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic to a website or a web page from search engines. In simple terms, how easy it will be for people to find your site on Google. Keyword research is an SEO strategy where website owners find and research search terms that users enter into search engines when looking for products, services or general information. Keywords are related to queries, which are asked by users in search engines. By learning to leverage these strategies, you will set your blog up for success through organic traffic.
How to make money from your travel blog
Once your blog starts to garner some traffic, here are some ways that you can make money from your blog:
- Affiliate marketing: You can have affiliates for almost everything – accommodation, insurance, travel gear, web hosting. Every time someone clicks on a link resulting in the purchase of an affiliate’s product, you earn a (small) commission.
- Freelance travel photography: Earn money by licensing your travel photographs for use in commercial marketing campaigns or media outlets.
- Google Adsense: Google generates ads relevant to travel on your blog. When visitors click on the offered ads, you earn revenue
- Premium content: You can sell digital guides for the places that you’ve visited to save other travelers time and give unique insights.
- Offer personalized advice: Offer travel related advice for payment of a fee, or offer personalized or guided tours of specific places, or curate travel plans
- Sponsored posts: Travel related businesses may pay you to write about them on your blog. Just make sure to be transparent.
- Sponsored trips: Tourism boards, private companies or brands can ask you to visit their places and write about it.
- Workshops: Accept offers to conduct travel-related workshops
Now that you’ve learned how to get started as a travel blogger, why wait? Get started with