If you are passionate about travelling and wish to share the beauty of the place with people, then a travel blog is one of the best ways; moreover, you can earn by it as well. An ample number of people document their travelogue for the people to read but simultaneously earn a decent amount of money through their blog sites. Thereby eventually making it their career path. This article is a guide for you that will help you know the steps in starting a travel blog and how you can monetise the same.
Decide on Your Niche
Before starting with the blog, you should think and pick a travel blog niche. Niche will help you create consistency in your blog; it can be a backpack travelling, luxury travelling, a blog for your target audiences, or travelling on a strict budget; the options are limitless. Furthermore, choosing your niche will enable you to focus only on a few specific areas while travelling, which will help when you sit to write as things would be organised, to begin with.
Think About a Domain Name
Once you know the niche on which you need to concentrate, take time out and think about the domain name of your blog. The domain name can be something quirky or something that will reflect the content of the blog. The domain name of your travel blog plays a vital role in building the brand of the blog. Thereby, take as much time as possible to decide on a suitable domain name for your blog.
Select and Purchase from the Hosting Provider
Purchasing a website hosting is one of the necessary purchases one has to make before starting a travel blog. Buying a hosting provider is vital as it will ensure that the site will load quickly and give a better user experience.
Deciding on a Blog Theme
Pick a blog theme for your travel blog site to give the entire blog site an excellent aesthetic. A good theme will automatically lead to a great looking travel blog site.
Install Useful Plugins
Installing relevant plugins to the travel blogs will ensure that you can add new functionality without having any technical knowledge about it. Specific plugins like the Security Plugins, SEO Plugins, and Caching plugins are some of the necessary plugins that need to be installed on your travel blogs.
Create the Content and Add it
Now that the foundation of your travel blog has been laid, it is time to create engaging content for the blog. Start writing blogs and adding pictures of your travels to make them more attractive. Nowadays, bloggers add video content to their blogs to appeal to the audience. They hire a professional video maker and create short video content added to the blog as a visual representation.
Make the Blog Look Attractive
The saying first impression is the last one also holds true in the case of travel blogs. Merely having written material at times doesn’t work to attract the readers initially. Hence, it is advisable to add well-edited pictures and a short video made with the help of a video maker to add to your travel blog. The first thing the readers will see is the pictures and the video; if that appeals to them, they will read the blog.
Review and Edit the Content Before Posting
One of THE most important things that many bloggers fail to follow is reviewing and editing the written and visual content before publishing it to your blog site. First, read the content you have written at least three to four times. Then, look at the video content with your video maker and see if some editing is required before the final publishing. This will ensure that you give out good quality content to your audiences.
Grow Your Audience
Now that you have started your travel blog, you have to invest in strategies that will help grow your audience. You can take the help of all the social media platforms, add social media share buttons to your blogs and encourage the readers to share your content. Apart from that, learning more about SEO and keyword research will help you reach out to more people and eventually lead to getting more traffic to your travel blog.
Monetise the Blog
Once you start your blog with the proper SEO, you will start getting some traffic towards your blog; here is where you can monetise the blog. Some of the popular ways to make money through a blog are.
Affiliate Marketing
Bloggers worldwide have been earning a decent amount of money through affiliate marketing. Bloggers earn commission on marketing or recommending the products or services of any entity.
Google AdSense
With the help of Google AdSense, travel bloggers can earn money by displaying ads on their blog sites, and Google will pay them every time a visitor clicks the ads.
Sponsored Posts
Many travel related companies pay bloggers to publish a blog posts about them.
Sponsored Trips
Tourism-related companies and brands will give you sponsored trips to the places they want you to write about in your blog.
Premium Content
To avail the advantages of monetising through premium content, you need to establish yourself well. Then, once your blog site becomes popular, you can write a specific premium content blog for your readers through a paid subscription.
Workshops, Seminars and Online Courses
Once you are a relatively known name in the circle, you can conduct travel related workshops, seminars and online courses. You can conduct these independently, or there will be travel-related companies offering you to conduct them on their behalf.
Travel Blog comes with not only monetary benefits but also other non-monetary perks like increasing your networking opportunities, getting invited to exclusive events and many more such benefits. Furthermore, if you get established as one of the respected travel bloggers, it will automatically result in getting more income through various collaborations. As a result, many travel bloggers have quit their job and have made travel blogging their full-time career, supporting their lifestyle.
