✈️ How To Start a Travel Blog That Makes Money In [currentyear]

Beginning a journey weblog is an thrilling technique to share your journey experiences.

Not solely do you get to discover the world, however you even have the chance to construct a group of fellow journey fans — and make a substantial earnings when you’re at it.

At Authority Hacker, we’ve guided over 15,000 college students in creating worthwhile blogs, a lot of whom are within the journey area of interest.

We’ve additionally unlocked the secrets and techniques of turning weblog guests into money – try this sampling of affiliate commissions we’ve earned through the years.

To allow you to discover comparable success, we’ve distilled our experience into this 10-step information.

Why Start a Travel Blog

Whether or not you’re a seasoned traveler or simply setting out in your first journey, creating a journey weblog may be a fulfilling path.

For starters, the journey business is booming proper now, and beginning a journey weblog permits you to capitalize on that recognition. Greater than 90% of People plan to travel in 2024, and the worldwide journey business was estimated to rake in a whopping 7 trillion dollars.

Travel running a blog additionally empowers you to make a constructive affect on aspiring vacationers. By sharing your experiences and insights, you may assist individuals obtain their journey targets.  

However one of the best a part of beginning a journey weblog is getting paid to journey. With simply a laptop computer and web entry, you may develop your journey website anyplace. And with affiliate entrepreneurs within the journey area of interest incomes a median of $13,847 per 30 days, there’s ample alternative to make good cash.

Profitable Travel Web site Examples

One of the simplest ways to discover ways to begin a journey weblog is by learning different achieved journey bloggers. Listed here are a few nice examples:

SANspotter

SANspotter paperwork Scott Leazenby’s journey adventures, with a explicit give attention to airways, airport lounges, and particular flight routes.

Visit the site

The Hawaii Trip Information

The Hawaii Trip Information helps individuals take advantage of out of their trip to the Hawaiian islands. They share itineraries, suggestions, opinions, and extra.

Visit the site

SV Delos

SV Delos teaches aspiring sailors find out how to journey the world on a sailboat. They share crusing movies, security suggestions, and promote their very own merchandise.

Visit the site

How To Start a Travel Blog in 10 Steps

Right here is a foolproof information to launching a profitable journey website in ten straightforward steps:

1 Slim Down Your Travel Blog’s Area of interest

A distinct segment is a particular, targeted space inside a given subject. You may cowl broad niches — on this case, the journey business — and smaller sub-niches. For instance, some sub-niches within the journey area may very well be:

• Household Travel: Recommendations on touring with young children or a rising household.
• Voluntourism: How to volunteer your time in trade for lodging and experiences.
• Regional Meals Tourism: Meals or beverage guides throughout totally different areas.
• Van Life Travel: Ideas for dwelling and touring in a van.

At first look, you could assume it’s a good thought to maintain your area of interest broad, however there are two massive causes you must slender down your area of interest:

1. It’s a lot simpler to be seen as an knowledgeable in a smaller sub-niche than within the broader “travel” area of interest. Being seen as an knowledgeable may help your branding and make it simpler to develop a following.
2. Google rewards websites that concentrate on small corners of bigger niches with greater search rankings.

You may widen your area of interest as your website grows, however beginning with a slender focus will allow you to develop your viewers and begin earning profits sooner.

Prepared to seek out a sub-niche? Right here’s how:

First, make a checklist of all of the potential niches you’re contemplating throughout the journey area, in addition to some competing web sites inside these niches.

There are a few methods to do that.  One methodology includes looking Google for key phrases associated to your subject (like “family travel tips”) to seek out blogs specializing in that area of interest.

You can even search via weblog aggregators like Detailed to seek out high-traffic websites inside your required sub-niche.

Certainly one of our favourite instruments for locating rivals and analyzing website visitors is Ahrefs. It permits you to sort in a competitor’s web site and click on on the Natural Rivals tab on the left sidebar.

This conveniently brings up a checklist of that website’s high rivals; add any that appear related to your checklist.

After you have a checklist of rivals, the following step is to verify the visitors quantity for every competing web site within the niches you’re contemplating to get an thought of that area of interest’s visitors potential.

You may verify a web site’s natural visitors utilizing the Aggressive Analysis software on SE Rating, which affords a free trial.

You may additional slender down your choice through the use of Google Trends to check the search visitors of every potential area of interest.

Selecting your area of interest is a massive determination, and it’s necessary to really feel assured earlier than transferring ahead. However don’t dwell too lengthy on the decision-making course of — likelihood is, you already know which area of interest is asking your title the loudest.

Should you nonetheless want some steering, try our in-depth information to picking a profitable area of interest:

2 Select a Running a blog Platform

The subsequent step in turning into a profitable journey blogger is selecting a running a blog platform.

Free social running a blog platforms like Blogger and Medium are nice for informal bloggers, however they've some main downsides should you’re severe about constructing a profitable journey weblog. They severely prohibit customization, restrict the forms of content material you may submit, and considerably cut back weblog monetization choices.  

As a substitute, I like to recommend constructing your personal web site. Right here’s why:

• You’ll have full management over your website and gained’t have to stick to strict guidelines and lack of customization choices.
• Nobody can delete your content material or shut down your weblog.
• You’ll have the flexibleness to earn cash via affiliate marketing online, show adverts, and different income sources.
• You should use SEO (web optimization) to focus on particular key phrases and ship visitors to your weblog.
• It’s straightforward to combine your weblog together with your social media accounts.
• You may construct an e mail checklist to create one other visitors supply and shield your weblog from adverse Google algorithm adjustments.

To construct your web site, I like to recommend utilizing WordPress.org (to not be confused with WordPress.com). It’s free to make use of and affords full management over your website’s design and performance with 1000's of themes and plugins.

3 Select Your Area Title

Your area title is actually your web site’s tackle on the web. It contains your web site’s title and a area extension.  

An excellent area title is necessary as a result of it builds credibility together with your viewers and helps them bear in mind you.

So, what do you have to look out for when selecting a area title?

• Preserve it quick and easy. Quick domains are simpler to recollect. Intention for not more than three phrases.
• Preserve it broad and related. You need a area title that's related to your sub-niche however permits for growth into different areas of your broad area of interest in a while.
• Test social media availability. Should you plan on utilizing social media, be certain the title you need is offered on all platforms. You may rapidly verify for username availability on the most well-liked platforms via Brandsnag.
• Analysis logos: Keep away from authorized points by guaranteeing your area title isn’t trademarked via the Trademark Electronic Search System.
• Select a .com area: A .com area is acquainted to customers and gives greater belief than different extensions. In case your area is taken, you may think about using a .com various like .org, io, or .web.
• Keep away from confusion: Your area title must be straightforward to spell and pronounce so customers can share your website by way of phrase of mouth. Additionally, keep away from utilizing random numbers, underscores, and dashes.

Should you’re having hassle brainstorming the proper area title, use the free Brandsnap software to get AI-generated area strategies.

When you’ve discovered the proper area title to your journey website, it’s time to buy it.

I like to recommend utilizing Namecheap. They provide domains for as little as $10 per yr.

4 Purchase Net Internet hosting

The subsequent step in turning into a journey blogger is to seek out and buy internet hosting.

Whereas your area title factors customers to your website, a internet host shops and makes your web site’s content material accessible on-line.

Bluehost is a in style possibility, because it’s fairly cheap. Nonetheless, should you’re aiming for pace, reliability, and top-notch efficiency, SiteGround is our advice.

They provide a steep low cost for first-year customers, making the value distinction between Bluehost and SiteGround negligible.

Listed here are 7 straightforward steps to organising internet hosting via SiteGround:

Step 1: Go to SiteGround’s WordPress internet hosting web page

Step 2: Select the most affordable internet hosting plan. The StartUp plan affords greater than sufficient options to get you going in your journey website.

Step 3: Enter your area title and click on Proceed.

Step 4: Enter your account data.

Step 5: Add cost data and select your package deal size. The 12-month possibility typically affords one of the best deal.

Step 6: Skip the additional companies since they're pointless for a new website.

Step 7: Point your domain name to SiteGround. That is accomplished via the DNS settings on Namecheap (or wherever you bought your area title). When you've got any points, simply contact SiteGround’s assist group.

Congratulations! This wraps up the extra tedious aspect of beginning a new website.

5 Select a Theme for Your Travel Blog

Selecting a theme is step one in curating your website’s aesthetic.

Your theme will have an effect on virtually each facet of your website, together with consumer expertise, cell responsiveness, performance, and even safety. You may at all times change it later, however we extremely suggest selecting a nice theme from the start.

I like to recommend selecting a free theme that gives a premium improve possibility. Free themes are positive for beginning, however they've limitations that may hamper your weblog’s progress.

A “freemium” theme permits you to lower your expenses initially and keep away from the complexities of switching themes in a while.

You’ll additionally need your theme to be visually fascinating and convey the suitable message to your viewers. Nonetheless, most themes make it straightforward to alter colours, branding, photographs, and format, so this isn’t a enormous issue.

Due to this fact, you must prioritize options like pace, buyer assist, seamless plug-in integration, and straightforward customization.

Our favourite free themes for brand spanking new websites are Astra, Kadence, and GeneratePress. They provide premium upgrades and are remarkably quick, straightforward to customise, and have nice assist groups.

⭐️ MOST TEMPLATES

Astra

Extremely-fast and appropriate with the entire hottest no-code web page builders.

Get Astra

EASY TO USE

Kadence

Versatile and extremely customizable design nice for a lot of use instances.

Get Kadence

FASTEST

GeneratePress

Boasts complete design freedom via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop system.

Get GP

When you’ve selected the proper theme to your journey weblog, it’s time to put in it. There are 4 straightforward steps to have your theme up and working in simply a jiffy:

Step 1: Go to the WordPress dashboard.

Step 2: Go to the left sidebar and choose Look > Themes

Step 3: Click on “Add New”

Step 4: Seek for the title of your chosen theme and click on “Activate.”

6 Resolve on Design & Branding

Design and branding will assist your WordPress website stand out and supply a much-needed private contact. This can embrace customizing a shade palette, creating a emblem, and guaranteeing your website has a cohesive design.

Your shade palette ought to mirror the vibe of your journey sub-niche. For instance, an eco-tourism journey weblog can use earthy tones like forest inexperienced, deep brown, and muted clay to echo the pure environments that the content material focuses on. Alternatively, a luxurious journey weblog would possibly use a palette of wealthy gold, elegant black, and crisp white to evoke a sense of sophistication and opulence.

Our favourite software for selecting harmonious and delightful shade palettes is Coolors.

Simply faucet the spacebar, and it’ll curate stunning shade palettes in seconds. It can save you total palettes or particular person colours. Jot down the six-digit shade code for every of the colours you select.

Subsequent, you’ll want a emblem.

It’s necessary to create a emblem that's skilled, related to your area of interest, and units the tone for what your viewers can anticipate out of your website.

Canva makes creating a stunning emblem fast and straightforward. Their free tier has tons of nice emblem templates you should use.

From right here, you may customise your emblem together with your website’s title, shade palette, and every other vital tweaks to mirror your model’s picture and distinctive persona.

7 Create Important Pages

Subsequent up, you’ll wish to create the important pages to your journey weblog. This can assist give your readers a technique to contact you, be taught extra about you and your model, and canopy some necessary authorized data.

Homepage

Your homepage is the “home base” to your weblog. It ought to assist your viewers simply navigate your website, and it’s a excellent spot to showcase content material, construct belief, and reinforce your model identification.

About Web page

Share your background, photographs, private tales, and anything that may instill belief in your readers.

This is likely one of the most necessary pages on any website, so it’s finest to take your time to make it shine. Listed here are some killer about me web page examples for inspiration.

Contact Web page

That is the place readers and potential collaborators can straight contact you. In any case, this web page ought to embrace both a contact kind or your e mail tackle.

That is additionally a excellent spot to incorporate hyperlinks to your social media accounts.

Privateness Coverage + Phrases and Circumstances

Do you know that you just’re legally required to stipulate how a web site collects, makes use of, discloses, and manages the non-public data of its customers?

To adjust to this, make a Privateness Coverage and Phrases and Circumstances web page utilizing PrivacyPolicies.com.

Creating a new web page in WordPress solely takes a couple of seconds. Simply log in to your account and click on Pages > Add new on the left-hand aspect of your dashboard.

8 Start Creating Content material

Now that you just’ve created your website, it’s time to start out creating content material.

One of the simplest ways to do that is to create keyword-focused content material that individuals are trying to find on Google. Should you can rank effectively for search phrases, you’ll get visitors that you could convert into income.

Nonetheless, you may’t merely write concerning the highest-traffic key phrases and anticipate to rank. The upper the visitors potential, the extra competitors from massive web sites. A brand new weblog can have a arduous time competing for one of the best phrases.  

That’s why I like to recommend discovering low-competition key phrases with first rate search quantity. You gained’t get as a lot visitors as the largest key phrases, however your new journey weblog really stands a likelihood of rating.

Instruments like Ahrefs make this tremendous straightforward to do.

Let’s say you wish to create a website that teaches individuals find out how to stay in a van. If I sort “van life” into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer software, I get matching phrases and matters like:

You may then use these key phrases to develop article concepts which have a shot at rating.

For instance, based mostly on the key phrases above, a few of your first article titles may very well be:

• “The 10 Best Vans For Vanlife”
• “50 Van Life Essentials You Don’t Want To Forget”
• “The Best Van Life Shower Ideas For Your Build”

When you’ve provide you with 10 article titles, it’s time to start out writing the content material. Listed here are a few suggestions that will help you write participating, search-optimized content material to your journey weblog:

• Know your viewers. Should you concentrate on finances backpacking, you wish to promote merchandise and experiences that resonate with that function. You doubtless wouldn’t promote luxurious lodge experiences or high-end gear.
• Share private photographs. You don’t should be a skilled photographer. Google loves unique photos, and your iPhone is greater than able to capturing high quality photos. Share your related photographs that you just’re happy with wherever you may.
• Keep on subject. Your readers will like to examine your adventures and tales, however keep in mind that they clicked in your article to reply a query or discover a resolution. Be sure to give your readers the solutions they’re on the lookout for in an easy-to-digest approach.
• Go the additional mile. Folks need one of the best suggestions, insider data, and up-to-date data. Be certain you create high quality content material so your readers know they'll look to you as an knowledgeable.
• Be conversational. Speak to your readers as in the event that they’re a next-door neighbor.
• Make it scannable. Readers on the lookout for particular solutions are inclined to scan the web page. Use headings and daring phrases to assist your viewers discover data rapidly, as they may click on away if they'll’t find the data they want.
• Share tales. The fantastic thing about having a journey weblog is that your readers doubtless have a extreme case of wanderlust, too. Private tales are a nice technique to stoke that fireplace and hold your viewers coming again for extra.
• Travel. Visiting journey locations permits you to share firsthand suggestions, photographs, and insights.

Hopefully, this conjures up you to create probably the most participating and useful content material you may. Not solely will Google reward you with front-page rankings, but it surely’ll hold your viewers often coming again for extra.  

9 Promote Your Travel Blog

There’s a lot extra to constructing an viewers than clicking “post” and crossing your fingers. It’s necessary to start out spreading the phrase about your website and getting eyes in your content material.

Listed here are 5 actionable methods you may promote your website immediately:

1. Collaborate with the group: Should you’re writing within the van life area of interest, you may make a weblog submit sharing stunning van builds or telling tales from different van lifers on social media. Remember to ship them an e mail and tag them in your submit. They’ll doubtless be excited to share your article with their very own followers.
2. Have interaction in journey boards: Discover Fb teams and Reddit boards in your area of interest and share any of your content material that may assist reply a query somebody might have.
3. Leverage social media: Platforms like TikTok and Instagram push content material to the individuals they assume will profit from a submit. Share useful suggestions and tips, tales, and inspiration that lure readers to your website. Movies are inclined to outperform photographs or textual content posts on these platforms.
4. Construct an e mail checklist: Provide incentives like a free journey information or unique tricks to immediate readers to join your e-newsletter. Because you personal your e mail checklist, it’s among the best long-term progress methods for any weblog.
5. Write visitor posts: Discover different web sites in a comparable area of interest and supply to jot down a visitor submit. This can encourage their viewers to go to your journey weblog, and backlinks can increase your web optimization.

Nonetheless you promote your weblog, make sure you’re being useful and never simply posting your content material to put it up for sale. Folks don’t like spammy, unsolicited promotional ways.

10 Monetize Your Travel Blog

There are a few methods to start out earning profits together with your weblog. It'll doubtless take a number of months of diligent posting, however you may make cash in your WordPress weblog should you keep it up.

Among the hottest methods to monetize your journey weblog are:

Affiliate Advertising and marketing

Promote different individuals’s merchandise and earn a fee when somebody makes a buy.

Why It’s Nice: You may earn from merchandise your viewers is all for with out having to take care of the complexity of promoting your personal product.

Get Began: One of many best methods to start out affiliate marketing online is thru Amazon Associates, however there are many journey affiliate packages you may be part of to start out incomes cash.  

Internet affiliate marketing is as straightforward as signing up, selling merchandise, and getting your viewers to purchase. Learn our information on find out how to begin affiliate marketing online if you wish to be taught extra.

Show Advertisements

Present commercials in your weblog and earn cash each time your viewers views or engages with an advert in your website.

Why It’s Nice: So long as you drive visitors to your website, you’ll earn money. Advertisements are a nice complement to different monetization strategies and may earn a substantial quantity on their very own should you get sufficient guests.

Get Began: The Ezoic advert community is a good possibility for brand spanking new blogs, as there’s no visitors minimal to enroll. Nonetheless, you must swap to a higher community like Mediavine (50,000 minimal month-to-month pageviews) or Raptive (100,000 minimal month-to-month pageviews) when you meet their visitors necessities.

Promoting Your Personal Merchandise

Develop and promote digital or bodily merchandise your viewers is all for.

Why It’s Nice: Promoting merchandise is often rather more worthwhile than different monetization strategies. When you’ve constructed up a base of earnings from adverts and affiliate suggestions, launching a product is a nice technique to take your income to the following degree.

Get Began: You may take into account promoting journey guides, printable maps, journey budgeting spreadsheets, pictures prints, programs, and extra. You may promote these straight in your web site or via a third occasion like Etsy or Teachable.

Sponsored Content material

Companion with manufacturers to advertise their merchandise in your weblog posts or different content material.

Why It’s Nice: Sponsors pays you upfront for the privilege of publishing a favorable submit in your weblog. They’ll usually write the submit for you as effectively, making it a simple technique to earn further money.

Get Began: Make a “Work With Us” web page in your weblog that advertises you’re open to sponsored content material. Share fundamental details about your readership, comparable to demographics and month-to-month visitors. Try Pinch of Yum’s Sponsored Content page for extra data.

Summing Up

Beginning a journey weblog is an thrilling journey with actual incomes potential.

However let’s face it: the steps outlined on this article are just the start.

To actually excel and switch your weblog into a worthwhile enterprise, you’ll must dive deeper.

That’s why we’ve created a free coaching filled with superior methods. You’ll be taught seven key secrets and techniques that may increase your weblog’s success price by 83%.

Able to degree up your journey running a blog recreation?

Be part of the free coaching now.