There are many ways to make money with a blog. One of the more popular and perhaps traditional ways you will often see promoted is as a travel blogger.
What is Travel Blogging?
What exactly is travel blogging, and what does a travel blogger do? A travel blog is like a diary, online journal, or a place where a traveller shares information about the places they have visited and their travel experiences. The word blog is the shorthand term for a weblog.
In a physical book, this information would be in chronological order. The writer would add more entries and experiences at the end. But with a travel blog, the newest post is usually at the top of the web page. That means you get to see their latest entry first. If you like what you see, you can scroll down to earlier entries and read the older posts. Blogs became popular in the nineties and are still incredibly popular today. And the range of content you can find in blogs is incredibly varied.
Why is a Travel Blog Such a Good Idea?
A travel blog allows you to share information with your family, friends and followers or it can be used to advertise the latest travel products you have been using or travel experiences you have enjoyed. Or you could use it to give your readers the latest tips on how to use your travel products (rucksacks or boots and clothing etc). All of this you might say can also be done with a normal website, so what are the advantages of creating a blog for your travelling experiences over a standard travel website?
The answer lies with Google. If you can appear on the first page of Google travel related search results, you have a much better chance of getting a visitor to your travel blog. Google is not very forthcoming about its algorithm and what makes a website rank higher on a search, as they don’t want people to exploit the algorithm.
Some things are known to help though and one of these things is activity. Regular post updates to your blog are a great way to increase your ranking. The more you blog, the more you appear on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). So blogs are a great way to get your name visible and drive people to your website.
How to Make Money From a Travel Blog
There are other ways you can earn money with a travel blog and create a passive income. For instance, you can make money from a website that is not even yours. If you have interesting content that people want to read, you can use this to drive traffic to other people’s websites that are in the travel niche. In return, you can receive a commission on any sales that the website makes.
Or, if you have your own products, you can use your blog to market them. You can include links that send the reader to a website if they want to learn more or buy a related product.
While it would be a lot easier if you have a big audience that visits your travel blog, it is not a necessity. If you learn basic SEO and plan your blog well, your blog can rise in Google’s SERP rankings. If someone searches for keywords that you rank highly for, then hopefully they will click on your blog. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Here are some of the best ways you can make money as a travel blogger.
- Affiliate Marketing: This is a great way to get started. You can add links to other people’s websites, products, or services (Booking.com, Skyscanner etc). You receive a commission from any purchases the reader makes.
- Advertise With Banners: You can act like a billboard and sell advertising space on your blog. You can charge a flat rate for keeping a travel company’s advert on your blog for a certain time. This can be a great passive income.
- Advertise Using Google AdSense: You can use your banner spaces to display random adverts with Google AdSense. If a visitor clicks on an advert, you receive payment (CPC). Or you can get paid a certain amount for every 1,000 impressions or views of an advert (CPM).
- Become An Influencer: If your blog and/or social media profiles grow a large following, you can get sponsored to promote a product or company. If you have a big enough audience, big brands may wish to use your travel platform to reach customers.
- Write Guest Blogs For Others: If you become known as an expert in producing travelling related content, you can make guest appearances. You can write content for other travel websites and help them get exposure.
- Sell Digital Products: If you have knowledge or skills you think you can sell, you can make travel videos, visitor guides or ebooks, etc. Then you can advertise and sell them via your blog.
- Sell Your Blog: Setting up a blog is relatively easy, but many companies don’t have the time or experience to do it. If you build a travel blog and start getting traffic to it, you can sell it as an established blog.
- Create A Membership Area On Your Blog: If your content becomes popular, you could create a membership plan. Members get access to a members-only section that offers more in-depth content than the general blog.
- Sell Online Courses: If you have content that you can make into a series of travel videos or books, a blog is a great way to sell this. You can use the blog to show the latest offers and let your audience know what you have to offer.
How to Start Travel Blogging
There are many blogging platforms that you can use to get started for free. Blogger, WordPress(.com) and Medium are some of the most popular free platforms. But there are some downsides to free platforms, such as you will not have your own domain name, the host may also prohibit you from adding affiliate links or placing banner adverts.
If you want to be more professional, you can create your own website. You can buy the domain name you wish to use and then use WordPress(.org) or similar software to create your travel website. Once you have your travel blog up and running, remember that frequent updates are the key to success. Make sure to advertise your blog on social media and try to drive traffic to your blog. Connecting with other travel bloggers is a great way to learn the craft and get backlinks to help your SEO.
