If you’re wondering about becoming a travel blogger, there are lots of things you’ll need to bear in mind.
Gonna jack in that job and become a full time travel blogger huh? Great idea. But can it pay your way around the world? What do you need to become a full time nomadic writer? And, HOW do you even become a travel blogger?
These might sound like questions with fairly obvious answers but we’ll break them down for you. Of course, being a travel blogger is the very epitome of the Global Playboy (and Playgirl) lifestyle, so we wanna help you succeed.
Step One: Think of a niche
So here’s the thing. Travel blogging is a very saturated industry so it will help if you have a special take on it. It might be that you’re doing one country or region in depth, or perhaps you’re doing it for charity…
Whatever it is, find your unique selling point and think of a reason why people would trust you over established brands and bloggers like Lonely Planet or Nomadic Matt.
The best way to think of your niche is to think of your passion. Why are you going travelling? What do you like to write about? Is it food? Sport? Trying to have sex with lots of people? Whatever, embrace it and write about it.
Step Two: Think of a good name
Sorry, Global Playboy is already taken. But make sure the name you choose sums up your site and is easy for folks to remember. After all, when you tell people your website Luvz2Trav3l.wordpress.net and you have to S-P-E-L-L it out all the time, it’ll get tiring quickly.
Find a punchy name and look it up on a domain provider to see if it’s available.
Take a look at 123-reg.com who are the UK’s largest providers of domain names.
Step Three: Buy your domain name
Expect to pay around £20-30 a year for your .com domain name. Once you’ve bought it, it can take a day or so for the domain to be available but you can start building it anyway!
123-reg UK’s leading domain registrar
Step Four: Choose CMS and build site
A CMS is a content management system and is the platform you’ll use to post your updates, check how things are going and generally run the show.
The two most popular are WordPress and Wix. This site is built on WordPress, the most popular CMS platform on the internet. It’s recommended to use one of these two and not pay someone to build a custom CMS – reason being there are lots of resources, information and people who can help you with WP or Wix.
Sign up for a WordPress account and start designing your site whenever you want (it’ll have a .wordpress.org domain name) and then transfer it to your proper domain whenever you’re ready.
Step Five: Design and customise
The thing with WordPress and Wix is that you can choose from probably MILLIONS of templates. Don’t get too bogged down trying to find the perfect one because it can take forever. Pick one, customise it and get started… You can always change the theme later.
Customising your site can take some time and a bit of trial and error. If you’re not too tech savvy you can either ask a friend, or hire someone on Fiverr to set it up for you. Or, read up and get the knowledge to do it yourself. Its a good skill to learn and can come in handy if you have problems later.
You’ll find lots of free courses on YouTube, Udemy and just by running an online search.
Step Six: Social Media
Social media is important so set up a page on Twitter, Facebook and Insta for your new site. Make sure the URL is mentioned on all of these pages and also make sure your social links are embedded on your website.
Start posting before you get started and make sure to get your followers eager to find out more about your adventures.
Step Seven: Affiliate Marketing
You might have heard of this before, but affiliate marketing is an important option for monetising your site.
This site used affiliate marketing links, including a few on this page. What it means is, you sign up for a platform who offer you access to companies who give you banners, links and other stuff to promote on your site. Then, if anyone buys something through your site you’ll make a small commission.
The popular sites to sign up for affiliate marketing are:
AWIN (yes that is an affiliate link below… so, sign up using that image link):
Commission Junction (CJ.com) (not an affiliate link)
TradeTracker (not an affiliate link).
There are more which you’ll find as you go, but these three are a good start. They feature stacks of well known travel related companies (and more) who you can feature on your content and monetise your blogs.
Talking of which..
Step Eight: Write…!
The most important part of your whole blogging strategy is to write. Or create a video blog. Or whatever it is you’re doing… But do it regularly.
Give people a reason to come back and check you out, share, talk about you… Whatever. You want to write at least weekly, post your blog to social media and share it on as many platforms as possible (Reddit, Tumblr etc).
You might find it hard to find a focus with your writing at first, but persevere. If you’re having a bad travel experience, write about it. If you’ve gone off the radar, write about it when you get back.
Step Nine: Guest Post
One good way to build an audience is to post on other sites. We recommend GoneTravelling.co.uk (our sister travel site which is a great place to pop your guest articles). And this site!
Get in touch if you’d like to feature a travel or lifestyle article and link back to your site.
Why guest post? Back links are one of the most important parts of SEO (search engine optimisation) so keep on building those links.
Step Ten: Images
Good imagery is key to an engaging blog, so make sure you illustrate your posts well. You don’t need to use full HD pictures, as this will slow your site down in the long run. Try and keep your images around 1000x 800 ish, edit them when possible and use three of four per post (more if its longer).
You’ll find lots of images for bloggers at Flickr.com, Pixabay.com and Unsplash.com.
Ready?
So that is the basics of how to become a travel blogger… Are you ready to get out there and tell everyone about your experiences?
Make sure you link us if you’ve found this article useful and come back and let us know how you are getting on. We’d love to feature you as a guest so drop us a line.
