I’ve been a travel blogger professionally since 2010. I’m often asked what that’s like, how to become a travel blogger, how I started my own travel blog, how we got our travel blogs to where they are today and how we make money as travel bloggers. After all, we travel for a living. It’s the dream, right?
Of course, like any dream, it takes a lot of hard work, frustration, mistakes, and learning. However, it is possible to build a business and generate a full time living as a travel blogger.
In today’s post I want to share some of my observations on what travel blogging is all about, and of course, how to become a travel blogger. I’m also going to answer a number of questions about travel blogging.
What is a Travel Blogger?
Sadly, the Oxford English Dictionary is a little light on the description as to what a travel blogger is. However, if we break it down into its constituent parts, it’s someone who has a “blog”, or online journal, largely focused on sharing the story of their travels.
Being a professional travel blogger in my mind means two things. One, it means this is something that generates an income. Two, it means that you are in this for the long term, and can be expected to deliver a professional level of service to both your readers and any clients that you might have.
There are all sorts of ways to generate an income, and there are hugely varying opinions as to what a travel blogger *is*, varying from a journalism approach, through to writing more personal stories and tales.
In my mind, if you have your own website that you regularly update with articles about travel, then you have a travel blog. If it’s generating you an income, and you hold yourself to defined standards of conduct and ethical behaviour, then you are a professional travel blogger. Beyond that, we move into semantics, and before we know it we’ll be arguing about the difference between a traveller and tourist.
Let’s not do that, and instead look at my detailed guide to how to become a travel blogger.
How to Become a Travel Blogger
Here are some tips on becoming a travel blogger, based on my years actually doing it.
1. Find your passion
If you’re going to be doing something that isn’t going to be generating a tremendous return for at least the first year or two then you need to be doing something that you enjoy.
I’m going to be honest, most blogs on the internet don’t survive very long, with the average life of a blog being something silly like a week, and one post. Travel blogs are no different, and making a full time living from a travel blog can take a long time.
This is often because people aren’t writing about what they are passionate about. If you’re passionate about something, you will find the time to do it, whatever your schedule, and your passion will come across in the content you create, meaning it will be engaging and interesting to your potential audience.
Travel blogging has a whole range of niches, from food, to budget, to luxury, to adventure, to family and more. We focus on independent travel and photography on this site, because that’s where our passion lies. Find something you love doing, that you would keep doing even for zero reward, and build your blog around that.
One more reality check – if you don’t like travel, writing, photography, self-management, the regular feeling that no-one cares, as well as hard work for little immediate reward, then travel blogging might not be for you. Starting out as a travel blogger can be tough, with new blogs popping up every day, and there is no such thing as overnight success.
2. Pick your Blog Name
Picking your blog name is a key part of setting yourself up, and you want to make sure you get it right from the beginning.
I will freely admit that when I set this blog up in 2010, I did not spend a lot of time on this – the name just popped into my head, it was available, and off I went without a care in the world.
Jess on the other hand spent at least a week thinking about her blog name and brand when she started Independent Travel Cats in 2013.
I would definitely advise taking Jess’s approach rather than mine!
The important things to consider are for the name to match your brand and goals, so it’s instantly clear from your site name what your blog is about. You also want to try to stand out from the crowd, and avoid anything that will age badly, like having a year, date or other number in the name of your blog.
Having a memorable name that people won’t forget will help, and I’d also advise against any kind of hyphenated name as people nearly always forget that there’s a hyphen and will type it in wrong.
It’s also important to make sure that the name you choose is both available, and will fit on social media. For example, Finding the Universe is 18 characters, which is longer than the 15 character limit on Twitter. So you’ll either want to pick a name that’s easy to abbreviate, or will fit on all the networks you want to use!
You can check if your preferred name is available on all the social media networks using this tool.
3. Set up Your Blog
Once you have picked your domain name, you’re going to want to actually set up your blog!
There are a number of different options for doing this, from using a free platform through to going what is known as “self-hosted”.
Our advice is to start down the self-hosted route straight away, using the most popular blogging platform in the world – WordPress.
Self hosted means that rather than having your blog sitting somewhere like yourblogname.blogger.com, with a company like Google in charge of the backend of your site, you have it sitting on a server somewhere with the name yourblogname.com, and you have control over the site.
Whilst this might sound complicated and difficult, there are lots of companies out there who will help you do everything from registering your domain to getting your site up and running. These are also usually great value for money as you start out.
Our recommended host for beginning bloggers is Bluehost.
Jess started out with Bluehost, and used them for a number of years before she outgrew what they could offer.
Bluehost offer a great deal on packages for startup bloggers, including hosting, a domain name, 24/7 support, free SSL and a money back guarantee if you aren’t happy. Jess found them to be perfect for her needs when she was starting out.
Check them out and sign up here – you even get a special discount by using our link, so the price is $2.95 a month instead of $3.95.
Once you become more established, you might find yourself outgrowing Bluehost. This usually happens at around the 10,000 – 20,000 visitor a month mark, although will vary depending on your blog.
We have tried a number of different WordPress hosts, and they all have good points and bad points.
We currently host our blog on Cloudways, which offers a great balance of performance and price. As your site starts to grow beyond that 10 – 20,000 visitor point, Cloudways is the host we would recommend. We’ve written a detailed Cloudways review to help you decide if it’s right for you.
You can also save 10% on your first three months with our exclusive Cloudways discount code, which is TRAVELCATS.
Two other options that we can recommend, which offer a good balance of price, performance and service, are Liquid Web and Big Scoots. However, if you are just starting out these will likely be more than you need.
I actually started this blog on Blogger, the free blogging platform from Google. Whilst Blogger does let you have a custom domain name, it is very restrictive in terms of what you can do from a design and SEO point of view, making it a lot harder for your site to reach its full potential.
I’ve written a whole post on why that was a mistake, and why I should have started on WordPress from the beginning. I had to migrate my blog from Blogger to WordPress to truly reach its potential.
Definitely my advice when starting out is to start with a self-hosted WordPress solution – in the long run this will work out to be a lot easier for everything from SEO to customisation.
We have a whole guide to how to start a travel blog which has lots more information to help you out. We also have a guide to choosing a WordPress host which has many tips and suggestions on what to look for.
4. Write regularly, and well
Now, I am far from an expert in grammar, but I do my best, and Jessica and I work together on the posts to try and catch any glaring errors. Getting the basics right is important if you’re going to be seen as a trusted expert on your subject.
It’s also important to write regularly, or at least, consistently. There is no hard and fast rule as to how often to post, or even how long your posts should be – you need to come up with something that works for you. But you do need to keep at it, and you do need to be consistent if you want to build up an audience.
My personal suggestion would be not to overstretch yourself and commit to posting every day, but also keep it to at least a post a fortnight. You’ll find the most successful travel blogs tend to have a schedule that has content coming out one to eight times a month, although there are naturally exceptions to that rule.
5. It’s all about the content
To be successful, you need to be putting out high quality content that answers the questions your readers have. As you get into blogging, and read advice on building an audience, you will hear people talking about things like search engine optimisation (SEO), using social media networks to drive traffic, and all sorts of tips and tricks for getting people to your site.
All these things have a place, but the most important thing you can do in order to be successful is to ensure that your content is the best it can be, every time you post something, to any network. Don’t just throw something up to meet some schedule you’ve invented. Make it your best, every time.
Keep putting out high quality content, and your audience will find you, they will grow, and they will keep coming back.
No-one is going to keep coming back to a site that has poor content. From your photos to your writing to your video – whatever content you share, always make it your best. No exceptions.
6. Define your goals
One great way to keep yourself on target and turn your blog from a hobby into a business is to set out a series of goals that you can track. The only person you are in competition with is you, and setting goals will ensure that you know you are doing well against your targets.
These goals will vary depending on your focus, but I’d advise setting goals around things like visitor traffic, social media statistics, income, mentions on other publications, and so on.
Make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time based (SMART!) for best results, and check back on yourself every few months to be sure you are on track and review accordingly.
7. Establish your niche / expertise
It is easier to be successful if you have a specific area of expertise that your blog focuses on, that over time results in you being the go-to place for certain things.
I will admit that we are not the best in terms of practicing what we preach on this one – we focus on our photography content as our niche, but pretty photography isn’t really niche in that way that luxury travel or adventure travel is. Oops.
8. Know your weaknesses
Not everyone is great at everything. You might be a whizz at writing and social media, but terrible at website design or time management. Figure out your strengths, and identify your weaknesses.
There are people out there who are good at the things you aren’t, and you can hire them to handle those things for you.
9. Pick your social media platforms
There are a lot of social media platforms, with a new one seeming to start every day. A trap that many seem to fall into is seeing social media as a way to drive traffic to a blog.
This is of course possible, but in my opinion, every social media platform should be seen as a place to reach a different audience, rather than a funnel. A funnel is only of value if you have something to sell at the other end. Raw traffic numbers mean very little without a reason for them.
Here are the five social media platforms I give the most weight to, in order of my personal preference. Social media can be overwhelming, and you can find yourself spread out, trying to cover too many bases, and not achieving what you want.
I’d advise picking at least three from the list and excelling on them.
- Facebook. Facebook is the most important social media platform, simply because it is where everyone is.I apply what I call the “Mum” test to these platforms – i.e., does my mum use them? The answer for the rest of the platforms on this list is no, which indicates to me that however important we might think they are, the rest of the world probably doesn’t care that much.Facebook is fantastic for reaching a wide audience, provides you with more data about that audience and how you are performing than any other social network, and for some reason, gets a terrible rap from some users about how awful it is as a result.My tip for Facebook is the same as anywhere else – if you’re not getting results, take a good hard look at your content, and ensure it is top notch.
- Instagram. As a photographer, I find Instagram to be a wonderful network. Focused on images, it can be used to share what’s going on in the world around you, or to tell stories from your adventures, both past and present. There’s an excellent guide from Photoshelter for using Instagram as a photographer, which you might find useful.
- Youtube. If you do video, you have to be on Youtube. It has a huge audience, gives you plenty of data on that audience, and even lets you monetize your content. A no-brainer.
- Pinterest. Pinterest is one of the top drivers of traffic after Google, and is definitely a good place to focus your energies. It’s a very visual platform, where great photos shine.
- Twitter. I hold my hands up – Twitter is not my favourite social network. It’s a great tool for conversation and customer service, and is beloved by brands. I find it’s wonderful for asking airlines about late flights, or seeing what my favourite celebrity had for dinner, but as a travel blogger, I’m not a huge fan. Jodi from Legal Nomads is however, and you can see her tips for Twitter here.
Finally, another trap that many fall into is pushing the same content out onto all the platforms. This isn’t the best way to go about social media, and will not give solid results. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you should work to those.
Further reading: Liz from Young Adventuress has written a great post on how not to suck at social media, and another friend, Jodi of Legal Nomads, has this excellent piece on being awesome on all sorts of social media channels.
10. Build a mailing list
Advice I wish I had followed from the start! If you look at the most successful bloggers out there, they tend to focus on two things – a great website with awesome content, and a mailing list of subscribers. Why? Because these are two things that you as a blogger can control.
Social media platforms are all well and good, but the reality is you have no control over them. One day, you could wake up to find they’ve switched the algorithm around, and suddenly no-one is seeing your content any more.
A blog is different. It’s your castle, and no-one is going to be changing the rules on you. A mailing list is the same thing. A reader letting you e-mail them directly is a hugely powerful example of their trust in you, and it’s a great channel to directly contact people. It’s also a good way to sell products, down the line.
The best mailing list service I’ve found so far is Mailerlite. These guys are free up to your first 1,000 subscribers, and are the only service I found which come with an autoresponder system on the free tier. Sign up here.
11. Just start already!
When I started blogging, I ran a series of articles on this blog where I interviewed some of the most popular travel bloggers in the world, and asked them for their tips on how to run a successful travel blog. This was actually a fairly selfish endeavour, as I wanted to learn as much as possible, and asking the experts seemed like a good way to do that. You can check out that series here.
Overwhelmingly, when asked if there was anything they wish they had done differently with their blogs when starting out, these experts all expressed the opinion that they wished they had started earlier.
You can plan something forever – but the only way to make something succeed is to try.
How to get traffic to your travel blog and be noticed!
So you’ve written a few posts, you’ve shared some tweets and you have a Facebook page. And your mum has e-mailed you to say how nice it all looks. Other than that, tumbleweed.
Welcome to blogging. You can spend hours on your content, push it out into the cosmos, and then sadly watch as the entire world happily ignores you, instead choosing to watch endless cat videos on YouTube.
Here are some things you can do about that.
1. Learn some SEO techniques
The most important thing you can do for your blog is to create great content. I think I mentioned that already, but it bears repeating. Great content will be discovered, and people will share it. It’s also important to write on topics that you know a lot about, as expertise is valued, and which answers questions people are likely to be asking.
There are also some simple techniques you can use to ensure your posts are found and indexed by search engines, meaning that people will actually find your content if they’re looking for it.
SEO is a complex beast, and there’s a lot of misinformation out there – largely because the way that search engines actually work is a closely guarded secret.
My tip would be to write your posts well, make them easy for human readers to read through with plenty of paragraph breaks, clear heading titles, and links to other relevant content.
Then, ensure your site is registered with places like Google Search Console, where you will get feedback as to areas you can improve, and of course track your stats with Google Analytics, so you can see where your traffic is coming from.
For further reading, check out the official Google Webmaster blog, and the Moz Blog, both of which have a wealth of useful information, from meta data best practice through to optimising for mobile devices.
2. Become part of the travel blogging community
There is a huge blogging community out there, and a lot of support and advice that you can tap into, often for free, sometimes for money.
There are Facebook groups specifically set up to talk about travel blogging, or running your blog as a business. Some are focused on newer bloggers, others on more targeted topics like photography.
All of them have many members who will chime in on questions and dispense advice. My advice for anyone looking for free advice in a group like the above is threefold:
- One – read the rules of any group you join. Breaking the rules with your first post is bound to annoy other community members and is unlikely to result in you getting the answers you need.
- Two – take on board all the advice you are given, but don’t take anything as gospel. What works for one, might not work for another, so try and get a number of opinions and figure out what applies best to you. There is no one right way to do anything.
- Three – try and give back as much as you can. If you join a group and see an opportunity to help someone out, go for it. Over time, you might even become recognised as an expert in a particular field, and before you know it, you’ll be able to sell your services to other interested parties.
There are other communities as well, including content sharing groups on Triberr, and those which come as part of association membership or conference attendance, which are tackled a little further down.
3. Get known for something
One way to get noticed is to get known as being an expert at something. If you’re looking for a budget travel expert, most people would instantly think of Matt Kepnes, the blogger behind Nomadic Matt. Couples Luxury Travel? Independent Travel Cats. Fixing broken blogs? Chris Richardson. Story telling? Mike Sowden.
Carving out a name for yourself as an expert in an area, either through regular participation in groups like those previously mentioned, or by specifically targeting it on your blog or social media channels, will over time result in you being the go-to person for quotes, articles and commentary on related activity.
4. Invest in your product
A travel blog is a business, and like any business, you have to spend money to make money.
This could be anything from hiring someone to design you a professional looking website, to a social media manager, to someone to help out with your personal branding, to something as simple as getting business cards printed.
In addition, don’t underestimate the importance of learning. There are a number of courses you can take to help you take your blogging and content creation to the next level. I’d recommend my Travel Photography Course. Sorry, this is a shameless plug! I truly believe that having great images on a blog make it stand out, and investing in your photography skill is critical to succeeding. I wrote this course to share everything I know about photography, and am incredibly proud of it. Ok, no more self-promotion, I promise.
There are countless resources and options out there that will let you improve both your personal knowledge, and the product you are offering. Just check around first to be sure that you aren’t paying for information that you might be able to pick up for free.
5. Write guest posts
One excellent way to get your name known is to write posts for other sites. This is a particularly good way to get yourself known as an expert in a topic. I, for example, have written a number of guest posts for other sites on the subject of travel photography, and it’s a topic I have spoken about at various conferences.
Whilst guest posting has had a black mark over it of late due to Google penalising folks for poor quality attempts at building links in order to improve their search engine results (see sponsored posts below), it is still a good way to reach a new audience if you find the right blogs to post on.
When reaching out to a fellow blogger, ensure that they accept guest posts, and approach them politely with your pitch. Don’t fire off a generic pitch e-mail to hundreds of bloggers and expect a positive response – offer something of value tailored to their audience, and you are likely to get a more favourable response.
6. Attend conferences and travel shows
A great option for upping your game and getting noticed is to attend a conference or event. There are two distinct types of event to consider:
Travel Blogging Conferences:
Travel blogging conferences are aimed specifically at travel bloggers, and feature workshops and training experiences to help you improve your skillset in all the relevant fields, from content creation through to social media management and working with brands. They also offer opportunities for networking and meeting with brands.
The best travel conference currently available in my mind is TBEX (North America and Europe).
TBEX happens a few times a year, usually at least once in Europe and once in North America, and sometimes somewhere else as well.
It attracts a great many travel bloggers and brands, and offers networking opportunities and learning at the various workshops.
I’ve spoken at TBEX am happy to recommend it to those starting out in blogging.
There are a number of other travel blogging conferences, with some, such as the Social Travel Summit, offering smaller, more specialised or more advanced topics, for when you want to take it to the next level. But as a starting point, I can highly recommend TBEX.
For tips on visiting a travel blogging conference, see our detailed guide to attending a travel blogging conference.
Travel Trade Shows
Travel Trade Shows are enormous events, usually held once a year, and unlike travel blogging conferences, they are focused on the entire travel industry, with representatives from travel brands around the world in attendance.
They are fantastic opportunities for networking and getting your brand in front of the travel industry. Some simple tips for getting the most out of these events:
- Dress appropriately – these are business events.
- Plan your schedule in advance, and schedule meetings with the people you really want to meet beforehand.
- Take plenty of business cards, and know what your pitch is going to be, as well as the value you offer.
- Be polite, don’t be pushy, but be clear about what you want and what you can offer.
The best idea is to attend a travel show that is relevant to either your home location or your audience location. For example, for Germany or Europe based bloggers, I’d recommend ITB Berlin. For UK based bloggers like us, WTM London is a good event.
Dos and Don’ts of Travel Blogging
So that was how to get noticed. I figured, based on my experiences, that you might like a list of dos and don’ts for travel blogging. In no particular order:
Don’t judge yourself by the success of others
This is a really easy trap to fall into, particularly as you are likely going to be spending a fair amount of time on social media.
The only person you should be measuring your success against is yourself and the goals you have set yourself. There will always be those who are doing better, and those who are doing worse – it’s called life.
The problem with social media is that people tend to share the more positive things, and as you participate in the travel blogging community more and more, and start to make friends, your social feeds might start to fill with success stories from those you follow.
Don’t ever let these things get you down. You might feel left out, or passed over, or that someone less deserving than you has got something that you should have got.
The truth is: everyone has worked hard to get where they are. The best thing you can do is be pleased for them, and try to learn from what they have achieved. Then, get on with doing your own thing.
Success will come, but it is never overnight, and despite what it may look like on social media, always comes after hard work.
Do be professional
The word Professional is used in this blog post for a reason. If you want to be taken seriously as a travel blogger, content creator, influencer or whatever you choose to call yourself, then you need to behave in a professional manner.
If you commit to doing something – do it.
If you don’t feel that something is right for you or your audience – don’t do it.
If you turn up to do work for a client, remember that it *is* work. You are not on holiday, you are not a celebrity – you are there to fulfil a function, and are part of a larger effort to meet a goal. It’s not rocket science, but it is important.
Don’t abuse the trust of your readers
A travel blogger is nothing without an audience – that’s you out there, right now, reading this.
You trust that what Jessica and I write on this blog is based on our opinion and personal experience, rather than marketing dollars. Sure, we work with companies from time to time. We might get paid to take trips, or share products with you.
But the bottom line is that you have to trust that we are only sharing our honest opinion with you. If something isn’t right for us, or we don’t feel it’s right for you, then we turn it down. And we always disclose any arrangement where we have received some form of compensation.
If you don’t trust that, then we are essentially of no value to you, and a travel blogger with no audience is of no value to anyone.
Do set out a code of ethics for yourself
Speaking of trust, a good idea is to set out a personal code of ethics, and stick to it. This might be things like promising to deliver within a certain timeframe, or always to make it clear up front when something is paid for, rather than hidden on a disclosure page somewhere.
Whatever your personal code of ethics for your blog might be, and whether you choose to share it with your readers, setting one out up front may help protect you from making poor short-term decisions that affect the longer-term viability of your blog.
You can see our code of ethics here.
Don’t believe the hype
This one is much like professionalism.
When you have been on a hosted trip or two, you will notice that you are likely treated very well. You’ll be put up in nice hotels, fed gorgeous food, and taken on spectacular adventures.
You might start to believe that you are special, that you are an important person, that you deserve five star treatment.
You don’t.
Of course the destinations and people you work with will want to show you a great time, because if you have a great time, then you are more likely to write good things about where you’ve been. And let’s be honest – it’s not hard to write great things when your job is based around travel.
Sometimes, though, things will not go to plan. The wi-fi might not work. The plane might be late. The activity might not be available.
This is not the point at which to throw a giant hissy fit on Twitter and demand that your bowl of brown M&Ms be brought to you Right This Instant Or Else.
Things go wrong, you have to deal with it, and tackle it as a professional. Sure, if the service is terrible and the attraction awful, then you owe it to your readers to share that. Honesty and integrity are vitally important. But behaving like a spoilt brat when everyone is doing their best will do your profession a disservice, and won’t do your personal reputation in the travel industry any favours either.
Do keep at it
Think of some big names in Travel Blogging. Want to know what makes them stand out above all else? It’s easy. They’ve likely been going for longer than anyone else.
Like anything, building a name for yourself and acquiring a reputation takes time and effort. The longer you go at something, the more likely you are to succeed. It might take one, two, three, or even more years for you to start getting where you want to be.
Don’t give up. The most successful blogs have been at this for a long time, and you’ve got a fair bit of catch up to play.
Do get your own domain name and get a decent website design
If you want to be taken seriously, you need a nice-looking website, and your own domain name.
MyTravelBlog.Blogspot.com isn’t going to cut it I’m afraid – you’ll look like a hobbyist.
Like everything – there are exceptions to the rule, but generally, getting your own domain name and a nice website design will help you immeasurably.
Do keep learning
No matter how much you know, there is always something new to learn, and new people to learn it from. Thankfully, the internet is full of advice, tips and courses on how to do things, from mastering YouTube to photo editing, much of which is free.
Beyond that there are conferences, groups, classes, communities, talks, books – you name it, someone is likely doing it.
If you want to learn, and however you do that best, there will be an option out there for you.
How to Make Money as a Travel Blogger
Ah, the perennial question! How do you make money from a travel blog? The answer isn’t entirely simple, and usually involves a number of factors, depending on your site and your personal skillset.
However, the good news is that making money as a travel blogger is certainly possible, and I’m now going to share some of the various options you have for generating an income off your travel blog, with the end goal of going full time.
1. Banner advertising
You see the ads in this post? Those are paid for ad placements, one of the most common ways of monetizing a website.
Banner advertising rates tend to be linked to traffic, so when you’re starting out you won’t be able to charge very much. Programs like Google Adwords are likely a good place as any to get started.
Currently we partner with Mediavine for display adverts on the site, which generates a good income. They require you to achieve a minimum number of sessions per month to qualify.
2. Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a system where you recommend a product, and if someone buys that product, you get a commission. This works for all sorts of products, from hotel rooms through to goods sold on Amazon.
The best results are for blog posts which are full of information, where the visitor is in a purchasing sort of mood, having run a search for something specific in Google for example.
So say someone is wondering about what gear to take to the Galapagos, or what to pack as a digital nomad – they are looking for answers, and might then want to purchase directly based on your recommendation.
Unless you spend a lot of time optimising posts to rank highly in search results though, affiliate programs aren’t likely to generate a huge income, but it all adds up, and some bloggers do have tremendous success with these programs.
Take a look at sites like Booking.com and Amazon, for affiliate programs that might work for you.
A good option is to sign up with a site like TravelPayouts, where you’ll find a range of travel focused affiliate programs you can work with.
3. Product placement / partnerships
A popular area for travel bloggers to generate an income is to partner with a brand and promote it to their audience. This can be in the form of posts on site talking about the product / brand, sharing content to social media related to the brand, and so on.
As with all partnerships that involve money, it’s important to disclose this to your readers up front – a legal requirement in many countries.
These partnerships are also generally only effective when partnering with brands or products that are relevant to your blogs audience – a budget travel blog for example likely wouldn’t offer much of value to a private jet charter service.
See the resources section below for some ideas on where and how to connect with brands.
4. Sponsored posts
Another way to generate income is to run sponsored posts, or what is sometimes referred to as “native advertising”. This comes in two forms, and can be content written by a third party or by the blogger to be hosted on the blog.
The first type of sponsored post takes the form of a blog post, just like any other, which aims to reach your audience, with the goal of raising awareness of a brand or product.
The second type of sponsored post has nothing to do with your audience, and is a way of gaming Google in order to improve the ranking of specific search queries in Google’s results.
Accepting money for posts which aim to manipulate search engine results is specifically against Google’s webmaster guidelines, and if caught, the offending blog runs the risk of being penalised by Google, and in a worst case scenario, being removed from Google’s results entirely.
You can see those guidlelines outlined here, as well as some suggestions for best practice. It’s up to you what you do with your site, of course, but we don’t accept any sponsored posts or link buys in this site as we deem the risk is far to great – the short-term rewards are significantly outweighed by the long-term risk.
5. Product creation
Finally, and this is a way to create money both on and off-site, some bloggers have created products based on their areas of expertise, which they sell to their readers.
These can be virtual products like eBooks, online courses, or apps, or physical products like clothing or printed books. If you’re creative and have a great idea, you might find your audience will love it too!
6. Content creation on other sites
If you’re running a blog, chances are you have a decent idea on how to create good content, be that video, photography or text. These services can be of tremendous value to brands, who are always on the lookout for good content for their social media streams or blogs.
If you can set yourself up as a freelance content creator in one or more of these areas, using your blog as your virtual “CV”, then you could start to generate a decent income.
7. Social media leverage and training
Most bloggers, over time, start to become pretty adept at social media. This blog’s Facebook page, for example, has a highly engaged following of over a million fans. That sort of following is of tremendous interest to brands, for two reasons:
- You can share relevant content to your audience
- You can advise brands as to how to improve their own social media presence, based on your experience running your social media accounts
Both of the above offer opportunities for revenue generation.
8. Speaking
As previously mentioned, I have spoken at a number of conferences and events, including TravelCon, TBEX, TDB Italy and the Arabian Travel Market, a travel trade show in Dubai.
If speaking publicly is something you are interested in, it is something you can turn into a fee-earner, given sufficient experience and expertise in a subject.
9. Travel advice and tours
Finally, some travel bloggers offer advice to their readers in the form of helping them to arrange travel itineraries. Wandering Earl for example offers full tours, helping travellers to experience the places that they have visited, know and love.
10. User supported
Some travel bloggers and content creators have a user supported model. This uses platforms like Patreon whereby readers and members of the community can pay a small amount each month to support their favourite creators.
This can work very well if you have a personality driven blog, where readers follow you because they like you specifically. It’s less likely to be successful on an informational blog, where readers find you via a search result, read that one post, and head off.
See this guide to whether a Patreon might be right for you.
Getting Paid as a Travel Blogger
Once you have figured out a means of generating an income, you will need to figure out how to actually get paid. This can be more challenging than you first think, because you are likely going to be generating revenue from multiple streams across multiple currencies.
Whilst many might suggest a service like PayPal, I find that the fees for both receiving funds and the poor currency conversion rate make it less appealing, and an option I’ll only use if I have no other choice.
Instead, I recommend and use Wise. They let me create actual bank accounts in a range of currencies around the world, and receive funds via direct bank transfer (supported by most affiliate programs, ad networks and businesses). You can create both a personal and business account and I have used them for years with no issue. You can sign up here.
Resources for becoming a travel blogger
Whew. That was a lot of information. To top it all off, I just want to include some other posts from some great bloggers, as well as some resources and communities that you should consider joining if you want to take your blog to the next level.
Advice from other travel bloggers
Miscellaneous
And that is it for my tips on how to become a travel blogger! Sold on the idea? Head on over to my Essential Packing List for Digital Nomads so you know what gear to pack for your journey!
Finally, please note that some of the links in this post generate a small affiliate income to me if you use them, at no cost to you. I’ve listed every resource I find useful though, regardless of whether or not there is an affiliate earning.
