Travel Blog Writing Overview
Eager to start your own travel blog?
Traveling while earning money is a dream for a lot of people. But it’s also the reality of a lot more people.
One great way to earn a living while feeding your wanderlust is by creating a travel blog. But that doesn’t mean it’s an easy road to take.
It’s not quite as simple as pushing out a few posts on your website and social media. In order to make a living as a travel blogger, it takes time, experience, and hard work.
For beginners who want to start their journey, the process can get overwhelming. In order to become successful at what you do, travel blogging takes a lot of talent, experience, trial and error, and the right strategy.
From getting started with your website, knowing your audience, and finding the drive to take on the journey of travel blogging, this guide includes tips and advice for up and coming travel bloggers.
How to Start a Travel Blog
Now, let’s start with the basics. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with the technicals and all the things you need to do when starting a blog. But remember to take things one step at a time and in time you’ll see how far you’ve come.
Here are our tips on where and how you can start your own travel blog.
It All Starts With Passion
What do you enjoy about traveling?
Is it the food? The people and culture? The adventure?
Once you’ve narrowed this down, you can then make it the central theme of your blog. When you’re passionate about what you are writing, starting and growing your travel blog won’t seem like work. It is also the root of great writing. If you stick to what you love, you’ll be able to sustain your enthusiasm for a longer run.
Choose a Name for Your Travel Blog
It’s important to choose a name that matches your brand and goals. This makes it clear on your site what the blog is about.
When you decide on a name for your blog, there are a few key things to remember.
Look at it in the long-term
It’s good to show your personality when picking your blog name. But being too specific and boxing yourself into a category will make it difficult to grow your blog.
You won’t want to call your blog “The Twenty-Year Old traveler” if you want to grow your blog and use it as a means of income when you’re past your twenties. Don’t call your blog “Travel for a Year” if your trip will last longer. When you have a blog name that boxes you in too much, it’ll be difficult to make changes and adjustments to grow.
Make the URL easy to remember
We recommend keeping it short and sweet. Travel blogs with more than five words can be difficult to remember. Additionally, it’s not recommended to use hyphens in your blog’s name.
Imagine being a guest on a podcast where you have to say “my website is Travel hyphen With hyphen Mary.” It makes it difficult to describe and harder for your audience to grasp.
Use a .com domain when possible
Most people are more familiar with websites that end in .com. Although this isn’t a huge factor that will greatly impact your blog. Rather, it’s a friendly suggestion to use the .com website whenever possible. Using an extension other than that may make it more difficult for people to remember.
Check social media before buying the domain
It’s a good idea to first check that the name of your site is also available on the social media platforms you plan on using. This way, it’ll be easier for people to find you because your name is consistent on all your platforms.
Our top recommendations for the platforms to prioritize are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Hosting Your Travel Blog
When you’re new to blogging, it can get overwhelming when trying to learn about the technicals. But stay with us here. We’re here to guide you.
To get started with your blog, the next step is to sign up with a host.
Hosting means finding a home for your travel blog. It’s a place for it to live on the internet. This is the first step to have your website actually exist on the internet.
You’ll want to sign up with a host which provides the physical servers for your website to be in. Additionally, it’s a way to maintain the software required to keep your site online and have the regular check-ups needed for your website. This will make it possible for your site to run smoothly.
There are a lot of different ways and options to host your website. Try checking out the different options available online and see which one fits your needs.
Find a Theme for Your Travel Blog
Now that you’re all set up with your host, it’s time to make your site look pretty!
You can choose from a ton of available website themes. This is when you get to personalize your site.
Remember, first impressions are key. So, create a strong and eye-catching design that will not only hook your audience to scroll through but also showcase your personality.
Additionally, it’s important to pick a theme and design your site to make it easy to navigate.
Create an About Page
Before you publish your first post, it’s best to first create an About Page.
This is where you can share your background, your passion, and the purpose of the blog. It’s also a great place to share with your audience what they can expect and learn from your blog.
For a lot of readers, they tend to check out who the blogger is and why they should care about them before they dive deeper into the content.
The about page will tell the readers why they should care about you and continue reading your posts.
Our tip is to make your personality shine through. Share your story or unique and weird facts about you. Show them you’re human. This will make you more relatable and grab your readers’ attention for them to stick around.
Don’t Overwhelm Yourself with the Technicals
Running your own website is quite technical. There’s SEO (search engine optimization), affiliate marketing, keyword optimization, and so much more.
But as you become more experienced, you’ll slowly learn about these. The important thing is to start and not get bogged down by all the technical stuff.
You may want to try and learn it all, but that’s just a road to overwhelm that you don’t want to go through. Focus on learning things one at a time instead of trying to stuff everything in your head all at once.
Identify Your Audience
When you know exactly who you want to speak to, you’ll be able to create better and more targeted content. Because you have a reader at the forefront of your mind, you’re direction and path will be much clearer for you.
Here are a few questions you can ask yourself when finding out your target audience:
How old is my audience?
Is my audience mostly male or female?
What is their lifestyle like?
What interests them about travel?
You’ll get to learn more and understand your audience with time, experience, and research.
Start Writing
Now, the good part! Get started writing!
It’s important to always have quality content every time you put them out there. Each piece of content reflects you as a writer and will help make you stand out from the crowd.
Of course, it’s important to write on a consistent basis, but there’s no hard and fast rule when it comes to the number of blog posts you need to upload on your travel blog every week.
Take the time to research the topic of your content. Make sure to have credible sources when mentioning them. Ultimately, don’t just write to have something to post.
Focus on quality and consistency.
Let Your Personality Shine
When you show your personality and show that you’re human, your target audience will be more attracted to sticking with your content.
It’s tempting to try and appear professional or be seen as an expert (which is definitely important), but remember to find the line between professionalism and showcasing your unique self! Your personality is what will hook people to subscribe to your blog and leave them wanting more.
Be human. Be yourself.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is a great way to increase your brand awareness and also help drive traffic to your blog.
But it’s important to choose which platforms to use. When you try and be present on all platforms, you’ll only spread yourself thin. We recommend starting with two or three platforms.
Just Start!
Ultimately, you plan for something forever. But the only way to succeed is to take that first step.