I first started travel blogging 10 years ago. A lot has changed since then.
For starters, there’s a lot more competition. Back in 2008, travel blogging (and blogging in general) was still a relatively new trend and the number of expat or travel bloggers was small enough that everyone knew everyone. Today, you google “travel blogger” and you get over four million results. Yikes.
The other major difference was that in 2008, social media marketing didn’t exist. Sure, there was Facebook and Twitter, but people were still getting a handle on how to use those tools for marketing and things like “boosting” and Twitter ads weren’t available yet. For the most part, travel bloggers back then relied heavily on search engines and other bloggers to get discovered.
Nowadays, with the popularity of social media, everyone is—in essence—a micro-blogger; making it a lot harder for actual bloggers to cut through the noise and have their blogs read. But even though it may be harder and it may take longer to grow a successful blog, many of the old tricks and tips still hold true. If you’re brand new to travel blogging, here are 25 tips to get you started.
Starting from Scratch:
1. Skip the research and just start
Many bloggers will tell you to do a lot of research on travel blogging before you begin so that you don’t end up making a lot of rookie mistakes that you’ll have to waste time undoing later—and to that I say, hogwash. It doesn’t matter how much research you do, you’re going to make mistakes anyway, so you might as well just get it over with. The best way to learn is to DO.
2. When choosing a travel blog name, think about branding
Often, a blogger’s first instinct is to go with a variation of their first name plus the word “travel”, “adventure” or “nomad.” And while that may have worked in 2006 when travel blogging was still new, now the market is so oversaturated with “Allie’s Adventures” or “Tim’s Travel Tales” that even if someone hasn’t already taken that blog name, the theme is tired and cliched.
Choose a name that’s unique and personal, but also a name that fits the brand and image you’re trying to project. I chose to call my blog “Taken by the Wind” because “taken by the wind” is a repeated lyric in a song I was named after (“Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac) and because I liked the Marry-Poppin visual of being pulled to travel by some unseen force beyond your control.
Some of my favorite travel blog names are:
- “Pause the Moment”—Isn’t that what we’re all trying to do while traveling?
- “Rooftops and Flip Flops”—The name immediately conjures up an image of lounging in a hammock with a cocktail at 3am on the roof of a Southeast Asian youth hostel.
- “Delicious Baby”—This blog name is intriguing because it makes you think “who is this baby?” “And what is delicious?” The blog offers advice for parents who are traveling on the road with their kids.
3. Purchase a domain
If you’re serious about being a travel blogger, skip the .blogspot.com or wixsite.com and purchase a domain. It doesn’t cost a lot (my domain costs under 10 dollars a year) and it looks a million times more professional. Nothing screams “I don’t know what I’m doing” like a long and clunky URL.
4. Find decent web hosting
After you’ve purchased a domain, secure a hosting site. A hosting site is the digital cloud that will store all the content (photos, blog posts) that you upload to your domain (or URL). I use Hostgator.
5. Use WordPress
WordPress is easier than any other CMS (content management software) and it’s great for SEO (search engine optimization).
6. Install plugins
Install the following plugins:
- Akismet
- Yoast SEO plugin (the free version is fine)
- Dreamgrow Scroll Triggered Box
- Simple Social Share
There are a lot of WordPress plugins you can use, but if you’re just getting started, the ones mentioned above are the most important.
Tips for Once Your Site is Live
7. Start big with your first blog post
A lot of first blog posts will go something like “Lookit! I started a blog! Woohoo.” Save the explanation for why you decided to start blogging for your “About this blog” section and skip right to writing a solid 800 – 1000-word post about something real and meaningful.
8. Skip the social media in the beginning
Don’t waste your time trying to get 10,000 followers on Twitter if your blog only has three posts on it. Spend the first six months gaining experience and building up a solid library of content. Plus, let’s face it, until you’ve gotten some experience under your travel blogging belt, your blog is probably going to be bad, so it’s a better idea if you work on your craft before you start sharing it with the world.
9. When choosing topics, think about SEO and not social media
When you’re first starting out, you won’t have any social media followers, so the only real way people will be able to discover your blog is through search engines. Use MozSEO tool or the Google Keyword Planner tool to discover what people are searching for and incorporate those search terms in your blog title, URL and in the body of your content.
10. Aim to write once a week
When I first started blogging, I set the impossible goal of “one blog post every day!” and then would mentally beat myself up each time I failed to reach it. Instead of writing every day, aim to publish one blog per week. You can write more if the mood inspires you, but once per week is a solid minimum.
What to Do After You’ve Published Your First 20 Posts
11. Start link building
Link building is the SEO tactic that involves getting other websites to link back to your blog. Why is this important? Because the more inbound links you have to your website, the more likely it is your blog will show up in Google search results. The smartest way to do this is through getting quality, well-researched guest blog posts published on high-ranking websites.
12. Start posting on social media
A good rule of thumb? Once a day on Facebook, twice (or more) a day on Twitter and three or more times per day on Pinterest. Pinterest is a great platform for travel bloggers and it’s good for SEO because it helps with link building. After search engines, Pinterest is my number one traffic referral source.
13. Focus on engaging with influencers, not increasing your following
I work as a social media consultant and one of the biggest misconceptions people have about what their goal should be regarding social media is this: They think success equals high follower counts. But that’s misguided. As a new blogger, your goal needs to be to engage with other bloggers and brands in an authentic and genuine way. If you do that and you do that consistently, you’ll gain more followers naturally because those influencers will eventually want to return the favor and follow you back or re-share your content.
14. Find a niche
After 20 blog posts, you’ll likely start to get an idea of what you like and don’t like writing about. Focus your niche down to one to three core topics and stick with those. For Taken by the Wind, for example, my niche topics are: travel addiction, travel blogging/writing tips and quirky travel destinations.
Writing Tips:
15. Create timeless content
A blog isn’t a newspaper. The blog posts that will have staying-power on the web and perform the best are ones that provide an evergreen resource of information. Leave the “latest trends” and “breaking news” articles for the news sites.
16. Chose original topics
Don’t copy what other bloggers are writing about. Either chose a topic that no one has written about yet or pick a popular topic and try to find a unique slant or a way to improve on what has already been written.
17. Use exclamation points sparingly
Nothing says “amateur writer” like the overuse of an exclamation point.
18. Avoid ‘travel writing cliches’
A travel blog post shouldn’t read like a press release. Unless you’re being paid to promote a particular hotel or destination, your prose should sound relaxed and authentic, not gushing and sales-y. Avoid using PR words like “boast,” “quaint,” “hidden gem,” and “must-see.”
19. Make your posts “scannable”
The average blog reader will spend 15 seconds or less reading your post (Yeah, I know. It’s sad!). Make sure they digest all the important information by breaking up large walls of text with sub-headers (H2s and H3s). Use captivating imagery to keep them scrolling.
Skills You’ll Need to Get Started
20. Familiarize yourself with basic HTML
You don’t have to be a coder, but you should learn a few simple tricks so that you’re not stuck having to hire someone if you accidentally break your site. This guide by ProBlogger will give you a quick intro.
21. Learn Photoshop
Hear me out before you panic. You don’t need to know how to professionally edit photos to start a travel blog. But you should know how to convert your photos so that they’re optimized for the web. This is absolutely necessary to do before you upload your photos to your blog because high-resolution images can crash a site or cause it to load slowly. A website with a slow load time isn’t just annoying for the reader, but it’s also a big n0-n0 for Google and your site could be penalized as a result.
22. Master English grammar
Other than the obvious grammar rules (its versus it’s and subject-verb agreement), you should also know the following:
- Only one space after the end of a sentence, not two. A lot of bloggers 35 and older still use two spaces after a period, but that’s an outdated rule. Now the rule is to use just one.
- Less is more. Edit your work ruthlessly. Every sentence in your blog post should serve a purpose. No fluff. No word vomit.
- Avoid using “very.” You weren’t “very tired,” you were “exhausted.” The scenery wasn’t “very pretty,” it was “gorgeous” or “exquisite.” Cut excessive wordiness.
Here’s a good guide from the Guardian on Tips for Travel Writing if you want to learn more.
Final Tips
23. Pick a measurement for success
When you start a travel blog, you should have an end goal in mind.
Ask yourself. Why I am a blogging? Is it to…
- Record my travels?
- Make money?
- Become famous?
- Have a place to showcase my writing or photos?
- Get work as a travel writer or photographer?
- Sell a product? (i.e., a travel book)
- Get free trips?
Also, consider what you’ll need to make those goals happen. If you’re looking to make money off your blog, for instance, then you’ll need to join affiliate link networks and actively court partnerships with travel brands (through paid sponsored content on your site). If you’re looking to sell a product, you’ll need to create an email list and run Facebook and Instagram ads.
No matter your goal, you should set up a Google Analytics account. It’s free and it will provide you with a ton of relevant data, including how many visits your blog has received and where they’ve come from (Google, Facebook, etc).
24. Don’t compare yourself to others
It does no good to compare your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 20. You’re a beginner. Embrace it. Know that your blog is going to be bad for a long time before it gets good, and that’s normal. Every successful travel blogger blogging today once stood exactly where you stand today.
25. Never give up
A travel blog is a lot harder to start than, say, a book review blog or fashion blog, because in order to obtain credibility as a “travel expert,” you need to be well-traveled. And that can be expensive, not to mention time consuming. There will be many times that you’ll want to quit. Don’t. Take a break if need be, but keep at it. It may take you months or even years, but your blog will become successful if you want it to be. The key is persistence.
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