Starting a Travel Blog: A 10-Step Guide
Before I started my travel blog, I could have never imagined that Adventure Catcher will become my real job. It has been an incredible 2 years now, since I decided to become a professional travel blogger.
And yes! I am here to show you that you can do it too!
I wish, I had someone to guide me few years ago. Probably, the whole ‘travel blogging’ thing would be much easier and faster. Today, you can find many information in the Internet, but only some of websites provide high quality and useful content.
Over the years, I received many messages asking me about my website and how exactly I become a travel blogger. And also, very direct questions like how much money exactly are you earning? But, I believe, this is a topic for the next post 🙂
Remember though that there are many successful travel bloggers already out there. And, standing out from the crowd has never been harder. But don’t worry, I am here to be your virtual guide and motivator. So, let’s start it!
Starting a Travel Blog: A 10-Step Guide
1. Ask yourself a question: Why do I want to have a travel blog?
Before starting a travel blog, consider why exactly do you want to become a travel blogger?
Being a digital nomad is damn challenging. What you can see on Instagram or Facebook, is just a gallery of amazing pictures with stories behind. But this is not a real world.
Being a travel blogger means you need to do multiple tasks at once. Being an effective juggler – a person who can keep many balls in the air – it requires skills and commitment.
When working independently, you learn everything by yourself to improve your all-around skills and to keep your creativity fresh.
Your travel blog is your personal project. You need to develop some important skills like photography, Photoshop, Lightroom, web design, social networks or writing. If you are serious and committed to create something out there for people, and work hard to make your travel blog successful, don’t wait any longer!
2. Find Your Niche
Finding your niche is one of the most important steps before starting a travel blog. What exactly is a niche?
A niche is a focused, targeted area that you understand. It is basically the topic your travel blog is about.
How to find your niche? Here come few important questions to answer: What are you passionate about? Is there any subject you could talk about for hours? What is your hobby?
There is no point choosing a niche, you have no idea about. Remember that when you are driven by passion, the only thing that matters is that you enjoy it. And if you enjoy it, you will be doing your best to achieve your goals.
So, if you want to start a travel blog and you get excited about hiking and mountains, focus on that niche. Or if you are into spiritual growth and self-love, you can also combine it with your story and travels.
Or maybe, you are a backpacker traveling the world on a budget and you want to share your experience and tips about low budget travel.
Finding your niche is not only drawing the lines on what you are passionate about but also it helps you to find your audience and consequently leads to the greater traffic on your website.
3. Create a unique nickname
When starting a travel blog, you need to stand out from the crowd, be memorable and brandable. Remember to always show your true self and don’t copy anyone. Once you connect with your followers and give your articles a personal touch, they will appreciate your uniqueness and stories.
Choosing the right name for your website and then social media, can help you to get more readers!
-
pick a name that tells something about you, reflects your personality,
-
make it simple and short. You want people to remember you,
-
being unique is a key. Avoid common and popular nicknames starting from adventurous, nomadic or vagabond. Don’t be another traveling blonde or brunette. There are many travel bloggers with these nicknames. By choosing one of them, you will simply blend in with the crowd. And, you don’t want this. Do you?
-
Spend some time to choose the right name for your website and social media. Make sure that the name is not already taken. Search on Google and social media, if there is no similar nickname to yours.
4. Get a web hosting
All right! After finding your niche and having your unique nickname, you can get a blog host! And don’t freak out here, I will explain everything below!
A host or web hosting is a service that provides all necessary technologies for your website to be visible in the Internet. In short, you actually buy a home for your new website. Every blog needs a host, where its posts, pictures and different files are landed and accessible for everyone.
Good hosting is one of the key components of every successful website. But it doesn’t need to be expensive!
Here, I recommend the most affordable, super easy and top trusted provider – Blue Host. It offers very attractive prices, professional service and fast set up. The basic plan starts from as low as 2.95/month.
First of all, go to www.bluehost.com and click get started. Then choose your plan and add your unique domain – the name of your new website. It’s super easy!
4. Install WordPress
Once you get your domain name and hosting, you are ready to build a website using WordPress.
Installing WordPress is very fast and easy process, which takes about 10 minutes. However, there’s been some confusion, when choosing between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Well, both are based on the same system and have the same name, but they are quite different from each other.
WordPress.com, hosts your site and allows you to set up travel blog for free. Your domain name will include ”wordpress” name, for instance, www.adventurecatcher.wordpress.com.
However, WordPress.org is a self-hosted WordPress and you pay for hosting. The name of your website will look more professional, for example, www.adventurecatcher.com
In short, if you plan to make your travel blog profitable, use it for commercial purpose and be your own boss, WordPress.com can be very limiting.
5. Design your blog
All right, so now it’s time to design your gorgeous travel blog! You need to pick a theme and boost your creativity!
There are free themes available on your WordPress.org or themeisle website. You can also have a look here. If you want to get a premium (paid) theme, there are some great websites such Creative Market and Theme Forest. I recommend to take time and choose the right theme for your site. By choosing the paid option, you can expect a higher level of quality, rich features and professional support.
6. Install useful WordPress plugins
The right plugins boost your website speed, protect your website and improve site performance. They basically help you to get the best of it. For your new travel blog, I recommend installing:
-
Yoast – pro SEO plugin
-
Jetpack – shows website traffic statistics and analytics
-
W3 Total Cache – improve your site speed
-
Disqus Conditional Load – commenting system
-
Mailchimp – sign-up method to your blog
-
Contact Form 7 – simple contact form
-
Resize image after upload – automatically resize uploaded image
8. Install Google Analytics
Once you have your blog ready, it is time to know better your audience. Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool to monitor and analyse traffic on your website. Of course, you will not get much traffic at the beginning, but setting the right tools will help you to improve your results faster. Google Analytics can actually help you to know better your readers and reach more people.
As a travel blogger, you want to know what your followers are reading, where they live and where they are coming from or what are the most attractive articles on your website.
9. Set up your Social Media
Great!
You have almost all necessary tools to make your travel blog successful! Now, you need to set up your social media!
According to statistics, 6.7 million people publish posts on a blogging website regularly, with 12 million posting blogs to their social media.
A great way to get more traffic on your website is using the power of social media. I get 30% of my traffic from Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Nowadays, social media is a part of people’s everyday lives. We communicate with friends, find inspirations, shop and promote our businesses.
10. You are ready to rock!
Are you ready to conquer the world? Great!
There is one more very important thing you should focus on!
Research have shown that, over 4 million blog posts are published on the Internet every single day.
It takes a lot of time, hard work and effort to grow a successful business and be an inspiration to someone. Having a travel blog is like having any other business. Whether, it comes to pictures, videos, design or text, always do your best. Instead of posting seven times a week an average article, write 2 or 3 good quality and valuable posts.
Good luck with starting a travel blog and have fun!