What You Got To Know To Become A Travel Blogger
‘How to start a blog’ is one of the questions that I get asked quite often. Well, starting a blog is a piece of cake. What needs work is sustaining it. Blogging isn’t a piece of cake! Let’s dig deep into it and find out what it takes to become a travel blogger.
I never felt like writing on the topic. But now, as I have years of professional travel blogging experience, I think I should give you my story, my perspective, my insights, my challenges, and tell you how I manage to pursue travel blogging full time.
Also read: Why I Like Being A Travel Blogger
Before I give you the path to start a travel blog, I’d like you to ask yourself a few questions – why do I want to take up blogging, am I passionate enough for travel in the first place, do I want to do it as a hobby or do I want to be a professional travel blogger. Each of these questions play a foundational role in your decision to become a travel blogger. You need to be specific about what you want to do.
Travel blogging is a serious business.
It may appear fun, a cakewalk…but it’s one of the hardest of jobs! In fact, it’s a 24×7 job. There’s so much to do. It isn’t just about writing a blog post. You need to understand travel blogging deeply before you consider it as a profession.
If you’re a newbie blogger or exploring the option of pursuing full time blogging in any genre, I’d highly recommend you my eBook: How To Build Your Brand As A Blogger. My book is going to guide you on how to prepare yourself to be a blogger and how to do it successfully.
What You Got To Know To Become A Travel Blogger
Sure, you can become a travel blogger! If I could do it, so could you. There isn’t much effort required to start a blog – simply register with WordPress and write your first post! Yes, it is that simple. You got to take the first step to get where you want to be.
I started blogging at the free version of Blogger. I think it took me over 2 years to buy my own domain name and 5 years to move to WordPress and own an independent web space. Now don’t get overwhelmed! You don’t have to start with the technicalities. Start with content.
Also read: 7 Remarkable Years Of Travel Blogging
Be a passionate, intrepid traveler to start with.
If you are not a passionate traveler, I don’t think you can be a great ‘travel’ blogger either. It’s not important how many destinations you have ticked off or how often do you travel. You can be an impressive travel blogger even with meaningful backyard travel experiences. What matters is how you perceive things, what’s your unique way of presenting things, and how real you are.
Ask yourself, am I curious enough? There has to be a certain level of madness in you to do it. You got to love travel and the idea of sharing your stories with others!
Every traveler has a journey. You don’t become a globetrotter in a day. You don’t get all the hacks in one trip. You make mistakes and you learn. You have your limitations. The idea is to grow as a traveler, and as an individual, too.
Also read: Top 10 Things I Love About Travel
You can be a blogger even if you are not great with words.
Yes, you don’t have to be a great writer to be a successful blogger. There are so many travel bloggers out there, who are not exactly “writers”, but they have created amazing travel blogs. In fact, even I don’t write like a writer on my blog. I deliberately don’t write in a flowery, dreamy fashion. The idea of blogging is to help people with information they are looking for. Your blog should either help, inform or inspire people.
However, don’t be pathetic. Make sure your writing is simple, yet appealing.
Also read: How To Use Keywords In Your Blogging Strategy
Read other travel blogs that you like.
To begin with, read a lot of travel blogs. That’s what I did in the beginning, and I do that even now. It’s important to learn from others. Take note of little things that make a blog, such as the writing style, caption style, the format of a blog, pictures used, etc.
Some of the travel blogs that I have been following for years:
The idea is to enhance your skills and constantly learn new things. You might be great at writing, but perhaps you need to sharpen your grammar, or you might be awesome at photography, but you need to learn how to choose appropriate photos for a particular blog post. There are tons of things to learn, and the best source to learn from is the industry experts – the travel bloggers.
Also read: How Travel Blogging Saved My Life
Be original. Just do what you believe in.
While I said that you should learn from others, you should not imitate anyone. The more you are your own self, the more people will resonate with you. Be it your photographs or your words, make sure they are yours! You will have your own distinctive voice, which will become your brand over the period of time.
Write regularly. Consistency is the key to success.
The best advice that I can give anyone today is to be consistent with travel blogging. Don’t write two posts in a row and then disappear for days. It takes time to build readership. As long as you write good content regularly, you will gain readers. There’s no doubt about it. I have experienced it myself.
But, I have experienced the other side of it, too. I have lost readers, too. Yes, I have lost readership to a great extent due to inconsistency in posting. Your readers forget you when they don’t see regular content from your end. It’s so important to be around.
Brainstorming ideas for your upcoming blog posts well in advance is one of the ways to stay consistent. Once you have a list of ideas, you can keep picking up from there and be regular with your writing – schedule a day or two in a week to do the ground writing work, and then you can polish your post the third day. It’s just a suggestion. Find out what works for you!
Also read: How To Grow More Traffic On Your Website
Be relevant, real and inspiring.
Posting regularly doesn’t mean posting anything for the sake of it. You got to be relevant. You got to be interesting. Travel blogging is a highly demanding business. It requires a lot of effort in terms of creativity and strategy. You need to understand a lot of things – what your readers are looking for, what inspires them, what’s unique and what’s the right way to convey it.
Don’t be fake. The very purpose and idea of blogging is to be real – to share your own stories. Yes, things have become different today. Blogs have become websites. There’s a lot of commerce involved in it. There’s no harm in thinking and acting from a commercial point of view. You got to make money, after all. But, you need to retain the true purpose of blogging, which is to help and inspire people.
Take good pictures to go with your post.
Photographs are an integral part of travel blogging. No matter how good your words are, but they are incomplete without good pictures. If you are a good photographer, it can be a great asset as a blogger. However, if photos are not your forte, try to learn the art, at least a little bit.
Don’t post blurry or small-sized pictures. Choose vivid pictures that say something specific about a place. Your readers should get the essence of a place through your travel photographs.
Also read: How Did I Learn Travel Photography
Build your social media presence.
When I started blogging 7 and a half years ago, social media was a supportive platform for bloggers to showcase their work and connect with like-minded people. Now it’s a different ballgame altogether. It’s no more just a supportive platform. Social media is an entity in itself. People call it mini blogging these days.
So, you got to go with the trend. You need to build your presence on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. The same idea of consistency works on social media as well. You need to be around!
Also read: How To Grow Your Instagram Account
But, don’t lean on social media to an extent that you ignore your blog! Yes, you are quite likely to do that, as social media is highly time consuming and creatively demanding as well. So, learn to manage your time smartly.
Network and grow. Don’t be shy.
The power of networking is so intense that I have seen people go places by just commenting on other bloggers’ posts! Let’s face it. Mediocrity is part of travel blogging. I have seen mediocre blogs making in several ‘top 50’ ‘top 100’ kind of lists across the internet. Please forgive me for this. I hate putting anyone down. But, I need to talk about mediocrity because it exists.
There are quite a few ways to network – leave meaningful comments on other blogs, social media posts, share other people’s content, exchange emails, express words of appreciation, meet people in person, and attend relevant events.
It’s important to acknowledge people in a genuine fashion and not just try to get something out of them. Be helpful.
Also read: Alternative Income Sources For Travel Bloggers
Collaborate with other bloggers.
After you have built relationships with the people in your industry by acknowledging their work, it’s time to collaborate with them. Collaboration is part of your growth as a blogger. You can collaborate by writing guest posts for other blogs, typically blogs that are much more seasoned, authoritative and popular than yours. Invite other bloggers to write for your blog.
You can also plan collaborative posts for your blog, where you can rope in several bloggers to contribute to a topic. You should also look out for such posts, where you can contribute something.
How To Start A Blog: The Technicalities
Buy your own domain name.
Each website/blog has its own domain name, which means that it’s exclusive to the owner and it cannot be taken by anybody else. Choose a good domain name for your blog – something that you are going to stick with forever and something that radiates your personality.
For instance, you should not use a domain name like ‘Travel In India’ if you want to explore the world and write about it. So, make sure your domain name is relevant to your niche.
Buy a hosting plan if you want to be a professional blogger.
You can start blogging for free, but after a while when you think you want to pursue it as a career, buy your own web space – a hosting plan. There are several web hosting providers, such as Bluehost, HostGator, SiteGround, and Dreamhost to name just a few.
I’d suggest that you do a thorough research about various hosting providers before you choose one. Ask questions in public forums, talk to tech experts, read reviews and various articles on the internet to understand how things work. Make sure you choose the hosting provider who is renowned to have the best customer service.
Don’t forget the SSL certificate i.e. your blog url should be ‘https’.
Gone are the days when blogs used to be ‘http’. Now your blog has to be secure, which means the url has to start with ‘https’. You can easily get the SSL installed along with your hosting plan.
These things do seem a bit overwhelming, but you don’t have to do them yourself. Take help from a professional tech expert to get such stuff done on your blog. Also, before you begin doing anything, do your own research about it.
Design your blog, make it look beautiful.
There are quite a few nice design themes available for free on WordPress. You can choose the one that you like and customize it according to your content. You can also go through several other professional looking blogs and take cues about designing your blog.
There are various plugins available for all sorts of customization that you would want to do on your blog – how you want your cover photo to appear, where you want to place your bio, the email subscription form, etc. You can also buy the premium version of the theme that you like. Alternatively, you can hire a professional to design your site according to your preferences.
Press trips and brand collaborations
Now comes the part that most of you find exciting – the perks of being a travel blogger. The usual notion that people have about travel bloggers is that they travel for free. Yes, you do get a lot of media trips in exchange of creating content for tourism boards and hospitality brands. Thus, the travel is not really ‘free’.
Travel bloggers never really go on a holiday. They are always at work – taking photos of anything and everything they experience, writing notes, editing pictures, posting real-time social media posts, and sometimes they are expected to write real-time blog posts (‘first impressions of a place’ kind of a post) as well.
As your blog begins to grow, you are approached by various brands for promotional campaigns. You have to be careful about what you choose to promote on your blog. You need to make sure that your blog doesn’t become all about ‘advertisements’ and ‘sponsored’ posts. If you are writing a branded content, make sure it’s relevant and helpful to your audience.
Also read: Celebrating A Decade Of Travel: 2009 to 2019
So, how does a typical day in a travel blogger’s life look like?
There are different things that you do as a travel blogger. Therefore, every day is different in a travel blogger’s life. And, that’s what I love about my job. I’m my own boss. Nobody tells me what to do. I can work at my pace. I can work from home. I can work from a café or anywhere else. All I need is my laptop, WiFi and some good coffee.
So yes, it looks like a dream job. And, it is!
But, it isn’t easy. Travel blogging requires you to work without a break. You cannot really take days off and completely forget about your work. If you do, it gets very hard to bounce back. Ask any serious travel blogger, he/she will tell you the same thing.
Also read: How Do I Get Money To Travel?
As a travel blogger, you will have to do the following jobs on a regular basis:
- Brainstorm new blog post ideas.
- Write blog posts. Review, edit, and proofread them. You want to publish an error-free post, right?
- Edit photos for the blog post.
- Update social media. Reply to comments.
- Reply to emails.
- Send out pitches for work – possible brand collaborations, freelance writing work, etc. Crafting the right pitch is also work.
- Network with other bloggers and various industry professionals on platforms like Facebook groups, Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Reach out to publications/blogs for guest post opportunities. You need to contribute quite a few guest posts to increase your visibility and credibility.
- Client work: It could be freelance writing work, social media campaign, blog campaign or travel consultancy work.
- Research about various aspects of travel blogging like SEO, digital marketing strategies, and other such stuff. It’s extremely important to constantly learn new things and implement them in your work.
- Read relevant articles.
- Attend events.
- Travel – the crux of everything else that a travel blogger does.
There are other jobs that you do once in a while, such as update old blog posts and pages, change blog design, cover photo, design creatives for social media, update media kit, respond to interview requests, contribute to collaborative posts, and many other such things.
Also read: The Challenges Of Traveling As A Blogger
Not to forget travel bloggers also have to plan their own travel – decide on a destination, research & plan, book tickets, etc. And, if there’s any chance to collaborate with a tourism board or a hotel, we need to send out pitches for that as well.
Bonus: My answers to your specific questions (my dear Instagram followers) about travel blogging –
How to market your content? Moreover, how to monetize the blog? (asked by the_soulfulgirl and travelarch_khush)
Social media is the best place to market your content. As I mentioned earlier, you need to have a strong social media presence. Besides, work hard at things like SEO of your blog, link building and your email subscribers.
There are many ways to monetize your blog – affiliate marketing, branded content, and Google Adsense. You can also sell your own products like ebooks and online courses (create your own course on a subject that you know all about).
Besides, you can also make money with videos, freelance writing, travel consultancy (you can plan other people’s travel), social media campaigns, blogging campaigns, and there’s a very lucrative job that you can take up, which is to manage social media and create promotional campaigns for different brands.
Where do you host your blog? Self host or wp.com? (asked by notjust_breathe)
My blog is self-hosted. Choose one of the hosting providers who would do the job for you. I’d highly recommend that you take help from a professional in this area.
How and where to start? (asked by manmeetsehmi)
I think I have answered your question in the beginning of the post. If you still have questions, let me know.
How to begin travel blogging? Quit job or not? (asked by thenautankikudi)
I really like this question! Here’s a big NO! Please keep your job. It will fund your travels. You can read How Did I Quit The Cubicle For The Road to know what made me switch to freelancing and full-time blogging.
How often should one post? (asked by stories.of.raku)
You should post quite frequently, maybe twice a week, or at least once a week. It helps in keeping your blog live and kicking. I mean, if you don’t post for days, your regular readers get disappointed. I can say that as a reader. So, think from a reader’s perspective and create content accordingly.
Do you have a travel blog (how long have you been blogging) or do you want to start one?
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