How to Start a Travel Blog

This article goes into detail on how to start a travel blog. For this article to make sense, you should at least install your blog software first. If not, check out my free blogging guide, then come back to this article later.

As travel becomes ever more affordable for the masses, it’s no surprise that it has become one of the internet’s hottest blogging niches. However, while most anyone can become a travel blogger by sharing stories and tips from their adventures, only a few succeed in reaching a wide audience. rather than friends and family. If you want to be such a superstar in the world of travel blogging that you can earn substantial income from website advertising and related affiliate programs, you will need careful planning and Invest a lot of time in planning.

With the amount of competition, maintaining a successful travel blog can take some time. If you want to turn your blog into a monetization tool in the future, there are a lot of important considerations to keep in mind.

Why start a travel blog now?

Travel continues to be a growing niche, and while many consider the market saturated, this is only true in certain regions. Fortunately, travel is a broad topic that encompasses many styles, budgets, methods and of course geography. By focusing on a specific topic, you’ll be able to reach a small but engaged audience. There are still plenty of opportunities to fill the void in the market and the world is not as small as many people think. The travel and tourism industry continues to grow as people seek out local experiences and adventure travel is returning more than ever. Pop culture tourism and travel to upcoming destinations are also broader than ever, making certain sectors highly profitable.

Who should become a Travel Blogger?

Keeping a successful travel blog is more than just sharing your own experiences with the rest of the world. After all, anyone can blog about their adventures, but reaching a wider audience requires a rather different approach as well as a lot of effort. Most importantly, you need to be willing to invest a lot of time and effort into your blog, and you also need to be active in the travel industry on a regular basis to have enough original and engaging material to write about. You’ll also need to be prepared for change when traveling, as the cliché image of a travel writer relaxing on the beach with a laptop computer isn’t exactly realistic. To have any hope of success, you’ll need to learn how to balance the time you spend exploring new places with actually working on your blog.

In terms of the techniques involved in starting a travel blogging, such as registering a domain name and setting up a content management system (CMS), travel blogging is a little different than working with anyone else. any other field. However, there are some unique aspects involved in building and maintaining a successful blog. To begin with, travel is a visual theme that relies heavily on quality video and image content as well as creative and personalized blog design. Travel blogging also requires a lot of firsthand knowledge of the type of trust and relationship building to the extent that your audience will be willing to approach you for advice. Travel is also one of the hottest topics of conversation, making social media integration and onsite comments vital components of any travel blogging project.

How to start a travel blog

Before you register a domain name, you will want to decide on a specific niche to write about and it should be one that you have a real passion for and a lot of experience to start with. Whether your focus is on the volunteer experience, solo travel, or luxury travel, you’ll need to narrow it down as much as possible. If you can combine it with another popular topic, such as food or extreme sports, then you have a much better chance of standing out from the competition.

Once you’ve decided on a niche and you know what you want to start writing about, it’s time to register a domain name. To have any chance of success, you need to have your own website, preferably with a .com extension. Make your domain name short, catchy and easy to remember. When registering your Web address, consider getting your hosting plan through the same company, preferably one that offers one-click WordPress installation. WordPress is the CMS for bloggers, as it provides everything you need to easily customize and publish content without having to know anything about the inner workings of Web design or write code. It is also free and open source, and has loads of plugins and themes available.

Many major hosting companies, such as Bluehost, offer one-click WordPress installation, allowing you to get your blog up and running in just a few minutes. Your site should be up and running in no time, but until you decide on the theme and layout and publish a post or two, you may want to use a plugin like WP Build Mode to block permissions visit my blog until it’s ready. Once you’ve registered your domain name and got WordPress up and running, you’ll be ready to start customizing your blog with different themes and plugins.

Recommended Themes for your Travel Blog

With around 10,000 themes available for WordPress, choosing the right theme may seem like an impossible task, but there are a few important considerations to help you narrow down your search:

• Responsive theme also allows your website to look great on smartphones.
• Themes with large titles allow you to display eye-catching travel images.
• Flat and minimalist designs tend to be more user-friendly and customizable.

If you find yourself stuck in the multitude of themes available for WordPress, check out the following for inspiration:

travel

Travelify has a responsive design and lots of additional customization options. However, what makes it an especially great choice for a travel blog is the way it presents your content, starting with the opportunity to place a high-resolution header image to grab attention. of the reader.

surf

Using a popular tile-based layout that looks especially great on touchscreen devices like tablets and smartphones, Surfarama is a great choice for heavily dependent magazine-style travel blogs. into the image. It also offers plenty of customization options, including the ability to choose a background image.

travel planet

Featuring a clean and minimalist design with lots of white space to help highlight a carefully selected header image, Travel Planet is suitable for almost any travel blog. In niches where visual content is often the main attraction, this little-known topic will bring your blog to life without overshadowing your written content.

adventure theme

The Adventure theme costs $69, but it offers plenty of features and a perfect layout. It’s optimized for retina, fully responsive, and features a slideshow showcasing your most popular articles. Designed specifically for travel blogs, this is a great option for presenting your content professionally.

Urge

A popular, multipurpose free theme with excellent ratings and reviews, Accelerate features a clean, flat design with an emphasis on visual content. It is fully responsive and your favorite posts can be proudly displayed on your front page as eye-catching thumbnail previews.

Recommended Plugins for your Travel Blog

Plugins add a lot of functionality to your blog and any blog should install a few plugins. However, it’s important that you choose your plugins carefully, as having too many can slow down your site and make it harder to maintain. In addition to generic must-have plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast, W3 Total Cache, and Google XML Sitemaps, there are several plugins that are especially useful for those who want to be travel bloggers:

WP Smush.it

Travel blogs rely heavily on images, especially large and colorful ones that grab attention as soon as someone lands on the page. Unfortunately, these images can take up a lot of bandwidth, slowing down your site in the process. However, this plug-in will automatically optimize and compress your image assets.

shadow box

Another useful plugin for travel blogs with lots of photos, Shadowbox allows your visitors to view images in a much more engaging way by magnifying the image and blurring the background when someone clicks on the preview. small picture. Visitors can also view multiple images in a single post using a convenient slideshow.

Map from nomads

When blogging about your travels, there’s no better way to illustrate your adventures than by creating a custom map that pinpoints where you’ve been. Nomad World Map allows you to add multiple locations to the map and link relevant blog posts to each point.

World Travel WP

WP World Travel is a premium plugin for travel blogs that displays your current location, travel plans and suggested encounters in each destination. The customizable plugin can be set as a sidebar widget to display on every page of your blog.

Last word

To be successful with travel blogging, you’ll need to market your efforts using social media, especially for visual platforms like Instagram, Flickr, and Pinterest. You’ll need to maintain an active presence on social media by sharing eye-catching photos that truly capture the essence of your written work. As a result, travel bloggers will also need to hone their photography skills to complement their posts and marketing efforts.