Just like any other job – travel blogging doesn’t work like magic. It takes experience to be a good and successful one, and it involves acceptance when you get mistakes, inspiration, vision, goal, and even patience because it also takes time to make a blog known to the public. But first, let’s get into the definition – what does it mean to be a professional travel blogger? Is it simply about creating a website and post adventures and other experiences?
The answer is no, not completely.
Being a travel blogger means you’ll create your personal travel blog and maintain it, yes. But standing out from the crowd is tough, because knowing how great the internet world is, you’ll need to be unique and capture attention in order to get noticed. Being a professional travel blogger also means having income from the contents that they’re posting. It is where you’ll turn your passion for traveling into a business. Ever wondered why? Then here are the answers and secrets on what it takes to be an effective travel blogger.
The audience is the key! You’ll never have a successful blog without an audience. Your presence online should be known by the public, because readers come first and money comes later. So, now that we know that the audience is the key, where or how will we find our audiences? Here are the tips on how to have audiences to have your blog discovered!
Create interesting, relevant and informative travel content
Of course, you can’t find an audience without content! We all start somewhere. Blogs are mostly known as the writer’s public diary, but to gather more audience, they should have a reason why they should visit your blog again and again. The key is to provide information that can be beneficial for your reader. Write posts about your recommendations when it comes to traveling, the things they should expect and be prepared, where they can stay, and so on. That way, you can express what you know, and people will learn from you, which is a win-win outcome. If you’re curious about the things that people are interested in or are looking for, join online communities like Reddit and Quora to know what people are interested in.
Explore interesting activities!
When we speak about interesting activities, unique ones also count. Other travel bloggers share their experiences, and on the other hand, as you do the same, do something that will make things more different … more interesting. Not necessarily dangerous activities, but things that capture attention. Say, for example, sky diving, kayaking in caves, scuba diving, etc. Be creative, but of course, stay safe!
Get known on social media
Nowadays, you wouldn’t meet anyone who doesn’t have at least one social media account (unless you’re talking to someone who’s old … they’re an exception) – that said, it means that people are there. Having an appearance on social media is a great way to capture the audience. Another good thing here is, some social media sites have features of insights and analytics to keep track of your audience and profile visitors.
Facebook: On Facebook, you can create posts that can be seen by the public (especially if you’ll create a page for your own where people can ‘like’), create a schedule of posting and keeping it active.
Learn more about marketing on Facebook here!
Twitter: Twitter is also known as ‘micro-blogging.’ On Twitter, you can copy the link of your blog posts and share it there by tweeting it. Using relevant hashtags will boost your tweet’s appearance that can help to gather more audiences.
Instagram: Photos is something that we should never miss when traveling. Instagram is the best place to post your photos publicly, and to boost your audience, hashtags, like on Twitter, would be an effective way to gain more viewers.
Learn more about the best photography softwares for instagram here!
… and so much more, like YouTube, Pinterest, WeHeartIt, Tumblr, etc.
Build an Email List
Now that you’ve started your blogging business, what’s next is your email list. Building an email subscriber list is one of the most important things you can do for your travel blog. Aside from the social media appearance, the better way to update your subscribers is through their emails. That way, they’ll be the first to be informed about your new content because email is more of personal experience. It’s informing someone directly through their e-mailboxes.
Example: MailChimp
Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is the process of optimizing your website to get traffic from the search engine results. Doing this will require you to master keyword research, understand your competitors, plan and optimize your site well, etc.
Professional networking
Networking with others in person at conferences is truly powerful. Such can help you build up your name as a travel blogger, and even though costly, the investments will be worth it. This will enable you to meet potential business partners, clients, and connections that can help you lift up with your blogging business.
Personal branding
Regardless if you’re a travel blogger or not, being an apple in the group of oranges is your goal – to stand out from the crowd. Branding is how you manage the way you’ve presented to others. In blogging, you’ll need to focus on your areas of expertise, more advisably, two one or areas. Having a ‘brand’ will make people understand the theme of your blog, and they’ll know what blog to visit when looking for (example) travel posts because they know you for blogging interesting stuff about traveling. Create a logo and identity online, take photos and have social media appearance – those will be a good start to promote your brand.
Guest posting on other blogs
Do you know other travel bloggers? Great! You can ask them to allow you to write a guest post regarding traveling too and promote your blog in that post. Not only it can help your fellow blogger to have content, but at the same time, you can promote your own.
Hire others to help
Blogging is a tough business and as it grows, the more people you’ll need to help. Travel blogging also means that you’ll need someone who can be a photographer, videographer, advertiser, planner, graphic designer, and probably a writer, too. Blogging alone won’t be easy, but can be more doable when done as a team since doing it alone would be too stressful. It’s not just about your journey, but a journey with others where you’ll help each other grow, have fun and most of all, be a source of inspiration to keep going.
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