How to Start a Travel Blog and Make Money in 2023 (Step by Step Tutorial)

These days online technology has reached such an extent that people are making money out of it. It is now possible to stay connected with people from different corners of the world with just the Internet. Talking of the Internet, blogging is one such platform that has been a passion for some people during a money-making source for others.

Creating a website is now a lot simpler because of WordPress, which is one of the best platforms that even non-tech savvy people can use too. Travel is fun, and if people want to share their own travel experience through blogging and to wonder how to start a travel blog and make money, then indeed, the Internet could be put to the best use. Travellers now can follow their passion while sharing experiences and earn money out of it.

Things you need for starting a travel blog

Let’s make a list of all the important things that you would require to start making a travel blog.

Step 1 – Choose a suitable niche

It is essential to understand that travelling can be a tough niche where the competition is already high. Those who want to achieve success as being a blogger must understand that it is crucial to stand out best in the crowd.

That is why it is vital to develop something unique on how to start a travel blog and make money and for this, having a suitable niche is important. The extended set of the audience should be known so that at least you shall know what kind of travel niche can be the best to share experience and earn money too.

Step 2 – Choose a domain name

Once the niche is decided, another important step that should be taken is to focus on the domain’s name. However, the name should be made in such a manner that people can easily remember it. It must be extremely simple.

The brand name in the domain may not be the choice when you are just a beginner. It is better to do the other best thing to come up with an easy-to-remember brand name when focusing on making money as a travel blogger. It must be easy to recall, short, and even quirky. If you focus on a keyword-based name, it can even be better.

Step 3 – Buy WordPress Hosting and Install WordPress

The hosting plays an important role since it makes sure the site gets loaded up quickly. It is usually available for visitors. Web hosting services have so many qualities, but having a good starting point is always an option like WordPress.

Some of the hosting surveys of WordPress, such as Bluehost, can be useful when it comes to how to start a WordPress travel blog since it is:

• Affordable
• Allows easy purchase
• It gives a setup wizard that installs WordPress for you

If money is the restriction, it is better to go for the cheapest plan initially. The sign-up process is quite simple. Once the account is created, it is time to go ahead and do domain configuration. The WordPress shall be installed, and you will be on your own to start with the travel blog.

Start a Travel Blog now with Bluehost

Step 4 – Select a good travel blog theme

Once the domain, niche, and name are all set, it is time to develop a good theme for the travel blog while moving forward to becoming a travel blogger and making money. It is better to choose a memorable name that should define your personality.

You can grab your dictionary and come up with many ideas or even play with the words. It is good to explore something interesting. Once all the details are entered, trust your guts and choose the best one. While pocking the name for a travel blog, you can even follow these tips:

• The name should be unique and should sound like a cliched advice
• Brainstorming can be frustrating, so use a blog name generator tool that can help brainstorm ideas on how to create a travel blog and make money.
• The name should be easy to remember and must be simple enough that people will not even be able to misspell it.
• The name of the brand shall be consistent on different platforms, and hence it should be chosen in such a way that it can be maintained in all the social media channels and platforms.

Step 5 – Install useful plugins for travel blogs

It is time that you may the best use of WordPress plugins. They are important as you can add some new functions to your travel blog. For this, you will not even need any technical knowledge. It is one of the best things that makes WordPress so good. Some of the best must-have plugins that can be added to a travel blog are:

• Gutenberg block plugins
• Caching plugins
• Security plugins
• SEO plugins
• Social share button plugins
• Contact form plugins

You can also explore some travel-specific plugins, but it can, of course, vary as per the primary area

• Photo Gallery plugin such as NextGEN Gallery where travel pictures can be shared
• Plugin for better integration with Facebook and Instagram
• Slider plugin like Nivo Slider that displays complete width pictures.
• A lightbox plugin like Simple Lightbox lets readers see photos in a customizable lightbox

Step 6 – Create high quality and useful content

Content plays a vital role in blogging. But simply making content that is not even user and search-friendly will be of no use. For first-time writers, it is better to list down a bunch of topics to come up with, which can prove to be helpful for the audience

The audience needs to look for some inspiration through the blog posts that you share. The stale content would always lead to the loss of the readers. Since it is your blog, make sure you put the content that is keyword search and follow the steps shared:

• Keyword Research:

Before you even start writing the content, it is important to do some good research on the keyword while working on being a travel blogger and making money. At least by this, you will know that you are targeting the right set of audiences.

You need to put the entire content together and write it in such a manner that there is a better search engine ranking you get with it. With the help of keyword research, you can focus on coming up with better topic ideas and improve your chances of better ranking. There are some better tools like UberSuggest and SEMRush that can work the best.

• Planning is important:

Once all the keywords are well researched, it is time that you start creating a plan. You must come up with the topic that interests your real asset of readers. You need to make sure there is a schedule for consistent blogging that you maintain entirely. You may want to have a look at your posts on how the blog has been working up for you so far.

If you are not able to commit to the schedule, then survival in this industry will just be next to impossible.  In such a case, the best thing is to stay focused and create a content calendar. At least by this, time can be managed while posts can be published consistently.

There are so many tools that are available for creating the content calendar. Google calendar is the ideal one since it is free, and setting up reminders is easy here too. At least with this, there is no scope of missing out on deadlines.

Step 7 – Start creating a blog audience

There are some interesting channel options where the scope to grow the traffic of the blog is more. Since social media is a platform where millions of users are active, it would help the content get reached to the right set of audiences. By adding different social media buttons such as ‘Like, share’ and subscribe,’ it is easy to share the content to the readers, and further, they can spread to other users too.

Options like Pinterest and Instagram are the best platform where you can promise the blog. It should work as a social media strategy.  Other options that can also help in the expansion are keyword research and SEO. Creating an email list is also one fine way to grow the audience in the long term.

Step 8 – How to make money from the travel blog

There are so many ways by which a travel blogger can earn a better income. The primary source for any travel blogger is affiliate marketing. It comes with the promotion or recommendation to be done for other people’s products and even services. There is a high scope of earning commission, and if the reader purchased it, there is more money-making deal.

Different companies offer an affiliate program. But it is better to promote only those products that can be used or should be used in the future and meet the audience’s needs. ShareASale, Commission Junction, and Amazon associated are some of the best affiliate options to try.

Other than this virtual private network (VPN) is another good choice. If people travel in some different country, they need good Internet, and if it is censored or the content they wish to check out is not available in that country, then VPN can bypass such censorship laws.

FAQs on How to Start a Travel Blog

Conclusion on How to Start a Travel Blog and Make money

These are just a few ways to start a travel blog and get paid that can help you start a blog and earn better. It is essential to focus on how you improve your blogging each day. There are few platforms available to begin with.

But since these are some of the free platforms, the scope to earn money out of them is quite limited. It is better to explore more and learn from it and then decide how and when to start with a travel blog.

Also Read:

How to Start a Fashion Blog and Make Money
How to Start a Food Blog and Make Money
How to Start a Blog in India and Make Money

Sufyan Shaikh

Hi, I’m Sufyan Shaikh, founder of BloggingIndian. I have 5+ years experience in blogging industry. This blog provides authentic information regarding blogging, SEO, affiliate marketing, WordPress & Web Hosting