How to earn money as a travel blogger

Do you want to start a blog, and do you want to earn money with it? We share how you can do this in this article. We created a travel blog ourselves. However, all our tips apply regardless of what kind of blog you want to start. We tell you how you can earn money with a blog, what possibilities there are. We share how to start and how much it cost in the beginning. We also explain why it isn’t as difficult as others say. If you have the right mindset, you do it! In the end, we share our vision.

 

Introduction: why we started a travel blog

We started a travel blog because we wanted to start something to create freedom for ourselves. Freedom is our goal, our travel blog is the way to achieve this. Travelling is our greatest passion. Travelling forces us to step out of our comfort zone, and as a result, we grow as a person.

Our current lifestyle is okay, but we would like to have more. Given all the possibilities that you have nowadays, you should take this opportunity. We want to inspire other people to do the same. For this reason, we started Travel your Memories. Every destination we visit, we share our experience and tips through an article.

If you want to read more about Cynthia, Alexander, and Travel your Memories, check out our about us page for more information.

 

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How to start a blog

When you want to start a blog, there are several aspects that you should think about in advance.

This tip is probably a no-brainer, but do something you enjoy! Blogging takes a lot of time. If you do something that doesn’t give you energy, you probably will not succeed. Always try to write from your personal experience. Get inspiration from other sites but always stay yourself. This makes you unique.

To give you an example: we write all our content ourselves. Our itineraries are different and unique. We try to provide a short overview of a country and its highlight. If someone wants to know more about a specific destination, they can open this. All these kind of set up ideas gives you an advantage. If you want to see an example, you can open this link: Peru itinerary 2 to 3 weeks.

 

Determine niche

Before you start, you need to determine your niche. This also allows you to determine what kind of blog you want to create. For example, if you like cooking or sport, you could start a blog about this. Do your research about what kind of blog suits you best.

Be aware that niches of cooking, sports, and travel, for example, are very competitive. The niche yoga, for example, is already a lot more specific. Also, take this into account before you start a blog. There is no right or wrong, only the very popular niche is more difficult to enter.

 

Step-by-step plan to start the blog

Starting a blog is easy.

 

Choose a platform

First, you need to choose a web host. The web host supports/must offer WordPress. We recommend Hostgator. If you live in the Netherlands, you can also look at Hostnet.

 

Buy a domain

Buying a domain is very easy. However, you should choose a short name that people can remember. You can buy a domain through Hostgator. If you have purchased a domain, you can start after activating it via WordPress.

 

Setting up a website

You can now start building your site in WordPress. A lot of information can be found online on how to do this. If you don’t want or cannot do this, you can outsource this via Upwork. We strongly recommend that you build it yourself, so you understand 100% how WordPress is built. This means you don’t have to approach someone every time you would like to change your site.

 

Determine your design

We used the Newspaper theme. You can select templates and make the appearance of your website unique.

 

 

How to make money with a travel blog

As in “real life”, it is important for a blog to have multiple income sources. In the beginning, it is best to focus on Adsense and affiliate marketing. Both are the easiest ways to earn money. Selling a course, doing coaching, or setting up a pattern environment are other good ways to make money, but for a beginner, these aren’t the ways you should focus on in the beginning.

Adsense is easy to start. Go to Google Adsense and sign up. You can then place an ad on your site. If a visitor clicks on this ad, you will receive a small commission.

Affiliate marketing is the best and most important way to make money for a blogger. If you refer a visitor to a product or service and buy it, you will receive a commission. Imagine that you have a yoga site, and you write an article about a particular yoga mat. If you use an affiliate link (for example, from Amazon) and a visitor buys this product, you receive a commission.

Tip: try to focus only on Adsense and affiliate marketing in the beginning.

 

What is essential to know before you start

Always be yourself. Do not try to copy another site. So be unique! You must know how Google works, make sure your site is fast and focus on the visitors in the beginning. The most important thing is that you get a good position in Google searches.

 

Know how Google works

You should focus on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Keyword Research (KWR). You can find a lot of information about this on the internet. This article will not go into further detail in this article. If you use WordPress, you can install an application that can help you with this. The best known is Yoast SEO. We use Rankmath ourselves.

To ensure that you rank well in Google, you need to increase your Domain Authority (DA). In principle, the higher DA you have, the better you score on Google. To increase your DA, you need to get backlinks to your site. There are many strategies for increasing your DA with backlinks. Use Neilpatel or backlinko as information sources.

 

Have a fast working site

It is important that you have a fast website. Besides the fact that nobody wants to visit a slow site, it also affects your scoring on Google. So do not use large photos or other big files. There are a lot of sites where you can check your website score.

 

Create income by targeting your visitors

Like we said earlier, affiliate marketing is the best way to earn money together with Adsense. It is essential that you are unique, so do only link your visitors to links that help your visitors.

Make sure that you know where you are linking. If you didn’t read a book, don’t link to it. You can make easy money only in the end you will lose your credibility.

For example, we always link to two accommodations that we recommend. All the accommodations that we mention on our site are visited by us personally. To give you an idea, you can open this link: best places to stay in Guatemala.

 

Financial Overview

How long it takes to earn a decent amount of money is challenging to say because it depends on many factors. For us, for example, we don’t earn anything from our blog.

Fortunately, running a blog doesn’t cost a lot of money. Below you see an indication of the costs per year for running a blog.

Hosting domain name: $21

WordPress via hosting: $113

Theme (Newspaper): $65*

*Amounts are one-off expenses

In general, it costs $134 per year to run a blog + $65 for a theme. Besides these costs there are additional costs, to give you an idea:

Camera + accessory: $3400*

Drone: $600*

GoPro: $550*

Laptop: $2400*

Travel costs: $6000

*Amounts are one-off expenses

These amounts are to give you an idea. Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to spend as much as we did.

 

Expectation

Because of the COVID, it isn’t easy to give a clear expectation. We hope that after COVID, we can start travelling again. Our idea is to travel for a couple of months. We expect that in 1 year, we can earn $1000 per month with blogging.

Start as soon as possible. Keep your goal in your mind, and give everything that you have. Somethings, you will ask yourself if your idea will make it. If you keep pushing yourself and believing in your idea, it will!

 

We wish you all the best. We hope this article helped give you a clear idea about earning money as a blogger.

 

 

Authors

Travel your Memories

Cynthia and Alexander are travel bloggers who are inspired to travel the world. They followed their dreams and started Travel your memories #1 adventurous travel blog for everyone. This with a vision: sharing their travel passion. They capture all tips and experiences in their articles.

 

 

Jessica Alexander

Jessica Alexander

I've always loved to write, but I'd never want to be famous. So, I write as Jessica A. over here at ADDICTED. You can think of my like Carmen Sandiego, you trust me, but where in the world am I?
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