How to start travel blog? It is not that difficult as it sounds, especially for people born after the seventies.
Anyone who loves traveling and writing, or at least taking pictures, can start a travel blog during the holidays. But starting a quality, successful travel blog is a much more involving, time-consuming, and requiring task. There are many misconceptions about blogging in general, so before starting, you should know some truths, as well as the basics on how to start a travel blog.
You should first know the facts
Most professional travel bloggers will tell you that starting their own travel blog is among the best things they have ever done. And if they are honest, they will never recommend it to anyone. There are several reasons for this. The first one is the simple fact that regardless of how it looks like, it won’t fund your travels. Don’t start a blog with the intention of profit, because it just doesn’t come with one – nobody, no matter how successful they are, is getting rich from travel blogging. A few bloggers make enough to cover the maintenance expences from programmes like the one here, but also after at least a few months of figuring out how to do it. If you are good and if you have really interesting stories to tell, you might get paid after a while by a service provider, if you manage to attract readers and engage them in some way.
Another reason not to start a travel blog is that it requires a lot of work. First of all, you will spend hours writing, and then let’s not forget that it’s not just writing. It also includes administrative work, design, photo editing, social media presence, SEO, ad sales, and even more.
And there is no such thing as success in travel blogging – some people are better than others, and those who earn some money from this industry don’t actually make it from blogging. They consult, sell e-books and courses, but often are freelancing for other publications. So, success here depends more on your personal definition of the term success and usually it’s not even closely monetary.
Preparation
There are certain things you should do before starting your blog such as defining a clear purpose of the blog. One of the most common reasons is simply sharing your trips and experiences with your family and friends – uploading photos, posting updates on your whereabouts, and so on. But after a year or so, your friends might get bored of your endless tales of beautiful sights and exotic beaches. At the same time, your writing skills will be improved and you will have a clearer and wider perspective on the world, on your job, and on blogging. You will be able to help out other travelers with useful tips, while engaging readers with intriguing stories. At this point, you should be able to earn a little bit from your blog through ads. So, when considering the design, be more flexible.
Define your audience – you need to be aimed at to a particular type of readers, whether they are your friends, bargain backpackers, family travelers, or luxury travelers. After all, the blog should be not for you, but for your readers and their interests – otherwise, starting a travel blog is downright pointless.
Choose the blogging name wisely
Choosing a good name for your blog (and domain) should take time – read blogs for several weeks before picking up a name. It should be creative, but not too creative, simple, but not idiotic, and it should reflect who you are and what the blog is about. There are tons of articles on naming a travel blog on the Internet, so read on.
Choose a platform
This is an incredibly important step in starting your blog – there are many choices out there, some are good, others better, and third are really excellent. The most popular ones are Blogger and the one we recommend, WordPress, which at first can be used for free. Then you can move to the self-hosted version and have even more design options. The best thing about this platform is that is adaptable – by installing Plugins, you can change your blog and customize it the way you like it, even in the free version.
