Most people never start a travel blog because they procrastinate. Most people don't even read this simple guide till the end! Most people do absolutely nothing to start a blog!
Are you one of them?
You are passionate about travel and you want to start a travel blog.
All good so far!
If you are also passionate about writing (more or less), you have all you need to start a blog.
Really, you don't need anything else nowadays - is that easy. Slypress blog is a great blogging platform so you don't have to learn how to install wordpress or other blogging platform - you can start in minutes (literally).
Let's see how to start a travel blog in 2023.
Blog travel niche
Well, "travel" niche is too broad.
Why?
Might be easy to start a blog and write about anything you want related to travel but the main problem is competition.
There are big websites like this travel blog which is very hard to compete with. You can, but would be very hard! We are talking about old travel blogs + qualitative articles (more or less) + qualitative backlinks.
What is one to do, to start a travel blog?
First of all, don't start your travel blog writing about anything you can think of. There is a strong competition and might take years to rank on Google.
You have to be "laser-focus", writing about something very specific, so Google can treat you as an expert in that area. This is how you build authority!
So start your travel blog with a sub-niche, something very specific. Start narrow - start with a large city - doesn't matter, as long as you don't start writing about anything in the world, diluting the content.
Of course, you can't stay narrow for the rest of your life!
Start small and go big! Expand your niche, little by little!
→ 5 ways to make money with a blog
Blog travel domain name
Well, now you know that you have to start narrow, if you want to have a successful blog travel.
Next step: find a nice domain name. This is very important!
If you want to expand in the future, you can't have a niched domain name, like "chicago-travel.com".
The problem: you can't expand your travel blog to other countries - you would be stuck to chicago and changing your domain name later, would be huge NO (you sabotage yourself).
Well, you can do anything you want because it's your blog. But the problem is the authority your visitors will perceive.
Find a broader domain name - something easy to remember and a name that allows you to go broader.
→ Ghost vs Wordpress vs Slypress: Faster Loading Blog
Start your blog
Now you have a nice and a domain name. Great!
It's time to start your travel blog - you first travel blog, maybe?
Go to slypress.com and create your account.
Why Slypress?
Because:
- premium blog that can be set up in a minute (literally)
- no need to install Wordpress (or other blogging platform)
- no need to pay over $99 for advanced SEO tools (Slypress include internal tools for free)
- no monthly hosting payment (where you should install wordpress/blog)
- no updates and fixing your broken blog
- don't pay for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Slypress is a blazing fast blogging platform (Highly SEO oriented)
Slypress is a better Wordpress alternative! Highly SEO oriented - so will rank better on Google (is all you need to start a travel blog).
Slypress provide you a premium blog that can be set up in a minute. Focus on writing, never waste time on fixing and updates!
Travel blog theme
Well, because you start your travel blog with Slypress, you don't have to bother about blog theme.
Slypress gives you a highly optimized theme for your travel blog, so you focus on writing.
All Slypress themes are focused on conversion!
Beside technical SEO (which you don't have to worry about), you also get a simple and good UI that converts your visitors into your customers (for sure, you want to monetize your travel blog, at some point).
If you go with Wordpress blog, then you have to test many themes, to find a good optimized one - for both: SEO and Speed! This is very challenging for a beginner and will cost you a lot of money and especially time.
Travel blog plugins
Slypress don't use plugins! This is why is the fastest blogging platform.
If for some reason you want to go the hard way - using Wordpress - then you might need a lot of wordpress plugins for your travel blog.
Most good wordpress plugins are premium and costs money.
The problem is not that you have to pay for those plugins - the problem is that will slow down your blog.
The more wordpress plugins you have, the slower your travel blog will get. This the biggest issue because Google care A LOT about your blog speed - you can't risk.
Website speed is one of 3 major Google algorythms used to rank your website in search results.
And by the way, there is not wordpress plugin that gives you this (Ahrefs-like tools):
Travel blog audit
This is unique to Slypress: blog audit tools.
Similar to Ahrefs without paying over $99/month!
This is what you get:
- daily blog audit
- link opportunities
- internal linking
- external linking
Slypress will analize the quality of your content according to keywords, internal linking from one blog post to another blog post (this is huge, vastly underestimated), inventory of your affiliate links and a lot more.
You can find in seconds the broken links (internal and external) and a lot of suggestions to improve your travel blog posts.
You don't find such functionalities to any other blogging platform.
Build your blog audience
This is very important before writing your first blog post.
You can't simply start writing without a minimal research.
You know, people use Google to search specific things! People use specific keywords.
You have to find out what keywords are people using to find various things about travel (the subject you want to write about).
You have to start your articles the oposite most people do:
you have to start with keywords!
Make money with a travel blog
Now you know that you have to start your travel posts with specific keywords: this means you'll get traffic.
Once you have a decent traffic (you'll get it in time - keep writing qualitative articles), you can think to monetize your travel blog.
There are a lot of affiliate markerting in travel niche. You can have affiliates for almost everything: accommodation, insurance, travel gear, and so on.
Every time a person clicks on an affiliate link resulting in the purchase, you earn a (small) commission. So the traffic is important - that's why you have to start writing your articles using targeted keywords.
Other monetization channels for your blog:
- Affiliate marketing: every time a person clicks on an affiliate link resulting in the purchase, you earn a (small) commission.
- Google Adsense: Millions of advertisers compete for your ad space - that means more money, more relevant ads, and more ad spaces filled.
- Premium content: sell digital guides for the places that you have visited to save other travelers time and effort.
- Donation button: like it or not, there are people accepting donations on their own blog. Why not?
- Personalized advice: yes, you can give personalized advice to other people.
- Sponsored blog posts: you might heard of them as "Ghost Post". Travel related businesses may pay you to write blog posts.
Start now, do not procrastinate
Fact: never been easier to start a blog!
Most people do not start because they procrastinate!
Don't be one of those people!
Act NOW: start your travel blog.
And please, keep it in mind: Ranking on Google will take time (few months), depends on the competition. Never give up, keep writing qualitative articles!