What better way to make a living than by traveling?
As a travel blogger, you can get paid just to travel around the world and document your experience.
Behind the scenes of the glamorous travel blogger life is a lot of hard work. Like with all new businesses, it can be hard to make money off of your blog. Especially in the early months or years, learning how to make money travel blogging might seem impossible.
This is why a lot of travel blogs fail. Why? Because well-meaning bloggers go into the field with high hopes, but they don’t stick it out long enough to make things work. They think that all you have to do is throw a blog up there and that money will start pouring in after a few weeks.
If you truly love travel and have a passion for blogging, the money will come. First, you have to put in the blood, sweat, tears, and dedication to make it happen.
Let’s get into some tips on how you can live the high life as a travel blogger–and make money doing it too.
How to Make Money Travel Blogging
Even if you love to travel and you’ve dabbled in photography or website design before, actually monetizing your blog is a lot harder than you’d think. Just having a good blog isn’t a guarantee that you’ll have a lucrative blog.
Whether you’re just thinking about starting or you’ve already dived head first into blogging, here are some tips to get you on your way to making your first paycheck.
1. Build a Strong Foundation
There’s a long process that goes towards monetizing your blog. But without a solid foundation to build off of, you won’t get the readership needed to make that happen.
Earning an income by travel blogging is all about doing something you really love–and getting good at it.
But to make that money, you first have to earn it. This comes through building a brand, an audience, and marketing yourself as a blogger.
Here are some things that go into building a strong blogging foundation:
- Creating a unique brand
- Writing solid content
- Shooting high-quality photos
- Using social media
- Having a professional website
- Building a network of contacts
When it comes to your blog, think about what sets you apart from other travel bloggers. Why should people click on your blog? Why should they read your content?
When it comes to creating compelling content, you can use travel magazines like this one to inspire you.
2. Try Affiliate Marketing
Even if you’ve just gotten your blog off the ground, it’s never too early to start with affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is when you promote a company’s product on your blog for a certain amount of money. This might sound like a sellout–but there are plenty of ways to integrate this naturally without sacrificing the content you want to write.
For example, if you write about what to pack for a backpacking trip in Europe, you can include one of these affiliate product links into your packing list with a short description.
You can become an affiliate for a wide variety of companies. The bigger your audience, the more money you can receive. Here are some networks that you could use:
You can also try to get affiliate links for companies that you already use and love. For example, clothing companies that you like, hotel booking programs that you use, or your travel insurance. Once you’ve built a considerable audience, you may find that companies will come to you for marketing opportunities.
3. Place Ads on Your Blog
Getting revenue from ads is based mostly on traffic. This might be hard in the beginning, but after your blog has been up and running for a while, it will start to be worthwhile.
Even if you don’t think you have the traffic to make money, you can start putting ads up after your blog has been up for 6 months or more. Once you get more page visits, it will start to pay off.
You might think that ads will ruin the quality of your site, but most readers don’t mind them. Plus, your loyal fans will be happy to know that reading your content is making you money. A lot of companies will pay for ads on your site, including Google and Mediavine.
4. Get Featured on Other Websites
The key to earning money from your blog is getting the page views, and it can be hard to do that when you don’t have an established audience.
Why not take advantage of other outlets? You can either request to guest post on a more popular blog or even pitch your idea to a major outlet or magazine. Major media outlets have huge audiences, and getting them to link back to your blog or social media can be a big boost to your popularity.
Plus, some of these opportunities pay. Whether it’s money or great exposure, getting your content on other websites is invaluable.
5. Monetize Your Content
When you think of blogging, the first thing that comes to mind is probably just articles and nice photography. But lots of travel bloggers expand to video.
There’s a huge market on YouTube for vloggers, and travel content can make for beautiful, compelling, and informative videos. Don’t limit yourself to just one type of blogging.
Building an audience on YouTube is a great way to develop an extra income stream. Ads on YouTube can provide you with some passive income in addition to your other blogging money.
If video really isn’t your thing, you can still sell your high-quality photos to stock photo companies or other outlets.
The Bottom Line
Whether you’re a complete newbie to the blogging scene or you’ve been at it for years, learning how to make money travel blogging is a huge step forward for your business.
Your story, expertise, and advice are unique–and there’s an audience out there who wants to read about it. It might take time and a lot of hard work, but you can turn your passion into a full-time job.
Looking for more tips before you start your next adventure? Check out our travel section for more!
