How to Start a Travel Blog and Make People Fall in Love with Traveling

Do you like traveling? Have you been to a lot of interesting places and want to share the adventure with the rest of the world? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you should probably focus on discovering how to start a travel blog.

Yes. Blogging is one of the best ways to express yourself online and gain the wanted attention. Especially when it comes to traveling, users are inclined to read posts connected to exciting destinations, making this type of blog famous. However, in order to start and run a successful travel blog, bloggers should consider a bunch of things and steps.

Start a Travel Blog in Nine Steps

1. Choose a Unique Domain Name
2. Buy a Hosting Plan
3. Set Up WordPress
4. Install Plugins
5. Get an Appropriate Theme
6. Create Useful Articles
7. Spread the Word Around
8. Social Media Marketing
9. Guest Blog on Other Travel Blogs

We’ll go over the vital ones in this guide.

1) Choose a Unique Domain Name

Even though it may not seem like it, this is a tough and challenging job. The same as with naming children, bloggers face the pressure of picking something that’ll perfectly sum up what their blog is about while sounding attractive at the same time. Once chosen, that’ll be the name their blog goes by and gets recognized online.

That’s why it’s important to pay attention to a few details while crafting it. Firstly, try to balance between the simple and overly complicated names. For instance, the likes of ‘Nomadic [Name]’, ‘Wandering [Name]’, The Adventures of [Name]’ have been used too much already by bloggers, who are already established in their field.

So, you should tackle a more original name that’ll capture the attention of users when they first see or hear it. Connected to this, it’s preferable not to incorporate hyphens and long words in the name as it can be harder to tell someone about it.

2) Buy a Hosting Plan

In order to organize and maintain the blog, you need a host to help you out. Not only that it’ll give you access to the needed tools, but it’ll keep the blog secure from all possible online attacks.

But, beginners shouldn’t pay too much money, especially when getting a host. Since they’re at the beginning of their blogging career and the blog doesn’t generate income, they look for affordable options like Bluehost, for example. This is a site that offers the full package, including services connected to picking your domain name and installing WordPress together with 24/7 customer support.

Also, there’s a basic plan that most new bloggers get at a cheap price.

3) Set Up WordPress

Anyone who intends to run a successful blog and actually make an impact with it should install WordPress. This is the software that wins over all the rest when it comes to maintaining and customizing your blog.

It provides countless options and a lot of space for crafting, editing, and adding visuals to your content. Also, with it, people can take care of their SEO strategy and manage multiple websites. You can find some useful WordPress Lessons here.

Add to this, the installation process is very easy. It can be done through your host by accessing the control panel and pressing the ‘install’ button. Only make sure you select your domain when prompted.

Afterward, you can simply log in to your account with your username and password and there you have your blog. At least, in a technical way.

4) Install Plugins

While WordPress is useful software by itself, it simply isn’t enough in some cases. More precisely, blogs need a few additions known as plugins for a complete organization and maintenance.

Luckily, the Internet is full of them and you can pick those that suit your preferences. When it comes to travel blogs, some of the most popular are:

• Yoast SEO for leading the SEO strategy and ranking high
• Akismet for getting rid of spammy comments
• Interactive World Maps to show the readers where you’ve been and where you plan to go
• Contact Form for readers who want to get in touch with you
• WPTouch for making your theme mobile-friendly

5) Get an Appropriate Theme

After you’ve got everything settled, you don’t want to mess up the appearance of your blog. This is vital as it can either compel users to stay on it or leave at once. Themes play the main role here.

If the blog looks too cluttered and unorganized, it’ll certainly chase all readers away. It’s the same as love at first sight, only, in this case, the blogger is the one responsible for the looks. And themes are there to help.

The more professional the theme appears the more chances of success you have. Not to mention that it affects the site’s loading speed. For this reason, you should comb through the Internet and find the right themes for your traveling platform. Sites like ThemeTrust, Elegant Themes, and Theme Forest have plenty of them.

Also, most bloggers strive to make the theme mobile-friendly so that the blog can look great when accessed through a mobile device.

6) Create Useful Articles

Empty pages are the worst. So it’s time you start filling your blog with actual posts. At the beginning, all that matters is to publish something no matter what it’s about.

It can be an article about how you pack for your trips, announcement of your next destinations, most memorable previous travels or whatever else you think of. Don’t stress over it. Just start writing. This will give you an insight into how WordPress works and how your posts look after they are published.

But after this, you should begin thinking of original ideas that make up a quality blog post. Always keep in mind that quality matters more than quantity, so don’t rush to post many pieces. Instead, focus on producing a few that matter rather than a bunch of irrelevant texts.

Moreover, people prefer to read something that stays with them for a longer time and that actually teaches them a lesson. So, try to include as many details about your travels as possible. And research a lot by going to other travel bloggers’ posts and reading their adventures. Then, incorporate what they missed in your own pieces to make them unique.

Finally, successful travel blogs are full of visual content. Images of the exotic places the writer visited, infographics with facts about the places or even videos of what they experienced is a big plus for readers.

7) Spread the Word Around

You’re definitely not running your travel blog for only you to read and share opinions. You need other wanderlust junkies to flood your blog posts and engage with your content as well as spark conversations and simply make the blog come alive.

Marketers have speculated (and still are) for a very, very long time about which strategies give the best results when it comes to attracting more people. How do you spread the word around most effectively?

8) Social Media Marketing

Something you can do is social media marketing. Social media is going to stay in the focus of millions of individuals around the globe and it’s the main source of information and interest. Use that to your advantage and open profiles on some of the most popular social media channels. Think, Facebook where you can share text, images, links, and so much more; Pinterest for your gorgeous pics of places from all over the world; YouTube for eye-catching videos; Twitter for short but powerful messages, and so on.

9) Guest Blog on Other Travel Blogs

Reaching out to fellow colleagues and securing yourself a guest blogging gig would be a real refreshment and promotion to your blog.

Getting in front of an unknown audience can seriously boost your blog’s presence. Also, you have a chance to tell the world who you are and, thus, increase traffic.

Influencers

Influential travel bloggers can help you become famous by saying a few kind words to their loyal readers and followers.

Did you like this? Did it help you start your travel blog? Share your experience with us. And stay tuned on Flix Expo for more blogging articles!