by TBEX Europe 2023 Silver Sponsors, Travelpayouts
Creating travel content is a constant battle for audience attention and top Google search rankings. One way to win that battle is by creating engaging content that helps search engines fall in love with your website. This will ultimately allow you to generate a solid income from your travel blog. At TBEX Asia 2022, Travelpayouts asked several successful travel bloggers to share tips that will help anyone write engaging content.
Travelpayouts is a travel partnership platform that helps over 300,000 travel content creators monetize their blogs. In just a few clicks, you can start working with well-known brands, such as Booking.com, Tripadvisor, GetYourGuide, etc. and earn money from your passion for travel and content creation.
Start Travel Content Creation With Learning and Never Give It Up
Most bloggers probably start out thinking that they will deal with everything on their own. Alan and Rosalind Cuthbertson, the creators of the Frequent Traveller blog, consider this approach to be a big mistake:
“When we started, we didn’t have the foundations to build a successful blog. That sort of came about a year or two into our journey. So my advice to anybody just starting out is to go and do some online courses, some paid courses, and start from a good base point.”
Find Your Niche
“Find a niche and focus on something more specific rather than trying to compete in the huge arena of general travel blogs. It’s really hard to compete in the broader market these days”, recommend Nathan Sado and Sarah Hughes.
They know what they’re talking about. After all, they have created four niche travel sites (Live Dream Discover, All About Glamping, Discover the Pacific Northwest, Fit Living Lifestyle) that collectively attract over 12,000 users per month.
Finding a niche can help you stand out among other travel content creators. Also, you should focus on creating quality travel content instead of wasting your time and resources on topics that may not resonate with readers.
Do you book a lot of cruises? Do you like luxury hotels? There are thousands of travelers who have the same preferences as you and they are looking for exactly the kind of content you can provide them with. So, if you manage to find your niche, you will attract an audience of loyal readers composed of like-minded travelers who share the same interests.
Listen to the bloggers’ advice to avoid common mistakes. Start your blogging journey with a strong educational foundation with the Travelpayouts’ “How to Make Money as a Content Creator” course. In this free course, you will learn how to find your niche, build a powerful action plan for creating engaging travel content, and discover different ways to monetize your content.
This course is also suitable for advanced bloggers. Regardless of your current skill level, it will never be superfluous to learn the latest approaches to creating content and improving the quality and effectiveness of your posts.
Write About What You’re Really Passionate About
Amanda Mouttaki, the creator of MarocMama, a blog about the fascinating sights, people, and culture of Morocco, said, “Look at the things that are a really close fit for you because that’s really important.”
Be honest and write about what you understand or are willing to spend thousands of hours researching. The audience senses falsehood. So, for instance, gushing about the beauty of foggy London to sell winter tours when you can’t stand the damp, cold weather is not a great idea.
If you are not interested in the topic that you are blogging about, your content is likely to be superficial because you won’t be willing to spend much time on it. As a result, you will share routes, sights, and activities that other bloggers have already shared hundreds of times. This approach will not help you to overcome your competition.
Listen to yourself and write about what truly matters to you. If you do, your audience will love your personal travel experience, and you will enjoy your work.
Read the post entitled “5 Travel Bloggers’ Stories of Overcoming Roadblocks to Success: Beginner Edition” on the Travelpayouts blog for more insights on the best foundation for a successful travel content blog.
Understand User Intent
When creating content for your travel blog, be sure to consider your readers. Tracy Collins, the author of two UK-based travel blogs (Tracy’s Travels in Time and UK Travel Planning) shared an example:
“If you’re writing an article, know exactly why users are coming to your website. For example, you know the best places to stay in London, so you know that when somebody’s coming to your website, that’s the information that they want to look for.”
Understanding that user intent is useful:
- If you monetize your travel content through affiliate networks. Understanding users intent will help you find partner programs that best fit your audience, while allowing you to understand which partner tools to use and where to place them on your blog page to maximize their effectiveness. That way, users will notice these tools, click on them, and book travel services. Meanwhile, you will earn money on each sale.
- If you want your site to reach the top of the search results. You should know why people visit your blog, at what point in their lives they do so, and whether they can find the information they need on your site. If you are aware of these factors and provide what your audience is looking for, they will not leave your site after two seconds, but will instead read what you have written. As a result, Google will consider your content to be relevant to users’ queries and will rank your site higher in the search results.
Of course, the rotation of pages in the search results is not only influenced by the time spent reading articles. You can learn about other important SEO indicators as well as how to understand the user intent in the free course “Boost Travel Affiliate Revenue Using SEO” with Sharon Gourlay, industry expert and creator of DigitalNomadWannabe.com.
Blogging is Your Business – Invest In It
Don’t assume that blogging is a free activity. It requires not only the purchase of a domain, payment for hosting, and other technical things but also the constant growth of the blog owner. Be prepared to spend money on courses, trips to conferences, unplanned content travel, and other activities. Your investment will definitely pay off because your articles will be more engaging.
This is what Nathan and Sarah, who you are already familiar with, have to say:
“Invest in your business right away or as soon as you’re able to. That will help boost your business early on. Make sure you’re learning and networking with other people in the industry. There are a lot of people who can give you useful tips, so you don’t have to learn everything on your own.”
Tips from successful travel content professionals will always inspire, encourage, and point you in the right direction, while helping you avoid common mistakes. You can also read the success stories of other bloggers to learn everything necessary to embark on an exciting blogging journey. For example, how to turn blogging into a full-time job, or how to make over $1,000 per month on a niche blog.
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