If you spend any time browsing travel blogs then you could get quite intimidated by some of them. They have the blinking features and the beautiful photographs. Their site seems to be easy to navigate and interesting. How can you compete?
You don’t have to compete. There is always someone who can benefit from your point of view when it comes to a travel experience. In fact, it is very easy to start a blog. It can be done for free or very little upfront cost. Here are seven steps to getting your travel blog up and running.
1. Domain. The first thing you need to do is to obtain a domain name. This is the address to your website. I get my domain names from Go Daddy.com because they are extremely affordable and easy to sign up. A word of caution though. Make sure you take the time to determine what you want your name to be because once you’ve paid for it, it’s yours for however long you signed up. I would also make sure my domain name is an SEO keyword. Something that is its high competitive keyword, but is still search for a great deal each month.
2. Host. Now you’re going to need a hosting company. I use host gator.com. They have a low monthly fee and they are very easy to use. Also, their customer service is excellent. Whenever I have a problem. They take care of it immediately.
3. WordPress. Once you have your domain name and your hosting company signed up ready to go, you need to select a platform upon which your blog will set. WordPress is the easiest to use in my opinion. They have a wide variety of customizable themes that you can make your own. Any time I have been confused when trying to design my website, I can either go to the word press website or I can type in keywords into Google it brings up a time of tutorials and examples. This is invaluable when you need the answers to one of your questions in order to move forward.
4. Customize. WordPress allows you to customize your websites. They have made it easy to customize. This is a great thing as many of us do not know HTML code and could not create designer websites without these premade templates. If you wanted to, and many people suggest this, you could pay someone who knows how to customize your website. This can range anywhere from $50 up to a few hundred dollars. It’s really up to you and what you have in your budget but I would start with the features that WordPress offer first. At least until you know what you’re doing and what you’re actually paying for.
5. Monetize. You’re almost ready to write your articles. First, you want to monetize your website. There are several ways to do this. You can sign up with Google AdSense and post ads on your website. That way when someone clicks on an ad, you will get paid for each click. Other ways to monetize your website include selling information products (Amazon.com is a great resource for this), gain sponsorships (that means people who are going to pay or invest your blog, and in return you put their ads on your website), and selling your own products on your website.
6. Post a lot of articles. You have your website up and running. It’s live. Now you need a bunch of articles to post on your blog. This is where the creativity comes in handy. This is where your travels that you have documented will be displayed. Articles should be informative, with your own unique personality, jumping off the pages. People coming here want to learn something and experience your travels through your eyes. Take your time to determine the posts that are of high quality before posting on your blog. The success or failure of a blog is directly related to high-quality content in your article writing. Write a bunch of crappy articles, and word will get around that your blog is not worth visiting. However, writes a bunch of high quality articles and word-of-mouth will spread like wildfire.
7. Post consistently. The trick to driving traffic consistently to website is to post articles consistently. Google wants to reward websites who consistently post new quality content on a regular basis. This is why picking the theme for your blog is so important. You want to make sure that you will not get tired of writing about the subject that your blog is about. Blogging is a lot of work, not necessarily hard work, but a lot of work in order to be successful.
It really is this easy to get started. A blog takes a lot of work but it isn’t difficult to do. Remember that posting consistently, along with providing quality content, is key .
Source: Personal experience
