Travel blogging has become a lucrative way of earning online and generating an income whilst being a digital nomad. Of course, the solo female travel blogging and backpacking markets are rather competitive now, so it helps to have a niche. Your niche could be a specialist way of travel e.g travelling with children, hiking or historical travel. Or your niche could focus on a particular destination such as Luxury Travel Europe.
When setting up, get a .com domain from the start and get a good hosting company. Then you are ready to start making money and ultimately earn money from your blog. How do you do that?
- Advertising such as Adsense, Mediavine, Ezioc – This is where you essentially allocate ad space on your website and a company puts advertisements on it for you. It is possible to control the ads and make sure that they are relevant. This is usually ‘Pay per Click’ marketing and you make money when people click on the ads on your page.
- Affiliate marketing – Affiliate marketing is when you team up and market for other companies and make a small commission (e.g. 5%) every time someone buys the product through your link. Many travel bloggers are affiliate marketing for companies such as Viator (tours), booking.com (hotels) or Amazon (travel gear).
- Selling Products – Bloggers often create their own products such as T-shirts with logos or e-books (travel guides) to sell on their website. You can also sell your photography.
- Offering services – Bloggers can offer services to companies such as article writing or blogging consultancy and charge a fee for this.
These are the main ways that travel bloggers can make money. Many also get sponsored travel such as free flights and hotels if they review them. If you want to get into travel blogging, it’s a good idea to take an online course – there are many on Udemy. You can also read my superstar blogging review on Nomadic Matt’s course – The Business of Travel Blogging.