Travel blog marketing: From setting up to promoting

Traveling is second nature to many people, or at least the urge to is. Seeing a new place, the excitement of first stepping into a town or city or even into a new country…it is breathtaking. Not to mention the people you meet and the incredible experiences. Of course those are stories and experiences you will wish to share with others, especially other travelers who are wanting to set out for their own life changing adventures.

Blogging is a great way to do that. You can share your experiences easily in a way that can be interactive with readers. Not to mention the benefit of visibility…blogs are often given preference over other search sites because of the high traffic probability of a page updated regularly with new and original content. No matter how you look at it, it is a good option for any traveler who wants to start contacting others – or inspiring those who have never left their backyard to get out there and see the world.

But what do you do to get started? What do you do once you have? How do you make sure you are seen? This small guide will seek to answer some of those questions and give you resources to help along the way.

Getting started

The first thing you have to do is decide what it really is you want. Is it a place to purely talk about your own travels and where you are planning to go next? Somewhere to give advice to others who are going to be going to the same – or similar – regions? Maybe a platform for inspiring others to try their own hand at traveling by showing them how wondrous it can all be?

Having a very specific plan in mind is a necessity, as it will keep you on point as you build your blog. That doesn’t mean you will always be that format as change is natural and being adaptable is important.  But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least know where you are starting from so you can move on from that point.

If you have a special niche involved, make sure it fits in with a more general format. After all, you don’t want to start out too ambitiously before you have any foundation built. For example, if you want a blog based on travel humor, put it leaning more towards the travel and inject the humor as you go along. Build on the original concept before you start to build out, and leave the humor to the tone of the posts before you go too far.

There are a couple of things you should keep in mind when you first start out, however.

• Be careful about choosing a name…you will be stuck with it. Really, changing a name after you start a blog is incredibly difficult. Not only will you have the URL itself, leaving you stuck with the domain, but if you have a readership they will know you by that name. You can’t brand yourself if you keep switching the title.
• Use social media from the first day. Social media is an important resource for anyone in the process of marketing. There is a decent chance that you will get some users using a site like Facebook or even Youtube that could lead to others checking out your site. Don’t wait until you have a fan base before jumping on the social media bandwagon.
• Use WordPress. I am just going to assume from here on out that you will be using that program, and offer resources for it. WordPress is easy to customize, backup and use. It also have a ton of useful features. It's recommended over any other blog program.
• Use pictures…a lot of them. Using a few pics here and there for a travel blog is stupid. Whether they are amazing or not, you need plenty of eye candy. That is especially true of the locations you have visited. If you have travel videos post those too. Just edit them into watchable clips first.