How to Become a Niche Travel Blogger (Get PAID to Travel)

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How to Become a Niche Travel Blogger

Have you ever thought about becoming a travel blogger, but were overwhelmed by how saturated the market seems? What if I told you there are still huge opportunities for niche blogs.

In this guide, we will discuss how to become a niche travel blogger and get paid to travel the world!

Is it too late to start a niche travel blog?

Travel blogging can be a great idea in theory, but the reality of turning your passion into a full-time income is not so simple.

To succeed in this industry, blogging takes more than just creativity – it also requires a strategy and it requires you to choose a niche.

While it may still be possible to create a successful generic travel blog, it’s a lot harder to compete these days with the existing travel blogs that have been around for a long time.

This is why niche content sites are so powerful.

9 Steps to Start, Grow and Monetize your Niche Travel Blog

In this guide, we will go over everything from finding your niche, to setting up your blog, to monetizing your content.

1. Choose Something You Can Write About

If you’re starting a new blog – even a very niche one – you need to choose a topic that you want to write about.

It doesn’t matter what you love about travel – people, food, culture, coworking, wildlife etc.

The central theme of your niche blog should be based on something that keeps your enthusiasm and motivation.

Realistically, you’ll need to write 100+ articles – so choose something that you can write 100 articles about.

2. Build The Site (Keep It Simple)

New bloggers often find themselves overwhelmed by the technical aspects of website management, hosting, WordPress etc.

Honestly, you shouldn’t dive too deep into these details.

I use the same hosting, plugins and theme for ALL my niche content sites.

Simplify it.

Your time will be better spent focusing on writing quality content than trying to figure out all there is know when starting a new site from scratch – which can seem like an impossible task!

Here are the hosting sites, theme and basic plugins I use for every site.

Hosting: Cloudways, WordPress

Theme: Neve (basic blog theme)

WordPress Plugins:

WP Rocket
Akismet
Short Pixel for images
Cloudflare

3. Learn How to Use SEO Tools

This is your bread and butter for a niche content site.

It may seem overwhelming at first, but understanding SEO tools will separate you from the crowd.

Here are a few tools I recommend learning:

Lowfruits.io – a great resource for finding articles you can rank for.
Ahrefs – a mainstay in the SEO world. You will need this.
SEMrush – another great tool you will need to learn.
Google Search Console – very useful and best of all, it’s free!

4. Speak To Your Readers

Knowing who you want to speak with will help guide your every blogging move.

Understanding this will influence the kind of articles you write, which social networks you are most active on, and where your eventual revenue will come from.

Try to think about why and where your reader might be searching for your content:

if you’re writing a recipe article: is your reader searching from the supermarket (on mobile) and wants to know the answer quickly?
if you’re writing a top 10 places to eat article: does your reader want original photos of the restaurants to make an informed decision?
if you’re writing an in-depth SEO guide: how much info does your reader want? do you adequately answer the search intent?

By keeping this structure at the forefront of your mind, you will easily answer your reader’s search intent and rank far better than your competitors.

5. KEEP PUBLISHING CONTENT

Content is king. Always.

The more you create, the better you’ll get at writing quality content. It’s that simple.

The aim of the game is to create a site with 100+ articles with related focused keywords, consistently aimed at your niche. This way you’ll be letting Google know exactly what your niche site is about.

The only way to do this is to write!

So don’t be afraid to create as much content as possible in the early days.

The more you publish, the greater your chances of success.

6. Fact Check: Add More than the Competition

Quality should always be a top priority – especially if you want to make your blog stand out in today’s market.

With so many blogs and travel websites out there, it’s more important than ever to ensure that your content is of the highest quality.

This means taking the time to do adequate research on the subject you’re writing about, and making sure that all the information you include is accurate.

Fact-checking is key, as is looking at the subject from different angles to make sure you’re providing a well-rounded view.

It can be time-consuming, but quality content is what will make readers trust you as a source of information – and quality is always worth the investment.

7. Learn Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful ways of monetizing your niche travel blog.

By signing up for various affiliate programs, you can earn commission on products and services that you recommend to your readers. Best of all, it’s an easy way to start earning money from your blog even with a relatively small audience.

There are many affiliate programs out there, so finding one that suits your site should be relatively easy. Once you’ve found a program, all you need to do is promote the products or services on your site and you’ll start earning commission on every sale you generate.

I can personally recommend Skimlinks as a great way of getting started – they remove the hassle of signing up to different affiliate schemes, but take 20% for the convenience. A fair trade in my eyes, and another way of keeping it simple.

8. Update Old Articles Based on SEO Trends

It’s no secret that SEO changes all the time.

As Google continues to refine its algorithms, what worked last year might not work this year.

That’s why it’s important to keep your articles up-to-date, especially if they’re ranking well in search engines. Not only will this help you maintain your position in the SERPs, but it will also show your readers that you’re keeping up with the latest trends.

To update an old article, start by reviewing the content to see if anything needs to be changed or added. Then, check your SEO and make sure that your keywords are still relevant.

The most important thing is to keep on top of the trend. Add new things to your old articles as your learn more!

9. Grow Other Niche Sites

If you’ve managed to build up a successful niche travel site, congratulations! You’ve put in the hard work and it’s paid off.

Now that you’ve got the hang of things, why not try expanding your operation into another area?

After all, you already know the importance of SEO and targeting specific niches. So why not put those skills to good use and see if you can replicate your success in a new area?

One approach you could take is to choose another niche based on SEO considerations. Once you’ve identified a few potential niches, do some keyword research to see if there is indeed search volume for the terms you’re targeting. If so, then it may be worth pursuing that niche with your other travel site.

Of course, there are other factors to consider beyond SEO when choosing a new niche for your travel site i.e. affiliate commissions, RPM, saturation etc. But if you’re looking to branch out and attract more visitors, then focusing on SEO is a good place to start.

Who knows, with a little luck and hard work, you could be running a whole network of successful travel sites!

Are you ready to start a niche travel site?

It takes guts to start something new and carve out your own corner of the internet.

Not only that, but it takes serious dedication to make a go of it as a full-time blogger.

But if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that the payoff can be huge.

The main thing to remember is that you should tackle this with a strategy first approach, emphasized again in the bullet points below.

How to become a niche travel blogger?

Choose Something You Can Write About
Build The Site (Keep It Simple)
Learn How to Use SEO Tools
Speak To Your Readers
KEEP PUBLISHING CONTENT
Fact Check: Add More than the Competition
Learn Affiliate Marketing
Update Old Articles Based on SEO Trends
Grow Other Niche Sites

Let us know in the comments below how we can support you as you take the plunge into niche travel blogging – and start getting paid to travel the world!

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