Marketing Tips for Travel Blogs

by ​Lily Kaligian, Guest Contributor

Travel bloggers are constantly wedged between not selling out to the ‘corruption’ of marketing and finding ways to attract an audience to their site. The perception that travel bloggers shouldn’t market is an odd one but definitely occurs throughout not just travel blogging but many industries. In reality however, marketing makes sense. It’s essential for attracting, growing and maintaining an audience. And if a blogger ever tells you that they don’t want a bigger audience, you can bet they’re lying.
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Effective marketing tactics for travel blogs!

Of course, there are some marketing tactics that are more effective, and less “sell-outy” than others. So how do you go about efficiently marketing your travel blog?

Network
As you probably know, networking is hugely important, not just for travel, or blogging, but almost every industry. Knowing the right people can lead to opportunities that can take your career to the next step.

When it comes to networking for blogging, it’s important to make connections both on and offline. There’s countless Facebook groups where travel bloggers can connect, support each other and talk about what they’re doing to drive traffic. At the same time, try to head to events in your city that relate to you. This could be travel focused, blogging focused, or a specific event about travel blogging.

Long Live Content
In the age of the Web, Content is king. As a travel blogger, it is the life and blood of your site. Without it, your viewers simply wouldn’t have anything to view. At the same time, it takes more than uploading a few blog posts and then waiting for your audience to come.

Attracting and maintaining an audience means you need to constantly update your blog with fresh, engaging content. You must give your readers a reason to return to your blog time and time again.

You should focus on three things when producing your content.

Firstly, it must be unique. Obviously, readers want to read something new, with a different perspective, but search engines will also penalise content that’s not 100% unique.

Secondly, your content should aim to provide some kind of value. What do your readers learn or take away from your blog post?

Thirdly, and by focusing on the previous two points, your blog posts should be high quality. Your blog posts must be a decent length (300+ words), easy to read and clear to understand. For example, numbered lists work great.

There’s a huge amount you can think about when writing your content, it’s an art form in itself, but be ensure to focus on those three areas while including links and images throughout your post.

Collaboration is Key
Blogging, especially in the travel space, is a community. Getting noticed by the right bloggers or guest posting on an authoritative blog can help to boost your traffic. The more you participate in the community, the more people are likely to recognise you and remember to check out your blog. So, what should you do within the community.

One, read other travel blogs. Not only does this help show you what is working for others but commenting on others posts helps you become a recognisable name.

Secondly, you should reach out to other travel blogs and try to get an opportunity to write a blog for their site. Be sure to link back to your own site, either within the article or in an Author bio at the end of your post. This not only helps you get traffic from the other blog, but it can also help with your SEO efforts.

Getting a quality guest post can sometimes cost you money. While you should try to get free placements, a payed placement on a great site can definitely be worth it. Understandably, this can be difficult to fund in your early days, but what I have found useful is Forex trade. Learn to Trade made it easy for me to trade Forex, which has allowed me to make money from wherever I am in the world. This money can then be used for pretty much anything, including paying for guest posts.

Thirdly, you should try to get a popular travel blogger to contribute or collaborate on your blog. Chances are they will promote this post o their own audience which will definitely help with your own marketing efforts.

Social media is powerful
In 2018, social media is a no brainer. Almost everyone is on a platform, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. The key is to find what social media your audience is on and target them through creative and interesting content.

Build an email lift
A core aspect of any blog will be an email list. Somewhere on your site must be a way to collect visitors email addresses. A popular example of this is to give away a free guide ion return for an email address.

Once you have built up a decent email list, you must continue to provide them with valuable and engaging content in order to keep them away from that ‘unsubscribe’ button. Email marketing can be a bit tricky as you must experiment with a few things. Focus on working out what content your audience engages with the best, and how often they like receiving emails from you.

As a travel blogger, your priority should definitely be high quality travel content. If you manage to consistently produce high quality content, your audience will come eventually. Be patient, be proactive and experiment with things like social media and email marketing, and you are well on your way to being a great travel blog.
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Author bio:

Lily Kaligian is an editor at Businesscheck.co.nz and Canadabiz.net. She creates a variety of articles about careers, entrepreneurship, technology, business, education, as well as travel and personal development.