How to Start a Travel Blog? The Beginner's Guide

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Written By Carlos Braga

Congratulations on the decision to start your own travel blog! I wrote this step-by-step guide to teach you how start a travel blog in less than an hour, even if you are a beginner.

I love having a Disney travel blog because I can write about one of my favorite subjects (DISNEY!) and make money doing it (although that wasn't my motivation with the blog either today or when I started).

Although I only work on this blog part-time, it is possible to earn over US$ 1,000 every month from your Blog! And yes, that in dollars!

There are a few things behind creating a successful blog and we will cover them all here in this post.

I'm sure you'll start your travel blog off on the right foot!

So are you ready to start your own travel blog? So let's follow our step by step and ensure the creation of your new blog!

Step 1: Choose a niche

The first step in starting a travel blog is deciding on your niche.

Your niche is simply the topic you write about.

For example, there are blogs in niches like fashion, cooking, parenting, personal finance, and so on.

I know what you're probably thinking: Isn't my niche just traveling?

Yes, travel itself is a niche and it's okay to have a general travel blog.

There are a lot of blogs that I like that are not specific and talk about travel in general rather than having a specific niche like this blog, where our niche is geared towards Trips to Disney and Orlando!

However, if you “niche” it even further, there are many benefits to doing so.

Here are some niche travel ideas:

  • Disney Trips
  • trips to california
  • sustainable travel
  • luxury travel
  • budget trip
  • country specific trip
  • City specific trip
  • solo trip
  • couples trip
  • Family trip
  • working abroad
  • Travel for retirees
  • adventure trip
  • Living in a van or trailer
  • cruise travel

These are just a few examples of specific travel niches. If you don't have a specific niche in mind, that's fine too!

You can be successful with a travel blog either way.

You can always start by writing about whatever travel-related you want and narrow your focus as time goes on and you realize what you enjoy writing about most.

Tip for Choosing Your Niche

It is extremely important that you choose a niche or theme for your travel blog that you master or that you really enjoy!

For 2 very simple reasons. To have a travel blog you need to understand and like what it says about. If you choose a topic that you don't like very much, your chances of giving up halfway or dropping your blog after a few months are huge.

Another extremely important reason is: Having a blog is a big responsibility!

As your blog grows, more people will start reading your posts and will likely start following your suggestions and information.

It is very important that you know exactly what you are suggesting so that people actually have the best information possible and that it can really help them on their travels.

Here on the Partiu Disney Parks blog I always try to study a lot about each subject I'm going to talk about, and especially, always try personally all the indications I make here!

Step 2: Choose a domain name

The next step in starting a travel blog is choosing a name for it.

Your blog name will be the first impression you make on people, so it's important to choose a good one!

Here are some tips for choosing the perfect name for a travel blog:

  • Make sure it's easy to spell, pronounce and remember
  • Don't use hyphens or numbers in your name (this makes it harder to spell and remember)
  • Try to choose a name that has the .com ending available (avoid endings like .net or .org as they are less common and harder to remember and remember SEO)
  • Make sure the corresponding social media names are available (instagram, facebook and youtube)
  • Make it travel-related (like “Julia's Adventures” or “Blonde Traveling”)
  • Choose something you can grow up with (eg don't choose 'Travel with young children' because in a few years it won't be relevant when your children are no longer children)
  • Keep it professional if you plan on monetizing your blog. Avoid names that might be derogatory or might be offensive to someone.
  • When in doubt, you can only use your own name.


To see if the name you want is available, you can use this free domain name checker tool below:

Bonus Tip: Buy an Expired Domain!

Domains are important to google, it uses a lot of information to know if your domain is trustworthy or not.

So new domains need to create their relevance from scratch. Which is naturally more difficult than if you already have a domain with some authority.

All you need to do is use an expired domain.

But what is an expired domain?

Simple, it is a domain that at some point someone used and created a website, but for some reason that website no longer exists and the domain was not renewed, so it is available for you to buy it and create a new website with it.

There are several places where you can look up available expired domains such as Expired Domains.net.

Do your research and select a domain that contains good keywords related to your content!

Step 3: Get a hosting

Once you've chosen a name for your travel blog, you'll need to register it and get web hosting.

If you buy your domain name through an outside company, you can expect to pay $15 to $20 for it.

However, if you sign up for web hosting through Bluehost, you can get your domain name free.

I highly recommend Bluehost for web hosting, and they are the company I (and many other bloggers) use.

They have some of the cheapest hosting plans out there, which makes them good for new bloggers, while also having reliable service and great customer support.

Bluehost was generous enough to offer Partiu Disney Parks readers very cheap hosting at $7.99 per month, and along with a free domain name.

Read too  Partiu Disney Parks - What to find around here

Click here to stay at Bluehost!

Here are the detailed steps to set up web hosting with Bluehost:

1. Click on the ?Start? this page

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

2. Select your hosting plan

Which plan to choose? I recommend the basic plan for new bloggers.

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

Personally, I'm on the plus plan, but that's only worth it in the future if you have 2 or more blogs.

Otherwise, I would probably choose the basic plan!

3. Enter your domain name

This is where you will put the domain name you decided on earlier.

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

What if I still haven't decided on a name?

If you still haven't decided on a domain name for your travel blog, just wait a few minutes and the offer below will appear on your screen:

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

Select this option and you can go ahead and start setting up your blog and then use the free credit to purchase your domain name later on.

You will have up to a month to decide.

4. Create your account

Enter your details to create an account.

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

5. Select your package and pay

Here is where you will select your hosting plan.

bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog
bluehost-hosting-how-start-travel-blog

The 36-month plan is the best deal for the discount offered, but you can also choose a 12-month plan for a lower overall cost.

What about package extras? You have the option to add extras such as backups or site security.

I personally don't recommend any of them, because there are free WordPress plugins that you can install that do the same thing (We'll talk more about some in the next section of this guide).

6. Congratulations, you're done!

After completing the purchase, you will be redirected to the Bluehost dashboard.

This is where you can log in to your blog for the first time and start configuring everything.

Your blog will run on the WordPress platform. Bluehost installs WordPress automatically for you, so you don't need to do anything additionally for this.

Step 4: Designing your blog

Your blog will come with the default WordPress theme installed.

You'll definitely want to change that, which means it's time to pick a theme for your blog!

When it comes to designing your blog, you have a few options to choose from. You can hire a web designer or install a theme yourself.

I recommend installing a theme yourself because it's MUCH cheaper and easier.

There are a lot of free themes out there, but I don't recommend them because they look too simple, don't have a lot of customization options, and don't include customer support.

A premium theme is a much better investment and will make your blog stand out from the crowd.

If you need help finding the perfect theme for your travel blog, let us know in the comments on this post! It will be a pleasure to help you!

These are my favorite things that are very professional and look great.

To install your new theme, simply go to Appearance -> Themes in WordPress dashboard and upload your theme file there!

Customizing your WordPress theme is very easy and doesn't require you to edit any code – just go to Appearance -> Customize and get to work!

departed-disney-parks-home
departed-disney-parks-home

We already use it here Partiu Disney Parks a very famous theme called NewsPaper Theme that can be found on Envato Market.

I love this theme, it has many different customization options!

Step 5: Install plugins

WordPress plugins add extra functionality to your blog.

There are thousands of plugins out there, but the ones I recommend most for new bloggers are:

Yoast SEO: Yoast helps you write blog posts that are SEO friendly. SEO, or search engine optimization, is what ranks your blog posts on Google.

Yoast will tell you exactly what you need to do for every blog post you write to improve your SEO.

Akismet: This plugin filters out annoying spam comments on your blog, and trust me, you will get a lot!

WordFence Security: WordFence is a great security plugin to protect your website from any potential threats like viruses and malicious traffic.

UpdraftPlus: This plugin makes regular backups of your website so you never miss a thing!

To install plugins on your blog, go to Plugins -> Add New in the WordPress dashboard, search for the plugin name, click Install, then Activate.

Step 6: Start posting!

By now, you should have purchased a domain name and hosting through Bluehost, installed a WordPress theme (these are my favorite), and customized your blog with plugins.

Now all that's left is to start posting!

Before officially launching your blog, I recommend having at least 5-10 posts already published.

This will give people more content to read and more posts to start sharing on social media.

And of course, try to give complete information in each of your posts, don't write posts with shallow content just to say that your blog has a certain post.

Try to do your best and describe every detail that is necessary so that your readers can understand the subject well when they read your posts.

Not sure what to write about? Take a look at our posts here on this blog, I'm sure some of them will inspire you to start writing!

In any case, here are just a few ideas to help you get started:

  • Destination guides (where to stay, what to do, what to eat, etc.)
  • Top 10 things to do in a specific destination
  • Packing list for a specific destination
  • Travel tips or hacks (how to save money, how to book cheap flights, etc.)
  • Reviews of hotels you've stayed at or tours you've taken
  • Even if you don't travel all the time, you can redirect a single trip to a ton of content for your blog. For example, let's say you took a three-week trip to India some time ago.

Here are 7 different ideas for blog posts that you can write based on a trip to Europe, for example:

  • The final three-week itinerary to Europe
  • Top 10 things to do in Europe
  • How to save money by traveling in Europe
  • 10 things to know before traveling to Europe
  • what to take to europe
  • Safety tips for solo women in Europe
  • 10 things that surprised me in Europe

Don't be afraid to get creative with your ideas and let your personality shine through in your writing.

One important thing, have fun!

Writing is fun and very rewarding once you start getting visitors and realize that people all over the world are actually reading your posts!

How to make money from a travel blog

Come on, we know how important money is, and we also know that a lot of people start blogs just focused on earn money.

Okay, it's important to focus on that, but that shouldn't be your main focus right now.

In doubt about how to save money to go to Disney in 2019? We teach some tricks for you to learn how to save and make your dream come true later this year!

The reason is simple, to generate money you need traffic.

Once you have traffic, applying the different ways to make money will bring you a much higher return than if your website has no access, obviously!

Here are examples of how to make money blogging, but focus on your traffic if you're just starting out!

If you want to know more about how to generate good traffic, let us know in the comments!

Travel bloggers can make money in many different ways

Some of the most popular ways are:

  • Affiliate Marketing (We can write a whole post about different options)
  • Display ads (Google Adsense or Ezoic for example)
  • freelance writing
  • Sponsored Content
  • press trips
  • Selling your own products (Like our Customized itineraries)
Read too  Universal Cinemark: How is Cinema in Orlando

Earnings with Ads

I decided to create a session to talk specifically about earnings with ads for blogs.

The reason is quite simple, it is the “easiest” and fastest way to start monetizing your blog.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're going to start your blog and get rich in a few months. The chance of that happening is really very small, but not impossible.

In my experience, it takes 6 months to 1 year for you to start seeing significant gains in ads.

Until then it is important to generate quality content and be patient.

And if you want excellent earnings as an advertisement, I recommend using the platform Ezoic.

It is a system that uses artificial intelligence to serve your site with the best ads and it also performs thousands of tests with your visitors to know the position where the ads convert the most.

What does that mean?

That even if your hits don't go up, you'll see an increase in earnings from ads on Ezoic.

It is the platform we use and recommend. If you want, we can make a post entirely dedicated to the Ezoic here to give our account of how it was to start on the platform and how it affected our ad earnings, leave it to us in the comments!

The most famous ad manager to make money with a blog is adsense, however we have already used both it and Ezoic and we even made a Adsense vs Ezoic earnings report for you to judge which is the best.

Persistence on your Travel Blogs

One thing I think is important to share with you is that results don't come overnight.

It takes persistence and resilience.

So, as I said before, it's very important that you write about a topic that you really like!

I remember that in the first months of Partiu Disney Parks we had almost no hits on the blog, I remember celebrating the day we had 10 hits, that would give 300 hits in 1 month.

It seems little, but it really has to be celebrated, and if your content is good, that number will always grow. Today, after 4 years, the blog receives thousands of people daily (yes, thousands a day!).

Don't give up, try to improve, write quality content, share it with your friends and family and everyone who can help you!

Create and Advertise on Social Media

Social networks today are one of the best tools to get qualified traffic to your blog.

Whether in a facebook group, or creating ads on instagram.

social-networks-como-start-blog-trip
social-networks-como-start-blog-trip

More important is that you create your own social networks and also use them to promote your content.

Gain authority in your niche. It takes time, but you will be rewarded with more hits and more interaction with your readers and social media followers.

We here at Partiu Disney Parks work in different formats on each of the networks.

Our biggest network today is instagram with almost 60k followers, but even so, we don't publish our blog posts there.

The reason is that the format we like to present on our instagram is different from the blog format.

But we share our publications on our pages and facebook group!

But of course, you will design the format that makes sense for you and your readers.

Join facebook groups relevant to your niche, participate in discussions, understand what people are looking for information in them and write about it on your blog!

Use social media to understand what people are needing, don't be just another 1, be the information that is missing!

SEO for your Travel Blog

Well, without a doubt, every blog's dream is to receive thousands and thousands of organic visits every month, right?

Maybe you've never heard of this term "organic visit", if you haven't, no problem, let's explain!

Organic visits are those coming from google.com searches and other search engines like bling etc.

For this you need your post to be on the first page and the higher up the better.

For example, for the term “Disney Annual Pass” we are positioned at the very top of the page.

annual-pass-disney-kw-google
annual-pass-disney-kw-google

Appearing in this position is not as simple as just writing a post and you'll be ranked there.

There are a number of factors that tell google that you are relevant and deserve to be in that position.

I won't go too deep into terms like backlinks and domain authority.

In fact, SEO is a topic that I can write 200 posts about and it still might not be enough. But the key word here is “Quality Content”! (We'll talk more later)

Your focus should be on making content that is complete and that solves problems! In addition, there are small “technical” details that are important to know to help your rankings, but remembering, the most relevant factor is your content!

In my experience there are a few things you can do on your first day of blogging that will directly affect your rankings.

First:

1. Look for long-tail keywords.

For example, instead of trying to appear on the first page for “Magic Kingdom”, write a very specific post to rank for “Best Restaurants for Kids in Magic Kingdom” or “How to enjoy the Magic Kingdom with children up to 5 years old”.

Long tail keywords will even give you more qualified readers which will make them stay on your page longer, which will give good feedback to google that your content is good.

2. Focus on meta descriptions

Many bloggers ignore the meta descriptions of their posts, but this should never be done!

Search engines like meta descriptions because that's where they get the initial information about your post.

The “Yoast” Plugin that we recommend above in this post will help you with this. It will allow you to write the meta descriptions of each of your posts as you edit them.

Just navigate to the bottom of the page and fill them in like the image below:

yoast-seo-wordpress-meta-descriptions
yoast-seo-wordpress-meta-descriptions

3. Focus on content

If you search for SEO on Google, you will find tons of information from different experts on the subject (the ones I follow most are Neil Patel and Brian from Backlinko).

At some points they give conflicting information about what is best for their blog.

At the end of the day, there's 1 thing that is the most important of ALL in SEO!

Your Content!

Your content needs to solve a problem.

Your content needs to respond to user intent!

Your content needs to be complete!

And most importantly, your content needs to be updated. Google LOVES fresh content.

If you wrote an article about the Park Epcot from Disney 10 years ago, with absolute certainty its content is already obsolete as the park has changed a lot in recent years.

That's why I set aside several hours every month to update the contents of this blog!

It is very important to keep the information updated and complete for your readers.

Remember, your content is the most important part of your blog! Try to do it very carefully, remember to:

  • Fix all spelling mistakes
  • Maintain coherent structure of H1, H2, H3, H4 titles
  • Include internal and external links that give value to your post
  • Long content tends to rank better, focus on content over 2000 words
  • Study and be a reference in the theme of your blog

Summary of How to Start a Travel Blog

This guide showed you how to start a travel blog in 5 easy steps and a few more tips to improve your hits even more.

To recap, here's what you need to do:

  • Choose a niche for your blog
  • Choose a domain name
  • Get web hosting (US $ 3.95 per month from Bluehost plus a FREE domain name)
  • Install a WordPress theme (these are my top five options)
  • Install WordPress Plugins
  • Focus on SEO
  • Have a good time

If you created a travel blog following this guide, or this post helped you in some way with your blog. Send it to us in the comments, it will be a pleasure to see the content of blogger friends!

And remember, write your content very responsibly!

Do you have any questions about how to start a travel blog?

Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to respond!

I hope again that this post helped you in your research for your trip to Disney or Orlando.

As a way to help us keep the blog going, we just ask you to help us by sharing this publication and subscribing to our social networks as Facebook, Instagram or Youtube channel.

In addition to helping us, we are sure that there you will find hundreds of useful posts for your trip!

About the Author Carlos Braga:

Unparalleled experience in Orlando and Disney! As a former Universal Orlando team member and a passionate devotee of the magic of Disney, I have become a true Orlando travel expert. Before becoming a renowned travel consultant dedicated to Orlando, I had already made hundreds of visits to the parks, cultivating my knowledge and passion mainly over the last 7 years as a consultant and specialist in Disney travel.

My journey into this enchanted world began in 1995, when I took my first trip to Orlando. Since then, my love for Disney and the city has only grown. In 2023, we celebrate the sixth anniversary of 'Partiu Disney Parks', consolidating our role as one of the main sources of information about Disney and Orlando Parks.

During these six years of existence, we have continued to offer quality and updated content, being the reliable source for all those looking for essential information to plan their trip to Disney and Orlando. With my vast experience and passion for this magical destination, I am here to guide you every step of the way towards the most incredible Orlando and Disney experience!

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