The Ultimate Guide To More Website Traffic To Your Travel Blog
If you are a travel writer or travel blogger and want to learn how to get more traffic to your website, then you’ve come to the right place!
I started my travel blog, 52 Perfect Days in 2008, and this website in 2015. These two blogs have completely changed my life.
When I launched my travel website, I didn’t focus on traffic. At that time I was living in Portland, Oregon and focused mostly on travel in the Pacific Northwest. To be honest, in 2008, having a website focused on travel was enough for me to land local media trips and even a few trips to Hawaii.
The landscape has changed dramatically since 2008. Blogging has boomed. It’s now so much easier to build a website, which means competition has also boomed but you still need to get traffic to your website to be competitive. Today, growing your website traffic and building your social media following is a MUST.
My travel websites and have allowed me to travel all over the world with my son and husband. My blogs have also allowed me to leave my day job, travel as much as time allows (my son is in high school, so that works out to about once a month for me right now), see family and friends more, meet great people, and have created a life of my travel dreams.
Because of the great experience I’ve had, I love helping others make money blogging as well.
I never thought it would be possible, but here I am. Plus, I know many, many other bloggers in all sorts of niches who are making a great living online.
While there is no 100% guarantee that you will be able to earn a full-time living by blogging, I know many bloggers who are and are very happy with it.
Related articles on how to get more traffic to your website and build your social media following:
- How to Create A Travel Writer Website in WordPress – This article shows you how to create a blog. If you are interested in starting a travel blog, you MUST read this.
- How To Start A WordPress Travel Blog On SiteGround – This article explains why SiteGround is my preferred web host and why you should seriously think of them as your web host.
- 10 Essential WordPress Plugins for Travel Blogger Websites – Plugins are essential for creating an easy to navigate website. The right plugins will also save you time, increase usability and ultimately generate more traffic, comments and likes.
- Everything You Need to Know About Instagram for Travel Writers & Bloggers – This is your Ultimate Guide to Instagram! If you haven’t started an account, or you’re not actively using Instagram, now is the time to get started! Learn how to make Instagram work for your travel brand.
- Instagram 101
Below is my ultimate guide to Get More Traffic To Your Website. I have answered the most common questions that I am asked about growing your website traffic, and hopefully, all of you can start a successful travel blog as well.
Before we jump into the top tips to get more traffic to your website, we need to focus on one question…..
Should my blog be self-hosted?
Yes!
If you want to take control of your website and easily grow traffic, the first thing you will need to do is make sure you have a self-hosted blog, and my choice is SiteGround.
I recommend you start on self-hosted WordPress (this tutorial will help you start your blog the correct way). I cannot say this enough, but I do not recommend Blogger or WordPress.com (you want the self-hosted version, which is WordPress.org – confusing, I know). You must own your own domain and have full control over your website.
Advertisers, companies, and readers will know you are still on Blogger or free WordPress, which can look unprofessional. Plus, your blog can be deleted at any time and for no reason when on a free hosted version.
I need you to trust me on this one! Go with self-hosted WordPress, and it will significantly increase your chances of growing your website traffic and looking further down the road, it will help with monetizing your blog too.
So, to recap, the positives of being self-hosted on WordPress through Siteground include:
- You have a more professional website meaning you have more control of your website traffic on self-hosted WordPress.
- The ability to have complete control over your blog.
- You own your blog, and it can’t be deleted.
If you are interested in starting a blog of your own, I created a tutorial that will help you start a blog of your own for cheap, starting at only $3.95 per month (you can claim this low price through my link). To receive the cheapest price to start a blog, then choosing the “Basic” plan is really all you need. It’s only $3.95 per month through my link (due upfront in full) I would sign up for the 12-month plan as this is still a great price and very affordable for one year of blogging. If you purchase a 12-month plan, your total price is only $71.40 a year. Plus, you still receive the free domain name when you sign up for 12 months or more which saves you money. FYI, you want to be self-hosted if you want control of your website, grow the traffic and to learn how to make money with a blog.
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One day you decided to start a blog. So you started writing a blog post every day. You may have 10 posts, 30 posts or even 50 or more posts on your site. Since the launch of your website you may have realized your traffic hasn’t increased. Search engines are not sending you traffic, and your hard work is not paying off. If this sounds familiar, then the below tips on how to drive huge amounts of traffic to your blog will help!
Every blog is different, but once you understand what your readers want, understand how to effectively reach out to companies for partnerships, and know how to charge the correct rate, you can make a good income online in many cases, regardless of the amount of pageviews you receive.
There are many different ways to increase the number of pageviews so you can make money blogging.
Here are my tips to get More Traffic To Your Website:
#1 Know Your Niche.
Finding a niche is a must if you want to stand out and build a following. There are so many travel topics out there that are waiting for you to blog about.
Some ideas include:
- Travel (Solo Travel, Adventure Travel, Family Travel, Foodie Travel, Historical Travel, Cultural Travel, and the list goes on and on!)
- Lifestyle. (There are many travel bloggers who include many topics including travel on their website)
- Food. (Food and travel go hand in hand)
#2 Good Writing
The Golden Rule of any website—travel blogs included—is that writing must be clear and compelling. You can employ all the blog promotion tricks in the book, but if content isn’t well-written and interesting, you’ll never generate a following.
#3 Post Consistently
Another key to generating a following is posting consistently. Google likes it when you update your website. Adding more articles to your website is the easiest way to show Google you are updating your site. Try to post at least once a week, if not more.
#4 Word Count Vs. Photo Count
Google isn’t going to like you very much if you don’t have enough words on the page. A lot of travel websites make the mistake of adding a sentence or two for each photo. Flip the script! Add a photo for every paragraph or two! Make sure you have at least 800 Words in every article.
#5 Have Personality
You should inject as much personality as you can into your posts. My favorite blogs are ones where the authors have awesome personalities that I can relate to. Share some of ‘you’ in all your posts with either your humor, point of view or other method.
#6 Commenting
Commenting on similar travel websites is a great way of driving traffic. Commenting also helps in getting free backlinks and creating a relationship with other bloggers. It can be a slow process, but it’s effective.
Note: Don’t spam! Don’t write things like, “nice post” or something equally useless that adds no value. Not only will this not help you, it will cause your brand to suffer and your traffic will decrease.
#7 Think Like a Search Engine
While it varies greatly by website, search engines drive roughly 64 percent of web traffic on average. In short, it’s absolutely critical that you employ search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure Yahoo, Bing and especially Google can actually find your content. Think about the question: “If I were researching the article I am writing, what would I type into Google?” Use this search term in your headlines and subheaders.
#8 Think Big & Small for SEO
Keywords should be specific as well as broadly interesting. For example, say you’re writing a post about Brazil. “Travel to Brazil” might be too generic—your post wouldn’t rise to the top in a Google search. But “10 Tips to Travel to Brazil with Toddlers” is specific enough to appear in top search results while also appealing to a specific audience. Notice you still have “Travel to Brazil” within the bigger title.
#9 Invite Guest Bloggers
Identify the other bloggers, thought leaders and experts in your travel topic area. Consider reaching out to see if one or more of them would like to write a guest post for your blog. These writers come with their own readership base. Once they write for your site, they’ll likely share the post with their own followers—and hopefully, some of their fans will then become your fans! Get better traffic to your website.
#10 Pick a Platform: Perfect Each Social Media Account (One at a Time)
I won’t be the first person to tell you the importance of social media for travel bloggers and travel writers. I also won’t be the first person to tell you how important it is to have a presence on all social media platforms, rather than relying solely on one. That being said, it’s hard to perfect all platforms at one time. My advice is to claim your handle on all platforms and use the 80/20 rule. Put 80% of your time into growing one platform (with followers and relationships). Use the other 20% to do the minimum to keep a presence on the other platforms.
While it’s important to diversify your role on each platform, if you try to grow them all at once, it can be a very slow process unless you use a platform like MassPlanner to automate your follower growth and posting.
Share content from your personal social media accounts, and set up professional accounts representing your blog, website or business. Try using a platform like Hootsuite or MassPlanner to get more quality traffic to your website, which will allow you to manage all your social media accounts from one dashboard and schedule updates.
#11 Focus on Social Platforms That Drive Traffic
Check your analytics to determine which social platforms are giving your site the most traffic. This will be different for all of us, so don’t assume it’s a particular platform. Just because one person is killing it on Pinterest, doesn’t mean its the one your readers hang out on.
#12 Listen to Your Analytics
Use tools like Google Analytics or your site’s built-in statistics to track traffic to your content. Which posts are the most popular, and what do they have in common? Try producing more content that matches their style, structure or focus. Where are most of your readers coming from—Google, Facebook, Twitter? Try increasing engagement on those platforms. And are external websites driving traffic to your blog through hyperlinks? Make sure you send the authors an email or social media thank-you for promoting your content, and direct them to other relevant content they may have missed. If you’re not tracking your blog’s popularity, traffic sources, engagement and more, it’s very hard to learn what works and what doesn’t.
#13 Master Google Analytics
Having Google Analytics is one thing – monitoring it is another thing – and mastering it is the key to success. Once inside the dashboard, be sure to take a look around. Click through and learn how to find stats on incoming traffic.
#14 Join HARO and Answer Relevant Queries
HARO or Help a Reporter is a “free publicity” service dedicated to bringing reporters and qualified sources together. As a blogger, you can be a story lead or an expert source for a reporter query. That can lead to links back to your site. Signing up is free and it takes less than 10 minutes to briefly answer a HARO query, which can result in high-quality inbound links to your blog. This can also help you connecting with editors and other journalists.
#15 Connect with Bloggers Who Send you Traffic
Monitor Backlinks is a neat tool for SEO and web marketers and they have a free trial. It notifies you every time you gain or lose a backlink; every time your competitor gains a high-value backlink and compares ranking with your competitors.
Get More Traffic To Your Website FREE 5 Day Challenge
This 5-day challenge will help you get more traffic to your website. Join now!
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