Travel BlogCamp

As I mentioned yesterday, over the coming weeks I will be publishing online interviews by respected travel bloggers so that we can all learn. On Twitter I asked friends to send me some questions that they would like me to answer so here you have them.

From Karen Bryan at Europe a la Carte

What advice would give aspiring travel bloggers about the money making potential of authoring a travel blog?

I would love to say that writing a travel blog is a fantastic and easy way to make money, but that would be a barefaced lie. While travel is fun to write about, the truth is that you will find it incredibly difficult to make money in this niche and you need the traffic to make any sort of money, and that takes time.

It’s important that you go into writing about travel because it’s fun and because you are passionate about what you write about. If you go into it thinking I want to earn enough money to travel the world, then I am sorry but you will be disappointed and will soon lose interest.
The reality is travel does not make you rich; if you want to get rich by writing a blog then chose a niche like gadgets, not selling holidays or hotels.

Let’s be honest even the most popular travel destination sites are struggling for revenue right now.

From David Whitely at the Grumpy Traveller

What skills are required to be a successful (ie. money-making) blogger? Are they different from those of a journalist/ writer?

I am not a journalist or travel writer, so it’s difficult for me to compare. The revenue I generate from Travel Rants is 100% direct advertising, but if you see a successful blog as a money-making one, then it’s not successful because I am still in full-time employment.

I believe though you have to be passionate about what you write about, you have to enjoy sat at a laptop churning out content that people want to read and comment on. It’s not all about the content; you could be the best writer in the world, but if you do not know how to attract people to your blog, through the search engines or social media then you are not going to make money.

So to recap; be passionate, have goals, learn new skills, it’s not easy money.

From Adrian Pinto at The Only Olive

I have just started blogging. Wondering how do I get more readers?

I am thinking back four years ago when I started the blog and one of the biggest lessons I learnt was learning how to network online. To attract readers you need to write good comments, ask questions on other blogs, and then you will find that these people visit yours and start to build a relationship with you.

Write guest posts on high profile blogs and prove to that readership that you have something interesting to say, and they will follow you. I receive 90% of my traffic from the search engines, primarily Google, so make sure you use good titles in your blog posts; and write unique content that people will want to link to.

Easily said than done I know.

What I would do if I was you is find 10 blogs within your niche that you enjoy reading. Leave comments on these blogs, and contact the owners to see if they are interested in publishing a guest post from you. Have a plan; every year I write myself a plan of what I want to achieve, most of the goals I do achieve, some I don’t.

Be active, be seen, and people will follow you.

From Alex Bainbridge of Musings on Travel ecommerce

Do you regret not owning travelrants.com domain? What do you wake up in the middle of night worrying about?

The domain wasn’t available when I thought of the idea behind Travel Rants, and if I knew then what I know now then I would have gone about the domain site of it a little differently. I didn’t realise that I would get the opportunity of being on radio, so, having to say the hyphen when mentioning my domain is annoying.

So, think about the domain name carefully, make sure that there aren’t any trademarks against it, and a company called the same as this could add to the confusion.

As for waking up in the middle of the night; the only time this has happened is back to June, and I spent a good couple of weeks without much sleep, I was a wreck. So my advice is do not get sued. It isn’t good for your health or your bank balance.