I started professional travel blogging in July 2016. I cannot believe my blog has turned a year old. During this year, I’ve gained many skills, connected with kindred souls, worked with editors, and got my articles featured in online publications. Meanwhile, I wasted many hours and made a number of mistakes. If I could go back a year ago, there are things I would want to change, and other things I should have known better.
Here, I share my travel blogging experience, thoughts, and takeaways from the past year. I wish this post can help and save your time so you can work efficiently and grow your travel blog.
Take care of your blog followers and subscribers
Your blog followers and email subscribers should always be the top priority. Engage with your readers and inspire them to travel, overcome their fears and offer valuable trip information from your own experience.
I used to write machine-generated paid posts, send out newsletters, and giveaway free e-books. It was boring and it did not match the needs of my readers. People came to my blog clicking on the external links looking for information, asking me questions about their coming travels. Listening to them, helping them with their travels, and starting conversations with them. I had readers ask me about the weather and what to wear for a winter trip to Alaska, and that prompted me to create the post “The complete packing guide for Alaska winter trip“.
There will be follows and unfollows (will mention this later) on your social media account, but your blog followers and subscribers will never leave you. I once had not updated my blog for a month and the number of my blog followers remains the same.
To grow your blog followers and subscribers, here are my three takes on:
- Writing great stories
- Engaging with your audience
- Content upgrading (in the trial period)
Content is the king
I swiftly realized that there is no point in posting poor quality writing and images on my blog and social media platforms. If it takes me a week or two to write a high – quality post or rush through to get multiple posts out in a week, I will choose the former. Writing, choosing pictures, re- sizing images, creating pins, and SEO optimization are all part of the process of creating blog posts, which cannot be done in a short space of time. When I am not writing, I look back on the old posts and see if there is anything that needs an update. I have removed many old posts that had poor writing and did not offer any value.’
Writing, photography, and videos are three key elements made for blog posts, and not all of us are excelling at all of them. Find your strength and use it. If you are skilled at photography, write photo essays. If you are good at filming, focusing on creating and editing videos. I am not skilled at writing, but I have many readers who have told me they like my pictures, so I will involve more visual in my blog next year.
Pinterest is a potential traffic – driven source
Initially, I was annoyed by the concept of Pinterest in favor of vertical images with a specific size, and I did not realize Pinterest has become my number 1 traffic driven source. Open a Pinterest business account, design good vertical images for your pin (Canva is my best friend), and write down countries and searchable long-tail keywords on your descriptions.
Additionally, lookout for group boards to join, pin to them, and do some re-pins as well. I usually pin my new posts to the group boards. At the same time, I re-pin 2-3 pins from the group boards to get the most out of it. I try not to pin the same posts with different pins to the public boards as this is considered spammy and may risk my account getting removed.
Comment pods do not work in the long run
Last month I did a scary thing: I left two travel blog comment groups. I have found myself wasting hours leaving comments on blog posts I have no interest in, and I cannot stand myself writing comments just for the pure sake of it, not to mention comment pods are potentially hurting blogs.
I started this blog inspiring others to travel beyond tourists’ attractions, not for writing and collecting comments from the pods. After quitting the comments groups, my comment section has been silent for a while. However, I have had more time to work on my content, engage with the people I want to engage, progress in my travel writing course, and work on pitching and collaboration.
No follow and unfollow on social media network
I realize that engagements are way more important than a large number of followers. For Twitter, I join Twitter chats if time permits and re-tweet and like the tweets that interest me on my Twitter newsfeed. I also participate in sharing and Retweet threads, and Travel Tuesday (hashtag #TravelTuesday) Retweet groups for engagement and exposure.
I have stopped posting blog posts on my Facebook page, as I hardly find my readers come to my blog through Facebook. I only post my travel images to my page for tips and inspiration, and share others people’s posts I can relate to. Live video does not have an algorithm on Facebook. If you can manage, do not be afraid to show your travels in 3-D in front of the world population to grow your reach and engagements.
Having groups of supportive travel bloggers is invaluable.
During the past year, I have networked and interacted with many travel bloggers. They understand the amount of work travel blogging involves and are happy to help out others. There are Facebook groups supporting travel bloggers as well, which have become an integral part of my blog growth.
*Facebook group threads do help in boosting your traffic and engagements, but it can be a huge time sink to participate in some. Pick the thread wisely and get the most out of it. Here are my all-time favorite Facebook groups based on the thread participation, learning and collaboration opportunities, and the simplicity of the threads.