While most trips are still on hold, this is not the time to sit back. Travel blogger and voice behind Wander Her Way Dale believes 2022 may just be the year to kick start your blogging career. In this post, Dale shared his experience with monetization with a travel site and gave tips on how to create and monetize your blog content.
How to earn with a travel blog in 2022
2020 hasn’t been the best year for travel bloggers.
While many industries are affected by COVID-19, the travel industry has been one of the most affected by the pandemic. Most travel bloggers have seen their stable traffic and revenues disappear literally overnight as a result of trip shutdowns.
For example, traffic on my travel blog dropped more than 50% at the beginning of March and has been recovering very slowly since then.
good time for 2022 start a travel blog if you haven’t done it before. While travel is still slow at the moment, demand is rising and it’s a good time to take advantage of it. Even now, it’s definitely possible to make money with a travel blog.
Here’s everything you need to know about travel blogs in 2022!
How to write new content in 2022
If you’re wondering what to write about on your travel blog right now, you’re not alone!
With the travel industry virtually stalled for months (and still not fully recovered in 2022), it’s hard to know what to write about when it comes to travel.
Some travel bloggers continue to write content about previous trips once travel returns to normal, while others focus on travel, travel-related things to do at home, etc. during COVID-19. He tended to write more timely content about from Kiersten Rich Blonde AbroadHe even turned to sharing non-travel content like recipes and lifestyle tips.
Personally, I continued to write about travel once things got back to normal. For example, last year I published articles on: cheapest countries in europe, Tips for visiting New York at Christmasand Things to do in Salem, Massachusetts. While these travel guides aren’t as popular as I’d normally expect them to be due to the pandemic, these are the always fresh blog posts I hope to claim for travel refunds.
I noticed even when the pandemic started and everything locked, my “travel inspiration” posts (like this list) fairy tale cities of europe) still got a lot of traffic compared to more practical routes (like this one) Lake Como guide.) This showed me that people still want to read about travel, even when they are not actively planning travel.
As you can see, the traffic for my blog post about fairytale towns in Europe was still popular during the summer when travel to Europe was usually not possible:
How to earn with travel blog
There are several ways to make money with a travel blog, but I will focus on the top three income streams that worked for me in 2020 and 2021 and plan to continue in 2022.
affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money with a travel blog, and in 2020 it accounted for over 39% of my travel blog revenue. Basically, you put a link to your blog and someone clicks your link and makes a purchase. This is a hotel booking website, Airbnb, a tour company, Amazon etc. there may be a link.
you can find a list travel affiliate programs here.
+ I have worked with various affiliate programs in 2020. Most of my affiliate sales came from Amazon (from recommending travel supplies and other travel-related products), Booking.com for hotel reservations, and Leisure Pass (which sells attraction cards for cities like the one below). New York and London.) While hotel bookings and Leisure Pass sales did indeed drop when the pandemic began, Amazon remained stable throughout the year.
The Amazon affiliate program is a great option for new affiliate marketers because you earn a commission. everything When someone checks out, they have it in their cart (not just the product they clicked from a link on your blog).
advertisement
Another way to earn with a travel blog is display advertising. In 2020, display advertising made up 43% of my total travel blog revenue. When you have ads on your blog, you get paid based on RPM (revenue per thousand impressions). Therefore, the more traffic your blog gets, the more money you can earn from ads.
I’m with the Mediavine ad network, which requires 50,000 monthly sessions to apply. However, if you don’t have that much traffic, Monumetric is a good alternative (they only require 10,000 pageviews per month.) Google AdSense is another option for new bloggers, but Monumetric or Mediavine instead, as they tend to pay a higher RPM.
After joining an ad network, one of the easiest things you can do to increase your ad earnings is to write long, detailed content that encourages readers to stay longer on your blog. You can also link to other posts on your blog, which will get people sticking around.
RPM fluctuates based on several factors, including the time of year and the type of content on your blog. RPM can vary greatly, but earning anywhere from $3 per thousand impressions to over $30 per thousand impressions is possible!
Sponsored posts
Finally, sponsored posts are a great way to monetize your travel blog. This is when a company pays you to publish a blog post (either they wrote it or you wrote it yourself). I occasionally do sponsored posts when a company contacts me, but you can get more sponsored posts as well. by referring your blog directly to a company. You can also join sponsored mail networks like Linqia. or Cooperation, It helps match bloggers with companies for sponsored posts. How much you charge for a sponsored post is up to you. Newer bloggers may only charge $100 for a sponsored post, while seasoned bloggers with a lot of traffic can earn over $1,000 per sponsored post.
How to drive traffic to your travel blog?
The two main ways I get traffic to my travel blog are Pinterest and SEO.
2020 has not been a great year for me in terms of blog traffic. I was gaining a lot of traffic at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, but that growth unfortunately came to a halt in March 2020. This setback was frustrating and my traffic still hasn’t returned to the point it was the day before. Pandemic.
However, I think it’s only a matter of time before traffic gets better again for travel blogs!
Many people think of Pinterest as a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. But it’s actually not the same at all! It is more of a visual search engine than a social media platform.
People always use Pinterest to search for travel related content. I create Pinterest graphics for my blog posts and share photos from my blog posts. My Pinterest account.
This is how I get most of the traffic to my blog!
Every time you publish a new blog post, you can spend a few minutes creating a few Pinterest graphics to share on Pinterest. This is very easy to do using a free graphic design program like Canva, which even provides free Pinterest graphic templates for you to use.
You can learn more about using Pinterest traffic to monetize your travel blog in this webinar at TPAS2020.
SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is another good way to drive traffic to your travel blog.
SEO involves writing content that will rank high in Google’s search results and provide the maximum amount of traffic to your blog. For example, when you type “travel blog names” in Google, your blog post is about how to choose a name for your travel blog It is one of the best results. The best way to get started with SEO is to do keyword research (you can use a free tool like UberSuggest) to see what keywords people are searching for on Google, and then write blog posts around those keywords. I also recommend the WordPress plugin Yoast SEO..
The future of travel blogs
2020 has definitely been a tough year for travel blogs. But with the end of the pandemic, people are starting to feel more comfortable with travel again and planning trips for the future. With the vaccine widely available, I believe travel should start to pick up by the summer or fall of 2021. With these tips, you can monetize your travel blog in 2022 and beyond!
