5 Tips on How to Select A Travel Niche

Selecting a Travel Niche can often get intriguing. Every traveler has a different style and interest of travel and based on that, it is essential to bring out those features on your travel blog.

Also Read: What To Know Before You Start A Travel Blog

In this post, we learn some tips to select your travel niche and develop it effectively for your travel blog.

Choose a Travel Niche that reflects your personality

Believe it or not, your blog is your personal reflection. It describes your travel style and interests. You might be a luxury traveler connecting and bringing out the insider stories about the best luxury properties around the world. 

Or let's say, you are a solo traveler hitch-hiking your way across the globe. Or may be a foodie whose stories find a way through your taste buds. 

The closer you are to your personality, the better the chances that you take it all the way with you. 

How Much Knowledge Do You Have About The Topic?

When you are speaking about what you love to do the most, it all comes out with little or no effort at all. This applies to the knowledge about your travel niche. 

In the course of your travel, you have had a set of experiences that remain with you. Choosing a travel niche that you have done more often and would love to do again and again will prompt you to gain more knowledge, even if you do not have it when you are starting off.

Your Blog Name Should Reflect Some Part of Your Travel Niche 

When representing your blog, it should reflect some part of your travel niche. A blog name that closely relates to your travel interest will instantly make your travel interest clear to your readers as well as to the search engines. 

If you have a luxury travel blog, a great way to select your blog name is combining your name with your travel interest. So, if Kathy is a luxury traveler, 'Kathy's Luxury Escapades' sounds and instantly connects the readers who visit her blog. 

Research Your Keywords for the On-Page SEO 

You have chosen a travel segment that matches your interest. You have also used a blog name that indicates the travel segment you want to write for. 

Now, you need to research the relevant keywords that closely matches your blog name and travel niche. 

Create your posts and use the related keywords of your niche in your posts

Once you have selected your travel interest - adventure, backpacking, solo tripping, travel hacking, or hotel reviewing, it is time to use the keywords related to your niche in your posts. 

Use the Google Adwords Free Keyword Tool for doing your keyword research. If you are on Wordpress, you can install the Yoast SEO plugin from which you can do a keyword research. 

The Yoast SEO Plugin also helps you with simultaneously indicating you with a glowing bulb the status of your post SEO as you use your keywords in the posts. 

Selecting a good name that matches closely to your travel interest will help your blog to quickly climb up in the search results. 

Summary

• Choose a travel niche that closely reflects your personality
• Choosing a segment of your interest will make your knowledge sharing easier and effective. 
• Include your niche in your blog name. 
• Research your niche for a good On Page SEO. 
• Create your posts in line with your niche using the relevant keywords. 

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How To Start A Self Hosted Travel Blog?

Here, I assume that you have already tested your free blog by now and are getting a substantial response already.

Further, you have understood the basic functions of both Blogger and Wordpress apart from the basics of creating a good content.

Also Read: 6 Steps on How To Start A Travel Blog?

In this post, we delve deeper into how to go for a self-hosted blog.

Buying A Domain Name

In case of a free blog, you will have the option of buying out the domain in the same name itself with options of several extensions. 

If you are looking for a global ranking page, it is best to go for a .com or a .net domain. If you are focussed on a particular country, it is a good idea to go for the country extension . For example, for India, you can go for .in domain if your target audience is India only. 

Here are few service providers from where you can easily buy out a domain. 

1. Godaddy: Easiest to get. You can get it at a cheaper price if you register the name for a longer duration.
2. Hostgator: They provide both domain name as well as hosting services. Their two-three years services are the cheapest.
3. Namecheap: Namecheap is the cheapest domain name service provider. You can get your domain name registered for as low as $0.88.You can also go for their hosting services which include VPS and shared hosting services, although the rest of the service providers also provide pretty much the same service. It will only be pricing at the end of the day. Namecheap is also very user friendly when it comes to managing accounts.

Choosing A Good Hosting Service

For hosting, the following services can be used in the order of their after sales service quality.

1. Bluehost: I have registered with Bluehost for two years straight and I found them not only cheaper, but also good in their service quality. They are prompt in case of queries. Plus, there are a lot of tutorial videos for learning, should you get stuck anywhere .It also comes with a service called ‘Cloud-flare’, which allows you to host with a secure sign on your website with ‘https’ extension. It is easy to set up and prevents malicious threats on your website. They also run a Wordpress learning program that can help you to learn more about Wordpress Self-hosting. You can start with Bluehost for as low as $3.95 a month.
2. Hostgator: I trust Hostgator and I have used their services before. They are good if not the best. It is easy to configure and will help you if you are completely layman with little understanding of websites. Bluehost and Hostgator come with hardly any difference in their pricing.
3. Godaddy: Although they say Godaddy has a good name, but I beg to differ on that .I had first taken the entire service from Godaddy and landed myself in a huge black hole. My travel blog got hacked; people signed up from all corners of the globe, and ruined my content. After all this, I knew more than the Godaddy staff, when I called up numerous times for help. They just couldn’t figure out and resolve my problem. Ultimately, I dumped them, when I got no solutions and recovery of my website. I also lost a lot of my posts and content.

Hosting Directly With Wordpress Or Blogger

If you do not want to hustle yourself with lot of coding and other things, and want to keep it simple, both blogger as well as Wordpress have the option of direct domain and hosting from where you can take a complete hosting package. 

The best part about the Wordpress.com hosting is that it is completely managed by them and you do not need to bother about the technical aspects of hosting. All you need to do is simply focus on creating good content. 

Another great platform for getting some of the best features for blog is Wix. Wix.com has its own set of templates from which you can choose from to design and quickly launch your website. 

Even Wix allows you a free version until you get comfortable enough to buy out the domain name. However, you will need to get traffic on your website on your own, unlike Blogger and Wordpress. 

Summary

• First, go for the free services provided by the various blogging platforms. 
• When migrating to self-hosted platform, you will need a domain and a hosting that is reliable, quick and comes with a good after-sales service to address your hosting issues. 

That’s all about setting up your blog with self hosting. Feel free to share your comments or queries below.

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6 Steps on How To Start A Travel Blog?

Now that you have decided to become a travel blogger, and you know the preliminaries, you must be looking for a start point, right!

90% of your travel blog rests upon the choice of your niche, and then circling your entire blog around that niche.

In this post, I will go beyond the traditional discussion of domain name and hosting and try to bring you to the perspective of your travel niche while designing your blog.

Although there is a separate post altogether for choosing the travel niche, here, I will cover its importance in brief before moving forward.

Basics of your Travel Blog

Here's where you would like to spend the maximum time brainstorming, as this will define exactly where your travel blog goes in the future. 

Here are 6 basic steps you need to follow to start of your travel blog. 

1. Identify your travel segment or niche. 
2. Choose a blog name based on the segment
3. Launch a Test Blog with a sub domain
4. Start writing and publishing your stories.
5. Check response and feedback. 
6. Go for a paid domain based on response on the free blog

Identify Your Travel Niche:

Speaking of a travel niche, it means choosing a segment that best fits your interest and it defines your travel style. 

Although you are free to explore diversions from your basic interests but keeping a more specific blog helps you share your expertise in that particular segment. 

The more closely you are able to define your segment, the easier it gets for you to do a specific research on that segment and share your products and services accordingly. 

For example, if you like adventure travel, lets say, paragliding, your blog should be oriented to include the basics of paragliding, how to train, where to find good gear, and where to practice, etc. 

By focusing your blog to the specific adventure travel and then to paragliding, you work in a more focused area and hence, the traffic that you will receive will be specific to your topic. 

Choose a blog name based on the segment

Now that you have chosen your travel segment, it is time to think of a name for your blog. Most bloggers go for this step first and then work out the rest. However, identifying what segment you are comfortable with lets you identify names much easily. 

When you choose a name, take into account the following two things:-

1. The blog name should be specific to the segment you are planning to work. 
2.  It should reflect your core idea or belief. 
3. It should be the primary keyword for your blog. 

Launch a Test Blog First

I will recommend this to everyone to first launch a test blog and check the response before going all in for your blog. 

There are few reasons for that. First, you should learn your way on the basics of how the blogging platforms work, what is the traffic size you are getting and overall response of your blog. 

Play around to see how others are working, and then make a decision. Unlike other businesses where one does not get the choice of a 'net practice', there are free platforms with a well-established community that will quickly orient you and help you form a network of followers. 

Finally, there are methods to migrate your blog to a self-hosted platform. But, that's a long journey. On the contrary, if you already have some experience related to blogging platforms, you can directly go for self-hosting your blog. 

Start writing and publishing your stories

When you have started off with the free version of Blogger / Wordpress, it is time to now simply write and publish your stories. 

Again, in the beginning, it is a good idea to learn how the blogging network functions. Gather some feedback on your blog by connecting with other bloggers in the network, following, liking and commenting on their posts and social networks. 

Another great way to increase your reach is to connect with blogging forums. You can start off with some good networks such as Indiblogger, Blogchatter, Blogadda etc. 

These forum websites quickly put you up in front of thousands of readers in no time and help you create a personal brand value.

Check response and Feedback

Now it is time to check the responses on your posts. Both Wordpress and Blogger have independent analytics integrated on their blog where you can check the traffic size, country, post wise traffic on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. 

If you have been interacting regularly with other bloggers, you can also expect the other bloggers to share their feedback on your blog. Remember though, that it is only the content at the end of the day, that will define an honest response. 

Time to self-host your blog

Finally, there is no time when to go in for a leap of faith! You can quickly scale your blog when you find a good response on your content and receiving adequate viewership to earn from your blog.

Here, you should remember that there are many other ways other than Google Adsense to earn on your blog. so, even if you are not earning right away due to Google Adsense, do not worry.

In this blog, we will see many more ways to earn from your travel blog.

So stay connected. 

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What to know before you start a Travel Blog!

Okay, you are seriously considering to become a Travelpreneur and are trying to figure out whether or not it works, whether it is worth the time and investment and whether there is any point in pushing in another travel blog into the hordes of already competing travel blogs in the cyber space.

Well, as mentioned earlier, there is no right time to enter the travel business due to the complexities and challenges involved in the travel business.

Travel is a service which involves lots of moving pieces that need to coordinate their operations for a complete user experience.

The Complexities of Travel Business and Opportunities

For example, when you travel from a Country A to Country B for business or leisure, your travel plan will look somewhat like this.

• An Airline Service from where you will buy your air tickets. 
• A hotel where you will check in when you reach your destination. 
• A car-hire or taxi to move you from the airport to hotel and sightseeing. 
• A restaurant to take care of your meals during your stay. 
• A passport service in order to give you an international identity. 
• The Visa services to grant you visa when you move between both the countries. 
• Foreign exchange services to help you exchange currency. 
• A guide to help you with the local language (should you need one)
• A phone connection to inform people back home that you are safe and sound. 
• A travel insurance (just in case you meet something unforeseen enroute). 

All these services are interdependent and lack of one fails all. For eg: if you do not have a hotel booking or a return air ticket, your visa might not be processed or considered. 

It is this coordination of several moving parts that offer unique challenges to the industry to continuously look for loopholes in the services. This is where a travel blogger can seek his opportunities. 

Where do you fit in the travel ecosystem? 

As a traveler yourself, you know your strengths and weaknesses. You have your share of experiences that eventually have defined your travel tastes and choices today. 

Identifying such key areas will help you to know where you fit into the travel ecosystem. You should ask yourself questions such as:-

• What kind of a traveler are you - Road-tripper, hiker, Budget Traveler, Luxury Traveler etc. 
• What sort of services have you used before - Make a checklist. 
• Which places you have traveled before - Make a checklist. 
• What is/ are the drawbacks/ loopholes in the present ecosystem. 
• How does your travel blog address such issues through its stories / posts/ articles/ case studies etc.
• How are the other travel bloggers in this industry working - Try taking a blueprint from their blog. 

Develop your Travel Blog based on your expertise

Eventually what will speak in volumes is your expertise about a topic. When choosing your segment or travel niche, consider the points where you are interested the most, rather than going for a generic travel blog. 

A generic travel blog will have anything and everything on one page, whereas a specific niche in travel will help you to write more targeted information as well as gain targeted audience. 

Since, the travel services are interdependent, being an expert in one or two of them rather than all, will help you to earn a focussed set of travelers with focused requirements. 

Summary

• Travel is a complex and interdependent niche. 
• Choose a segment that you are best and most knowledgeable and interested in. This will keep you going, during the downtimes!(Especially during the downtimes). 
• Develop your travel blog on one or two specific segments rather than a generic one. 

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Why Become A Travel-Preneur?

 

If someone tells you that you have the opportunity to travel and earn both at the same time, how good great would it be!

Travel Blogging has gone leaps and bounds as an industry today, and more and more travelers are pouring in each day to create a unique personal brand name. 

While each one has a different reason and different methodology, based on the chosen travel segment, few things remain the same. Here's why you should become a Travel-Preneur. 

Travel industry is ever booming and ever green

Every individual has to travel, for different reasons - business or leisure. That makes the travel business an ever increasing requirement. 

With the changing global travel needs, the challenges will also change. Hence, there is no such time as the 'right time' to become a travelpreneur. 

Your experiences do matter, as they will be different than others, and will have a different perspective for your readers to consider. So, never think, 'how does it matter'. 

Every year, thousands of travel businesses open up globally. New hotels, apartments, villas, restaurants, airlines, travel services and several others. 

Your travel blog can be an opportunity to highlight such new services by creating awareness for the other travelers. 

Share Your Travel Experiences 

As a travel blogger, nothing entices the readers more than your unique adventures and stories. People travel for different reasons and each one will have their experiences - good or bad! 

Your travel blog is your opportunity to speak out your voice, to a large world out there, who would then be inspired to take your course, or simply learn the lessons from your experiences. 

If crafted well, travel blogging lets you connect with the entire globe as well as share your genuine experiences, so other people can learn from them. 

A well-written travelogue not only tells a good story, but also, helps brands to identify you to write for them. 

Usually, such travel blogger's do not earn from affiliate resources as much as they do from working with the brands. 

Your asset lies in your expertise to weave unique stories about your travel experiences and has little to do with the various affiliate resources available out there. 

Share Your Travel Knowledge and Expertise 

As a traveler, every person has to use one or more or a combination of travel services. A travelogue may or may not discuss more about the planning and execution, rather focus more on the perspective of the trip experience. 

When you are more into knowledge sharing, the story is less important than the factual information. You may have the experience of having used the various services such as flights, hotels, OTA websites,car rentals, taxi services etc.

As a travel blogger, sharing information about how particular service performs also gives an insight to the travelers. 

 Your honest opinion and research can help more and more travelers to make a clear decision about their travel plans.It can also help them to save money on their travel. 

Check Out: Try out the Travel Hack Flight Booking Engine

What Technique / Style should you choose?

Most travel bloggers use either or both techniques for their travel blog, based on their writing capability. Writing a good travel story is often a skill and it takes practice to learn the craft. 

However, writing factual information is not that difficult. It is completely on an individual which style to choose, based on the focus of the blog and the 'ultimate goal'. 

Each style will have its own set of pros and cons. How well you do with your blog depends upon how closely and critically you have identified your writing strengths and weaknesses. 

In the end, it is best to go for a style that is easier for you to follow rather than choosing one that makes it all the more difficult. 

No matter which style of writing you choose, if you are good at doing it, and have developed the skills through practice (I say practice here and not an inborn talent), you will be able to convert your travel blog into a fully sustainable business. 

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