Looking to increase the visibility of your travel blog? Check out these effective ways to promote your travel blog and build a loyal following.
So you’ve poured your heart and soul into creating a travel blog that showcases your love for exploring new destinations, trying exotic foods, and meeting interesting people.
Your writing is top-notch, your photographs are breathtaking, and your insights are entertaining and informative. You’ve created something truly special, but there’s just one problem – nobody is coming to visit your blog. Now you’re wondering:
- How do I attract viewers to my blog?
- How do I make my travel blog stand out?
- How do I grow my travel page?
- Is travel blogging worth it?
It can be disheartening to put so much effort into your blog only to have it go unnoticed by the online world. And the fact that there are at least 30 million travel blogs globally makes it even more challenging to stand out.
There are at least 30 million travel blogs globally.
But fear not because there are many effective ways to promote your travel blog and bring in a steady stream of visitors.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most powerful strategies for promoting your blog and building a loyal following of readers who share your passion for travel. Before doing that, let’s look at why you must promote your travel blog.
Also Read: How to make money online
Reasons to Promote Your Travel Blog
Travel blogging is one of the most competitive niches today. After all, many bloggers have figured they can make money by sharing their experiences and adventures online. And while there’s a high demand for more travel blogs, the surge in travel blogs has made it increasingly challenging to stand out. This is why it’s crucial to promote your travel blog. Beyond that, here are more reasons why you need to promote your travel blog:
Increase Traffic
One of the main reasons to promote your travel blog is to attract eyeballs to the site. When you put your website out there, you’ll notice more traffic, increased engagement, ad revenue, and other monetization opportunities.
Build a Following
Marketing your blog doesn’t just attract traffic – it also helps build a loyal following of readers interested in your content. When you provide valuable and engaging content consistently, readers will keep returning for more. As your following grows, you’ll have a community of like-minded people who share your passion for travel.
Expand your Reach
Another reason to promote your travel blog is to reach a wider audience. Leveraging social media platforms, search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, and other marketing strategies allow you to extend the reach of your blog to people who may not have found it otherwise.
Increase Revenue
When more traffic flows to your travel website and you gain a larger following, you will likely see an increase in revenue. This could be from sponsors and advertising partners who want to reach your audience or from other sources like affiliate marketing or selling travel-related solutions.
Build Your Brand
Nothing makes you stand out from the competition, like branding. Promoting your travel blog allows you to establish yourself as an authority in the travel niche and build a recognizable brand.
Improve your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
And last reason to promote your travel blog is to optimize it for search engines. We’ll discuss more SEO later on. But in a nutshell, promotion tactics like guest posting and backlinking can help improve your website’s ranking on search engines, making it more visible to potential readers.
As you can see, there are numerous benefits to promoting your travel blog, from increasing traffic and revenue to building a loyal following and establishing yourself as an authority in the travel niche. Now, let’s look at dive into 20 powerful strategies to help you promote your travel blog:
Ways to Promote Your Travel Blog
Here are 20 ways to effectively promote your travel blog.
Start With a Goal
Before you even think about ways to promote your travel blog, you need to set goals. Goals should be your first step because they provide a roadmap for your marketing efforts and helps you stay focused on your goals.
Your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). They can be short-term (those you want to achieve in the near future, usually within the next 3-6 months) or long-term (those you want to achieve over a longer period, usually 6 months to a year or more).
Examples of goals include:
Short-term goals:
- Increase blog traffic by 20% in the next 3 months
- Publish 2 new blog posts per week for the next 2 months
- Increase social media engagement by 30% in the next 3 months
- Collaborate with 3 other travel bloggers in the next 3 months to cross-promote each other’s content
Long-term goals:
- Increase blog traffic by 100% in the next year
- Create and publish an e-book about travel tips within the next 6 months
- Partner with a travel company for sponsored content within the next year
- Attend a major travel industry conference within the next 2 years to network and promote the blog
Setting a clear and specific goal for your travel blog helps you develop a more effective promotion strategy tailored to your needs and objectives.
Create Informative Content
When it comes to online visibility, content is King. People are always on the lookout for informative and high-quality content. So as you try to promote your travel blog, it’s essential to ensure that your content provides answers to the questions that your prospects have. At the same time, the content needs to be well-written, engaging, visually appealing and shareable to stand out. Here are some quick tips to help rank your article on the first page of Google:
- Choose a good topic and ensure it includes great keywords
- Target long-tail, question keywords
- Write in-depth, long-form content
- Make your information skimmable by using heading tags, specific headings, bold font, numbers and bullets
- Do you on-page SEO, which includes keyword placement, internal and external linking, meta description, images with alt-tags, etc.
- Have a table of contents
- Get backlinks
- Target how-to and tutorial keywords with videos
- Mine your search queries (Your Google Search Console lists query that lead people to your page. Add these queries to your page)
Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
SEO is hands down one of the best ways to promote your travel blog. That’s because it allows users to find your content when they search on Google, Bing and Yahoo. For example, if you write an article about how to make money online while on the road and then optimize it for search, your readers will likely find it on the top spot when they search for that phrase than if you didn’t optimize it.
According to an analysis by Backlinko, posts that rank #1 in Google’s organic search results get an average click-through rate of 27.6%. They are also 10x more likely to receive a click than a page in the #10 spot.
If this analysis is anything to go by, it’s clear that optimizing your content for search engines is crucial for driving traffic to your travel blog. Here are some tips for optimizing your website for search engines:
- Perform keyword research to identify the terms and phrases people use to search for travel-related content. There are many free tools that you can use to find keywords, including; Keyword Generator, Answer The Public, ChatGPT, Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, Google Keyword Planner, Google Search Console and Google Trends.
- Use these keywords in your blog post titles, meta descriptions, and content. But you should do so naturally so they don’t stick out like a sore thumb. I love to use the primary keyword in the first couple of sentences of my content, or at least within the first paragraph. Then I use the same keyword and its variations throughout the content.
- Create high-quality, informative, and engaging content that provides value to your readers and keeps them returning for more. Google ranks valuable content, so you want to ensure your content is thorough. Remember that high-ranking travel content generally has 1,140 – 1,285 words per post, but it’s even better if you make it longer.
- Use header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to break up your content into sections and make it easier for search engines to crawl and understand. H1 is your main title, H2 is the second-level heading, H3 is the third-level heading, etc.
- Add images to your content, and optimize them using descriptive file names, alt tags, and captions that include relevant keywords. For example, you can name an image as Ways-to-promote-your-travel-blog.jpg instead of WhatsAppimage03.jpg. Studies show that articles with images get 94% more views.
- Use internal linking to connect related blog posts and pages on your website, which can help search engines understand the structure of your website and the relationship between your content. You’ll also need to link externally to authority sites related to your blog. Examples of authority sites include Forbes, Balance, NatGeo, Conde Nast, etc.
- Pay attention to the technical aspects of your sites. Ensure it loads first, is responsive (fits into all screens, including mobile), and is visually appealing.
URLs matter
URLs are important when promoting a blog because they are significant in search engine optimization (SEO). The URL structure of your blog post can impact how search engines crawl, index, and rank your content.
One way to optimize your URL structure for SEO is to include relevant keywords in the URL of your blog post. For example, if you are writing an article about “best travel destinations in Europe,” a good URL structure would be:
https://www.yourblogname.com/best-travel-destinations-europe
By including the relevant keywords in the URL, you are signaling to search engines what your content is about, which can help improve your ranking in search results.
You also want to avoid adding numbers on URLs – like https://www.yourblogname.com/9-best-travel-destinations-europe because it makes it hard to add another point later on without having to change the URL itself. Dates like “The Best Parks to Visit in 2021” are also not ideal because they age your content.
Note that changing your URL can lead to broken links and loss of backlinks, which can impact your SEO.
Share your Travel Blog on Social Media
With over 4.7 billion active users worldwide, social media platforms provide an easy and low-commitment way for potential readers to express interest in your content. You can never underestimate the power of social media in promoting your travel blog. In fact, if you aren’t leveraging social platforms in your digital marketing strategy, you’re missing out on an inexpensive, fast, and effective way to reach almost half the world’s population. Social media offers a range of benefits, including helping you:
- Promote content
- Humanize your brand
- Increase traffic to your travel blog
- Increase brand awareness
- Establish your brand as a thought leader
- Keep up-to-date with the latest trends
- Generate leads
- Boost sales
- Partner with influencers
- Increase customer and audience engagement
And the best part is that you can do all these for free. Let’s look at how to promote your travel blog on social media.
With over 4.7 billion active users worldwide, social media platforms provide an easy and low-commitment way for potential readers to express interest in your content.
Promote your Travel Blog on Pinterest
Many business owners and bloggers overlook Pinterest probably because they assume it’s for recipes and home décor. Yet, Pinterest is one of the best sources of high-quality organic traffic. According to Statista, 27% of people using the platform earn between $30,000 and 74,999, and 41% make over $75,000 annually. If that doesn’t convince you, this one will. 47% of Pinterest users make their buying decisions on Pinterest, compared to Instagram at 11% and Facebook at 15%.
Tips To Drive More Traffic from Pinterest to Your Travel Blog
- Do Pinterest keyword research: Keyword research lets you know what prospects are searching for. You can use tools like a Pinterest search bar, explore Pinterest, and Pinterest Ads to find keywords. Once you have the keywords, use them in your pin titles and description.
- Create Multiple Boards: Visibility helps you attract eyeballs to your Pinterest account. One way to gain visibility is by creating multiple boards. These boards will not only capture the attention of pinners but also cater to their diverse needs.
- Share Creative Images: Pictures account for 92% of all Pinterest posts. So you want to focus on posting well-formatted, thoughtful, appropriate photos.
- Write Descriptive Copy: Besides creative images, you should include an exact copy to help shape how your audience perceives your board. Ensure your headline stands out and evokes curiosity to compel readers to click and learn more.
- Match your blog post title: Ensure your pins match the content you’re linking to.
Pinterest Best Practices
- Pin between 10 to 15 Pins per day – and focus on timing
- Use a scheduler
- Avoid pinning the same Pin to the same board more than once
- Always pin your pins to the most relevant board first
- Engage with your community
Promote your Travel Blog on Facebook
With over 2.95 billion monthly active users (MAU) and 2 billion daily active users (DAU), Facebook continues to dominate the social media space in 2023. This traffic offers incredible opportunities to increase your blog article readership. Besides that, Facebook also offers laser-sharp targeting options to reach prospects.
Tips To Drive More Traffic from Facebook to Your Travel Blog
- Share your travel posts on Facebook: You can do this by copying the article’s link and pasting it on your business page. Not that this will only reach like 2% of people who like your page. So having your team (including friends and family) like and share the post is a good idea.
- Boost the post: Boosting your post is the easiest way to promote your travel blog on Facebook. Once you publish the article, the next step is to boost it. You can use a low budget and set the campaign duration for a day to see how it performs before considering an increase.
- Use captivating headlines: 80% of readers don’t read beyond an article’s headline – and this applies to Facebook too. Readers won’t click on the ad if your headline isn’t captivating. Try to:
-
- Keep the headline short (40 to 70 characters)
- Show the benefit to the reader
- Use action verbs like learn, get or do
- Include facts and figures to increase the credibility
- Use emojis
- Use appealing visuals: Preferably original ones showcasing travel-related activities. While at it, ensure your images have a high-color contrast to capture attention.
- Write a compelling copy: Prospects will likely want to read your copy before clicking on the article. Here are some ways to nail the description or ad copy:
- Use facts and testimonials to boost credibility
- Ask questions to capture the attention
- Play on your audience’s emotions to elicit curiosity
- Provide solutions to common problems
- Use clear CTAs to show the next step
- Leverage the Custom Audience feature: This feature lets you target your website visitors or those who’ve engaged with your Facebook page.
Promote your Travel Blog on Instagram
Like Facebook, Instagram can bring a lot of traffic to your site. According to data, the social platform has over 1.35 billion MAU and 500 million DAU. This makes Instagram a popular social media tool for travel bloggers and users. Considering it focuses on visual content, the platform is among the first places people go to when they want to learn about any destination.
Tips To Drive More Traffic from Instagram to Your Travel Blog
- Use a link in bio: Instagram allows you to add a link in your bio. Take advantage of this to create more traffic-driving opportunities.
- Include clear call-to-actions in reels, captions and stories: A link in the bio is excellent, but you’ll need to drive your audience to it. A CTA helps you with this. CTA takes many forms, including the enticing caption, on-screen text, verbal call-outs, etc.
- Share the blog post on Instagram stories: Take advantage of the Link sticker in Instagram stories to drive traffic back to your travel blog.
- Tease blog content in captions: Take advantage of the caption section to give snippets of your content and convince your audience that they need to know more.
- Prioritize videos and high-impact visuals: Plan promotional content that factors in what the Instagram algorithm wants. Even if this means a short reel touching on the content of your last blog post. Don’t forget to include a CTA.
Also Read: Things that ruin a vacation
Promote your Travel Blog on Twitter
With 368 million MAU, Twitter is a perfect social media platform to promote a travel blog. But you’ll need to create concise ads as Twitter only allows 280 characters per post. The platform offers many helpful tools, including paid service Twitter Ads, Twitter chats, and tweet scheduling. The Ads could help you expand reach and track results. Twitter also can help you quickly index new pages on your travel blog.
Promote your Travel Blog on TikTok
Tiktok is taking the world by storm. Six years in, it now has over 1 billion monthly users worldwide. Statistics show that TikTok is growing faster than Snapchat and Facebook, making it a perfect place to promote your travel blog. A tikTok business account allows you to write a bio and add links to your website and other social platforms. But you can also create videos, mention your blog in videos, and ask people to visit your account’s page. Alternatively, you can take a video of your blog post, explaining what it’s about and asking your followers to go to your blog and read the rest of the article.
Guest Post on Popular Blogs
Guest posting is a popular and effective way to promote your travel blog to a broader audience. It involves writing and publishing content on other websites or blogs relevant to your niche or industry. By creating quality content and leveraging the audience of the website or blog you’re guest posting on, you can increase your reach, generate traffic to your blog, and build your brand’s authority.
Here are some steps to follow when using guest posting to promote your travel blog:
- Identify relevant websites or blogs: Start by identifying websites or blogs that are relevant to your niche and have a good following. Look for sites with an engaged audience and publish content that aligns with your brand’s message and values.
- Reach out to website owners or editors: Once you have identified potential target sites, reach out to the website owners or editors to pitch your guest post idea. Introduce yourself, provide a brief overview of your proposed topic, and explain how your content will add value to their readership.
- Craft quality content: To increase the chances of getting your guest post accepted and generating traffic to your blog, focus on creating high-quality content that is informative, engaging, and useful to the target audience.
- Include a bio and link to your blog: Include a brief bio at the end of your guest post that includes a link to your travel blog. This allows readers who enjoyed your post to click through to your blog and learn more about you and your brand.
- Promote your guest post: Once it is published, promote it on your blog and social media channels to drive traffic back to your site. This helps to increase your reach and build relationships with other bloggers and influencers in your industry.
Collaborate With Others
Another effective way to promote your travel blog is through collaborations with other industry bloggers, influencers, or brands. Collaborations can take many forms; it can be co-authoring blog posts, creating joint social media campaigns, or hosting a joint event or giveaway. The key to successful collaborations is to find partners who share your values and audience and to create content or campaigns that offer mutual benefit. You can find them on social media, networking events and influencer marketing platforms.
Collaborations can help you create powerful content and campaigns that engage your audience and promote your travel blog to new heights. It can also increase your reach and exposure, build relationships with other influencers and brands, and create new opportunities for growth and monetization.
Network
Networking is a classic way to promote your travel blog and can be done online and offline. It involves connecting with other bloggers, influencers, brands, and individuals in your industry or niche, building relationships with them, and leveraging those relationships to promote your blog.
Here are some ways to network and promote your travel blog:
- Attend events: Attend events, conferences, and meetups in your industry to meet other bloggers and influencers in person. This can help you build relationships and make connections that can lead to guest posting opportunities, collaborations, and other promotional activities.
- Use social media: Use social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn to connect with other bloggers and influencers in your industry. Engage with their content, share their posts, and participate in relevant hashtags and chats to build relationships and promote your blog.
- Join blogging communities: Join blogging communities such as Triberr, Blog Engage, and Inbound.org to connect with other bloggers and share your content. These communities can also provide opportunities for guest posting and collaborations.
- Reach out to influencers: Identify influencers in your niche and reach out to them to introduce yourself and your blog. Offer to collaborate on a post or social media campaign, or ask if they would be interested in sharing your content with their audience.
- Attend press trips and events: Attend press trips and events organized by tourism boards, hotels, and other travel brands. This can provide networking and collaboration opportunities and exposure to new destinations and experiences to write about on your blog.
Use Paid Advertising
Most travel blog promotion tips shared in this post are about growing your readership organically. However, you can also choose to pay for ads to give your blog a kickstart. And contrary to popular opinion, you don’t need thousands of dollars to promote your travel blog via advertising.
Paid advertising can bring traffic to your travel blog by putting your content in front of a broader audience that may not have discovered otherwise. Here are some types of paid advertising that you can leverage:
- Search engine advertising: Search engine ads like Google Ads allow your travel website to appear at the top of search engine results pages for specific keywords. And as we mentioned earlier, ranking at the top brings in the most traffic.
- Social media advertising: This involves paying to promote your content or brand on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can target your ideal audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors and use eye-catching visuals and compelling messaging to attract clicks and drive traffic to your blog.
- Display advertising: This involves paying for banners or other types of ads to appear on relevant websites or blogs. By targeting websites and blogs with an audience interested in your travel niche, you can attract visitors who may have yet to find your blog.
- Native advertising: This involves paying for ads that appear in the same format as the content on the website or blog. By creating content that is relevant and valuable to the audience of the website or blog, you can attract clicks and drive traffic to your blog.
The good thing about ads is it lets you target specific audiences based on behavior, interests and demographics. You can also control ad spend and get fast results that you can measure.
Repurpose Your Content
Content repurposing is another effective strategy for promoting your travel blog. It involves taking existing content and adapting it for different platforms and audiences. Repurposing can help you reach new readers and keep your existing audience engaged.
For example, you could repurpose a blog post into a video, an infographic, a podcast, or a social media post. This can help you reach people who have not found your blog. Video content is becoming increasingly popular, so creating videos that showcase your travels or give tips on travel-related topics is a great way to promote your blog.
Another way to repurpose your content is to create a series of posts on a particular theme. For example, if you’ve written several blog posts about your travels in a particular country, you could compile them into a series and promote them as a guide to traveling in that country. This can help you attract readers who are specifically interested in that destination.
Build Links to Your Site
Backlinks are links from other websites that direct traffic to your website. In real life, backlinks can be compared to recommendations or referrals.
Imagine you’re looking for an excellent restaurant in a new town. You ask a friend who has lived in the area for a while for recommendations. Your friend gives you the name of a restaurant and tells you they had a great experience there. You trust your friend’s opinion and decide to try the restaurant.
In this scenario, your friend’s recommendation is like a backlink to the restaurant’s website. Your friend’s recommendation sends traffic to the restaurant and helps to establish the restaurant’s reputation. Similarly, when other websites link to your website, they essentially recommend it to their readers.
Backlinks from reputable and relevant websites are important because they help to establish your website’s authority and reputation. Just like a restaurant with good recommendations is more likely to attract customers, a website with quality backlinks is more likely to attract traffic and rank higher in search engine results pages. This can help you to gain more readers, build a following, and even monetize your website.
In case you’re wondering how to obtain backlinks to your travel blogs, then here are some quick recommendations:
- Guest posting, which he discussed at length earlier in this blog
- Networking which we also discussed
- Create valuable content that people want to link to
- Broken link building involves finding broken links on other sites and offering to replace them with a link to your travel blog.
Answer Questions on Quora
Quora is a question-and-answer platform. People from all corners of the world ask a question and answer questions on a wide range of topics, including travel. You can take advantage of the platform and respond to travel-related questions. Just provide value to those asking questions – give detailed and helpful answers that showcase your expertise and knowledge. And don’t forget to include relevant links to your travel blog. Over time, you may establish yourself as an authority in the travel niche and drive traffic to your blog.
Benefit from Influencer Marketing
We live in an influencer age. Today, businesses of all shapes and sizes use influencers to promote them. You can do it too. Influencer marketing is a powerful way to promote your travel blog and reach a wider audience.
Since influencers already have a following on their website or social media platforms, working with them can help you tap into their audience and promote your travel blog to a broader audience. An influencer will help you target a specific audience, increase visibility, improve credibility, and increase engagement. In some cases, they can be more cost-effective than traditional advertising.
Offer an Option to Sign Up For Your Newsletter
A newsletter provides an easy and direct way to communicate and connect with your subscribers. It lets you keep your readers informed about your latest blog posts, upcoming events, and special promotions. By offering an option to sign up for your newsletter, you can build a strong relationship with your readers, promote your travel blog, and grow your audience.
A newsletter is an excellent way to stay in touch with readers regularly. But beyond that, it can also help you increase traffic to your site and build a community of like-minded travelers.
Build a Relationship with Readers
Another incredible way to promote your travel blog and turn those one-time visits into repeat clients is to focus on building relationships with readers. And building relationships is easy – just engage with readers in the comments section, ask for feedback, offer personalized content and use social media to connect with them.
You also want to monitor brand mentions, reply to emails, and comment on travel-related content published by other authors. This way, you’ll show your audience that you’re listening and are committed to providing a positive experience.
Frequently Asked Questions about Ways to Promote a Travel Blog
Here are some answers to your frequently asked questions about ways to promote a travel blog:
How often should I post on my travel blog?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The frequency of your blog posts should depend on your schedule, available content, and your audience’s preferences. Some bloggers post daily, while others post once a week or monthly. The key is establishing a consistent schedule that works for you and your readers and ensuring that your content is high-quality and engaging.
Do travel bloggers make money?
Yes, some travel bloggers can make a full-time income from their blogs through various revenue streams, such as sponsored content, affiliate marketing, advertising, and product sales. However, it’s important to note that making money from a travel blog requires hard work, dedication, and strategic planning.
How do I become a travel blogger?
Becoming a travel blogger requires critical steps, such as choosing a niche, setting up a blog, creating high-quality content, and promoting your blog through social media and other channels. It’s also important to network with other bloggers and industry professionals and to be willing to invest time and money into your blog.
How do I attract viewers to my blog?
There are several ways to attract viewers to your travel blog, including optimizing your content for search engines, promoting your blog through social media and email marketing, collaborating with other bloggers and influencers, and engaging with your readers through comments and feedback. It’s also essential to create high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience and provides value to them.