I sometimes get messages from new bloggers who have questions or are looking for ideas or encouragement, which leads me to this post–a collection of tips for new bloggers and (hopefully) some encouragement for those who are starting out and wonder if it’s really all worth it. Let me begin by saying that there are many travel bloggers who are much more successful and therefore more qualified than I am to write a post like this. I am not claiming to be the ultimate expert, but I do have enough experience and have made enough mistakes to give some advice.
So here we have my tips for new bloggers plus some questions that have come my way (and these are true for any blogging niche but come from my experience in travel blogging):
1) Decide what your goal is and make choices from there.
Do you want to blog long-term and possibly use it for business or professional growth? Do you have the passion and time to commit to your blog every week for the long haul? If you answer yes to both of these, consider getting your blog going the right way from the beginning. The rest of this post is geared toward you.
If you answer no, that’s OK–your life will be a whole lot easier 
. You might want to blog as a place to express yourself and share stories with friends and family while on a long trip. You might want to write about a specific topic for a while as a resource for others. You might be curious about blogging and want to try it out for a while. If this is you, start with a WordPress.com site and have fun. Click here if you are not familiar with the difference between WordPress.com and .org.
When I started blogging, I had no idea what opportunities lay ahead.
One mistake I made early on was jumping in without knowing what I was doing. As you get started, take some time to learn about blogging, decide on your goals, and get familiar with other blogs in your niche. Find some favorites and think about why you are attracted to their blogs–what is it about their writing and blog style that makes you want to visit over and over? Make your site look nice and get some quality content up before trying to get readers.
2) Your site looks nice. What theme do you use?
This site is self-hosted on WordPress.org. If you plan to blog for the long haul, pay someone to set you up on WP.org (or do it yourself). I use Canvas theme from WooThemes. I also have help behind the scenes from RTWLabs keeping everything running smoothly. I try to keep the site clean, which means less stuff all over the site so it’s not too busy. I hired someone to design the header you see at the top. More about all that here.
3) What social media tools should I be using and are they really worth it?
At the minimum, you should be using Twitter, Facebook (as a page, not your personal account), Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Google+. Yes, they are all really worth it, but you have to use them consistently to see the benefits.
4) Are there any communities of bloggers that I should join?
Yes! The blogging groups on Facebook are wonderful (e.g. Global Bloggers, Business of Blogging) for networking and asking questions.
The paid course Travel Blog Success is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn step by step. The guys who run it really know what they are talking about, and lots of high-profile bloggers have taken the course and participate in the forums. Through January 25, enter TBS35 here for a 35% discount!
5) Choose a small niche and promote yourself.
This is one I still struggle with, but honestly it is true. It’s hard to narrow down my writing and research because I have so many interests. However, one thing that really is important is to think about what your main interests are and specialize in those.
Why? Because there are thousands, if not millions, of travel bloggers, food bloggers, mommy bloggers, etc., so if you stay general, barely anyone will notice. Figure out what you are passionate and knowledgeable about and make that your niche. Traveling through Asia? Outdoor adventures? Slow travel? Later you can expand your blogging to other niches by starting other blogs or getting other writing gigs.
Here’s what happened to me:
–I wrote about my travels and realized that I didn’t want to focus on one area of the world, say California or Brazil.
–I helped found the group ArtSmart Travel because of my background in art history and my interest in seeing art and architecture around the world. Those monthly roundtable posts have become a sub-niche of mine.
–I played with the niche of family travel since I often travel with my two small children but realized that it’s not my focus–many other family travel bloggers out there are more passionate about the topic than I am.
I love traveling with my kids, but it’s not the right niche for my blog.
–I started to realize that my niche is my travel perspective. I am a person who loves details, so when I travel, I like to go slowly, get to really know a place, learn about its history and heritage, and get off the beaten path.
–I started having success by combining my travel perspective with writing about places that I really love (e.g. Napa Valley, Brazil, Italy). When you love something, others can feel your passion and knowledge, and they begin to trust you.
–I entered a competition to attend the Florens2012 Cultural and Environmental Heritage Week as a social media reporter. I wrote about 4 posts about travel and cultural heritage. I won.
Winning the Florens2012 competition was a turning point for me.
Through attending the conferences and having discussions with others, I came away with a mission to promote “quality travel.” By focusing on places that I really know and love and using my passion for detail, I can write about travel in a responsible way, one which promotes authentic, slow, mindful travel. And that’s my niche.
Once you figure out what you will focus on, let everyone who you are:
Think of some key words that match your niche and put them in a box on the sidebar so that everyone who visits your blog sees them. Put them in all your social media profiles. Put them on your business cards. Brand yourself using those words. Write guest posts about those topics. In short, spread the word that you are the go-to person for that niche.
My love and knowledge of California have shown these last two years.
6) How can I get more traffic?
Compared to big travel blogs, my site doesn’t get a ton of traffic, but it has been increasing steadily over the past year. There was a plateau when I was consistently getting around 100 pageviews a day, but last fall, traffic started increasing, and finally in December I got over 10,000 pageviews. While there are many ways to increase traffic, using a combination of these strategies should help you increase your numbers.
–Write quality content. That’s your first priority.
–Comment on other blogs, especially if they use CommentLuv, which links to your latest blog post.
–Ask to join a couple of group Pinterest boards that have a large number of followers (search Pinterest by topic and look for large group boards). Pin your best photos from blog posts and include the title of the post; some of the people who repin them will click through.
–Share posts with tourism boards or others who might be interested. For example, if you write a post about the best places to taste wine in Washington, send the link to the related tourism boards and the wineries themselves. Connect with their Facebook pages. If they share your post, you may get lots of traffic from their large audiences.
My post about Oxbow Public Market got noticed by them, resulting in tons of views and a press trip.
–Make connections with other bloggers. Share your favorite posts of theirs. Ask them to do a link exchange on your respective sites.
–Get active using StumbleUpon. It doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes a day, but you need to stumble several posts a day to get the benefits, and a lucky stumble can bring you thousands of pageviews. Granted, views from StumbleUpon are not the most valuable because those readers don’t tend to stay long, but they are still new people coming to your site!
–Write as many guest posts as you can. The previously mentioned Facebook groups are great places to get guest posting opportunities. Be careful, however. If you write a guest post for a site, don’t let them pressure you to include a link back to their site (including adding a badge) because the reward for your hard work is the link back to your site.
–Design your blog posts carefully with your audience in mind. The general web audience has a very short attention span, so imagine what the average reader will do with your post in about 2 minutes. Use photos, headings, and short paragraphs. Bold important parts. Unless you are a gifted writer and have an audience that enjoys long reads, don’t write super long posts most of the time, or break them up into separate posts (Part 1 and Part 2).
–Edit yourself. Check your posts for errors. Don’t be afraid to cut sentences to make your writing more concise or effective. Use only your best photos. Edit your photos using Picasa (free), Photoshop, or Lightroom. Be sure to compress and resize your photos so that they don’t slow down your site.
–Run giveaways–people like them! This is something I will do more of in 2013. My recent giveaway of a subscription to AFAR magazine didn’t cost me much but brought me new Facebook fans and email subscribers. Use Rafflecopter to manage your giveaways.
–Get involved in some of the weekly link-ups, like Travel Photo Thursday at Budget Travelers Sandbox. One of my favorites is Suzy Guese’s “Suzy Stumbles Over Travel” series. You leave the link of your favorite new blog post, and Suzy will comment on it, share it, and stumble it using StumbleUpon. Then every Monday she chooses her 5 favorites.
Most of all, have fun and be yourself! If blogging ever becomes a chore, don’t be afraid to take a break. I did that, and in the long run, it made no difference except that it gave me the space I needed to go through a difficult personal time. If you really love expressing yourself in this way, the blogging platform will always be there!
Questions? Suggestions? Please leave a comment!
I have read a lot of travel blogging advice as I try to start up my own travel blog, but this is some of the best and most practical advice I have read so far. Thanks!
Bonnie@wildbuttercup recently posted..Two Years
Great! I’m so glad you liked it!
fabulous advice even for not so newbie bloggers. You have given me a lot to think about tonight lady!
Keryn @ walking on travels recently posted..Packing Tips for Procrastinators
I agree that even not-so-newbie bloggers can benefit from advice like this. I certainly do
This is great advice, and many tips I haven’t seen before. We’ve only been blogging a few months and needed to see this to re-light my fire! Looking forward to trying new things like StumbleUpon – haven’t been there yet. Thanks! Great info.
Tiffany @ FiteInertia recently posted..Just a thought…
Great! I’m glad you found some things here that will be helpful. Stumble is a strange beast and takes a bit of work to get benefits from, but most agree it is worth it in the end. I don’t bother sharing stuff with others on Stumble anymore. Instead, I have the stumble toolbar installed and click “Like” on posts and articles I like every day. I don’t get a lot of consistent traffic from SU (some days 10 views, some days 100-400), but sometimes I get huge bursts from it, which help.
I am getting tired just thinking about doing all of these things – even if I do most of them!!
Alexandra recently posted..New beginnings for old things
Luckily for you, you don’t need to think about doing many of these things since you are already a blogging expert
Thanks for this informative post. I have discovered Budget Travelers Sandbox and Suzy Stumbles over Travel (in fact she chose one of my posts from last week in her 5). When you say stumble several posts a day, are you talking about other people’s posts or our own?
budget jan recently posted..Tuesday in Townsville – Reflections in the Strand Boat Marina
Great about Suzy choosing your post. I really enjoy her series.
When I say stumble several posts a day, I am referring to other people’s posts. I rarely stumble my own. StumbleUpon knows which posts are from your site, so you should not stumble yours often if ever. You should also try to stumble from lots of different sites, not the same ones over and over. It takes a while to get going but can be helpful. See my other comment about the toolbar, etc., if you’re new to it.
these are some really great advices, Jenna! Some of them are so obvious I haven’t thought about them before! Thanks for that post!
kami recently posted..strolling down the streets of Bautzen
Thanks, Kami! I’m glad you found this helpful.
“If blogging ever becomes a chore, don’t be afraid to take a break.”
This is essential because at times it will become a chore and you will need a break. There is definitely a lot to this. One thing to also realize – you and your blog will evolve. The more you do this, your focus may change and your niche may evolve. That’s OK.
Have a good idea what you want to do to get started but be open to doing other things and figuring things out as you go also. A good example of that is what you did with family travel. It’s a part of what you do but not your main focus.
Jeremy Branham recently posted..A Fiesta Bowl and a perfect ending to a travel journey
Yes, so true about the breaks. It’s easy to feel burdened by the talk of “you should be posting 3-4 times a week every week…” When you have kids and jobs or other responsibilities, posting like that isn’t realistic. Some of my favorite bloggers post less frequently, but their posts are always really good.
I agree also about evolving. As you and I talked about, we change, and that’s a good thing because it means we are growing.
Thanks for the great post! I LOVE the clean layout that you have put together with Canvas theme…I purchased the theme and have been looking for ideas about what I can do with it.
Shanna Schultz recently posted..Diary of a New Blogger: I’ve Been Away…
It’s easy to use and the layout I have is really just Canvas with little added. I added the gray to the sides for wider monitors and of course the header is mine, but everything else is pretty much just Canvas. Let me know when yours is done–I’d love to have a look!
fantastic tips, jenna! I found taking the ny times online course (“how to start a blog”) well worth the money and time. It helped me set up on wordpress, and because I write my blog with more of a journalistic slant, I appreciated that the teachers were ny times staff members and bloggers (keep posts and ideas simple and concise!). It also helped me narrow down my focus for my blog, which was hard to do at first – and how to find what makes you unique. I think if you write what you know, you are on your way. I also liked your tip on sending post links to tourism boards. My post on ventura got picked up by the mission buenaventuras facebook page which was really cool. after reading this post, I sent the link to the tourism ageny’s pr person also!
monique recently posted..fine art photography for europhiles
Thank you so much for mentioning the NYTimes online course. I am sure it is a great experience and one I wish I had known about early on. I think one of the hardest things that bloggers do is write simple, concise blog posts. This post of mine obviously doesn’t follow that guideline, and I actually took out one part that I will make into another post!
These simple tips for new bloggers like us is very helpful. Thanks for the information.
thebudgetwanderer recently posted..The Powerhouse Museum: A Museum of All Sorts and Ages
So glad you found them helpful
lots of great tips there. you have given me some new thinking to do. I am restricted to what i can do so have decided to make my island of Sibuyan in the Philippines my niche. I will certainly implement some of your suggestions. Thanks so much for this post.
You’re welcome! So glad you liked this post!
I’m so glad I stumbled upon this this morning! What a wonderful, helpful post. Thank you.
I’ve been wanting to/thinking of starting a blog for about four years. FOUR YEARS. Part of the reason I hadn’t, besides fear of putting myself out there, was because it seemed so complicated.
You’ve given some great tips to help me get up and running, and you’ve reminded me why all the hard work is worth it…the online travel community is full of great people. Cheers!
Anne recently posted..Sydney for Foodies
Thanks for stopping by! I do think it’s a good idea to spend some time getting to know travel blogging before actually starting (I jumped right in and made too many mistakes!), but of course being a beginner at anything means there is a learning curve. Sounds like now is the right time for you to make the plunge!
Great advice. I wish I had started with wordpress.org from the beginning as I will have to go through a change over in the near future but wordpress.com was a great starting point. I have learned so much and hope to continue to grow! Love your style…very clean and easy to read. Nice header too.
So much to learn……thanks for the tips.
Anita Mac recently posted..Dog Sledding – the exhilaration of a day with the dogs
Thank you! I agree that WordPress.com is a great starting point. I enjoyed it, but I wish I had moved earlier. I also wish I had gotten help with it all earlier. It has been such a relief to have someone doing the backups, fixes, updates, etc.
This is an excellent guide Jenna, with relevant tips for bloggers of all levels of experience. I would add a couple of observations that fit in with your points: I start each blog post as a research task – I decide what I want to find out, and the level of detail that I want to set. Even though I am not teaching a class on any given post, I view it as such – so if anyone was to ask me a question about either a main or background point, I’d be able to provide an answer, give links etc.
The second bit of advice I’d have is to learn about stats and SEO. You dont have to be a math wizard and stare at charts all day, but simple things like naming posts and images correctly can really drive more people to your site. When posting about art and museums especially, people do regularly look for images and will find your site that way. Monitoring stats and traffic links also allows you to find other similar bloggers and develop your network .
Best wishes to all bloggers!
H
Hasan Niyazi recently posted..Alteration and invention – Raphael, Vermeer and the mashup
I like your idea of having a research question at the beginning of your posts–the types of topics and your audience certainly fit that. I do something very similar when teaching academic writing since having a question in mind from the beginning drives the discussion. I also agree about stats and SEO. I didn’t always pay attention to those things but now I do, and it’s become second nature. Thank you, Hasan, for sharing your insights!
Great tips! As a new blog very useful tips! We are currently averages 150 page views a day and 8000 month. We have done 2 guest posts and hopefully will have many more in the works! We hope to see our traffic and followers increase after we leave for our RTW trip in June 2013! Thanks for the tips again!
Hannah @ Getting Stamped recently posted..Taking Sparting Risks
You are doing very well for a new blog! Good for you. And I noticed that you started on the right foot by having a header done that gives your site a look. I recently had some time off and did a bunch of guest posts, and I have seen a lot of results from them, especially in Facebook likes.
I don’t really have a travel blog, but I’m an expat living in Cambodia and I work as an ESL teacher. I’ve recently started my own blog. It’s only a few months old. But by using some of the techniques you’ve outlined here, I’m already getting a steady 10-20 unique visitors per day. I’d love to be up to 100 per day!
I think you’ve left out the importance of SEO though. Good Search Engine Optmisation gives people the ability to find you through searches. Onsite SEO is vital if you want to get your blog noticed on the search engines.
William Lake recently posted..What is the difference between ESL and EFL?
ESL teaching is a great niche to blog about. (I am an ESL teacher, too!) You are absolutely right about the importance of SEO. I didn’t mention it because it’s a tip that I think everyone mentions–I guess it’s so basic to blogging that I overlooked it! A related topic is getting other sites to link back to your posts. That helps the posts show up higher in search results.
Thanks for stopping by!
what a great and useful post! thank you so much for putting all of your tips into one place! one question, which is probably pretty silly, and i could probably google this myself, but how do you get posts onto stumbleupon? I am new to the blogging world, and am kind of confused by this…
any info you could provide would be so useful!!! thanks in advance! I really really really appreciate it!!!
just signed up for your blog- LOVE IT!
Jessica recently posted..Discovering BANANA KETCHUP in St. Lucia: The Secret Taste of the Caribbean
No question is a dumb question
Someone has to stumble your post for it to be in StumbleUpon. YOu can stumble your own posts, and a lot of people do, but it doesn’t really help your post or site unless you stumble tons of other stuff, too. Get the SU toolbar installed and start liking a few posts every day. The stumbles that will help you are those that come from people/sites that have never stumbled your posts before. Those can bring 100-10,000 views, but just keep in mind that Stumble users don’t tend to spend more than a few seconds on sites, so they are not the most important part of your audience. Let me know if that helps! And join those FB groups and search the threads there for more related tips.
I just discovered your site today and already love this post. Thanks for some great tips and I’ll definitely check out Picasa!
It is also encouraging for me to read your story. I’ve been blogging since late Sept/early October and get between 100-300 visits a day. I’d love to shoot up to the 1,000′s but I know I have to be patient.
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
The Guy recently posted..The Magic Of Melbourne – Street Art
Great! So glad you found this useful.
If you are already getting that number of visits a day, you are doing great for a new blog!
Hi Jenna,
Thank you so much for this great post! Its really helpful to newbies (like us!) to read posts like this. This post was particularly insightful, more than some of the others I have read recently.
We are all just striving to do our best, be our best in this HUGE community and its people like you who help us through this process.. So thank you for that
Suitcase Stories – Nicole recently posted..Beaches, mountains, rivers… Vancouver has it all!
You are so welcome! So glad you found this post useful. I just tried to think of all the things I wish someone had told me, or that I would have listened to more, when I was starting out. Yes, the community is huge, but the interest in travel is huge too, and only getting bigger, so find your niche and keep working it
I’m planning to go to Vancouver this summer, so I’m off to see your post now. 
Great post Jenna. I didn’t know you were a Mom until I saw your name pop up in a family travel blogging group. It’s interesting that you didn’t see it as your niche so didn’t make it yours just by default.
I love your ideas about sharing posts with tourism boards or others who might be interested. I’ve been running a month long spotlight on New Zealand on my blog so I might see if the New Zealand Tourism board is at all interested in linking to my posts or sharing the,
Bethaney – Flashpacker Family recently posted..Meet the Kiwi Bloggers: Man vs World
Thanks, Bethaney! Your month-long spotlight on NZ sounds like the perfect content to share with tourism boards. Try tagging the tourism boards on Facebook as well. They usually have tons of followers, so it’s easy to get lots of views from them sharing a post.
Thanks Jenna. That’s a fab idea. I’m going to try it right now!
Bethaney – Flashpacker Family recently posted..Meet the Kiwi Bloggers: Man vs World
I love this, because it is all so true. Determining your niche can be very difficult, especially when you started out without a specific niche in mind. Honestly, I still struggle with it. You have found a perfect niche within your own perspective on travel: Quality travel.
I also believe that readers love travel blogs because of their authenticity and personality. It is important to show your own perspective and not write what many others write.
Great post!
Emiel recently posted..The Hitchhiker’s Guide to traveling the world
The niche question is really so hard, probably the biggest challenge. I find it so difficult to narrow my writing down because I have so many interests. Of course I can still explore various topics and aspects of topics, but the blog needs to be identified with one thing. Your niche also seems to be your perspective.
Really enjoyed this posting. Thank you for sharing your advice!
These are very useful tips Jenna. I knew about all these social networks but I was getting a bit lost and starting to think that all this effort was not worth it.
I will start now the option of being in Stambleupon.
Thanks!
Maria recently posted..Spain travel guides, recommendations and where to buy them
StumbleUpon is a moody thing. It can be very helpful for traffic but can also seem like it never gives you any love…But worth the seconds of time it takes to use it every day, I believe. Install the SU toolbar, which allows you to click “Like” on any page you visit and enjoy.
Thanks!
Btw, how many posts per week would you recommemd us to post?
About the number of posts, that is a personal choice, of course, but 3 times a week is a usual recommendation. I don’t post more than twice a week because I don’t have enough time to prepare 3 good posts per week. A lot of people who post 3 times a week have a weekly photo post or something a bit simpler. Any more than 3-4 times a week is not something I would recommend because readers can’t keep up with that much content.
Cool Jenna. Thanks again for this info!
Thank you! This was very helpful
I’ve recently started my blog and that’s how I came across this article. Great ideas you have here!
Victoria Nguyen recently posted..[crafts] Making your own Magnets from Travel Souvenirs
So glad you found it helpful, Victoria!
Great helpful post! I’m six months into blogging and I never realised it would be constant work (on top of a full-time job ithat’s not easy), but I enjoy it so much it never feels like “real” work. It’s so encouraging to read posts like this one, and I just got a bit more motivation and focus from your good self, so thank you!
Clare recently posted..Catch Some Culture: The Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels
Hello, Jenna! I just found your blog, and I love it. I’m not exactly new to the blogging community, but I’m just not reading up on suggestions for how to improve my site. I’m curious, how do you use Stumbleupon and Pinterest to promote a blog? They seem so personal, without an opportunity to expand readership. Am I wrong?
Thanks!
Jessica Hill recently posted..You Can Do It Too by Michelle Lim
See my response to Tiffany’s comment above about SU.
Pinterest…I have had mixed results with this. if you google your questions about it, you should find some good posts about how other bloggers have used it with successful results. I don’t put in the time that I should, but ideally you should try to get a lot of followers, pin your own posts, and hope that your posts will get repinned and then people will click on them and visit your site. What works for that on Pinterest are things that people need to click through to get–recipes, lists, resources…If it’s just a photo without something to make people want to click through, they won’t end up visiting your site.
In the end, spending more time on writing good content gets more views and visits that anything else.
Glad you visited, Jessica!