6 Effective Ways to Earn from Your Travel Blog

I’ve been recently asked by a friend: can you really make money from a travel blog? Like with many other blog niches, there are many ways to earn from your travel blog. Writing about your travel adventures itself gives you an opportunity to show your skill and your blog will be your best portfolio.

So can you really make money from your travel blog? YES, one can earn from a travel blog in many ways, and we’ve gathered some, most are the ways we earn from OurCityTravels.com. If you haven’t yet, you can start learning and incorporating these in your blog while you have a lot of time in your hands (or maybe).

Having your own Travel Booking Portal

To start off, having a flight booking portal from known airlines as a service to your readers is a convenient click for them if they get compelled to book after reading your account of a city break experience.

You can also have your own booking portal embedded on your travel blog, while this may take a lot more of requirements, you can earn more than when using airline booking.

Collaborations

Bloggers and Influencers have shaped how the public spends, just like how celebrities endorse a product. Thus, many brands reach out to them to be promoted, especially if the blogger has a large following. Below are some of the ways companies collaborate with bloggers.

Sponsored Trips

Sponsored travels happen in two ways: 1. you approach companies/brands and 2. they approach you. The deal is you get a complimentary stay in a hotel in exchange of a review, you get city passes from the tourism board and feature the city on your blog – things like these. Depending on the terms they and you would agree on, this doesn’t have to be paid since the worth of your stay will already be covered. You earn experience, so to say.

Social Media Promotions

This type of collaboration can also fall under the sponsored trip umbrella, however, you don’t need to be in a particular place to do this. Brands can reach out to you and promote their product while you are in the comfort of your home.

Not everyone creates a social media account just for the fun of it, some do to earn, (others become  accidentally famous), still others are already celebrities in their own right widening out their reach. Take Tiktok celebrity Shayy Irving, she used her creative juices and the time that the pandemic allowed her to have to make spontaneous, funny videos. She takes daily life experiences and make hilarious skits out of them that Gen X can relate to. Thus, Shayy is able to work with brands through Tiktok.

Instagram influencer marketing is another way brands utilize marketing strategies. Thus, if you lean on particular niches, your content should have a lot of stuff relating to it, this way, brands could identify with you and approach you to promote them. This includes both instagram posts and stories. Travel-related content will of course get a lot of pitches from travel companies.

Other platforms where brands work with bloggers and influencers are Facebook, Snapchat, Youtube, and other apps where they get exposure from. Find which platforms you are comfortable with and work on them.

Blog Promotion

Written media is not dead, sure it’s easier to watch videos, but traditionally, photos and write ups still comprise a vast percent of internet content! So don’t shut your blog down just because your friend has a million youtube hits. You will still earn money from writing. Brands reach out to blog owners through their contact page so make sure you have one on yours. Otherwise, there are a lot of platforms you can join where brands reach out and pick out blogs they could work with. Here’s some:

Intellifluence

A marketing platform which makes it easier for companies to collaborate with influencers – join Intellifluence here.

Getblogged

This platform works the other way around, influencers get to apply for collaborations and brands choose from the pool – join GetBlogged here.

Affiliate Marketing

Aside from a flight booking portal, one of the effective ways to earn from your travel blog is becoming a hotel and room booking affiliates. Especially if you feature accommodation on your travel blog. People will find your reviews and photos as authentic and take your word of advice when it comes to booking the best or most practical hotel in a particular city.

You can also sell tours and get a commission from it, sites like getyourguide, booking.com, and tripadvisor are great for this kind of affiliate marketing.

Selling Your Own Products

With in-demand print on order, selling shirts, canvas bags, and other items could easily be done online. You can hire a graphic artist to create designs aligned with your branding to sell on your blog or Etsy. This is also another way of getting your brand out there.

You can also sell your photos on stock photo websites like depositphotos, IStock, getty, and such. While these sites would have different requirements for submitting photos, you would certainly find one you would be compatible to work with. These stock photo sites do not limit submissions to travel photos only, so if you are a photo enthusiast like us, you can pretty much sell a lot of photos you take.

One of the most fun ways to earn money is to print your travel photos as postcards. It’s satisfying to see your own photo printed as postcard and you also get to earn from it. You can also of course, send those to friends for free. A very personal way to say hello, especially now that we can’t really see much of each other.

Ads

Running ads on your travel blog pages is another route to go. Most bloggers (yes, not all) have automated ads running on their blog. The most common would be google adsense, but the more established blogs tend to go with monumetric and mediavine.

You can also also display ad boards on your sidebar (sell ad space). It is a wise practice to include a policy page, an advertising page, contact page, and a media kit so brands can see your reach and inquire about how they can advertise on your site.

Earn from Your Travel Blog While At Home

With most of the cities entering a second lockdown since this pandemic started, it’s wise to plan the ways you could earn from your travel blog. Yes, there are many ways to earn from your travel blog, but it does take time and effort. Like anything in life, it’s not a quick-rich scheme – you have to build a trust and a following.