krawin

I have seen a lot of successful travel bloggers with websites that are earning thousand dollars worth of revenues. I'm dreaming of having my own travel website, earn a lot from it and explore the world at the same time. I will surely have so much fun! Anyone knows here the step by step procedures on how I can start my own travel site? What are the things that I should consider and the important factors and requirements that I should comply? I know I have to spent some money and how much do you think it would be? Any advise from successful travel bloggers will surely be appreciated!

Doc Savage

For every successful blogger making any real amount of money, there are surely hundreds or thousands making little or nothing.

You would need to get paying links on your site with people actually clicking on them often to generate any real money.

Good luck to you. You never know until you give it a shot.

valdor

Don't think about making money, think about creating value for your customers. Do you follow any travel blogs? If so, ask yourself why do you follow these blogs in particular and not others.

As for the technical aspect of creating a blog, you don't need to spend much money for that. Check out goDaddy, they have a 1$ per month hosting package that includes a .com domain name. To get traffic get active in relevant forums and add your website in your signature. Also do some guest posting on authority websites, create social media accounts...

Hengilas

Consistently good content. It takes so much perseverance! Daily content, daily good content, is the hard part. It's easier said than done to wake up every day and be inspired to write great material.

Efrem

1. Figure out what value you will provide that isn't already being provided by someone else, or that you can provide better, and that a lot of people will care about. Leave your ego out of this.

2. Have a concrete plan to keep your site updated frequently. Lots of people start their sites out strong with two or three good ideas for content. Once they've worked through those they lose steam and the site flounders.

3. Figure out how you will get traffic. Putting a site out there and waiting for people to discover it is seldom quick. Expect to work on publicity.

4. Figure out how you will earn income from your site. Most travel sites and nearly all blogs are free. There are options, but they involve work too. (That word "work" keeps coming up. Sorry about that.)

5. Don't expect to get rich. Income from these sites is nearly always negligible. We read about the exceptions and don't realize how unusual they are. The most you can probably expect is a bit of income to offset some of your travel expenses and (in the U.S.) a tax deduction for the rest. (You can't take this deduction forever, or the IRS will decide that your "business" is really a hobby.)

BearX220

You're going at this backwards. What's important is your idea and its value in the marketplace, not the delivery system. If you have a good idea that will attract revenue, it doesn't matter if you deliver it via a website, an app, leaflets on phone poles or carrier pigeon. But if you decide off the top you want to make a wad of money from a vague idea of a "travel website," and the specifics of value proposition, content, etc. are an afterthought, you're doomed.

As someone upthread has pointed out, the vast majority of "travel bloggers" earn nothing, or next to it. That's because they create no value. They glom onto stories in the press, or scoops broken elsewhere, and blather about them. But they have no unique insight, education, point of view, etc. Survey the "stories" that decorate the front page of FT, most of which recycle leads or ideas from elsewhere including FT's inside pages, and you'll see what I mean. (Most bloggers, in fact, are not reporters / journalists, despite the idiotic conventional wisdom that blogging can replace traditional journalism. Most do no reporting outside of Googling, and many are tapping away in their parents' basement.) If you expect to earn any sort of living from this activity in the first five years you are misleading yourself. Odds say you'll probably never be able to make more than beer money.

As for how much money you'll have to spend: $0 to millions, depending. The guys who founded Airbnb started with $1,000, but they had a good idea. There are numberless web entrepreneurs who burned millions and ended up broke, because they had either a dumb idea or none at all. But you can get a good idea going on Wordpress and Twitter for nothing.

During the dot-com fever days I spent a lot of time consulting with people who announced they were going to build a "killer website" and get rich, but intended to outsource everything, especially the key ideas that drove their business. Most were spectacular failures.

Have the idea first. And, no, you can't outsource that.

84fiero

Some of the better blogs I follow (not just travel) have other parts of their business besides the blog - could be books, seminars, photo print sales, etc., etc. Think first about your overall business model and strategy - is it really just about having a blog or will there be more? (And the "more" may come gradually)

A blog is a tool, not a business model. I totally agree with the others that it's content, content, content - quality content at that. Even then there are no guarantees. As with many such ventures, expect to not make any money at first.

You have a passion for travel, but passion doesn't always equal profit. What is your unique perspective or niche that you will bring to the table? Figure that out first. good luck!

obscure2k

Please continue to follow this discussion in the External Miles and Points Resources Forum.
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Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

Renes Points

Here is my advice: http://deltapoints.boardingarea.com/...-writing-blog/

IMH

How many travel bloggers are "a lot"? You may be imagining that there are more successful travel bloggers than is in fact the case, or confusing miles-and-points-and-credit-cards bloggers with travel bloggers.

This thread from earlier this year is worth reading.