How to Start Your Own Travel Blog (Advanced Guide)

This article uses affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, I’ll get a small commission at no extra cost to you which helps me keep this little blog afloat. Thank you for your support!

If you’re planning on starting a successful travel blog, you might feel overwhelmed with all the steps you need to do. However, starting your own blog is actually pretty easy! If you follow this advanced step-by-step guide, you will have your travel blog up and running in no time. So let’s get started!

In a hurry? Pin this post for later!

Step 1: How Do I Choose the Perfect Blog Name?

The very first thing you need to do before starting your travel blog is finding a name for it. Let me give you a few things you need to take into account while choosing it.

1. Choose a name that represents you

What do you want to project about yourself? If your niche is travelling, you should consider having some travel-related words in your name such as wanderlust, discover, trip, wander, adventure, getaway, world, nomad, journey etc… However, keep in mind that your blog should be unique (just like you!) so maybe try to use something that will make you stand out and that represents you instead of the generic “nomadic traveler”. Mine is pretty self-explanatory, I am French and I love travelling. One is related to travel one is about who I am! You want to make sure your blog name is something easy to remember and straightforward so avoid adding random numbers, hyphens or symbols.

2. Check domain availability

Checking domain availability is very important because you don’t want to be confused with an already existing blog! You can check it by doing “myblogname.com” and by doing a quick Google search.

3. Check Social Media availability

If you want to market your new blog, you need to have a consistent name all around social media. You can check Knowem.com, to see if your desired name is available on all social networks. If not, pick a new one!

4. Do your research!

Always check on Google what comes up when you type your new blog name. You don’t want the name you’ve chosen to start your travel blog to have a double meaning and misrepresent you.

Step 2: How Do I Choose the Best Hosting Company for My Blog?

If you want to run your travel blog as more than a hobby, using a true hosting company is the best choice. Hosting is a space that you rent on the internet for your website. It stores all the data, documents, and photos for your blog and displays them when anyone types your domain name. I personally use and recommend Bluehost because it’s a well-known hosting company that is inexpensive and built for WordPress with a one-click install. They also offer 24-hour customer support and give you a free domain name! WordPress itself offers cheap domain hosting but the customization is pretty limited as well as the advertisement possibilities.

How to Sign Up

1/ You can sign up on Bluehost via my personal link where you get your hosting at €3.61/month instead of €7.30 because of Bluehost’s discount.

2/ Click on ‘Get Started Now’ and select your plan. If you are starting with a new travel blog, I recommend the basic one. You can always upgrade as you grow your audience and your hosting needs.

3/ Put your blog domain name in the left box and then click ‘next’ (only use the right box if you have registered a domain already). You also need to choose a domain extension. The standard .com is always a good idea 🙂

4/ Then you have to fill in your contact details and choose your account plan. I would recommend choosing the 36-month package not only because it gets you the lowest monthly rate but because it will give you the motivation to work on your blog for more than a year!

5/ Finally, you have to insert your payment information, choose a password and you are all set!

Step 3: How Do I Install WordPress?

WordPress is the world’s largest publishing platform where you will be doing all of your blogging. Like I mentioned earlier, it is better to get a self-hosted WordPress site than just using WordPress on its own (it is more professional + you can use Google Analytics tracking and advertise).

From Bluehost, the option to install WordPress is directly available from the control panel once you log in. On the Bluehost‘s home screen you can directly click on the icon ‘Install WordPress’. After installation and login, you can access your WordPress dashboard where you will be doing all of your blogging. Now you’re ready to choose your theme and install some plugins!

Step 4: How Do I Pick the Perfect Theme for My WordPress Blog?

Once you have Bluehost and WordPress setup, you need to think about having a professional-looking blog. The first thing is choosing your theme.

A personalized theme will make you stand out from all the thousands of other travel blogs and will make you look very professional for brands who want to potentially work with you.

There are a lot of free themes available out there, but I personally went for Pipdig, a professional blog theme creator. They have a lot of sleek and beautiful blog themes, and their technical support team is really amazing.

I would advise you to go for a free one at the beginning though because your style might change and it is better to give yourself a few months to be sure about the looks of your blog before splurging for a theme you have to pay for (I started with a free theme before going for Pipdig).

The most important thing to keep in mind when choosing a theme: it has to be responsive. This means that it will automatically adjust to the device the reader is using (phone, computer, tablet, etc.) You also need to think about the content of your blog (will you be posting more photos? or writing a lot?) Depending on this you have to choose your theme accordingly because it has to fit your blogging style and enhance your blog features. Make also sure that your theme doesn’t affect the loading speed of your site too much. It still needs to load fast enough or Google can mark your site down for that.

Step 5: How Do I Set up My Graphic Charter & Blog Structure?

If you are serious about starting a travel blog, you need to think about your brand. This means having a visual identity not only for your blog but all across social media.

Graphic Charter

A graphic charter defines your visual identity and style on the internet. It includes your logo, the fonts you use on your blog, and your color palette. You should think about creating a professional logo that represents you and sticking to the same color palette throughout your blog and social media. This will make your brand recognizable!

Blog Structure

Thinking about your blog structure is something often overlooked upon. You need to have a blog that is easy to navigate (so not a lot of sub-tabs and categories) and that shows your uniqueness. For example, will you write a lot of travel guides? Do you want to have photo diaries? Travel tips? Think about what you want to put in your menu and how you want your blog to look like.

Step 6: How Do I Install Plugins for WordPress?

There are a lot of useful WordPress plugins (they are like additional features you put on your website) and you can find below some plugins (free and paid) that are useful to add to your blog:

• Akismet Anti Spam – protects your blog from comment spammers.
• Broken Link Checker – checks your blog for broken links and missing images and notifies you if any are found.
• WP Rocket – cache plugin ensuring that your website will load fast.
• Envira Gallery – gallery plugin with a drag and drop builder that allows you to add any type of photo gallery to your posts.
• Imagify – reduces file sizes for images so your site loads faster and uses less bandwidth.
• Redirection – manages all your 301 redirects and monitors 404 errors.
• Yoast SEO – provides help with SEO content optimization such as recommendations regarding given keywords.
• Sucuri Security – security plugin protecting your website from attacks.

Step 7: How Do I Start Blogging?

Once you have everything set up, you need to create content! The first thing you should write is an “About Me” page. It is a page that all your readers will likely go to if they like your posts. You need to let your readers know who you are, what makes this blog different and why they should continue reading your posts! It is important to make a connection with your readers so do not overlook this page and take the time to write your story.

You also should think about how to write decently enough so your readers want to come back. Having spelling mistakes or bad grammar won’t make you look professional, especially if your blog is full of them. I have the bad habit of not reading my posts enough once done and have a grammar software is a lifesaver for me! I have Grammarly which is an extension you can add directly to your webpage and it will check for grammatical and spelling errors.

Before starting your travel blog, I will advise you to write at least 3 blog posts (more or less) so you have enough content to keep any reader engaged. Create useful and curated posts that show your writing personality and that you think will be useful to read in the travel community. You can write travel guides, photography tips and tricks, travel itineraries, top 10 things to do in a specific country and much more. Let your imagination flow and create your first blog posts!

Step 8: How Do I Work on SEO for My Blog?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the practice of persuading search engines (like Google) to recommend your content organically to their users in order to bring quantity (and quality) of traffic to your website. To make it a little more clear, organic search traffic is the unpaid traffic that comes from SERPs (SERPs are the pages displayed by search engines in response to a query).

The process of getting traffic from organic search results on search engines is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). For example, if you have your blog post about “travelling around France on a budget” on Google’s first result page for searches about “travelling+France+limited+budget”, it will definitely boost your visibility and readership on your blog. How you get to the first page is determined by how you improve your SEO.

To work effectively on your SEO, the first thing you need to understand is what are potential readers looking for? What did they type in the search bar that led them to your content? You want to provide the best results when a user searches for something. Search engines all have a specific algorithm to provide the most helpful and relevant answer or solution to a query.

You need to find the phrases that readers search and create content that is answering this search. To do this, you have to do keyword research. Keyword research provides you with specific search data that help you figure out what are people searching for and how many are searching for the same information.

One this that is important to know as well, is to make your website user-friendly by creating a good navigation system for example. This is what is called technical SEO.

You can also use social media to do SEO! Social media can boost your website’s organic traffic. For example, if you share your blog posts on your social accounts, it can bring traffic to your site from a lot of different sources! Make sure you have at least a few social media accounts such as a Facebook page, an Instagram account, a Twitter account, a TikTok account, and, super important for blogging, a Pinterest account.

Pinning your blog posts on Pinterest helps increase your visibility tremendously! A good way to do that is to create a few images with overlay text on them about what is the blog post about and add them at the end of every post (and/or at the beginning). Your readers can ‘pin’ them on Pinterest and you can do that also every time you have a new article (you can see an example at the end and beginning of this article!) Once you have written a post, do not forget that you have to promote it!

Step 9: Where Do I Take a Blogging or Photography Course?

If you are a new blogger, there is a lot you can learn from taking a blogging course. There are a lot of things involved in blogging such as how to monetize your blog, work with brands or improve your SEO. Those courses are a perfect way to develop your blogging strategy skills. It took me a while to pick up necessary skills such as photo editing, social media management, and graphic design but taking a few courses will take away the hassle of learning everything by yourself.

The best platform to learn new skills as always been Skillshare for me. It is a learning platform with incredible online classes that can teach you anything from creative writing, web development to photography, and even graphic design. If you sign up with this link you can get a free trial, so try it out!

Step 10: How Do I Network With Other Bloggers?

By networking with bloggers in your field you not only get new amazing friends but also a great way of promoting your blog! You can team up with them to promote each other blog posts, show support by sharing and commenting, etc. Being active in the blogging community helps a lot. There are a lot of Facebook groups related to travel blogging/photography you can join them to meet people in your field. I personally met a lot of amazing people via my Instagram as well!

Step 11: Should I Blog Regularly?

If you are a new blogger, you should try to write as much as you can to develop your content (but do not forget to create quality content. Don’t post just to post). You should set up a blogging schedule and be consistent with it. Would publishing once a week work for you? If you have a full-time job like I do, maybe you can only post a few times a month. I personally want to post well crafted and researched articles less often than short and mediocre articles. Quality is more important than quantity!

It takes time to build an audience. Don’t expect your blog to get crazy traffic in the first few months. You need to be patient, dedicated, and passionate. As you create more content and improve your SEO, the readership will come organically.

Good luck with starting your travel blog! I really hope my guide was useful to you. If you have any questions about blogging or setting up your blog please do not hesitate to contact me in the comments below!

Want to step up your photography game? Check out my gear below: