Blogging or making a blog is something which came into play after 2004 in India. Amit Aggarwal who is also known as a pioneer in Indian blogging has been a source of motivation for a number of bloggers in India including me. Amit Aggarwal can also be referred to as first professional blogger of India.
It’s been 1 year since I am blogging and in this journey of mine I have to learn a number of things like blogging, Facebook marketing, SEO etc. I started my journey of blogging from Google blogger from where I migrated to word press learning number of things.
But this article is not about sharing my journey but it’s all about how to earn from a Travel blog without investing any money.
So if you are free at home and want to earn a few dollars than this method can help you a lot.
Important Terms to Understand Before starting a free blog
Blogger – In common man language blogger is a platform owned by Google to publish blogs. The main advantage of Blogger is that it’s totally free of cost. The all you need is a simple G mail Id.
Advantages of using Blogger
- You don’t have to pay for hosting
- Unlimited space for images
- Numberless unique themes
- Can be customized by coding HTML or CSS
- You don’t have to pay a penny to start a blog.
How to start a free Blog?
I have read a number of blogs including the top blogs where the writer mentions that you need to invest for hosting, the domain name in order to set up a blog and then start earning from that.
I believe that’s totally a myth.
Starting a blog nowadays is totally free of cost. So if you are looking forward to starting a travel blog free of cost then just follow the steps listed below.
Creating a Blog for Free
- First and the foremost thing is to make a Gmail ID which I think everyone has.
- The next step is to login into Blogger.
- After logging in to your blogger account you have to choose a name for your blog. This name would look like Nativewalk.blogspot.com or any other name of your choice which is available.
So this was it now your blog has been created.
Selection of Free Theme
- When I started blogging in 2016 the only disadvantage of Blogger used to be the unprofessional themes. But now google blogger has been updated with a number of free themes which will make your website completely professional.
Choose your Niche
- The only thing I will suggest from my past experience is to start a travel blog with some focused Niche. Travelling is one of the diverse niches to start your blog.
- Travelling in itself is a diverse topic so it becomes necessary to choose what you need to write about travelling. It can Be BUDGET TRAVEL, CHEAP TRAVEL, ANY PARTICULAR LOCATION. For me, it was always clear to write only about Himachal. So you can say my Niche is Himachal Pradesh.
Write your first Article
- After you have created your website and selected your travel Niche the only thing left is to write a new guest post. That’s it your free Travel Blog is created and it is among the simplest ways to create a travel blog without investing money.
How to Earn from Travel Blogs
Google AdSense – It’s probably the best method to earn money online. It’s been one year and I have made around 1500$ from my google Adsense till now. The only thing you need is to set up a Google Adsense account.
Some people get very confused about how to set up an Adsense account but it’s not that hard. All you need a travel blog which is at least 6 months old if you are blogging through blogspot.com
But if you are blogging through a proper domain name like walkingwanderer.com and have created your site with few posts up then it Adsense account can be made within a week.
Myths to Be Broken
- If you have heard that the websites with nativewalk.blogspot.com kind of name can’t survive in the long run then you are absolutely wrong. I will give you an example of a website which have helped me a lot when I started blogging on Google Blogger.
- The name of the blog is Help Blogger, this is one of the most successful blogs out there on google.
- Do check this blog, analyze it and then think how and on what you want to start a blog.
How to make your travel blogs successful
Starting a travel blog is very easy, as I mentioned above, you don’t even need to spend a penny to start one. So what is a difficult part?
The difficult part of blogging is to make it successful, nowadays every single person wants to be a travel blogger as they really think that life of travel blogger is so cool. So if you have planned to launch your website please keep these things in mind to make it successful.
Perseverance
The most important thing to make your blogs successful is to write continuously. Fix a scheduled time and write every day. I myself started very eagerly with my blogs but with time I started to lose interest. So what I did was to fix a particular time in a day which I devoted only to writing.
One more reason to write continuously is that Google values content freshness or regular updates. So if you publish good content frequently it will surely help you in getting some great ranks on Google.
Get Some Ranks (SEO)
Seo is not black magic but its very simple science to learn. So never be afraid of this technical term. People say it’s very difficult to rank on google but if you ask me I would say it is the easiest thing to do around. When in Travel niche just stay true to the content you deliver.
Make your article rich with infographics, videos, images and make your website theme simple so that it can load lightning fast. That’s all you need to know when you are starting a new blog.
Once you start to get ranks in your niche, Its time to get some sponsors and earn some money. Getting sponsors can be difficult at times but just follow the simple strategy.
- Go for people who genuinely can benefit from your ranks, for example, if I rank for the keyword ” How to reach Manali” then at that point there is no point of contacting big travel giants and start selling their packages for commission. Instead, one should directly contact the local hotels and ask them how much they can pay you if you give them direct bookings.
- It’s just an example, you can try a number of things to earn money from your blogs.
Always Invest
The biggest mistake which I did was to end up partying with the money I earned. Now I sometimes think what if I would have invested some part of that money in revamping my website with some new ideas, I would have killed it but I didn’t.
So always keep this thing in mind that always invest some part of your earnings in your blogs and start coming up with new ideas. As in today’s world change is the new constant.
Review Things
Most of the things which I have listed here are from my own experiences. So when you start a travel blog always identify the business that will pay you in future. For example, you start with travel blogs related to Rajasthan, then start reviewing the properties around and once you start to make some presence on google believe me guys you will have no shortage of money.
So these are few tricks that will help you in making your free travel blog a success story, which most of the people think is a myth.
Is it late to start a free travel blog in 2020?
This same question used to come to my mind when I started my blogs. This question now seems very useless to me because I believe that blogging has its own forte and disadvantages. It can never be compared to vlogging.
If you know your niche and current digital marketing practices, you can make a hell lot of money from blogging.
I myself worked on blogs, developed few websites for people around me, worked as digital marketing manager while I was travelling. And all this was possible because I have been blogging and learning for years.
So to answer that question, I would say it’s the most perfect time to start with your travel blogs.
FAQs related to Free Travel Blogs
Is it a good idea to go for Free google blogger blogs or free WordPress blogs?
It totally depends on your choice. Both of these platforms are very good when it comes to free blogging. The only advantage of WordPress is that it has lovely themes, whereas google blogger as one great feature of letting you use the custom domain like walkingwanderer.com.
Which means you just have to buy a domain name from Godaddy or any other domain registrar and can use it on google blogger without paying for the hosting.
Rest you can try both the platforms for a few days and then make your final decision.
How to get views on your Travel blogs?
This is the most disturbing question in the initial days of your travel blogging. As I have myself faced this same problem.
During the initial days of my blogging, I used to ask my friends to share my content. It used to look very cheesy but still, the increasing count on pageviews used to make me happy. Later I started messaging some small pages on Facebook to share my article. Nearly 80% of people used to ignore my messages but still, there were 20% who used to love my content and shared it.
This way slowly my blogs grew and now recently they have touched one million pageview counts.
All my efforts paid but the most important thing which I learnt in this entire journey was to be true to your work. You need to be perseverant.
So this was a small guide on How to start a free travel blog and start earning from it. So if you guys still have any doubt regarding the blogs, WordPress, google blogger, google AdSense you can pin down your doubts in the comment section below. I will try to answer all your questions regarding your new website and Idea.