How to start a travel blog from scratch in 2024
2024 has been a chaotic year for travel bloggers, with many getting slammed by Google updates. But, travel blogging isn’t dead. Here’s how (and why) to start a travel blog right now.
1. Choosing a platform
Most of the articles you read about starting a new travel blog are going to guide you towards Wordpress, for no other reason than that’s how bloggers have traditionally created sites.
I have many thoughts and feelings about this, which can basically be boiled down to — there is no need to do exactly what everyone else is doing. There are many successful travel bloggers with Wordpress sites, but there are also many with travel blogs on Squarespace (including me).
I advocate for Squarespace for a few key reasons:
It’s really easy to get started, without needing to have prior website building or coding experience.
The whole process, of setting up a domain name and template is straightforward. No need to worry about the plug ins, hosting, and other dramas of Wordpress.
To get a travel blog off the ground, you want your main focus to be on writing and publising as much content as you can. With Squarespace, you won’t have to worry about learning all the technical details and get jump straight into writing.
Wordpress comes with a steep learning curve.
2. Choosing your name and branding
Choosing a blog name doesn’t have to be super complicated. Mine is just my name.
There are other elements involved in growing your brand, like choosing colours and fonts.
Here are a couple of helpful resources:
Domains.squarespace to check if your domain name is available
3. Creating a content plan
Before launching your blog, you should map out a rough content plan with at least 20 ideas from posts.
As with every other part of blogging, your content strategy will probably change over time.
In the beginning, I went after low hanging fruit keywords that I knew I had a good chance of ranking for.
As my site grew, I changed tactics and now I focus on more competitive keywords but ones that are more valuable, both in terms of income from ads and in terms of what I can offer my readers.
A checklist once your site is live
Set up Google Search Console
Submit your sitemap
Set up a dashboard on a free tool, like Ahrefs, where you can do regular site audits and track some of your progress
The final step: Wait
It takes a while before you’ll start to see traction in search.
You might start to see impressions rise within a few weeks, but it might take months before you get regular clicks through to your blog.
This is often the hardest part of blogging, as you pour so much effort into something without knowing if it will pay off.
My final advice to you, though, is to keep taking consistent action.
If you keep writing and publishing content to your blog, you will refine your voice, your website design skills, learn more about what works in SEO, and get a better idea of what you enjoy doing.
Effort compounds, so remember that while it can be painfully slow in the beginning, if you keep taking consistent action eventually you will make progress.
If you found this helpful, you might also like to take a peek at my other tips on blogging on Squarespace:
