How to generate free traffic to your travel blog
This article will give you some great tips on how to generate free traffic to your travel blog to increase viewership. We have all heard the term “Content is King” and while surely true, you still need an audience first to view your content. In general, you should always use good practices in creating good content. SEO optimization, keyword research, page load speeds, and building quality backlink are a few of these good practices. However, these are ongoing practices you should always strive for to generate traffic to your travel blog or any website for that matter. In this article, I will focus on specific ways to promote your travel blog for a relatively immediate boost in traffic to your travel website or blog. It is important to note that although immediate, each will have a varying degree of success. Keep reading to find out which ones I recommend most.
General Practices
In general, you should always create and optimize your content with these things in mind. Each strategy on its own will need a separate guide. So I’ll just list the general principles without going into to much detail, as well as some helpful links.
SEO
Good SEO or Search Engine Optimization is optimizing your website to get better organic traffic from search engines like Google or Bing. The more your content is optimized for search engines the higher your website will rank in search engine results. Striving to be on the first page of Google should always be a goal to increase your website’s exposure for consistent organic traffic to your blog.
Here are some good Youtube channels to follow to learn more about SEO:
- Ahrefs – Is a popular SEO tool their channel shares great tutorials on SEO
- Neil Patel – Is an expert at marketing and his channel offers great SEO tutorials
- Brian Dean – Another great channel to follow for learning SEO
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. In addition to Amazon we are affiliates of other companies. See Affiliate Disclosure for more information.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research will give you a good idea of specific keywords to target for your blog post. Including keywords based on higher volume search terms can help you rank better in a particular topic. But you’ll also have to factor in competition in that related topic. This is where a good keyword search tool will come in handy. I am currently using Keyword Surfers free Google Chrome Extension. Brain form Backlinko.com has compiled this great list of Keyword Tools to increase traffic to your blog.
Optimizing Website Load Times
Having a fast loading website not only helps your Google ranking, but it is also a better experience for anyone who is visiting your website. If you are using a WordPress hosted website use a fast theme like Astra. Other things to consider are using a web hosting service with fast speeds. When I first created this website I used Bluehost, because it met my needs in terms of price and performance, however since it is shared hosting there are some drawbacks with speed. After a year at Bluehost I switch to a more dedicated and fast web host called Cloudways and I could not be happier with the performance. Kinsta is also a good choice if you are looking for one of the fastest wordpress tailored web host. There are numerous other ways to speed up your website like using image optimizers like Short Pixel, CDN Services, Cache Plug-Ins, Lazy Loaders, and more. If you are using a hosted version of WordPress check out this great list of plugins to help you speed up your travel website load times from Adam at Bloggingwizzard.
Building Quality Backlinks
So what is a backlink you might ask? A backlink is any website that links to your website as a standard web link. The rule of thumb is Google will rank your website higher in search results if other websites with high domain authority have backlinks to your website. In a nutshell, the more backlinks you have from websites with both good domain authority and relevance the better. You can get backlinks by guest posting, creating shareable infographics, and many other ways.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is a great way to drive traffic to your travel website if you are able to get the websites to backlink to your site. This is a great way to build backlinks if you are pitching websites with decent domain authority. You also obviously want to guest post to websites that are related to your website niche. Here’s a great Youtube Tutorial from Ahrefs.
Email List
Okay so obviously an email list without any email subscribers will not generate any traffic for you. The reason I am adding this is because one of the first things you should do is add an opt-in way for visitors to join your email newsletter. Give them a call to action that makes them want to join and start building an email list from the get go. This is a great way to inform your readers of new post to bring back visitors. Just keep the newsletters to intervals that are not too spammy. ConvertKit and Mailchimp, are quite popular with bloggers. They also offer a free trials to get you started.
Social Platforms
We have all probably heard this advice before. Share your post on your Social media channels. I agree we should share our content on these platforms as they will have an immediate impact in traffic. But how good will that traffic last, and how effective will these social sharing strategies be? Everyone’s outcome will be different because it depends on how many followers they have on the platforms they are promoting on and how engaged they are with the content they share.
Pinterest is a great way to drive traffic to your blog if used correctly. Thousands of pins are uploaded every day and repined to interest boards. Pinterest is like a visual search engine, so you have to make your pins stand out. Also pinning consistently improves your chances of getting your pins seen by more users.
This may sound time consuming and it is if done manually, but luckily there are tools now to make these task easier. Here are two tools I recommend.
Youtube should be an obvious choice as the internet has become more rich with visual content. Even though Youtube may not be the best way to get traffic to your blog fast, it should be a platform you should consider being on. You just have to be consistent with posting content and eventually you will gain followers. Get started by recording with your smartphone, constantly improve your videos, than work your way up with better gear. Trust me your content will get better with practice and learning.
The tiktok platform is much more than just a platform for viral dance videos. I noticed that tiktok is highly engaging across a wide range of audiences the minute I started using it. Tiktok offers a wide range of content, from travel to cooking to everything in between.As with any platform, it will take time to build a following and figure out how to use it. If done properly, tiktok and a link builder service like linktree of milkshake can drive some good traffic to your website.
There are plenty of subreddits you can join that are travel related. Just read the rules as linking to your travel website randomly is generally frowned upon. So only post when you can add value and it pertains to a specific topic. With that being said engage in the subreddits first and become part of the community.
Quora is a website where users ask and answer questions. So in general answer questions you are knowledgeable at, and if the question pertains to one of you blog post is is probably okay to include a link within your answer. You can also add a url to your travel website in your profile which can alternatively increase somer traffic.
There are two main ways to use Facebook to promote your blog. You can create a business page for your blog and you can also join groups that relate to your blog topic. I recommend doing both but using them in different ways.
Facebook Page:
Rather than just adding links to your blog post on your Facebook page, I recommend adding rich content like photos or videos with text copy to a minimum of 140 characters, this will also allow you to share the same post for Twitter.
Facebook Groups:
Join Facebook groups that are relevant to your website topic, be sure to read the group rules before posting. My suggestion is to interact with the groups first, like and comment on other peoples post first to get a feel of the community. Then if the groups you joined allow you to promote your content than do so. However, you will usually get more traffic if you are replying to a question and can refer them to one of your blog post that may answer their question.
Twitter like the other platforms requires followers. So for starts look for Travel bloggers more likely to follow you back. There are also a lot of Travel related retweet accounts with thousands of followers. Besides just posting tweets about blog post also post just pictures and share other things related to your niche that create interaction and retweets.
Mix.com is formerly StubleUpon, a website that allowed you to discover new websites by selecting topics and browsing thru their web portal. This new website is more visual and similar to Pinterest. It has a card type layout where you can create categories and then “mix” to those categories. Create categories and mix in your travel blog related post with post from other similar travel websites. This will keep your categories look and feel more organic and less spammy. While traffic generated from Mix is relatively low currently, it is an emerging platform and you could be one of the early adopters.
Feedly is a content aggregator. It allows users of it’s app to discover and consume content based on their interest. Buy adding a Feedly button to your website you increase your chances of readers coming back to your website. You can also request to have your blog featured, but this will require you to already have a follower base.
Like Feedly, Flipboard is another very popular content aggregator. Similarly, you can add a Flipboard Button on your website that allows people to share your content to their Flipboard. In addition, you can add your own website as a publisher if you meet their requirements.
Linkedin can be a good option to drive traffic to your blog, but keep in mind this will depend on your connections on Linkedin. Since Linkedin is tailored more toward business your travel destination post may not reap a lot of benefits. I would recommend sharing a post that is more business to business-friendly as it relates to travel.
Conclusion
Blogging, in general, is hard work especially if you want to stand out, and Travel blogging is a crowded market. But don’t let that discourage you. Building anything of quality takes effort, and the more you put effort into building a quality travel website the more benefits you will gain. Narrowing down what works for you may be different than what works for others. Try to focus in on who your target market is and think about how they might go about finding content like yours. This may give you a better idea of which platforms might be better suited for you to promote on.
Most people will quit after writing 10-15 blog post because they are discouraged they have little to no traffic.
Recommendations
For immediate traffic, my personal recommendation has to go to Pinterest because it’s easy to learn and get setup. Once you get a feel for it you can start generating some regular traffic after a couple of months. Especially if you are using tools like Canva and Tailwind to help you get better engagement. I spend around 2-3 hours a week designing pins and scheduling them with Tailwind as well as doing some manual pinning. The other reason I like Pinterest is because I feel like people that search on Pinterest are actually looking for Travel ideas.
Update: (Nov 28,2021) I just found this great new service called Minta that helps you create automated video pins in pinterest. They have a free account version and a paid pro version. I am honestly thinking of using the Pro Version of Minta, and may even switch from Tailwind to Minta, but we’ll see what happens as I need to do some more testing.
While guest posting and email list can also be quite effective they will take more time to see results. Guest posting will take time pitching ideas to websites and also writing guest post. The email list will take time growing and creating good email campaigns. Creating shareable infographics is also good but may require a little investment unless you are able to create them yourself, however they still require time pitching through emails. The benefits reaped from gaining backlinks can dramatically increase traffic in the long run.
If you have the time I think Youtube would be my third option for increasing your blog traffic. While it may take a while to build a decent following it will be well worth the effort.
The Tiktok platform is a great tool for increasing your website’s visibility. It is easy to use and I like how the algorithm works to get your tiktok videos seen immediately. Tiktok can be a great tool if you make consistent content. One of its advantages is that you can create content on this platform using your mobile phone.
All other Social Platforms. In my humble opinion I would only pick one or two of these other social platforms to promote your content. In all honesty they take a lot of time to grow compared to the rate of return for time spent. While you may get some immediate results they will most likely only bring you a handful of visitors each month. So I would use these platform sparingly as needed, and once you have tested out a few you like then think about tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, IFTTT, and Zapier you can use to automate the process of posting to many of these platforms.
How I would divide time spent of task
Good content, SEO, Backlinks, and other good practices will always be the real winner when building any website plain and simple. This should be your long term strategy you should always strive for. Ranking in Google will almost always bring you the most organic traffic. If you are using WordPress a great plug-in that helps you write articles with good SEO is Rankmath.
Unfortunately, there are no real shortcuts to success and there is no magic button that will give you tens of thousands of consistent monthly visitors instantaneously. I’m not saying that you won’t be able to get upward to 20-30 thousand visitors after 3-6 months. But that will depend on your content, the niche your articles are targeting and so many factors. In any regard keep posting consistently and keep learning good practices will help you increase traffic to your website.
Final Thoughts and Advice
Despite how cliche it sounds, the best advice that I have received is to never give up. As you write and update your blog more regularly, you will become more proficient at it and will be able to create better content more quickly. Most people think that creating a blog or website is simple and that you will have thousands of visitors per month. Despite this, it is very difficult to stand out among so many websites. This is the main reason most people stop writing and updating their blogs after a while. The same dilemma confronts me every day as new projects are spawned and life in general can keep me from writing or even creating content. Set realistic goals and then after you achieve the last goal, set an even higher goal. If you get burnt out take a break to recharge, but keep creating and learning and you will eventually succeed.
Table of Contents
