Travel Blogging isn’t easy but you can earn money at it. Of course, it’s not as easy or as fun as just taking a trip to PartyPoker.TV, but really most jobs aren’t. Travel Blogging, after all, is a job, the difference is that you are your own boss when you are a travel blogger.

Here are the ten best lessons I’ve learned:

1) Domains matter. SEO is not so much a science as a lot of guesswork. One thing I’ve learned is that no matter what anyone says, a domain that contains keywords about your topic makes a difference.
My domain for this site is exactly what it should be. The site is about World Travel as a Nomad. To shortcut your way to lots of traffic and pagerank, get a domain that sums up your topic. A unique short word might seem like a good idea but a better idea would be a longer domain full of keywords.

2. Tons of content and rich keywords. Most of the money I’ve made has been through having keywords that advertisers pay for, so while it might seem like a good idea to write about bums, bums don’t have money so a better keyword to use would be luxury watches or real estate investment. You can write these into your posts if you are creative. A solid word combo like holiday in Tenerife is much better than something like beer can.

3. Find a theme that suits your site. If you want to look like a circus or a flower shop, you will not have a great personal injury lawyer blog.

4. Maximize your use of plugins. Plugins add functionality to your site, they make it more user friendly, and sometimes they make your site look like garbage…be careful with this one.

5. To make money blogging you need to find a way to make money travel blogging. Research whether affiliates, contextual ads, or actual product sales are the best way for you to make money. If you have a site focused on crafts around the world site, you can probably sell craft supplies but you may not do so well with laptops and Kindles.

6. Add new content as often as possible. The more words and pages you have, the more content you have to sell. Each word is a potential big money maker for your blog. To make money blogging you need to be prolific and creative.

7. Bring traffic. No matter what they say about baseball fields, if you build a blog, they may not come. You need to find your readers and bring them to you. Become active in travel forums, participate on other travel blogs by commenting, guest blog, and if you have to, pay someone to bring you traffic through advertising, links, or reviews.

8. To make money travel blogging you need more than one person. A blog is about the people who write it and the people who read it. Never forget that when you write something you are making an agreement to the reader “I will write things you will enjoy reading, as long as you read it.” Break that agreement and you will lose readers. Period.

9. Travel Blogging is about people. If people want to read a technical manual about social engineering, they probably won’t go to a travel blog. People go to travel blogs because they are extensions of the people writing them. Don’t be scared to share the person you are with your readers.

10. Tricks and scams are short term ways to make money blogging. If you want to make money travel blogging consistently and for a long period of time, stay away from any sort of tricks and scams. Part of the reason people come to your travel blog is because they trust you, when you pull bullshit tricks and scams, you violate that trust. If you want to make money blogging, do it in a way you can feel good about. Maybe all those get rich quick schemers make money blogging about bullshit, but let’s face it, they all deserve to eat dirt.

My job is to look at travel blogs and travel web sites and I see the same two mistakes being made constantly by both old and new travel blogs.

I’d love to save you the same mistake. Since you have found your way here, chances are that you are serious about making money through travel blogging. You are actually taking the time to learn what mistakes others have made. Let me tell you about the first mistake I usually see and how it can hurt your making money on the web:

Mistake #1: No promotion. No social media. A Lonely Travel Blog.

People think that if they simply create a travel blog and start putting pretty pictures, travel tips, or other cool things on it people will find it and then they will earn money from it.

Sure, sites like LonelyPlanet or TripAdvisor do that and they make tons of money, but they also have a committed and motivated team that is filled with tech savvy, content savvy, marketing savvy people. Sorry, you aren’t Lonely Planet. LP is not just some guy reading the news and posting what he finds or taking pictures of the places he goes. The truth is the internet is littered with this kind of blog. I come across them all the time, I enjoy them sometimes, but not many of them make money. Sites like Bootsnall are the exception and not the rule.

Mistake #2. Refusing to let go.

Sometimes you make a mistake. The name of your travel blog, the concept, or your whole idea. But you can Host Unlimited Domains – 1 Account $6.95 Per Month- so don’t be afraid to experiment.

Let’s face it “Places I Pee” might sound funny over beers, but probably you won’t get a lot of people coming back to see it. In my first blog, I succeeded in creating a cool blog with lots of cool postings. I failed in that it had no focus, most of my content was lifted from news sites, readers didn’t know how to find me, and over the course of five years I ended up making a total of about $3500. Most of that came in the last six months I had the blog. You know why? Because I started paying attention to what worked and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t work – don’t be afraid to let it go whether it is an affiliate program, a column, or even the name of your travel blog.

Ultimately, I felt that holding on to my behemoth of a blog was actually going to hold me back from creating something that actually worked so I decided to let it go and shift my focus to Vagobond.com and then I began doing things the right way – and part of that was seeing when I was doing things wrong and letting them go. I’m certain that part of the reason I floundered with my first blog was because I refused to let go of my monster. Now I have.

Building a travel blog to make money with

And here we are. Possibly you already have a blog. Possibly you are reading this because you are going to build a blog. Either way, I recommend that you learn or refresh yourself with the basics. Before you do anything else, I recommend that you spend some time looking at great travel blogs. A good way to do that is to visit Vagobond Travel Media for hand curated winners from all over the web.

I hope this helps to save you from a couple of mistakes that can really cost you.