How to monetise your Travel Website or Blog

If you’re reading this, it’s because you’ve poured your heart and soul into your travel website and it’s finally starting to pay off. You’ve managed the SEO, written the perfect content, designed each page beautifully and you’re finally getting some traction. However, now you want to know how to actually earn money from your travel blog. Well, you’re in luck because we have 5 sure-fire ways to help you monetise your travel website and start earning some real money for all that time and effort you’ve put in. 

1. Contextual Advertising 

If you read a lot of successful travel blogs, chances are 9/10 of them are using contextual advertising. This is one of the most popular ways to monetise your travel website as it’s extremely easy to do. Basically, you use a “middle-man” advertising network such as Google AdSense, Media.net or RevContent, and allow them to place their client’s ads on your website. All you need to do is place a generated code into your website and they will generate the graphics for you. The pros of using contextual advertising are that you can earn money per click without having to actively do anything and you don’t need to create any content or graphics yourself. The downside to contextual advertising is that you will need to play around with the placement of the ads on your site to get the most visibility and clicks, you can’t control what they choose to advertise and you only get a tiny portion of the income generated from the ads.

2. Direct Advertising

This is one of the most profitable ways to earn money from your travel blog, but it’s also one of the most difficult. Basically, for direct advertising, you reach out to companies and sell spaces on your site for them to place their adverts. However, this is only an option if you have a travel website that is extremely successful and has a lot of traffic. For example, if you run an outdoor adventure travel website, you may want to reach out to companies that sell hiking equipment or specialised boots, as they will likely be successful in selling to your audience. If you choose to try and monetise your travel website through direct advertising, be sure to create a really attractive media kit, create a landing page for potential advertisers on your site and reach out to companies that will work with your niche audience. 

3. Affiliate Marketing

This is a great option if you’re a new travel writer and have just recently established your site. Affiliate marketing is an easy and passive way to earn money from your travel blog. All you need to do is find an affiliate program and then add the link to that specific company or product to your blog post. Each time someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you earn a percentage of that sale. There are countless affiliate programs out there, so you’re sure to find one that your specific audience will be interested in. For example, Booking.com, Welcome Pickups, Amazon, and Lonely Planet. You can read more about how travel affiliate programs work here.

4. Selling a Product or Service

Affiliate marketing is great if you don’t have a product of your own to sell. However, if you do have a product or service to offer your audience, you can use your travel website to market it. Some popular choices to sell are travel merchandise (such as backpacks, passport holders or scarves), travel advice based e-books, and if you’re photography minded, preset packs. If your product or service really takes off, this can truly become a full-time business and generate a lot of income from your travel website. However, if you choose to sell a physical product rather than a digital one, packaging and posting the items can take up a lot of time. 

5. Sponsored Content

One of the oldest tried and true ways to monetise your travel blog is to write sponsored posts. As these posts will need to include quality backlinks, how much money you make doesn’t just count on the traffic you have on your site. People looking to pay you for a sponsored post will also look at your Domain Authority rank and the SEO score of your domain based on their desired audience. You simply need to write a post or receive a “guest post” from the company and then link that blog post to their site or product. The payment for this kind of work will be agreed upon before you publish the post and will be a one-off payment. 

Whether you’re ready to sell a product, place adverts on your site or write some sponsored content, these 5 tried and tested ways to make money from your travel website will generate a new income stream for you in no time.

 

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