When I tell people that I want to make it as a travel blogger, many still ask HOW. How would you live off it? How would you earn and pay bills? Well I am still asking these questions myself. I am still not making actual cash, but I did get a hotel stay for a review in the gorgeous Heritance Kandalama for example. I think that is a good start for where I am with my blog anyway. Slow and steady wins the race they say. I am still working on it and trying to dip my fingers in all the pies.
One of the things I thought might help me get some direction into HOW I could possibly monetise my travel blog was attending travel related conferences such as the World Travel Market, Blogtacular, Summer in the City by Youtube and Traverse. All were held in London. I went to their educational sessions and social media panels. I also read a lot of blogging websites and e-books such as Digital Nomad Wannabe. I learnt a lot from each and it's a matter of putting everything into motion to earn, which takes longer than you might think!
In this post, I want to share the things I have learnt from everything on all the possible ways to make money from blogging.
How to Monetise Your Travel Blog?
Method One for Making Money Blogging: Affiliate Links
Affiliate links are when you endorse a product or a service and add a link to them and getting a percentage. This is a very slow way, but it builds up over time. It is also known as passive income because you can make money without getting involved after posting about it. The percentage you get back can be between %2 to %8. There are many programs. Unfortunately, there is not only that for everything, so you might find yourself part of a few. I have an excel document to keep up with them! The ones I use are Amazon, Adobe, Booking.com, Itunes, Shop Style and Skim Link. If you want to find a specific one just look it up with the word Affiliate. If you want more information, watch the video below because it talks about this in details. Although it's mostly about Youtube, but all the information applies on blogging too!
Here are previous examples I have written with affiliate links that might give you some ideas:
- Santorini Hijab Friendly Look book
- The vlogging camera I swear by
- My travel tech kit
Method Two for Making Money Blogging: Brand Sponsorships
Brand sponsorships are great, but they are not easy to get especially when you are starting out, but once you have an established online presences you can start approaching brand you love or you might get lucky and be approached. The company will either pay you to represent/ mention/ use/ place/ model a product or sponsor a trip/ activity/ flight or stays. Brands usually collaborate with bloggers to reach to a new audience or to spread the awareness of their brand further. Sometimes the brand wants the information only shared as a blog post, sometimes a video and sometimes on social media. More information on how to work with brands as a blogger can be found here.
There are some companies that connect bloggers/instagramers/influencers with brands such as the Australian company Tribe. You will have to be approved though! This was recommended to me by Polka Dot Passport from personal experience. It's an app and I just started using it. Watch their video to know more. There are other companies that appeared when I looked up similar companies such as Revfluence.
Method Three for Making Money Blogging: Content Creation for others
Bloggers have trained themselves in so many skill sets and they are able to produce written and visual contents for their own blogs and others. For example, I do some freelance writing on the side and I get paid per article. There is a lot of hustling involved in this one. Sometimes you have to pitch yourself and tell the company you want to write for that you are a valuable influencer that will enhance their brand. Since I started my Youtube channel, I have had a few video making requests. Have you seen my video collaboration with Skyscanner?
Method Four for Making Money Blogging: Providing services/e-courses
When a blogger has an audience interested in something then it's only logical to create an e-course that satisfies the markets needs and bring in a steady income that will also be considered as passive income. here are a few examples of bloggers and vloggers that created e-courses that generate an income.
1- Normadic Mat and his various ecourses such as: travel blogging, travel vlogging and travel photography on the Super Star Blogging platform. I myself took the took the Art of Travel Vlogging e-course. I would only recommend it for complete beginners though.
2- Thomas Norman with his The Travel Video Academy
3- The Travel Hack and her Blogger course.
Method Five for Making Money Blogging: Selling merchandise
This has worked for some bloggers or vloggers where they collaborated to sell a product like (t-shirts etc) to generate some income. Examples of vloggers who have sold merchandise:
1- Mr.Ben Brown
2- Zoella
3- Psycho Traveller
I feel like this method requires a lot of work and someone to actually be in one location to package orders etc. I am all over the place for this to be an option for me, but it might work for you.
Method Six for Making Money Blogging: Writing and selling books
Blog posts are all written content, so it makes sense to turn that into an e-book. Especially if there is a a useful story or some valuable advice. If you are interested in this, I would recommend reading the book Authority by Nathan Barry. I really enjoyed reading the book and he is very encouraging. I haven't written an e-book yet though, but it is something I would love to do one day.
Method Seven for Making Money Blogging: Speaking engagements
Speakers get paid at conferences and if you have an inspiring story to tell you will be invited or you can just pitch yourself to be a speaker. If you are a blogger or a traveller there are plenty of events you can go to such as Blogtacular or Traverse.
As you can see most of these methods are even more work than just writing posts or making videos. Making an income is not straight forward, but some people love the challenge.
Another amazing source of information is Video Influencers' Youtube channel