Monetizing a travel blog with 10k Per Month traffic

by Wyrd
12 replies
Hey there

I have been runnning and building up a travel blog over the last year and a half, I focus mainly on budget,backpacking and adventure travel and have over 100 posts. I get around 10k monthly pageviews with 2.3k Uniques with over 83% of my traffic being organic. Most of my viewers are people looking 18-35 in the US looking to plan a backpacking/adventure trip.

I have a couple of posts with amazon affiliate links in them that generate about $5 on average a month in total, and I have tried running a adsense on the site however after a couple of weeks I haven't gotten any clicks and only generated 4c.

I am currently travelling around and it's my dream to be able to earn money as a digital nomad and travel around the world working from my laptop. I currently make a little bit of money from doing sponsored ad link posts here and there but no real consistant income.

If anyone has any advice on what I could do to monetize this traffic I would really appreciate it. I was thinking maybe I could try to choose a few products that I think my viewers would really be interested in and putting up ads to that page on my site and trying to funnel a lot of traffic to that page where I have a bunch of affiliate items for sale? Any advice would be really really appreciated.
#10k #blog #monetizing #month #traffic #travel
  • Profile picture of the author dvduval
    The first thing I would say is keep doing what you are doing. Keep building the content as you are on the right track. Don't get involved in too much link building or SEO stuff that might get you in trouble with google. Just keep doing things that appeal to real people. Maybe expand your social presence. Maybe join some travel forums and where appropriate share a link with others.

    The traffic is probably not enough to make a significant increase yet, but if you can get more like 200+ uniques per day that is "starting" to be something, and 500+ you should be able to make a few hundred or more in a month.

    Ideas you might also consider would be allowing people to become premium users in some way where they can see more video tours or travel tips, or something like that.

    Just don't get caught up in SEO hype. That can ruin your google traffic quickly. Over time you will get there, so keep adding content and making better, and tell people about it every opportunity you get.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rok Solid
    Hey Wyrd

    Try contacting travel agencies, car rental companies, cruise lines and anyone else whose product/services would be relevant to your audience and rent them banner ad space.

    If you don't want to manage this yourself you can check out sites like buysellads.com and sign up as a publisher. Of course they will take a cut of revenue.

    Hope that helps
    Ricky
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    • Profile picture of the author Wyrd
      eklipz316 I only have a couple at the moment, I guess your right I should try to broaden it to a lot more. I just need to do some keyword research on travel items that aren't that highly contested and get a fair amount of searches and write about them I guess.

      I just have to be careful I guess having my entire blog stream full of affiliate posts, I guess if I space them out it would be fine
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      • Profile picture of the author Wyrd
        that's a good idea Tyler Pratt I have an email sign up on my site through mailchimp, But as I don't have any real incentive to sign up to it I have got barely any subscribers
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  • Profile picture of the author eklipz316
    How many posts do you have with Amazon affiliate links in them? If it's only a few, I'd try to broaden this strategy and start adding more amazon links throughout your articles and website and see how it does. Making $5/month with only a couple Amazon links is pretty good and you should be able to make quite a bit more by increasing the number of links you're promoting.

    Also, try using Twitter if you're not already. This can boost your traffic from direct clicks alone and does a lot of help SEO rankings.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tyler Pratt
      Start building a list ASAP.

      Create a report to give away, then create another ebook to sell.

      Make money selling the ebook to your list.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wyrd
    Thanks dvduval and Rok Solid for the advice, I am continuing to build my social media presence, on twitter,FB and Pinterest, to help draw in more traffic, and build up my twitter following. That's a great idea for hitting up travel companies and thanks so much for that link I never knew sites like that existed.

    dvduval when you say if I get more uniques I could make a few hundred a month, where would that revenue come from? adsense? or somewhere else
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  • Profile picture of the author Rok Solid
    That's why we're here bro

    To add to Tyler's suggestion.. just put together a "Top 10 Tips for ..." report using either info you already have or some Google searches.

    To increase sign ups add an ebook cover. You can hire someone on Fiverr.com to make one or create a nice looking one for free at myecovermaker.com.

    Also add the optin box within the post. If you're using Wordpress then I'd suggest the free Magic Action Box plugin. It looks much better than the generic opt in boxes most autoresponder services give you and allows you to add your shiny new ecover within it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wyrd
    Thanks Rok Solid, Great advice, Designing an Ebook cover should be easy as I come from a background in art/animation for video games I'm pretty handy in photoshop

    I'll keep plugging away at the blog but guess its going to take a fair while to make enough income off it to really sustain myself while on the road.

    But guess when it comes to online revenue a travel blog isn't the fastest or most lucrative haha
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Wyrd,

      As others have suggested, the building of your list should be a high priority. When your list increases a little, I would start nurturing it by talking to your subscribers and asking them the types of products/services that need help with. Give your subscribers quality material and make their experience on your web site a memorable one.

      I think you need to have your own products either created by you or someone who is an expert in the field. Revenue from advertising is one way to monetize but often it brings significantly less revenue than selling your own niche products which you create once and sell over and over and over again. Yes, I'm talking about information products. Your niche is one that fits the info product approach very well.

      The very best to you,

      Steve
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  • The most effect way to monetize is to contact local businesses with no website and propose to place their banner on your website for increase business. Beauty salons are great because females are the biggest consumers. Beauty and Travel go together...
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  • Profile picture of the author DiggitySEO
    Fully agree with Tyler and Rock Solid. A list is going to be the best way to get things cookin. I used to own a travel based website for yoga enthusiasts. The money never started to flow until I created a list.

    My bait was a simple guide on how to get the most out of a yoga retreat. Conversion was great. Monetization occurred from travel package deals from Expedia and yoga retreats that I'd directly partner with.

    Some ideas to think about.
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