How I’m Growing My Travel Blog Traffic (& How You Can, Too!)

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Back in November 0f 2016, I quit a job that was too stressful for me and moved to a new state closer to home. As I was searching for a different path, I created this blog – Dates in the States. I initially created it to document our trips and dates. However, monetizing was also in the back of my mind. Fast forward to now, May of 2018, and I am constantly finding new and exciting ways for growing my travel blog traffic while (still) learning how to monetize.

How I’m Growing My Travel Blog Traffic (& How You Can, Too!)

There are many websites and bloggers out there that teach and show you the ways they are growing their travel blog traffic – trust me, I’ve seen them all! What I’ve noticed is, just about every person out there has a different method because not any one method works for any one person. It’s true. So, even though I’m giving you this step by step guide as to how I’m growing my travel blog traffic, the same may not work for you. So, you must learn to tweak it to fit your needs just as I’ve tweaked others to make it work for me.

Dates in the States is our blog that chronicles the lives of us as a couple traveling the United States on a budget. So far this year of 2018, I’ve been working really hard to grow my blog and taking a break from traveling in order to do so. I also still have my day job, which is another reason for the break from traveling.

This year alone, our travel blog traffic has increased by about 190% according to Google Analytics. That is a major milestone for us! To top it off, our social media following is growing steadily everyday.

It’s a Lovely Life’s “Start a Money Making Blog” Class:

To jump start growing my travel blog traffic, I participated in It’s a Lovely Life’s “Start a Money Making Blog” class. (Read more on my previous blog post review of the class here). It was very educational and gave me a lot of great resources. I just finished their April Blogging Fast Track Course and it was mind-blowing. My travel blog traffic has increased dramatically since participating in the class, but I have yet to monetize. I feel the reason my traffic has increased is because, not only do they make you participate in their Facebook Sharing groups, but they give you an understanding of some great platforms to utilize. The Facebook sharing groups are a fantastic resource because every blogger that paid for the course is taking part in the daily exercises assigned in the class and the Facebook groups. These exercises include some things like: sharing your latest Twitter post, or your latest blog post, follow and comment on everyone that shares. If interested, click here for direct access.

Squirrly

Recently I discovered Squirrly. Squirrly is a tool/plugin on WordPress that helps you write content that is SEO friendly.  I know when I first started blogging, I thought SEO would come naturally. Well, newsflash – it didn’t. SEO requires research in order for you to pick the correct keywords that people will be searching for. Not only do you need to do research for the keywords, but you must know where in your blog post to put these keywords. It can get very complicated. Squirrly however, does the majority of that hard work for you. Actually, as I’m typing this, Squirrly is coaching me through it. Best of all, it’s free! If interested, click here for direct access.

Tailwind

Tailwind is a service I discovered while taking the “Start a Money Making Blog” class. Besides the sharing groups from the class, Tailwind has been my other major source of traffic. Tailwind is a scheduler for Pinterest and Instagram. I use it for the Pinterest side of things as Instagram is an additional fee. Tailwind determines the best times for engagement and chooses when to post for you. So, all you need to do is just upload your content and Tailwind pretty much does the rest for you. Tailwind Tribes are also another great resource when it comes to traffic. You can join these tribes or “groups” with like-minded people who will post your content while you also have the choice to post theirs. Tailwind has a great trial for free before you decide to pay. If you are anything like me, at the end of the trial you will see the increase in traffic and know it’s worth the money to continue.

Side note: Growing your Pinterest is very important. Pinterest isn’t a social media platform, it is a search engine! With the right tools, you can get a 35k engagement or more as I do every week.

Email Lists

I wish I realized this when I first started in 2016 – Email lists are VERY important. Your email list should be your number one source of traffic. Unlike social media, you own your subscribers. Social media followers can ignore or unfollow you at any time. Most of the followers on social media you don’t even know if they’re real! However, your email subscribers are dedicated fans because they took the time to sign up. If I give out my email, it’s like giving out my phone number. I must trust and be interested in that person or service to give it out. Your email subscribers are also more likely to engage in what you post or email them whether it’s offers, affiliates, new blog posts, etc. The key to gaining more subscribers, is to have a catchy opt-in or incentive. People aren’t just going to subscribe if they don’t think they’re going to get anything out of it. Offer free printables or checklists, free ebooks…the ideas are endless! I use Madmimi because it’s cheaper, but other services that are easy to use are MailChimp or Constant Contact.

Business Cards

I know this is so old school, but business cards should be a must have for every blogger. It’s so nice to be able to speak with someone about the blog and then just hand them a business card telling them to check it out. I’ve given them out to UBER drivers, waiters and waitresses, tour guides, event attendees, and even people sitting next to me at the bar! That little piece of paper may seem insignificant, but they will eventually look at it and remember you and want to visit your site. With our blog, we attend a lot of events and tours and I couldn’t network without a business card. I make these business cards myself with Microsoft Word – and you can, too! Or there are plenty of paid services you can order them from.

Conferences

I’m only going to briefly touch on the conference idea, because personally I haven’t attended one yet. However, I am attending my first one in May 2019. I officially received my ticket for the Women in Travel Summit that will be taking place in Portland, Maine. Conferences are a great way to network with other influences, creators, and brands. I will let you know how it is next year!

Social Media

As you can see, social media is on the bottom of the list. This isn’t because it’s not effective, it is effective in many ways. It’s the fact that, social media isn’t the primary way to get people to click on your links. Many people follow others on social media for their pretty photos, not their physical website. Yes, brands do look for high social media followings, but your content and photos should trump that. If you have great content, offer something to your readers, and follow the options I’ve told you – your travel blog traffic will flourish.

Side note: My social media following is growing and that is highly due to the fact that I schedule just about everything a week in advance. This saves me so much time and I can make sure something gets posted everyday to keep peoples interests.

A few platforms I use to schedule posts:

Tailwind (for Pinterest as noted above)

Later (for Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter): I mainly use Later to schedule Instagram posts, but from time to time I will use it for Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook Scheduler: Facebook has an option when making a post to schedule it, so I use this to my full advantage on top of Later.

Revive Old Posts: This is a handy plug-in for WordPress which shares your old blog posts to Twitter. This is how I gain decent traffic on my old blog posts that I’ve forgotten about.

 

Like what you’ve read? Sign up for our email list to receive information for how we travel on a budget! You will also receive information on how we travel and attend events for FREE! As a limited time promotion, you will receive a link to our perfect email pitch to send to travel agents, event managers, restaurants, and so much more so you can receive these perks, too!

Can’t wait to talk to you soon!

Thanks for reading,