As you know if you read ‘About me’ I have travelled all my life thanks to my dad who worked for an airline. Then I fell into travel writing and wrote a number of travel guides. To sell my travel guides and to provide information on working holidays I created a website. To be honest, I have had a website for about 25 years and I have seen how websites have morphed from being a link to your business to now being your business. And all businesses need to make money so they can continue to offer goods and services to make money. My business is travel writing. Even though travel writing still exists it has morphed into travel blogging. Like many other travel bloggers I make my money online by monetising my website. If you are an aspiring blogger or have been in the game for a while and are looking to monetize your website here are eight ways to monetise your blog to make money.  

READ MORE: How To Start a Travel Blog for Beginners

Create and Sell Your Own Products

The initial way I made money online as a travel blogger was by selling my own products which were travel guides. By the time I got a website I had two printed travel guides already in the market place. So that really helped! As I wrote more travel guides these were added to my website and I must say I sold many travel guides this way. Then as more people embraced the internet and created websites more information became readily available, and for free. Plus ebooks arrived. So even though I still have my travel guides available as printed books they are now mostly ebooks. This makes my life so much easier as I don’t have to go to the post office on a daily basis now to post books as they can now be downloaded instantly after payment. So if you have an idea for a book, turn it into an ebook, create a website or blog and hopefully make loads of sales. But books aren’t the only product you can sell there are plenty of things you may have created – t-shirts and jewellery to name a couple. 

Sell Other People’s Products

Selling other people’s products is another way travel bloggers monetise their website/s to make money. Other products could be other bloggers services like a Travel Blogging Course. Many join the Amazon Associates program and make commission when they sell a product. One of the ways to sell the products is to do a product review. Here’s a review I did on packing cubes so you can see what I mean.

Have Ads from an Ad Network

The second way I made money as a travel blogger was to join an ad network and have ads on my site. Basically, when you sign up with these ad networks, they give you access to creative code for ads that you can put on your website or blog. When visitors to your site click through these ads you are paid a commission. So the more traffic to your site, the more you should get paid because more visitors will hopefully be clicking on the ads. However, you don’t want too many visitors leaving your site straight away through an ad because you want them to stay on your site to see what you are offering. Current ad networks include Google Adsense, Ezoic, AdThrive and Mediavine. Mediavine do require you have 50k sessions/month to qualify so if you want to make money having an ad network on your site you might want to start with Google Adsense.

Affiliate Sales

Affiliate sales are great for beginners and long-term travel bloggers because most of the hard work is done for you. You simply join an affiliate program, get links to the program and put them on your website and in your travel posts. Then, when people click on the link and make a purchase of the product or service you will receive a commission. Sounds easy, but just having the links on your site are not enough, you do need to sell the product or service. There are a number of ways to do this but it depends on the type of product or service. So if you have linked to a travel gear store you might want to write buying guides for products, like best backpacks to travel with. Or if you have joined an accommodation affiliate program you could write accommodation reviews with links to specific hotels. Making affiliate sales is a good way to make money as a travel blogger and one that many travel bloggers use.

Launch a Course or Become a Private Coach

Many successful travel bloggers have launched a course on their area of expertise, from starting a blog, to pitching brands, to creating Pins and Facebook Ads. So if you have an area of expertise, you can sell your knowledge online. Sell the course directly through your website or blog or you can sell it on popular programs such as Thinkific, Udemy and Teachable. As I am a travel writer I have created a course ‘How To Be A Travel Writer’. I make a fair amount of money from helping people begin their travel writing journey. Some people who specialise in a specific skill can become a private coach and help beginners with their journey. I could easily coach another travel writer, one on one, until they feel confident to write on their own.

Sponsored Posts and Content

Travel Bloggers can get paid to work with brands. Basically brands will sponsor you, paying for airfares, accommodation, free samples of their product for you to use and try and in return you will write content and promote it on your site and social media channels. To find such work you either put in a proposal to a brand you want to work with or if you have a large social media following the brand might find you. Whether you choose to collaborate is up to you. It will depend on where you are going with your blog. Every blogger is different. Some love writing for brands while others just want to concentrate on their own brand and make an income from other ways, like those mentioned in this post.

Create Content for Other Bloggers

Not every blogger has time to write their own content and often have ‘guest writers’ or pay for content. I have used one particular lady on Fiverr to write content for me. She has been a great help and has taken the pressure off myself to produce content. So setting yourself up on Fiverr to offer content for other bloggers can be very lucrative, particularly when you are requested on a regular basis to provide content. Many advertise their services on Facebook pages or set up a profile on platforms such as Upwork or Fiverr.

Drop Ship

I had never heard of drop shipping until recently. One of the biggest drop shipping organisations is Alidropship. So how does drop shipping work? Basically you decide what you are going to sell first. I will use a toiletry bag as an example. The toiletry bag may cost $5 to buy from Alidropship. I set up a shop on my website but decide to sell the toiletry bag at $20. When someone buys the toiletry bag through my site, I then order it through Alidropship at $5 and they process and supply the order. I have made $15 profit by selling the product in my store. There are plenty of items you can drop ship. From travel items to clothes to pet products.

Are You Ready to Make Money from Monetizing Your Blog

The next time you’re curious about how travel bloggers make money, refer to this list. My biggest tip for making money from your website is to concentrate on one thing at a time. If it doesn’t work out then try another. It is better to be an expert in one rather than mediocre at lots. You will make more money if you are an expert. The truth is, when you pursue your passion the money will come. If you find other ways to make money from your blog please include them in the comments below, myself and others would love to hear them.

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