As a blogger, I get asked how to set up different types of blogs but the most frequently asked for is help setting up a travel blog. Setting up a blog before you set off on your travels can be a great way of still connecting with the world and particularly with your friends and family while you are away. It provides a great way of mapping your journey by way of a written diary and of course pictures.
You will have to do the following:
• Pick a name
• Choose a platform
Picking a Name
There are lots of Travel Bloggers out there and some make a good living by travelling the world and writing about their exploits. However, I expect at this point in time, you are just thinking of it more as a travel log. Selecting your name is really important and here are a few tips:
• Keep it short
• Make sure it’s memorable
• Easy to spell
• Simple to share
• Avoid hyphens and numbers
• Don’t use over-used words
What’s The Purpose Of Your Travel?
As I said, there are some famous travel bloggers out there, so try to avoid repeating their names. Think about what best describes your blog. Is it the adventures, food or culture that you are looking forward to experiencing or something else?
• Where are you going?
• What do you want to write about?
• Who are you?
• What is your passion?
I suggest that you write everything down and start playing around with different word combinations. Get out the dictionary or thesaurus and ask your friends for advice and suggestions - it’s probable that they know you better than you know yourself. You’ll be surprised what you come up with when you give it some thought!
Try to be original and think long-term. You don’t want to be calling yourself Far East Jane if you are going to South America next time.
Great Travel Bloggers
The following have well read Travel Blogs:
Expert Vagabond
Savvy Backpacker
Never Ending Footsteps
Young Adventress
Indiana Jo
Travel Rants
Nomadic Matt
Europe A La Carte
Select A Name That Fits Your Personality
It can be difficult coming up with a name that is unique, but this element of the process is really important. There are lots of bloggers using the following:
• Global
• Nomad
• Adventurous
• Wander
• Journey
• Backpacker
• Travel, Traveller, Travelling
• Vagabond
It really is a good idea to give time to selecting the domain name for your travel blog, as you don’t want to be changing it at a later date. As with any company, branding is important.
Platform
You will need to find the best platform for your needs.
· Ease of use
· Customisation tools
· Caters to your level
· Budget
· Free or paid for site
· Earn money or a hobby?
Ask Yourself Lots of Questions
If you are not skilled in websites, you do want something that is relatively simple and straightforward to use. Ask yourself if you want your audience to read and then react to your posts and if so, your site must have customisation tools. As a website operator, what level are you at - a beginner or advanced?
Are you familiar with HTML or CSS? You must decide on how much you want to spend as naturally you should get more options, the more you spend. Do you want a free site? Some sites provide both free and paid services, which could come in very useful if your blog, which started out small turns into one that lots of people want to follow.
Keep Your Options Open
Remember, it may start out as a hobby but could turn into a real money-spinner, so that’s why it’s worth taking the time to set it up properly in the first place.
• Hostgator
• Blogger
• Tumblr
• Ghost
• Weebly
• Wix
• Squarespace
• Joomla
• Typepad
Once you have picked a name and a platform, it just requires the following:
• Pick a host
• Pick a theme and collect some plug-ins
• Embrace social media
• Write your first post
• Know to write about
These are all topics in themselves, so keep reading my future blogs to find out more.
Writing and Blogging regularly blogs for many clients in a variety of businesses and if you need help going forward, get in touch with annie@writingandblogging.co.uk or maybe you have decided to start your own personal blog and need to talk it through.