My wife and I ran a very successful travel blog for about 5 years doing all of our own writing and photography. We had an 85% success rate of hitting Page 1 for Google search results and were up to 250k monthly views with a rapid ascent. Then, the Sep 13 2023 Google HCU hit and basically leveled us overnight. In fact, we were part of a local blogging group in Vancouver and everyone we know was equally impacted - none are currently blogging despite countless efforts to fix it.

The big change seems to be what Google defined as the "Site Wide Indicator" which was supposed to separate AI drivel and unhelpful content from unique, helpful content. From what I can tell, it just propped up large entities like TripAdvisor and choked out independent bloggers. But I digress.

It has now been over a year and we still have not met anyone who was impacted by the Helpful Content Update but managed to recover. If anyone out there reading this shared this experience and found a path to recovery, please reply and even DM. My wife has moved on to other work but I am just not ready to let go just yet!

Hi! I recently became a travel advisor and started marketing myself on socials as both an advisor and creator. This week I’ve been researching travel blogging and I think I’d like to start a site ASAP and start writing as well as use it as a landing page for my travel advisor services. However all of my socials are under my name (ex: “travel with __” or “name.travel”).

Is anyone else in here also doing a mix of all 3 and do you have any advice on blog name and if I need to be using that name on my socials as well? If so, do you keep your name in it at all? I’m just trying to be smart about name recognition and am so confused on what is best for me to do. I’m still brainstorming blog name ideas but I want to figure these details out before I decide on one. TIA!

I have been running a successful travel blog for 12+ years. I have written over 900 articles myself and my husband manages the design. This was a 7 day a week job that we have put our entire life into for over a decade. All of our material is 100% original. We use no AI, no stock photos, no sponsored posts, etc. We pay for 100% of everything ourselves. We even moved over 15 times for the site.

Sometime around 2020, dozens of travel bloggers began basically stealing all of our article ideas and titles and publishing very crappy imitations. This really amped up in 2022-2024. These sites are often spammy and use no or all stock photos. It is very apparent that they have not even traveled to the places they are writing about which defeats the purpose of a travel blog. Basically it seems that they are using many of my creative article ideas and then basically copying text from multiple blogs or a site like Trip Advisor.

Since 2023, these articles are all ranking above mine in Google which is hilarious. We went from 400,000+ page views a month to around 5000. Our page views started dwindling down as these imposter articles went up. We began losing major traffic around fall of 2023 and slowly tanked to almost nothing today. I made my living off this blog and put my entire life into it. The funny thing is that articles which once ranked on page 1-2 (and some in zero position) on Google can now not even be found in Search. Even totally unrelated articles like "how to change your oil" will come up before my articles even though they all show indexed. I hope Google does not think that all the people that copied my article are the original content. Most of my articles that have been copied were written sometime between the range of 2011-2015 although they have been updated many times as I visit those locations again.

Not sure what is going on. Our bounce rate is decent (30%), Domain Authority ok at 40, and RPM 40-60.

Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on? These are well researched articles with tons of thought put in. The content quality is super high and all pictures original. Our site is not littered with ads and does not have any annoying pop ups or video ads. We don't do any SEO and just focus on writing quality articles. While we still rank pretty high in Bing and DuckDuckGo - it doesn't really matter as most people do not use those search engines.

Also, I have tested copying paragraphs from a few of my once popular posts and I find about 15 blogs that come up before me for my own post! I spend a lot of time writing outlines by hand on paper for each of my posts and people have the nerve to copy my text. Several sites have basically copied word for word 1 or more paragraphs and actually rank higher than me for my original article. One site even copied about 1000 words and even posted a tweet claiming it was their own info. This is really sad and pathetic.

I've tried starting different blogs over the years and I got tired of them quickly. I realized a while back that I just wasn't very passionate about. I went through all the ideas that I've had for blogs over the years and narrowed them down to a handful that I am very passionate about and which I could come up with 50 interesting blog posts immediately. I now have no idea which I want to focus on. I want to make this a sustainable business in the future, so I'm tending to shy away from anything budget travel related. I've run the gamut of travel budgets (except for super luxury). I've also solo traveled a lot and do a form of slow-ish travel. I also feel like I'm now in a phase where I just don't like to do museums or super touristy things. Any ideas or tips on picking between different niches.

Cross-posted. I'm very risk averse so I want to do everything by the book, but I want to get a realistic idea of how taxes and tax deductible expenses work with a travel blog. I know the IRS has to consider the blog a business vs. a hobby, but I feel like I haven't seen specifics about what I want to know. Does anybody have any good resources?

Hello All
My travel blog traffic grew drastically in October-December, holiday season. Now it has taken a mild hit and rising slowly. Plus, I played a lot with plugins to achieve a good score on Page Speed Insights. How are you all coping with Google's new algorithms update?

Hey everyone, I just came to the point where I started creating digital products related to traveling to implement a new income stream for my travel blog. The planned products will mostly be maps with marked locations, travel itineraries, travel-budget planners and so on.

The cheapest" way to do this for me is to implement the woocommerce on my blog and just sell it from my own store, but there are quite some tax-related complications if I want to do it correctly. That's why I'm thinking about a platform through which I would simply sell the product, and then issue an invoice to the platform who would pay me what I earned.

Are you already using a platform like that? Do you maybe have any suggestions on what to look at? I stumbled upon a platform named Rexby and NanoWhat. Does anyone have experience with them or some other suggestions what to look at?

Thank you

If you sell digital products on your blog/channels…what are some products that actually sell?

I feel like my feed these days is filled with bloggers/influencers selling “ways to make money by blogging/social/etc” ie teaching other bloggers how to blog.

There is nothing wrong with this, I just don’t want to go that route on my travel blogging journey. I know there are many ways to monetize, but I’m specifically wondering about digital products!

But what travel products actually sell and you think are worthwhile for your audience?

Just curious what others are doing!

I joined the Viator affiliate program a few months ago. I was accepted and have had a few bookings. I added my payment details today and now every time I log in, I get this message:

“Unfortunately, we are unable to proceed with your account for the Viator Partner Program at this time. Your interest is appreciated, and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Have I been kicked off of the program? Has anyone else ever experienced this? I can’t find a similar query online. Have sent them a message, but no response yet. :(

My friend has a photography instagram account where they post photos from different countries. Their photos are usually nature-related with others. Now they want to start posting travel reels and turn his account to a travel blog. So my question is what sounds do you recommend for those types of reels other than music. They don't want to use music. I was thinking maybe nature sounds like waves and wind but those are very limited. Maybe certain tiktok sounds with no music, but I am not very familiar with tiktok. So what do you recommend?

Over the past few years, I've noticed a frustrating trend. When I'm at home and geotag my city, my story views fluctuate between 250 and 500, depending on the time and content. But when I travel, the views can drop to as low as 50, typically averaging around 100. Considering I run a travel blog, my travel content is what my followers find most interesting. But it seems like IG's algorithm is spoiling the fun of posting while traveling. Has anyone else had this issue? Any insights on how to fix this?

I've been experiencing a peculiar issue over the past few years. When I'm at home and geotagging my city, my story views range from 250-500, depending on the content and the time of day I post it. However, when I'm traveling, they drop dramatically to as low as 50, usually hovering around 100. As a travel blogger, my travel content is arguably the most exciting stuff I produce, but Instagram's algorithm is making it increasingly disheartening to post while I'm on the move.

Has anyone else had this problem? Any solutions?

I have a travel Instagram account where I post photos and stories from my trips. However, I'm struggling to gain new followers and increase engagement. I post regularly, use relevant hashtags, and engage with my audience.

Any advice on growing a travel Instagram account?

Hi all,

Just starting out and I'm wondering if there are any must have apps to help me in noting down what I do day to day and spend etc. whilst travelling.

I often find myself forgetting some information unless I stop and make note of it then and there.

Hi! I want to start a travel blog and I am having trouble with deciding on a name for it. I live in a South American country and really want the blog to be about that country but when I move back to Europe I was thinking about blogging about that country. So I guess my question is if it’s better to have a more generic blog name or one with my country I will be blogging about in it. Hope that makes sense. Thanks

Any tips/tutorials? :)

Hello! It's my first time on this subreddit and I'm really interested in the whole travel blog thing. It's an idea my parents pitched when I started running my Nendoroid photography Instagram account, which at one point was dominated by a bunch of travel photos with my Nendoroids because I took too many pictures and went to too many places.

I can't buy a domain yet so I'm using Wix/Weebly to craft my own website (I hate HTML, don't get me started on my ICT IGCSE practicals...)! But before I actually start doubling down on the design, I'm a little worried about my content. I've researched and read a whole lot of other popular travel blogs and they're all about "What You Shough Do in Country X" or "Places to Stay in Country Z". Problem is I'm still a teen, so I can't do all of those...

But I can take photos!

I plan to write a travel blog about my experiences traveling to different countries that my family and I go to, but it seems like an unspoken rule not to do that? I'm not very sure, but I haven't come across a single travel blog that is dedicated to telling people about their travels, not a travel itinerary.

I'm just asking for a few tips/guidelines that will push me in the right direction of travel blogging, like what websites are recommended to use (free... I have no money...), what kind of equipment you need, or really important pages (about me page, etc) on your blog!

Thanks for your time reading!

Has anyone here attended TBEX? Is it a good way to network and grow my travel blog?

I'm currently in a UX design class and am having a hard time finding people to interview for my project. If anyone is open to being interviewed I would really appreciate it!!!

Hey everyone!

​

So I'm a content writer who became too frustrated with writing commercial product-based content. Recently I rediscovered my love for travelling. It has been a dream to travel around and write; however, initially, the thought of it was too daunting. I thought it would take a lot of my own money to get started, and I won't be able to make any back. And so, I settled with simply writing content for digital marketing agencies from the comfort of my home. Now, I seek something more fulfilling and I'm ready to finally try my hand at travel blogging both written and video. So, any tips to start out? Should I offer my services to travel websites or submit to magazines or get a real blog of my own and focus on it? Any tips would be appreciated as I'm a complete rookie.

Hi,

A couple of years ago I started a website where I write about all travel destinations in my country.

After a lot of hard work it became the most popular local travel website in my country and it ranks in top 3 for almost any related query one may think of.

However, It’s a small country with not a lot of destinations so I only get about 5,000-10,000 monthly visitors.

It absolutely is not a lot of traffic, but since it’s still the most popular website in my country, I’ve started trying to get in touch with local travel agencies to maybe promote their tours, something like affiliate marketing.

I offered FREE advertising to a couple of companies. Free because I want to research how interested users would be to then be able to set a price.

However, NONE of them agrees, this is so bizarre.

One of them even asked me how much traffic I have… after I offered them FREE advertisement.

Maybe it seems suspicious that I try to offer them free advertising, but I’ve explained that it’s free just for a month, to get a better understanding of my users. I don’t think they have anything to lose, am I wrong? It’s not like the website is shady or something…

Do I do it wrong? (i guess)

Does anyone know of competitions, awards, grants for travel, particularly for those interested in media? I came across the Journey of a Lifetime Award from the Royal Geographical Society where the winner makes a radio programme for BBC Radio 4. Anything else like this out there? https://www.rgs.org/in-the-field/in-the-field-grants/expedition-grants/journey-of-a-lifetime-award/

If you were to be interested in following a travel blog, what kind of content would you wanna see? Looking for any and all ideas 🗺️ Thank you!

I already have one blog not related to travel. But I’m thinking about starting a travel blog. Which would be fastest to rank and smartest- a local travel blog (based on a big city), a blog about a region of a single state, a blog about a specific state in the us, or a Broad travel site? I know locally would prob rank fastest but I wonder if it would Prevent me from really making much money in the end due to limiting me to one area.

Hi,

I've got a FB, Twitter and IG account I was using for an Adriatic island holiday apartment rental business 3 years ago. All 3 have been pretty much inactive at my end for at least 2 years, but likes, and follows are always ticking over. I've got a great hashtag which I guess you could say has caught on and people are always sharing and tagging it on the IG.

All accounts are sub-2000 followers each, not huge numbers, but the audience is engaged and eager. The domain I was using at the time was really great too and it's still available. You would look at it and say that in the right hands, it has the potential to be something.

I realised before I started the business that social media and internet presence weren't at the top of the local's business plan, so I took advantage. Lately, I have been considering doing something with the accounts. I'd like to create another website/blog/information resource with intention of monetising it eventually. I'm just not sure where to start now from where I am. I have many ideas.

My rough plan so far is this:

1. Wake up the SM accounts. Get them moving again. Try to get on local businesses' radar.
2. SEO/SERP research. Google search terms/keyword research. Figure out where the info gaps are and draw up a few topics to get cracking on writing.
3. Design and develop the website/Blog. I'd like it to be an all-in-one info resource for the island (transport info, entertainment, accommodation, sightseeing). I really think this could be achievable because the local tourism offices are not so great with updating info.

To me, points of potential future earnings are:

1. Paid posts/blogs with local businesses (wineries, camps, hotels, restaurants, travel agencies...?)
2. Banner Ad space on the website itself (is that a thing still?). Maybe a taxi/bus company, yacht charter or big nightclub wants to advertise?
3. Accommodation rental. The more SM aware accommodation business owners may be interested in me renting their accommodation (I have years of experience in hospitality marketing. I've owned both private and hostel accommodation). There are a lot of fancy accommodation facilities with wealthy (sometimes foreign) hands-off owners. Getting the website established is key to this part.

I'm a bit of a digital marketing multi-tool. I have a good handle on social media marketing, web design and development, SEO, some graphic design, and video/audio editing, content writing and I have been working in tourism and hospitality in this country for 10 years now - I've got the tools. It's not going to cost me anything to set this up. I just don't want to go down a rabbit hole doing everything all at once and going actually nowhere.

Many thanks for your help!

For local travel bloggers - do you have an event calendar plugin? How do you update your local events? I'm wondering if using the event calendar plugin is bad for SEO or if it will slow down my website. Thanks!

Two days ago I started a new instagram 2 days ago for our travel/adventures as I wanted to private my personal account where I used to post on. The amount of comments I get on every photo about a brand wanting to 'collab' or partner is crazy. It's clear they're all a bit scam-my or just have crap products (one company clearly buys tshirts from wish and resells them at an extremely inflated rate). But my question is, should I delete these comments? Part of me thinks that having comments under posts looks good, but clearly if you read them and they're all just 'we love your photos, dm us' that doesn't look as great.

Ironically, I only have 10 followers and one of them is a legit adventure clothing brand that I've bought from previously that has over 70k followers as we intend to work together in the future.

Whenever I write about my travel experiences on social media in terms of having longer captions, I feel that the engagement is generally lower and the norm favours people who write short and concise captions. I was wondering if there is any better platforms for me to write to audiences who are more interested in expressive and longer captions.

We're a group of University students at UBC in Vancouver, Canada and we would love to hear about how you do you feel about monetization of your blog. We are currently working on a project to learn about the current situation of bloggers.

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