Essential Strategies for Becoming a Better Travel Blogger (Even If You Have a Busy Life)

This is a guest post from Kelly Dunning for Travel-Wise

Travel blogging is a thrilling pursuit, but it isn’t always easy.

Once you’ve figured out how to start a travel blog, there are some challenges you’ll face — such as coming up with ideas, finding time to blog, getting work done and ensuring your articles reach a wide readership.

It’s a steep learning curve and there’s always room for improvement.

However, if you persist and keep improving your skills you can create an exciting source of personal expression (and income), share your travel wisdom with readers all over the world, and document your travels for years to come.

Here are a few very important tips that will help you to take your travel blogging to the next level — even if you are very busy.

Work On Your Blog A Little Bit Every Morning

This is the one small thing that changed travel blogging for me. I am a full time freelancer with a travel blog as a side project.

I love travel blogging, but I never seemed to get around to actually doing it. At the end of the day when I was finished my freelance work, I was tired and the last thing I wanted to do was write more.

Even if your day job is not writing related, it can be hard to find the motivation to work on your blog after a long and busy day.

So I had the idea to work on my blog for 30 minutes every day, first thing in the morning. I started this habit in November of 2016 and I have kept it up ever since.

It has transformed my travel blog and I have published more high quality posts since then than I ever had before. My blog (Global-Goose.com) is no longer a side project that I feel guilty for neglecting, but rather an active, thriving blog with a steadily growing readership.

Working on my blog every morning for 30 minutes worked for me because:

• 30 minutes is a small amount of time and I could squeeze it in, no matter how busy my day was. Yet, it still added up. That’s 3.5 hours per week (14 hours per month) of steady work — certainly more than I was doing before!
• I found it easier to carve out 30 minutes every day, rather than 3.5 hours on one day per week.
• With a 30 minute timer ticking down, I used my morning blog time very efficiently and got lots done in a short amount of time.

Plus, since I am working on my blog a little bit every day, it’s often on my mind and I find myself thinking about ideas around the clock. Which brings me to my next point…

Always Be Thinking Of Ideas

Whatever you do, don’t sit down in front of a blank page and try to think of an idea before you start writing. It’s intimidating, frustrating and it wastes a lot of time.

I’ve found it much more effective to always be collecting a bank of ideas for travel blog posts, so that when it comes time to write you can simply pick one and get started.

I use Evernote for this purpose, so that when I think of a blog idea I can just jot down a few notes about it on my phone no matter where I am. Then it is synced to my computer so when I sit down to write, my notes are there for me to start from.

However, you can use any app or even a good old fashioned notebook and pen. You never know when an idea for your next travel blog will pop up… when you are walking down the street, having a conversation with someone, reading an article or lying in bed.

Capture those ideas and write them down, so you don’t forget!

Use Batch Processing

Batch processing is another incredibly effective “hack” that can make your blogging efforts more effective. There is a great blog post about how it works here. Essentially, the idea is that you will be more effective if you group together similar tasks and do them all at once.

For example, set aside time that is only for writing blog posts (not checking email or brainstorming or using social media). The only thing you must do during this time is write.

Write a “batch” of several blog posts all at once, then use a separate chunk of time for a different task such as editing and formatting them, or promoting them. So, you could write five blog posts in one day, edit them all on another day, etc.

I find that when I focus on one task at a time, such as writing, my brain goes into “writing mode” and I can really get into the zone and complete a higher volume of better quality work. When I am trying to do several things at once, I get less done in the same amount of time and it’s not as high quality.

Collaborate With Other Bloggers

Here is another tip that I have found incredibly helpful when it comes to growing and improving your travel blog. There are many other great travel bloggers out there and instead of thinking of them as your competition, you can be thinking about how you can learn from them and help each other grow.

Connect with other travel bloggers on social media. Share their posts and they will share yours. Ask more experienced travel bloggers questions so you can learn from them.

Leave comments on other travel blogs so you can start a discussion.

One great way to work together with other travel bloggers is to publish a collaborative post. Here’s an example of one I did recently: 7 Spectacular Spots in Ireland Travel Bloggers Recommend. I reached out to seven different bloggers and asked them to recommend the best off-the-beaten-track place to visit in Ireland.

The advantages of doing this were:

• The other seven bloggers wrote about places I have never been to, offering expertise to my readers beyond what I could provide from my own experience.
• The post was more interesting and diverse because it came from seven different perspectives.
• Each of the bloggers who were involved also shared the post with their social media channels, giving it more publicity.
• The experience of collaborating with those bloggers helped me form relationships with them and the potential is there for collaborating again and sharing each other’s blogs in the future.

I really recommend trying a collaborative blog post on your travel blog. Choose your topic, then seek out other travel bloggers who have relevant experience.

You can usually find their contact info on their blog, or you can reach out to them via Twitter or Facebook.

These are just a few ways that you can improve your travel blog, even if you are busy. What travel blogging tips have helped you? Share them with us in the comments below.