As someone who has run internet businesses and made and does blogs that combined have turned over millions of dollars, this is a subject I know a lot about. Can you get paid to blog in 2024? And what is it you need to do?
We present the Paid To Travel guide to getting paid to blog.
Step 1 – You will not make money initially getting paid to blog
Step one is two fold in that firstly you have to come to terms with the fact that you will not earn any money when you initially start to blog. Sadly this is also something that puts people off.
I have often times offered my staff, or friends the chance for me yo0 start a blog for them. Most times they say no because they “do not have the time”.
Essentially you simply need to make the time. If you spend time scrolling on TikTok, or watching cat memes you have an hour a day to blog. If though you are the kind of person that cannot work all the time, or need X amount of time rest then blogging and indeed being an entrepreneur simply isn’t for you.
Step 2 – Of getting paid to blog find a niche
Once you have decided that you have the moxy and drive to make a successful blog then you next need to decide what it is about. Do not simply make a generic travel blog as this has frankly been done to death, but instead fine your own little place in the world.
For me this was through street food, this allowed to talk about and cover my travels, but while having another core focus that was not just travel.
With this the more niche you can go the better. I personally know of people with millions of followers that talks about bee keeping! Thing outside of the box. You can then go down the rabbit hole of niches within niches, with my How to eat fish and chips correctly being case in point on this.
And lastly on this point pick a subject that you love and will love writing about. If you don’t care what you write about how can you expect people to read about it?
Step 3 – Pick your domain name
Picking a domain name is core to making a blog and you should really take your time with this. Dot Com is still the daddy of main names, but these are getting harder to find. The best alternative is .net followed by .info and .org if your blogs fits the category.
Country cod top level domains like co.uk really only work if your big is about being based in one specific area.
Lastly THINK about your name, some might sound clever, or even look clever, but you need memorable, not complicated. I own the domain www.infodot.info, which looks and doings cool, bit is nightmare to explain. “info then dot like D-O-T then a dot, no an actual dot then info”. See what I mean.
Check out Dynadot via my affiliate link, which is where I get all my many domains.
Step 4 – Pick a host for your website
Many people do not know the difference between owning a domain and having web hosting. Look at it this way, the domain is your shop, but you need to put the shop on some land and then put stuff in it.
Your host is the land you put it on, whilst the stuff you put in it is your website.
Hosting can be gotten extremely cheaply, but you should go with a company that is well known and has good customer service to start with such as Bluehost – who you can view via my affiliate link.
Step 5 – Build your website
You can’t get paid to blog if you do not have a website, so this is the next integral part of the plan. If you use Bluehost then WordPress can be simply installed from where pretty much anyone can design a simple website.
Do not under any circumstances use any of the following if you want to get paid t blog – namely Blogspot blog.wordpress blogs, or Wix. These are fine if you are a hobbyist, but will not work at all if you want to get paid to blog.
Another option of course is paying to have someone make your website. This can cost anything from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands. I personally hate when someone says “how much does a website cost”?. It is like asking how much a vehicle costs – with a tricycle and a Learjet not being in the same ballpark.
Building websites is a service that we at Paid To Travel do offer, so simply get in touch if you would like a quote from us.
Step 6 – How and when do you make money?
How long a is a piece of string? Essentially the harder you work and the more you post then the quicker (in theory) you can start earning money.
The reality though also is that you really beed to also know how ro monitor your website and at least have some form of Search-Engine-Optimization (SEO) going on.
There are numerous free and paid programs for this such as Yoast, Google Analytics and Moz, but it is also worth looking into simple SEO courses.
Paid to Travel cam offer offer various training when it comes to SEO, as well as even setting up your own full blog for you as part of our mentoring services.
And once your blog is doing well then you cans art doing affiliate links, sell merchandise via a shop, do Google Adds, offer sponsored posts, or deal with local companies directly.
While there is no one size fits all here, there is a whole blogging ecosphere out there that you can take advantage of.
Want Paid to Travel to help you set up a blog? Then contact us.
