Blogs have been around since 1994, and have since developed from a basic online journal into a legitimate marketing strategy and customer acquisition tool.

Travel blogging is nothing new.

But the available topics to write about and the reasons for writing them have expanded.

A well-thought-out blog on your travel website can increase conversions, bring in new traffic, and boost your authority online.

This article covers why you should start a travel blog, what it should include, and how to get started.

In this blog about blogs for travel brands, I’ll break down:

The benefits of creating a blog for your travel website
5 travel blog best practices all brands should follow
How to create a travel blog for your website

Sound good? Let’s get into it.

The Benefits of Having a Blog on Your Travel Website

Blogs have evolved into much more than an online space to dump your spare thoughts.

In the digital world, they function as one of the most effective forms of marketing and can be a lot of fun once you know what you’re doing.

Below are 7 major benefits of having a blog on your travel website.

1. Drive more traffic to your website with SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) lies at the heart of effective content marketing.

By using keyword research based on your typical customers’ search interests, you can begin to publish content that ranks highly in Google and other search engines’ results pages.

According to Search Engine Journal, a study of billions determined that over a quarter of internet-users click on the first result of a Google Search.

And by writing blogs based on the demands of your ideal customers, the search engines will qualify your leads for you; one hand washes the other, as they say.

2. Become an authority within your niche

What makes libraries a trusted source of knowledge and wisdom?

Books.

In the same way, high-quality content is what turns an online brand into the place people turn ti when they want to learn about a specific topic.

Word-of-mouth marketing drives $6 trillion in annual global spending and is responsible for 13% of all sales, making it an incredibly valuable marketing tool.

By publishing the best content about your niche on your website, you’ll become the answer people give when somebody asks them: “Wow, that’s so interesting – where did you learn that?”

It naturally follows that brands that are subject-matter experts can also be trusted to have the best products or services on the market.

3. Build consumer trust

Publishing written content on your site allows you to flaunt your humanness to the people that are interested in your brand.

As you continue to post valuable content online, your customers will start to see you as less of a business and more of a friend.

It’s been proven that 88% of people had the highest level of trust in a brand after a friend or family member recommended it. Imagine if that brand was a friend or family member.

If you’re looking to develop a loyal and enthusiastic consumer base, here’s your chance.

4. Blogs are perfect for the travel industry

Travel is the imagination industry.

Tourism industry employees are in the business of making dreams come true. Travel represents freedom, culture, happiness… a life worth living.

Blogs allow you a vehicle for reminding people of this unique characteristic of our industry.

Every word that you write is an opportunity to get people excited, to inspire them to take action and book their next trip right now.

5. Evergreen marketing strategy

Possibly the best thing about blogs is that once published, they can continue to bring more traffic to your site for years and years.

Oftentimes, it can take a page months before it starts showing up in the search results – no matter how much effort went into the SEO.

But once it does, there’s a good chance it will stay there for a long time.

And anybody searching for those ranking keywords in the distant future may chance across your page and... Voilà!

You’ve just scored a brand new customer through old material.

6. Convert traffic into sales

When you leave your blog writing in the capable hands of a trained copywriter, it can become more than just a marketing tool; it can produce live sales, too.

By neatly presenting your product or service as the solution to a problem that’s mentioned within the blog, a simple CTA is all that’s needed to take readers over to the checkout page.

And since you’re the one deciding what to write about, it’s pretty easy to choose topics that mention problems your product or service is primed to resolve.

7. Gives you something to share around

In today’s era, social media is a massive part of online business.

Blogs are a great way to always have something you can post about on your various channels.

Once they’re uploaded to sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, it’s easy for other people to share them around and bring in even more traffic.

You can even feature them in your travel e-newsletters and other forms of email marketing to keep your brand in the minds of your current customer base.

Now that you know why your travel website needs a blog, it’s time to look at what should go into it.

Let’s dive in.

5 Rules Every Good Travel Blog Must Follow

A great travel blog does more than just give people something to read.

It ought to inspire, persuade, and ultimately impress your readers so much that they’re itching to invest their hard-earned cash in your company.

In this section, we’ll break down a few travel blog best practices to get you started.

Put the reader first

When writing your travel blog, always be asking: “What is my reader trying to solve?”

Consider your blog’s title and overarching topic, how the reader came across your website, and what the most valuable information is around that topic.

Not only is Google consistently trending towards reader-first articles when ranking sites in search results, but it’s also great for UX.

Structure your blog so that the most valuable and relevant content is at the very top, and use lots of subheaders and bold sentences to make it easily accessible for skim readers.

Keep it relevant to your brand

You may be tempted to just start blogging about any old thing to do with travel. But for most brands, this isn’t always the best strategy.

Travel companies ought to consider their value proposition, what challenges their brand can solve, and what topics are relevant to these two things.

If your business is an online booking platform, then writing about smart ways to pack a suitcase, how to fall asleep on a plane, and when to book flights are all super relevant to your target audience.

On the other hand, people probably aren’t visiting your site to learn about e-commerce or your top 10 brands of baby powder, so don’t write about those things.

Build internal links

Internal links are an excellent way to make sure people stick around on your site for longer. They’re also great for SEO.

When you link to other blogs and pages within your site, you’ll be:

Improving User Experience by making it easy to navigate your website.
Demonstrating that your site possesses a wealth of information.
Helping Google’s site-crawlers review and rank your pages quicker.
Promoting other published content organically.
Improving chances of converting readers into customers.

Of course, external links to authoritative websites are important, too; but internal links can serve multiple purposes and are essential to any good travel blog.

Create a content strategy

One common issue travel bloggers face is inconsistency.

Two common reasons for this are:

Forgetting to publish regularly
Having nothing to say.

A content strategy, applied to a working content calendar, resolves both these issues.

Before you write anything, come up with a list of as many relevant topics that you might write about. Then turn these ideas into potential headlines for different blog posts.

Group the headlines into categories, then use keyword research to find the best angle to take for each topic.

If you’re working with multiple writers, it may help to create mini-briefs for each blog detailing the general topic, main keywords, and any other important details.

Once you’ve got a long list of headlines for different blogs, consider how frequently your marketing budget will permit you to create and post new content.

Finally, add publishing dates to each blog and insert them into your content calendar.

Avoid technical jargon and wonderfully splendorous yet exceptionally unnecessary adverbs and adjectives

When people read blogs, they’re looking for information.

They don’t want to know how amazing you are at writing; they just want their questions answered and their problems solved.

The best way to do this is to cut out the fluff.

Delete any fancy descriptive words, wasteful prose, and irrelevant anecdotes. Get straight to the point.

That being said, you needn’t be completely dry and boring with it.

As long as you are always thinking about why the reader has come to your blog, you’re on the right path.

Brainstorming, Planning and Writing Your Travel Blog

If you hold an executive role within your company, you’re probably too busy to come up with ideas and strategies for a blog – let alone actually writing the damn thing.

That’s why hiring a professional content marketer might be your best option for getting the ball rolling.

Content writers and copywriters are well-versed in producing content that persuades both readers and search engines so that your website can market your brand for you, while you focus on more pressing tasks.

To speak to a copywriting consultant and determine your unique travel marketing needs, just fill out this form and I’ll be in touch.

Adiós!

Why Every Travel Website Needs A Blog