Wondering how to start a travel blog in India? This guide will help you start your own blog in only 7 steps.

Before I start, let me warn you that travel blogging isn’t as easy as it looks. Bloggers like me rarely share the huge amount of behind-the-scenes disasters that go into making this lifestyle possible. My journey, too, has been a rollercoaster ride. But honestly speaking, all the efforts are totally worth it. So if you’re asking how to start a travel blog in India, you’re asking the right person.

Now, let’s motivate ourselves a little more before we delve into the details…

Travel blogging is an interesting profession. But when you want to make blogging a full-time career, you need to look for ways to make money out of it. It took me more than one year to become a professional travel blogger – professional in the sense that I’ve now started making money from travel blogging.

So today I want to share a useful guide about how to start a travel blog in India, including a few important tips I didn’t know when I had originally initiated the journey myself.

But before that, if you’re just planning and lack the motivation to actually become a travel blogger, read these Motivational Quotes I’ve handpicked for you. These quotes talk about my journey from being a 9-5 employee to a full-time traveller and blogger.

How To Start A Travel Blog In India

Some people get confused about the word ‘blog’ and ‘website’. So before we start, let’s understand that having a blog is no different than having a website. I would call Footloosedev a blog only because it looks like a magazine and helps people understand — before they even check it for themselves — that it might contain articles and stories about a topic. But even if I called Footloosedev a website, I won’t be wrong. All self-hosted blogs are apparently websites.

Now, starting is actually pretty easy. If you follow this guide on how to start a travel blog in India and reciprocate everything that is told here, you can have a blog in a couple of hours.

A lot of people start a travel blog just to keep their family and friends updated. If that’s all you want, go for a free WordPress.com blog. But, if you want more people than just your friends and family reading about your journeys, and if you want to make money out of your travel blog, as I do, then keep reading.

Travel Blog Name

I accept that I ended up being lucky about choosing FootlooseDev as my blog name. It represents my personality; it is short, memorable and long-term; and it perfectly syncs with the kind of travelling I am into — that is freestyle backpacking, motorbiking, adventure travel, and other niches.

But I’ve seen people making a complete disaster choosing something like A20SomethingNomad or HimalayanTraveller. Now both the blog names sound interesting, but they’ve their limitations. What after you turn 30? Or you decided to travel beyond the Himalayas? So, choosing a good name is the first thing we are going to discuss in this how to start a travel blog in India guide.

Choose a name that has no expiry date. Or something that can still be used tomorrow even if you shifted your focus from being a backpacker to a luxury traveller.

Secondly, avoid using popular worlds like Nomad, or Wanderlust, or Wanderer – for two reasons. One, because you don’t want to confuse your future readers with an established blogger having a similar name. And two, because you don’t want to come in the last position in search engines, as other blogs (with a similar name) would otherwise appear on top, due to their better and established SEO.

Thirdly, keep the name simple and memorable. Your travel blog domain name should be relatively short, and easy to remember. Do some brainstorming, write everything down and start playing with different combinations of words. Use thesaurus on the web to find better synonyms.

Avoid Hyphens, numbers, and abbreviations. I never understood the fascination using abbreviations or numbers in the blog name. When you use numbers like ‘2’ or ‘4’ instead of ‘to’ and ‘for’; or use abbreviations to long words, you only make it risky for your business. A blog called “Footloose hyphen Dev the number 100 dot com” can never be effective for word-of-mouth marketing, which, in fact, is the best kind of promotion – particularly during the early days of blogging. So avoid hyphens. And avoid numbers.

Travel Blog Hosting in India

Next up in how to start a travel blog in India guide is choosing the website hosting.

I remember that setting up Hosting was the scariest part for me because when I started I had no idea what it was. If you too are confused about what I mean by hosting, understand it this way… by choosing a hosting, you ‘rent’ space on the internet. Almost like having a space for your email account or buying a memory card for your phone to store images and data.

If you want to create a free Wordress.com website, you don’t need to buy hosting, but then again, with a free WordPress account, you will only get something like ABC.wordpress.com as your domain name. However, if you choose a domain name and buy hosting you can have whatever blog name you like and an impressive ‘.com’, ‘.in’, or ‘.co.in’ etc.

There are a lot of basic hosting companies out there, with Hostgator, Godaddy, and Bluehost being some of the biggest and popular ones. I personally prefer Bluehost for their cheaper deals and better customer service. I am currently using Bluehost for this blog.

Moreover, if you are just starting out, BlueHost is a good option because they’re not only one of the cheapest among the best, but their customer service is good too. So if I were to suggest anything, let’s start with Bluehost, and here’s how to buy their hosting…

Update February 2020: After using Bluehost for four years, I have finally decided to switch my hosting platform (not recommending the new one as of now as I am still studying their services) because Bluehost India, over the years, has really downgraded their services. Their servers stop functioning every now and then, giving 404 every now and then, on top of a poor website speed… and this was when I was using their dedicated VPS (costing me a whopping INR 17k a month for just a personal blog). Their support is moreover inefficient and they try to rip off the customers by forcing them to buy a more expensive hosting plan. Bluehost India was good a few years ago, but not anymore!

Pick a plan.

Check to see if your blog name (domain name) is available.

Buy Hosting for your travel blog

To tell you the truth, you don’t need any add-on features (except for Domain Privacy Protection), at least not during the first year of your blogging stint. So skip it.

Domain Privacy Protection, however, is something you SHOULD consider opting for. Why? Because if you don’t pay for Domain Privacy Protection, anyone can see your name and mailing address on your site. So it’s worth the extra few bucks to stop that from happening.

Install WordPress

Though there are a few other software to establish your website, I particularly recommend WordPress for its ease of use. Unlike other software, like Drupal, etc. anyone can work on WordPress, without having any prior computer knowledge. Just invest a few hours to understand its basic functionalities, and you’re good to go. It’s as simple as understanding Microsoft Word.

WordPress is the king of blogging, and probably always will be. Most professionals use WordPress. Even major newspaper websites like BBC & TimesOfIndia are WordPress hosted.

Once you install WordPress, it will tell you where to log in (usually http://YourTravelBlogName.com/wp-admin). Use your username and password. From that page, you’ll be able to log in to your WordPress dashboard.

And that’s it! Welcome to the club! You now own your personal travel blog! Only a few more steps and you will be practically equipped to write your first blog post and flaunt about it to friends.

Your how to start a travel blog in India guide ends here. Next up is how to look professional. So let’s get started with the next step…

Useful Travel Blog Plugins In India

After you’ve installed WordPress, go to ‘http://YourTravelBlogName.com/wp-admin/’ and use the username and password you’ve created to log in.

From there, the first thing you want to do is install some useful plugins. Plugins are a great way to add additional functionality to your WordPress-powered site. There are thousands of premium options to choose from, but initially, choose only a few important, and free ones. Don’t get excited and pay unnecessary money at the start. You can always buy paid plugins later if you want.

A few important plugins to get basic functionalities and improve SEO are:

Jetpack – It offers you a spell-checker, contact forms, extra widgets, and a whole slew of more features

– It offers you a spell-checker, contact forms, extra widgets, and a whole slew of more features Google Analytics For WordPress – To allow Google to track your website traffic and use Google Analytics.

– To allow Google to track your website traffic and use Google Analytics. Akismet – To protect your blog from spammers leaving comments on your posts. Totally recommended for the first day.

– To protect your blog from spammers leaving comments on your posts. Totally recommended for the first day. Yoast SEO – For optimizing your articles for Google search, plus integrating Google Sitemaps and Analytics.

– For optimizing your articles for Google search, plus integrating Google Sitemaps and Analytics. Easy Social Share Buttons – To add social media sharing buttons for your articles.

Theme To Start A Travel Blog In India

A Theme is how you want your website to look like. And your new WordPress blog comes with a few standard themes.

While this is ok for playing around and using free themes in the beginning, if you want to take blogging seriously and eventually make money from it, you should consider buying a premium design – unless of course you’ve it custom made, from a developer.

I’ve changed my theme a few times, but after a few months of endless confusion, I’ve finally found something that fits my need better.

You moreover, just like other professional paid themes, get a support forum with Elmastudios where you can ask questions about customization, and someone will help you with any CSS/HTML coding. This moreover saves money in hiring a developer to get small things done.

The First Few Travel Blogging Steps

Create An ‘About Me’ Page, to help readers know who you are, and what you’re doing. An About me page is the most important page for you as a travel blogger, particularly if you’ve just started blogging, as 90% of the readers, who become your regular follower is going to read it, to know a little more about you. But make sure it lets your personality shine through. I remember, when I’d initially started blogging, I was so concerned with being professional that I ended up writing a bland introductory post that read no different than a Wikipedia page. Do not do that. Let people know who you actually are. Be frank!

Create Accounts On Different Social Media Networks, because it is by social networking only that you can engage with your followers on a day to day basis. Social media are engaging, and let you connect with your readers. Learning how to master Social Media is, however, another thing, and you’d only learn that with time. But for a start, and as a blogger, you must have your profile on different social media networks, particularly on Facebook (have a Facebook Page, not a profile), Twitter, Instagram, Google+ (very important for SEO), Pinterest and Youtube.

Start An Emailing List, and build your base. Why? Because people are more likely to see your content via email than any other network, and while social networks come and go, email is here to stay. Having a rich emailing list moreover helps bloggers, at a later stage, to get sponsors.

At the moment, I use MailChimp as my emailing newsletter service, as it allows you to shoot up to 2000 free emails every time, which is a pretty sweet gig for your initial blogging days. Once your subscribers reach a certain figure, you can always buy their premium plans and send more than 2000 emails in a month.

Network With Other Travel Bloggers, and read their blogs for more inspiration and ideas. Do not forget to leave thoughtful comments on their articles for some link building. Moreover, link to other people’s blog posts from your site whenever appropriate, and try to become an active member of the blogging community.

Making Money Travel Blogging

Of course, how to start a travel blog guide can never be complete if we haven’t discussed how to make money from it. So here we go…

Different bloggers have different ways to monetize. Some bloggers make money by getting sponsors, while others, by placing ads on their blog. Some even use a mix of all, and you can count me among them.

Affiliate Programs: Affiliate marketing is when a customer buys a product online after getting redirected from your website. And you get a commission of the total sale, in the process. Affiliate marketing is an amazing source of your passive income. And as long as you don’t crowd your every page with a ton of affiliate links, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t join affiliate programs. Some popular affiliate programs that I currently use are Amazon, for the travel products I use; Booking.com, for linking back to the places I stay; and MakeMyTrip for whenever I talk about transportation or flight deals.

Sponsored Posts: Though a good source of income, sponsorships initially takes some time. But once you’ve gained certain traction, and people in the industry start noticing you, getting sponsors is no tough job. Read how to get your first few travel sponsors

Adsense: The easiest way to start making money with advertising is through Adsense. Sign up for an account approved by Google, enter the ad settings you want, and you’re good to go.

Read In Detail: Different Ways Of Making Money From Blogging

Now that you’ve learned how to start a travel blog in India, what next?

Well, nothing much really. But as I said earlier, blogging is not easy. It will take a long time and a tremendous amount of effort before you gain a valuable audience interested in what you have to say. But once you start getting the exposure, the perks in this field are OVERWHELMING.

So Good luck, welcome aboard, and let’s shine through your amazing travel stories!