This is a post for people who are looking to build a travel blog and don’t know where to start. I blogged a few months ago on how to grow your travel blog but realized I put the cart before the horse so, after many emails, I wanted to share the simple steps for getting your blog up and running. For regular travel content and tips, go here!
Whether as a hobby or profession, travel blogging requires some technical skill. Not a lot but a little. When I started my blog, I knew nothing about making a website. Luckily, on my adventures around the world, I met Matt and Kat, a British couple who also happened to be web designers. When I came home after that trip in 2008 and decided I wanted to start this blog, they agreed to help me set up my blog and teach me HTML. Back then, I hand-coded my website and used a funky tool called Dreamweaver to build my website. It was painfully slow and I wasn’t very good at it. My original website was really ugly!
Luckily, you no longer have to build websites that way. Websites and blogs have gotten a lot easier and simpler thanks to WordPress. WordPress is a simple out of the box platform designed to make websites easier for those not technically savvy (like myself). It powers over 25% of the Internet and is the best platform for blogging.
A few months back I talked about the ways you could succeed with a travel blog but, today, I want to give a quick tutorial on how to create a travel blog from scratch in six easy steps:
Step 1: Pick a name
The first thing you need to do is pick a domain name (i.e your website name). When picking your domain name, there are no hard and fast rules on what to pick. There’s no such thing as a “wrong domain” but there are a couple of things you should know to help you pick the best domain:
Make a name that can last. If you pick “JohnsAsiaAdeventure.com” and then you leave Asia, the domain won’t make sense anymore. Make sure you pick a name that isn’t so focused that if you decide to shift gears or change your focus, you can keep the same domain name.
Try to avoid words like “nomad,” “vagabond,” “wanderlust,” and “adventure.” They have been done to death.
Pick a name that describes what you do as much as possible. I was a nomad so “Nomadic Matt” was the best pick for me. If you’re into luxury, put words in your domain that convey that. You want people to see the name and go “I get what that website is about.”
Keep it short. Use 3-4 words maximum. You want the name that rolls off the tongue. Even Ramit Sethi from “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” often abbreviates his site to “I Will Teach” or “IWT”. The shorter the better.
Keep it simple. I’m not a fan of using jargon or slang in your domain name as I think that makes things confusing for people who don’t know it. The last thing you want is something going “What does that mean?” or being confused. If someone has to think of the meaning, then you’ve already lost them. So don’t try to be clever either!
Step 2: Sign up for Hostgator
After you’ve picked out your domain name, you’ll need to register it and buy hosting (the little computer that’s going to power your website). There are a lot of basic hosting companies out there – Hostgator and Bluehost being to two biggest.
Though owned by the same parent company, I lean towards Hostgator as I find their call center customer service quicker and friendlier and they are prone to fewer outages (no one wants their website to go down). I’ve been using them for years and still have a few domains and email through them.
Here’s a walk-through of how to register your name with Hostgator:
First, choose the hatchling plan. This is the most basic plan but it’s perfect for new blogs and I wouldn’t recommend spending more money until you get a lot of traffic and decide you’re going to do this long term!
After you pick that plan, you’ll be sent to the order form. Enter your domain name and select the hosting package you want. Be sure to add “domain privacy protection” as this keeps your registration information from being public record. After this, it will have you include your billing address and payment information. It will also ask you if you want to by additional add-on services. DO NOT PICK ANY. You won’t need them. From there, it will run your credit card and presto! You have a domain name!
After you’ve paid, you’ll get to this screen where you can see your domain name and account information:
That’s it! It’s super simple and takes about five minutes to do from start to finish! You can click here to go to Hostgator to set it up.
Step 3: Install WordPress
After you’ve registered your domain name and got your hosting package, the next thing you want to do is install WordPress. WordPress is what will actually run the website. The host is simply the computer your site sits on. To set WordPress up:
In the same screen as above, click “hosting” and, in the next screen, “Get Started with WordPress Today”:
You’ll be taken to this screen. Click WordPress:
In the dropdown menu, select your domain name and hit next:
Enter your user information. Under blog title, enter the name of your blog. Create a strong username and then hit install.
After your WordPress is installed and created, a screen will display with the username you chose and a password that they generated for you. If you’d like to create a different password (something stronger or more memorable), then go to your wp-login screen at domainname.com/wp-admin, click on “reset password,” and you’ll be sent instructions on how to reset it.
That’s it! Now your website is up and running and you’re ready to start blogging!
Step 4: Install your plugins
After you’ve installed WordPress onto Hostgator, go to domainname.com/wp-admin and use the username and password you created to login. You’ll see a screen like this after you login:
From there, the first thing you want to do is install plugins. Plugins are a great way to add additional functionality to a WordPress-powered site. And with over 41,000 (at last check) listed in the WordPress Repository and many more premium options available from developers, there are endless possibilities as to what you can do with your site. From the main screen, click Plugins –> Add New on the left-hand column:
If you can think of a feature you’d like to have on your site, I can almost guarantee there is a plugin for it but here are my favorites:
Akismet – Just like getting junk mail in your mailbox, your website will get spammers looking to leave junk comments on your site. Akismet seeks to reduce the amount of this by automatically filtering it for you. This plugin comes installed with WordPress, and all you need do is activate it and sign up for an account at akismet.com.
Yoast SEO – The best SEO plugin out there. This combines the ability to create meta tags and descriptions for your posts, optimize your titles, create a sitemap for search engines to read, customize how your posts appear across social media and do a whole lot more. It’s simple, easy to use, and comes with foolproof instructions.
Relevanssi – While WordPress does a lot of things well, what it fails at is adding search functionality to your site. Relevanssi seeks to fix this and give your readers the most accurate results when searching on your site.
BackWPup – You can never backup your site too much. The WordPress database holds every word you’ve ever written, and if your blog has started to make you a few dollars, you would be nuts not to keep regular backups. BackWPup does it perfectly. With the ability to schedule backups, you needn’t worry about doing it manually (especially useful to the more forgetful among us). There’s also the option to upload backups to Dropbox, Google Drive, and other cloud storage services, ensuring that if the worst does happen, your data will be safe.
Google Analytics For WordPress – Adding analytic tracking to your website is an important move in finding out who your readers are, where they are coming from, and what your most popular content is. When you sign up for Google Analytics, the site asks you to place a snippet of code into your website. For most people, that can be difficult, which is why there’s Google Analytics for WordPress. This adds a lovely graphical interface to your site where you can click a couple of buttons and set up your tracking without any hassle.
SumoMe – This is the best social sharing plugin on the web. Use this. It comes with great analytics and testing features.
Jetpack – Jetpack is aimed at super-charging your website with a host of features from WordPress’s free hosting platform, giving you the best of both worlds. With this plugin, you can add a spell-checker, contact forms, extra widgets, and a whole slew of more features, all with just one plugin.
W3 Total Cache – This plugin works by creating saved copies of your site, saving WordPress from having to generate them for every new visitor. This, in turn, cuts down on the amount of work your hosting server has to do and makes loading your webpages much much faster.
Step 5: Install your theme
Next, you need to make your website look pretty. One of the most important things a blog needs besides good content is a good design. People decide in seconds whether or not they trust your website and choose to stay. A visually unappealing website will turn off readers and reduce the number of return visits you get. So to accomplish a good design, you will need an amazing WordPress theme (i.e., design templates and files). You have 3 options:
Free Themes – Free themes are plentiful and for budding new bloggers looking to make their mark online, they seem like a great option as it allows you to keep costs low. There are many great free themes available online but most of them are not amazing.
If you plan on blogging for a long time, this might become a problem as your website grows. However, if you just need a simple design to blog for your friends and family, then go the free route. You can find some good free themes at wordpress.org.
Premium Themes – The next step up from a free theme is a premium theme. Premium themes are paid themes that offer a bit more uniqueness, flexibility, and functionality. These cost from $25 USD and up, depending on the developer and features.
With a premium theme, you almost always have a support forum that can help you begin to learn how to customize your site yourself. This can be a great way to introduce yourself to PHP and HTML code (which is what your theme and WordPress is created with) without having to worry about breaking your site and not having anybody to help you fix it.
The two best companies to buy premium themes from are WooThemes and StudioPress. My personal favorite is StudioPress as it is more SEO-friendly, a bit sleeker, and cooler. WooThemes are great for photographers and more “fun” personal blogs.
Custom Themes – If you have the money and want a completely unique website, a custom theme is the only way to go. Hiring a website designer/developer will allow you to build the site you dream of and get everything you want. A good WordPress theme from a good designer and developer starts at about $1,500 USD, though the typical average is $3,000-5,000 USD. In my experience, you get the coding you pay for, and cheap can lead to many problems later, so you’ll want a reputable and experienced person.
The best thing to do is ask around for someone, but if you don’t know anyone, two sites you can use to find freelancers are UpWork and 99 Designs.
As a new blogger, I would go with option #1 or 2 as it will be the easiest. To install your theme, simply go to the left-hand column, click Appearance –> Themes –> upload. Whatever theme you picked will come as a .ZIP file for you to easily upload. From, there you just activate it and it’s turned on. All themes come with a manual and help file so you can customize your design to your specific needs.
Step 6: Create your main pages
After you’ve uploaded your theme, you’re going to want to make a few basic pages on your website in addition to the blog posts. To create these pages (or posts), go again to your left sidebar and click Pages —> Add New. (Or, for blog posts, Posts –> Add New.) The difference between a page and a post is that a page is a static piece of content that lives separate from the blog. A post is a blog post that gets “buried” as you write more and more. For example, this post is a blog. When I update again, another post will get put on top of it and it will be pushed down in the archives, making it harder to find. But a page like my about page lives on the top of the website, right off the main url, and does NOT get buried. It’s a lot easier to find.
I recommend creating 4 basic pages to start:
About Page – This where you tell people about yourself, your history, what your blog is about, and why it will help them. This is one of the most important pages on your website so make it personable!
Contact Page – People need a way to reach you! Be sure to be very clear on what emails you will and won’t respond to so people don’t send you spam.
Privacy Page – This is a standard user agreement page letting people know what the applicable laws on your site are, that you use cookies, etc etc. You can find out of the box examples throughout the Internet.
Copyright Page – This is a standard page letting people know you own this work and not to steal it. You can find out of the box examples throughout the Internet.
(If you look in my footer, under the “About” section, you can see examples of all 4 of these pages!
***
That’s it! You’ve set up your basic website. Sure, there’s social media buttons to add, blogs to write, and images to upload but these 6 steps will create the basic framework of your blog! The hard comes after when you decide you want to turn it into a profession and start thinking about marketing, product creation, and everything in between but that stuff comes later. By following these steps, you’ll get your blog up and running so you can start sharing your stories and tips!
If you’re looking for more in-depth advice, 
I have a very detailed and robust blogging course that gives you a behind the scenes look at this website and features case studies, expert interviews, monthly webinars, tech support and help setting up your blog, and a lot more. You’ll learn everything I know about creating a successful blog. If you’re interested, click here to get started now.
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links, including the links for Host Gator and Bluehost. At no additional cost to you, I earn a commission if you make a purchase. If you have any questions about the companies or my status as an affiliate, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me.
Aaron
Dope. Definitely agree, start with a free or affordable premium theme, but keep in mind that if you want to get serious, you’re going to need a custom theme.
Matt – how long into blogging until you got a pro involved?
Asron
Hi Matt,
Thanks for the insights. My wife and I are about to head off for 12 months pretty much covering all parts of the globe.
My question- we were hoping to not take a laptop and manage the blog via our iPads. Is this technically/operationally pheasable? We have downloaded WordPress app so all good there, but im sure there are other issues to consider.
Thanks in advance
Jossie Calderon
That’s possible but not practical. The screen size isn’t big enough and it can be frustrating having half of the keyboard take up the screen. I’d say if you REALLY have to, otherwise just get a MacBook Air.
Adam
Macbook Air will save you so much stress, it’s worth the little extra weight!
Natalie
I struggled so much with a name and finally chose Blissmersion, a combination of bliss and immersion. I still love it, but it’s definitely difficult for people to remember! So, I’ll add: Pick real words!
Though, it will grow with me. I’ll give it that.
Love the section on plugins. You’ve mentioned a few I don’t have. Thank you for this post!
Shawn Michael Hartwell
Hey Matt,
I have a question for you about starting a travel blog. I have made a number of blogs for the last 3 years which didn’t work out. With each failure I have learned more about what works, from both a business and personal perspective, and I’m ready to dive back into the world of blogging.
How can one start a travel blog without having traveled extensively prior to it’s creation? In 4 days I’m heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia from Quebec and I’m planning a trip to Europe or Asia next year.
How can I possibly begin a blog that offers value before travelling extensively?
NomadicMatt
If you travel a lot in your local area, just make it about there! Everyday people are looking for information on Google. Be a big fish in a small pond. But if you only take like 1 trip a year, it’s going to be hard to have a blog that’s successful!
Janet
Good tips! Definitely has to be a name that can grow old with you, or change geographical locations if/when you move along. Initially I got burnt on my name selection of “Life on a Beach” when I moved from Hawaii to Arizona, so I opted for a new one which works!
Stephanie Craig
I got about halfway through these steps and then paid my friend to do it for me. =) She was much better than me! After the first year, I had a small company come in and tweak my site even more. Now I love it. If you’re not technical, you can get help!
Carl Kruse
Echoing the other comments on “great information.”
If you have the resources, I would get professional help in getting your blog to look and operate well from the get go. Of course, if you’re doing it just for fun, or have no resources, you can certainly get things going yourself. But if you think you’re in it for the long haul getting a well-designed and functioning blog from the start is key.
Oh, and perhaps most importantly, giving people a reason to go to your blog is even more important still.
Carl Kruse
Kunal
Hi Matt! I am an old reader of your travel blogs and recently I started my own travel blogs to write my travel experiences. You have always been an inspiration. Thanks for this post, I hope many more like me will start writing their travel experience after reading this post.
Thank you!
Kunal
Giorgos
Hey Matt, great article! Its been a few days that I aired my travel blog and been struggling to make it noticeable to the web! I think that article will help me. Keep up the good work, definitely will check back again on your blog
Thanks
Giorgos
Katarina
Finally, a site that explains it in step-by-step details! Usually travel bloggers are like, “It’s so easy.” I can see that now that I know where to start. Thank you.
Karianne
Such a great post Matt…. we really had no idea what we were doing when we started – and to be honest, most of the time, we still don’t now! We still learn a huge amount from posts like this and blogger forums / groups.
Our name took us ages to decide on – and we changed a few times before settling on The Good Globe.
Denise
Thank you so much for this information. I’m still putting my blog together (and struggling) but I would not have got this far without your tips!
NomadicMatt
Glad you’ve found the blog tips helpful!
tim
Thanks Matt – Good start, but a blog that no one finds can lead to a lot of frustration. I have heard you mention on other interviews that you are very focused on SEO – can you write a post of what you do for SEO and keyword selection. that would be extremely helpful!
NomadicMatt
For that, you’ll have to take the course! 🙂
Danielle
Matt,
Great tips here. I just started my own travel and food blog about 3 weeks ago and chose to go with a free theme. I am worried that I made a mistake by going with a free vs. a premium theme. My goal is to grow my blog, and I’ve already started noticing some limitations to my theme. Is it too late to consider upgrading to a premium theme?
Abby
You give some awesome tips on how to start a travel blog. It can be overwhelming to try and organize all of your amazing travel experiences into just a few paragraphs. Often people forget starting a blog and getting it to look like you want isn’t as easy as snapping your fingers. I like how you started with picking the domain, theme, and 4 main pages (About, Copyright, Privacy, Contact) that everyone should create and then discuss the importance of photos within a blog. I completely agree, especially for travel blogs, photos are probably the most important aspect of the blog. It seems like everyone else found your comments helpful, too! Thanks for the advice.
NomadicMatt
Yeah, I would 100% upgrade. Premium themes are much better and can be changed around easier.
JoseEduardo
Wow! Really comprehensive, understandable and easy to follow. Good work! Thank you for that post. It has inspired me heaps.
Monika
Hi Matt!
I really like your page and the work you do here. The post about creating the new blog from the scrach is fantastic! I would add a tip to adquire something like SSL Certificate (to obtain the “https//:” prefix for the site what I have done with mine 🙂
You are saying that choosing the name including ‘vagabond’-ish or ‘nomad’-ish thing is bad but it seems we both have used it anyway 😉
NomadicMatt
SSL is only really needed if you have a shopping cart and accepting payments for items your selling. Otherwise, it’s an expense you don’t need!
Alisa
Matt–great article! I purchased your blog guide a few months ago and have started my own travel page about having fun while traveling on business. I’m in the early stages of putting it together, and your guidance has been invaluable. I always keep up with your site because you provide great content and tips for travel and life.
NomadicMatt
Awesome! Glad you’ve enjoyed the course!
Rich
Thanks Matt, I have been meaning to start my own blog but I am not at all a “techie” I was able to set it up a blog on Host Gator in under an hour!
Richard
Very enlightening this content, I want to make a blog of reports of my travels and I found this step by step incredible. Thank you very much!
Alana
Great post Matt. First of all, I highly respect YOUR work. You have transformed your love of travel to sharing it with millions of people.
I recently turned my passion of destinations I\’ve been to into posting it on wordpress.com. With this I have realized that there are many limitations in terms of monetizing. I\’m not blogging to make money. With what I have done the past six years how can I NOT blog about this is my mentality however wordpress.com wordads earning is very limited. I only make $$$ through wordads on US based traffic to my .com site only.
In your wise opinion do you recommend me or anyone who is finding all these limitations (with web designs, advertising, and monetizing) with wordpress.com to move toward wordpress.org to have more freedom? I have a 30 day refund I can apply for if I\’m not happy. A lot of my traffic on my site is coming from all over the world, not just the US!
Stefan
Hi Matt,
I’ve just bought a new MacBook Pro and now I figured that all of my blogs’ images appear blurry on the Retina Displays 🙁
Thinking about sitting down and re-editing all of my images now… what do you do about this issue?
Also, what if in 5 years or so Apple brings out new Retina displays (like “Super Retina”), and once again these images look blurry – will you have to re-edit and re-upload once again? Would love to hear your thoughts on this Matt.
Cheers,
Stefan
TJ
Hi Matt,
Great work! I have been writing since 2011, however my blog was hacked and I had to start all over again. Security and SEO are the biggest challenges when running a blog. Please do share what has worked the best in these two areas for your travel blog.
Neha
Hi Matt,
As a follower of your blog, I came about following you and your blog through mentions, tweets and retweets. I really like your blog and you are an inspiration for me to write about my travel and experience. So I started my Vlog which is about travel and exploring different parts of Word In most beautiful way.
Thanks for sharing your experiences .
Alice
can you tell us what wordpress theme you use for your blog? That would help a lot.
NomadicMatt
It’s custom built! Sorry.
Ben
Hey! Great article. When would you say is the best time to start a travel blog? For example, I’m going to start travelling around SEA next year for a long as possible and I intend to keep going. Should I created my travel blog before I go or when I’ve been travelling for a few months?
Cheers
NomadicMatt
Today is always the best day to do anything!
Jason
Thanks dude, I have a friend who loves to travel and I told them they should be blogging about their adventures. Sent him this page to get him jump started 🙂 great content as always
Trees Rotteveel
Thank you! This is very helpfull! I have the name already…now the second step…
Daniela
This was a very helpful straight-to-the-point post. However I was hoping to grasp your intake or suggestion on gTLDs! As we know, .com (and even .net) is saturated and so many of us are having to seek other options unless we want to fork over the hefty price that “myperfectname.com” may be on sale for. As an expert travel-blogger, it would be nice to possibly provide your insight or opinion on gTLDs such as .xyz, .world, .global, .blog, and the one that is most appealing to me for the simple fact that it states exactly what we are doing now, .travel. What is the likelihood of this being the wrong move for start-up bloggers?
Diana
Hi Matt,
Do you use shared, dedicated cloud hosting?
Thanks,
Diana
Casey
Hi Matt,
Quick question. You recommend domain privacy protection, but I already purchased my domain name beforehand and it doesn’t seem like there’s an option to click this privacy protection option that you show above. Is it already included or something?
Thanks,
Casey
Indian blogs
It is a well structured Article and well informative .Thanks for sharing with us
Lonestar Barns
Thanks to my father who told me regarding this blog, this blog is actually
amazing.
David
Great post! I think the most important thing we tell people is to travel with a purpose, Do not just wander around the world aimlessly. (Like ours is to experience and document the Top 100 Travel Adventures) So many travel blogs do not really have a purpose or a niche. Niche is key and many miss out on that because they want to cover and do it all. Do not just start a blog because you think you will get rich quick and be able to travel the world. It takes a lot of work and lots of time.
Christy Yazzie
Hi Matt- Thank you this is helpful 🙂 I am about to take a 1 year back packing trip to South America and I was wondering about my page layout. Should I have a tab for every country so my readers could navigate easier and if so do I need to buy a plan that will allow me to put in more pages? I am not sure how that all works or the best way to go about it.
Kemasan makanan
I think that what you posted was very logical. But, think on this, what if you added
a little content? I mean, I don’t wish to
tell you how to run your blog, however what if you added a title that makes people
want more? I mean How to Start a Travel Blog is a little boring.
You ought to glance at Yahoo’s front page and note how they write article titles
to grab viewers to open the links. You might try adding a
video or a pic or two to grab people excited about what you’ve written. Just
my opinion, it might make your website a little livelier.
Vanessa
Hey att, if I already have a wordpress domain name, can I use that on Hostgator? Or do I have to do Hostgator first and then crete new one?
Buddhism
It’s an amazing article for all the web people; they will get benefit from it
I am sure.
Robyn
Whats up this is somewhat of off topic but I was wanting to
know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML.
I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding experience so I wanted to get guidance
from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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people experience, well, keep up the good work fellows.
Samantha Taylor
Thank you very much for sharing, very informative post!
Nelle
This site was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I have found something which helped me.
Appreciate it!
Leila Vetter
I was looking to create a travel blog and all these server, hosting stuff seem too complicated for me. Ended up using TravelMap.net and would recommend it to those who are just a traveler looking for a simple and easy blog – not making a business out of it.
You get a free domain: username.travelmap.net and your content is hosted by them.
What I like most is that it stands out from other travel blogs because it is centered on an interactive map, photos and posts can be linked to the spots. And I find it most useful when you are a long-distance cyclist or hiker or even sailor.
Cheers,
Leila
Fallon04
I think your page needs some fresh content. Writing manually takes a lot of time, but there is tool for this boring task, search for: Boorfe’s
tips unlimited content
zambia01
Hi I am so excited I found your site, I really found you by error, while I was searching
on Askjeeve for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say thanks for a fantastic post and
a all round exciting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t
have time to read it all at the minute but I have book-marked it
and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I
will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the awesome jo.
Ankita Rastogi
Hi Matt. Thank you for the wonderful tips. I am a new blogger and starting a new blogging website. I live in Singapore. Should I start with the nearby places at first and how many times a week a blogger should travel and write contents???