There are plenty of backpacking bloggers out there but reading a backpacking blog from a true backpacker has something special. So how to start a successful backpacking blog was written with a true backpacker in mind. Starting a website or blog about your backpacking adventures is an amazing way to share your experiences and enthuse the reader to try it for themselves.
Regardless of where you travel, beit around your home location, on your annual vacation, or breaks away, by writing a blog, you are creating a website that solves problems your audience might have, telling them what to expect, where to go, what to take, where to stay, what backpack to use, camp or not to camp – the whole experience using your knowledge.
Writing on your own website about backpacking can start as a hobby, in your downtime from your regular work, but no reason why you can’t make income from it. Your website can be a combination of blogs and affiliate marketing, giving you the opportunity to monetise your website as you work.
How To Start Blogging
I won’t go into how to set up your website at this point because I have written articles about that already and setting up a website for backpacking is the same as it would be for any other website right now. So hop over to website building, and start there first.
You can host it at Wealthy Affiliate – that’s where mine is hosted, and I’m there too if you want any help, follow this link to Wealthy Affiliate Review to see what its about and whether its for you. Hosting at WA gives you so much help, you might find that it is just what you need right now.
With your website set up, the next step is to get a few articles/blogs written.
What To Write About
So you are a backpacker… As a non-backpacking traveller, I can think of dozens of things I would want to know if I was taking it up for the first time. That’s a good niche audience to target, or you could combine a niche website with articles for the beginner and the seasoned backpacker?
To start writing, you need great keywords that will attract readers to your website. As a startup, you could do with a little help in how to target those keywords that will help get you ranked highly on the search engines because as you can imagine, there will be a lot of websites that rank already for the popular backpacking keywords, so you need to be a little clever here and pick off those ‘low hanging’ keywords that will bypass the more popular keywords that will put you up against the high flyers on backpacking on the search engines. K
Keywords
As you can see from this illustration here, these keywords are very popular, that is to say, there are a LOT of websites using the keyword ‘backpacking’… not worth using as a keyword as you have to compete against 168 other websites using that same keyword. Really not worth the bother…
This search is much more productive with very possible keywords to use. I love ‘best backpacking trails Oregon’ at only one other website ranking for that keyword.. but Im not in Oregon I hear you say… well search with your own state…. the likelihood is that it will rank as positively as this.
To learn more about finding those keywords, read my article on Jaaxy – Jaaxy is a keyword tool that will find those low competition keywords for you, showing the likely traffic you could attract to your website with those words. It will also give you alternative similar words for you to consider and try out. By doing this you will find keywords that you can write about and know you will attract organic traffic to your articles. If you want to learn more about Jaaxy and try it out, follow my link. As an example, I had a look through Jaaxy to see what sort of backpacking keywords there are.
Products/Information
With a website based on backpacking, it opens up a whole array of avenues you could take with products, information, articles, blogs, tips and ideas. Start a subscription to encourage readers to keep up with your blogs and advice. So many ways that you can enhance your readers enjoyment of their backpacking.
Products
You might want to narrow your products/ information more, rather than going for everything you might need for a backpacking adventure and having several choices of each item… a lot of affiliate links to sort out.
There are tons of products you could recommend, but you could look at it from various angles – an article about all the stuff you use yourself on backpacking trips, using the latest affiliate links to various websites where they can purchase what you use…. Choose a few products to recommend, ones that you feel passionate about, review them and offer your opinion on them. Get the company to send you them to try out, get images on your trek to use in your blog – this will really add weight to your article and improve the trust element that is important for any website.
Check out the affiliate programmes for your products, this is the crux of an affiliate website, the ability to monetise it. This starts with affiliate links. You review a product then add an affiliate link to the item. When the reader clicks on that link and buys the product, you get a small percentage. It doesn’t cost your reader more. So check out how to do this by following my link to affiliate marketing and affiliate links. Both these articles will explain how to set up the links and what affiliate marketing is all about.
A well researched product, with great photos ‘out in the field’ with an honest review, will build your brand and encourage more readers to interact with you.
Products you could review include – sleeping bags, backpacks, camping tents, walking boots, jackets, cooking equipment, first aid, dry bags, compass, camera, bug sprays, travel companies for backpacking… the list could go on!
Information
I would love to go backpacking but I wouldn’t know where to start, and I would have so many questions that I would need answering before I could even consider it. You can decide how you want to approach the information you give out. Its always ideal to have a balance between information that you offer freely and information you offer for payment.
Much of the time I would expect that the blogs/articles you choose to write about will be freely available to your readers, but thinking about articles on epic adventures that you have, maybe in your own state, with exact information from where to park your car, to what sights to see on the backpack adventure, where to camp, or where there are lodgings you would recommend – the full instructional booklet on backpacking in…..Cashiers, NC or Fort Walton FL….or Dripping Falls TX !
This sort of booklet by a backpacking expert will be valuable to the beginner. Making the most of a trip for those starting out on this pastime is important but also knowing that they will have the right equipment etc to make their experience a great one.
Other articles/ blogs can cover a plethora of topics from ‘Tips For Camping In The Rain’ – great one for the UK backpacker ! Or ‘Preparation Exercises for The Starter Backpacker.’ ‘ Personal Hygiene When Backpacking’ or ‘When You Wipe With The Wrong Leaf’ ? You can have great fun writing about low cost travel recommendations, water hydration and cleaning, cooking skills.
If you want to come join me at Weathly Affiliate, to have unrivalled support with your website from the get go, click on the banner below. I will personally support you in your journey and get your backpacking website off the ground.
Great and amazing article on how to start a successful backpacking blog,you have really pointed out the secret of blogging which is solving problems that the audience have,also keywords research is very important too,to discover the number competitors of a particular phrase of keywords,marketing products on the website also helps,it opens up a whole array of avenues you could take with products, information, articles, blogs, tips and ideas,this is what am trying to do now to boost my revenue.Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for taking time to comment Abayomi.. got to solve a problem.. your audience needs help and whatever niche it is, if you help with a problem, you will increase your traffic. Best of luck!
I enjoyed your article very much. I like the way that you used the backpacking analogy. You are right. We all have such different expertise levels to share with the world. I a,m a premium member of Wealthy Affiliate and I am also so thrilled with everything that they offer. Although I have only been fully committed to my business full time for a short time, I am excited for the day when I will see some results. I have 50 blog posts so far.
Thank you again for the helpful post!
We have to use the skills we gave, the passions , the experiences, otherwise our audience does not have faith in our website.
Excellent article on starting a backpacking blog! I love the “What to do when wiping with the wrong leaf.” That would be the best article EVER. Seriously. If I had a camping website, or any sort of outdoorsy website, I would totally use that! I never would have considered that topic when blogging. I’m seriously amused by that one.
On a more serious note, those are some excellent ideas for a backpacking blog, though. I don’t come up with that many good ideas at once, I’m sad to say. I think a non-expert is the first person to ask about a blog from the expert, right? I think I’m going to ask that very same thing. Sometimes experts are blinded by their experience and don’t often realize what beginners need answered and you totally just proved my point.
Is backpacking really that popular for a blog?
Thanks Jane, so glad you liked it. You have to approach the niche from your audience point of view, the stuff they find tough. Solve a problem, you’re onto a winner! Backpacking is one big pastime for my niche audience.. so a good niche to talk about.
This post is really helpful. I have just joined wealthy affiliate and I can honestly say the journey has been exceptional. I don’t really know what niche to go into but from you research in this post, looks like backpacking is a really good option to jump into as there are many people out there who go travelling and I’d be able to solve their problems and make some money by doing that. Thanks for the idea.
Thankyou Henderson.. Are you a backpacker? Your website must be about something you feel passionate about, have some expertise in, gaining trust from your readers is important and easily done when you have knowledge on the subject.
While I am interested in BackPacking it is something because of my age I would not do. How would you go about trying to transform my thinking on this subject?
From there I would need all types of advice such as footwear and clothing suitable for an older person and of course the most important thing of all the backpack itself.
Derek
Thankyou Derek for your comments, as a non backpacker I can see that encouragement to try it out could be a great focus for someone setting up a website about backpacking. Great idea for a blog!
Hello Quinn,
Really this is an amazing article about how to start a successful backpacking blog. This post is also helpful. Just I have amused to see this article. I did not know that this could be the subject of blogging. But now I realize that backpacking blog will be the excellent idea for bloggers. You have share the steps how to be a successful backpacking blogger. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much for your comments! Almost any niche can create wealthy online business for some one with those skills, you look into your self and find the qualities that you are skilled at, and use them ! Backpacking as a niche is an excellent source of income for a backpacker!