10 Ways To Promote Your Blog & Grow Your Audience

Humble beginnings: how I built up IndieTraveller from nothing to 35.000 views/month in 8 months

(Update January 2016: Indie Traveller now gets over 170,000 unique visitors a month and has made it into the Top 30 of travel blogs by traffic. While I’ve learned many new things since I originally wrote this post in 2014, most of the tips here still apply!)

Updating IndieTraveller from a hostel in Salta, Argentina.

I have so far resisted going meta (i.e. blogging about blogging), though lately several bloggers asked me about how I got Indie Traveller off the ground, so I thought it be a good time to share some of my experiences.

It’s only been 8 months since I launched this blog, and by far the biggest challenge during this time has been gaining an audience foothold. I’m happy to say I have gotten through the worst part: I managed to get my traffic up from zero to 15,000 unique visitors a month. That’s not a whole lot yet, but it’s a perfect launching-off point. It feels like the blog has finally gained momentum and further traffic increases will be easier to achieve from here on out.

See Also: How To Start A Travel Blog In 10 Minutes

Managing your expectations

For me, gaining traffic has been the most mentally and emotionally taxing aspect of starting a new blog. You should expect to have almost no audience at all during your first couple of months. This can be utterly crushing: I would often spend hours on a single post only to have it read by a literal handful of people. It makes you feel like a nobody, a nothing, not even a tiny blip on anyone’s radar. It sucks.

Building up your blog’s foundations and gaining an audience requires a significant time and energy investment that’s not going to pay off for another 6 months at least. You really have to be a little obsessive in the beginning.

Trying to get IndieTraveller started often felt like trying to create a fire by rubbing some damp moss between some wet sticks… in 100 km/hr winds. You just keep hoping for a post to catch on but you only ever get these useless taunting little sparks (if at all).

But you just have to keep going. Eventually your blog will catch on, and once the fire is finally lit you can just make it bigger and bigger by throwing more fuel on. Keep in mind that traffic can eventually increase exponentially. Gaining 10 visitors in your first month will seem like you have to move mountains; gaining 10 more visitors in your sixth month can feel comically easier.

Make sure you install Google Analytics on your blog if you haven’t already and read some tutorials on how to use it. It gives you absolutely critical information for developing your blog. But… in the first few months you should resist looking at it every day. Numbers will be so low that they will simply depress you, and traffic increases will look extremely marginal day-to-day. Try maybe looking at it once a month at most, so you keep your eye on the big picture. (I didn’t, and nearly lost my sanity.)

There is one post by Nomadic Samuel “How To Create A Succesful Travel Blog In Your First Year Of Blogging” that I highly recommend reading. It’s the best description of the initial growth stages of a travel blog that I’ve seen, and it’s both sobering and hopeful.

The 10 traffic strategies I used

While getting that initial foothold on the interwebs is very very difficult, the good news it does get easier after a while. The key is to try many different approaches to getting the word about your site out there. Here are the methods I used to gain more traffic and my experiences with each of them:

1. Facebook

At launch I invited people I knew from my previous travels to follow me on Facebook—that was an easy win. As an experiment I also purchased some Likes via FB ads, but I do not recommend this. The Likes you get this way are utter garbage. This video explains extremely well why buying Facebook Likes is a bad idea. I have yet to implement a full social media strategy but it’s clear to me that posts with photos in them work amazingly well, and posts about travel experiences get a lot of likes. How-to posts or destination guides barely make a blip. On social media it’s all about the human element.

(Update Jan 2016: I now schedule social media posts on Facebook and Twitter using Hootsuite. Facebook gets the strongest response, probably because you can more easily include photos, which for a travel blog is huge. I’ve heard a lot of success stories about Instagram, which is a platform I really need to get onto. Try to build a connection with your audience through images, asking them questions, and linking to interesting posts that aren’t just your own. I recommend not spending too much time on social media in the first year however. It can be a huge time drain when you need to be making content! You can ratchet up your social media involvement once you hit 1000 or so followers.)

2. Twitter

I started by following other travel bloggers I thought were interesting. I further boosted my following by searching for potentially interested users using an app called TweetAdder. I searched for travel or backpacking related keywords, and then selectively followed users in the hopes they would follow me back. It’s a bit spammy, but sometimes you gotta hustle. This added 500 followers to my feed, though I am now growing my following through organic means only. I use the Buffer app to post to Facebook and Twitter on a regular schedule. The amount of clickthroughs you get from tweets can be disappointing, but sometimes a tweet catches fire and gets retweeted a lot. Check in Buffer what your best performing tweets were and repeat those from time to time.

3. Commenting

Commenting on other blogs is not going to be a major source of traffic, but it does get your name out there. The handfuls of visitors you’ll get from blog comments won’t make your heart go faster, but they might just be from other influential travel bloggers or devoted travel blog readers, who in turn may share or comment on your posts. Look on google for blogs that have CommentLuv installed – it’s a WordPress plugin that lets commenters include a link to their last blog post.

4. Adwords (freebie)

Adwords are the text advertisements that run alongside Google search results. Google regularly gives out free Adword credit for new customers; search around for promotions and I am sure you will find it. I used a 75 GBP coupon (over $100) to run some ads for IndieTraveller. The traffic influx wasn’t great, but every little bit helps. Try to connect Adwords traffic to something concrete, like a mailinglist sign-up or something you are offering. Adwords works best for specific action-focused traffic, and is not cost-effective for getting general interest traffic which you can grow organically.

5. Reddit

I posted some of my own articles to /r/travel or /r/backpacking on Reddit with some success. Keep in mind that too much self-promotion is frowned upon and your submissions will be blocked if you go totally balls-out with Reddit promotion. Try being a regular active participant so that you won’t be flagged, and only post the occasional truly worthwhile link to your site. The rule of thumb is for every post you make linking to your own site, you need to make 6 other posts that are not self-promotional. /r/travel can be extremely strict in enforcing its rules, while /r/backpacking is a bit more welcoming to content creators (though it is also a smaller subreddit).

At first I didn’t know about the restrictions Reddit puts in place, so I wasted valuable promotional opportunities on non-important posts. Try to keep your powder dry. Wait with posting on Reddit until you have that super amazing post you know is going to do well.

Reddit can get you a lot of traffic for a day or two. One time I got 10k visitors on a single day, another time 6k from a Reddit post. If your post does well, you will probably continue to see a trickle of maybe 100 visitors a day for a while (mainly people using the ‘Top’ tab on the subreddit) until it finally peters out.

One thing I regret about using Reddit is that I used it too early. I posted my Top 7 Cheapest Destinations post to /r/travel on my blog’s launch day and it went stupendously viral to the point where it reached Reddit’s front page – and major sites like Hostelworld even linked to it from their blogs or social media accounts. It was nuts. Sadly my site was not at all set up to capitalize on this massive influx of visitors: I didn’t have a proper mailinglist signup, no other content of interest, etc. So my site was just a huge siff, and I gained very little from that early boost. The bounce rate was 95%, whereas later promotion of other posts had a bounce rate of around 75% (i.e. people actually checked out other pages on the site and not just the one that was linked).

6. Stumbleupon

(Edit: Stumbleupon has now gone the way of the dodo.)

This works best for very ‘viral’ (and dare I say, fluffy) posts. Things like ’10 Amazing Travel Photos You Won’t Believe OMFG!’ will do well here, but more substantial posts won’t. Stumbleupon is mainly used by bored people to ‘channel surf’ the internet . As a result, usually 95% or more of visitors coming from there will leave your site after viewing only the landing page. I wasted a lot of time trying to submit stuff to Stumbleupon. One post that went bananas on Reddit I put in for paid promotion on Stumbleupon (minimum cost $10) and it got me pretty much nothing in return. In my experience Stumbleupon only works if it’s on a “cute cat pictures” level of virality and even then it’s questionable if you are building a real audience through this.

7. Real-world marketing

I thought that since I travel long-term and meet other travellers all the time it’d be easy to promote my site to other travellers. At a print shop in Mexico I even printed out some cards with my URL on it – I’m glad it only cost a couple of dollars as I had to throw them away eventually. Turns out it’s super socially awkward to give someone what seems like a business card when they’re travelling. Geez, what was I thinking? Not good. I do recommend typing in your blog URL on people’s phones however, or sending them the URL if you’ve added them to Facebook. A great way to get people you’ve met to share one of your posts is if it’s a story that involves them (e.g. maybe a tour you went on together).

8. Email

Getting traffic to your site is one thing, but actually retaining visitors is another. Having a mailinglist is a great way to get people to come back to your site. Try to have something to offer to new subscribers. I had a generic sign-up box at first which did OK, but when I added an offer of a free chapter for my book and a list of ‘7 backpacking mistakes’ sign-ups went up by 400%. I typically send out an update to subscribers once a month. I use MailChimp for managing my mailinglist.

9. Social sharing

I can be really brief about this one: install AddThis or Getsitecontrol so that people can easily follow you on social media or share your posts.

10. Guest posting

This, in my experience, is really the best way to get your blog established, especially in the beginning.

A guest post is something you’ll write for another blog for free, in exchange for getting a link back to your site within the article. You will usually get a trickle of traffic through this link, but this is not primarily why you should be guest posting! The main point is to get more inbound links to your site (especially from sites that are themselves well-established) as this will result in Google ranking you higher in its results.

At first I searched for travel sites that openly invite guest posts, but this was not a very productive strategy. A lot of these sites soliciting guest posts are dormant or no longer actually accept them. Many travel blogs that do actively take guest posts don’t openly advertise this, as a lot of guest post requests come from SEO marketers (rather than legitimate bloggers) and are very low-quality and spammy.

A better method is to read and follow some travel blogs that you like. You might notice some of them have posts that are not by the main author; contact them and see if you can guest write for them. Convince them your guest post will be of high quality. Most bloggers are frustrated with all the garbage that spam marketers are trying to get them to post and would love to post something that is at least as good as what you’d post on your own blog.

Shortly after launching my blog, GoBackpacking and eTramping graciously accepted some of my guest posts, which gave me a foot in the door. I tried to link the guest posts to relevant posts on my own site. For GoBackpacking I wrote about travelling in Burma, and hooked this up to my Burma destination guide. I did the same for a post about Cuba. I believe this helped boost the Google page authority for these guides.

A huge benefit of guest posting is that it connects you with other bloggers. eTramping later invited me to participate in several collaborative posts. I met Dave of GoBackpacking in person in Colombia and was able to pick his brain a bit about how he runs his blog—and I hope to write for him again in the future.

Guest posts can seem like a bit of a time sink as you are also trying to get great content on your own blog, but they do pay off massively.

I quite enjoy participating in collaborative posts as they require less writing (usually about 100-300 words instead of 500-800) and are easier to do (as I don’t have to think so much about an introduction or conclusion). For an example of a collaborative post (one that I contributed to) check out 35 Coolest Hostels From Around The World at eTramping. To participate in collaborative posts you need to develop relationships with other bloggers. It can take a while to end up on people’s mailinglists for contribution requests, so you might just have to write only full-length guest posts at first.

A few travel sites also have a photo of the day/week feature where all it takes to get linked is sending in an amazing photo along with a description. These opportunities are rare, but obviously more time efficient than writing an entire guest post.

Finally, as your blog gains momentum, you may be invited for interviews. I just recently got asked for an interview with a travel magazine. This is sort of like a reverse guest post, which boosts not only your rankings but also your authority as a writer. These kinds of opportunities, of course, can take a little while to emerge. Be sure to have a good contact form on your site so that people can reach you easily.

11. SEO

A final traffic strategy to use, which would take a whole other post to dive into properly, is optimising your content for search engines. Learning to use Google Analytics and understanding the basics of SEO can do crazy things for your traffic… eventually. The problem with SEO is that it can take months, sometimes even a year, for any changes to pay off. So it’s more of a long game method that won’t be quite as relevant in the very early days of starting a blog.

Getting quality back-links is key for SEO, which is something that guest posting can help with a lot in the beginning. Once your blog is up and running, and you’ve been working on it for maybe 6 months or so, it’s a good time to start learning about SEO.

Note (Jan 2016): I’ve learned a ton about SEO since I originally wrote this post, and I’d say that it’s clearly traffic building method no 1. Once other sites start linking to you, your blog will rise in the search engine rankings. Tweaking keywords and titles can also have a huge impact on how many people visit your site through Google. SEO is something you should look into if you’re serious about longer-term traffic building!

Tools & resources I’ve used

  • Fizzle.co – excellent learning program and community for bloggers and ‘solopreneurs’
  • The Moz blog – your starting point if you want to learn about SEO
  • Getsitecontrol – affordable widgets for your site which let you easily capture e-mails, promote products, conduct surveys, etc. My site uses about 6 of these in various places, and they’re now key to my growth success. (It’s only $9 a month, which is way cheaper than the $50/m or so you have to pay for services like Unbounce etc.!)
  • Bluehost – affordable web hosting which I’ve used for 8 years. I’ve since moved to a Linode VPS to deal with my high traffic volume, but Bluehost is way cheaper and a lot easier if you’re starting out. See also: how to start a travel blog in 10 minutes.

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81 comments

  1. Dhiraj Reply August 1, 2018 at 11:10 am

    Hi, it was nice to read it.

    I am going to use your tip on guest blogging surely to increase traffic on my blog @ http://www.mywordaffair.com

    Thanks,
    Dhiraj

  2. Jessica Reply June 20, 2018 at 5:27 am

    This was a great post and very motifying as I just started my blog. Thank you for the advices.

    • Marek Reply June 20, 2018 at 9:14 am

      You’re welcome 🙂 By the way, your blog focuses on a single topic which will be of great benefit for search engines! Ranking on Google is largely a matter of time (need to be online at least 1 year) but having a focused topic will help a lot with that.

  3. Josh Reply June 7, 2018 at 9:43 pm

    I’m following your advice in point three and saying thanks for the advice!

    • Marek Reply June 8, 2018 at 9:09 am

      You’re welcome! 🙂

  4. Kathleen Reply May 29, 2018 at 11:44 am

    Some great tips here, thanks! I am wondering if Reddit is still a good option currently?

    • Marek Reply May 29, 2018 at 12:19 pm

      Yeah I think it’s gotten a lot harder to share your own stuff. Moderation is really strict now. But if there’s something really amazing to share you might be able to still get through…

  5. Céline Reply May 22, 2018 at 12:43 pm

    Thanks for the tips, I am just starting out with mine.
    I find it very hard to promote a blog and it’s a lot of work !

    Céline
    http://www.celinesska.com

  6. Wojtek Reply May 14, 2018 at 11:43 am

    Thanks for that Marek. Really useful tips. We ran our blog 3 months ago https://planodo.com and we used your guide. Our google position is really poor. How long did it take for you to reach at least first 30?

    We ran as well our instagram and facebook channel as you recommended.
    Pozdrawiamy 🙂

    • Marek Reply May 14, 2018 at 9:45 pm

      Czesc! 🙂 3 months might honestly not be enough to see much results. It took a year for me at least to break through with SEO. Google is waiting to see if it can trust your site, that it won’t be gone next week, etc. … it hugely favors established sites to send traffic to. Google also does a lot of A/B testing to see which search results work for their users, and it takes time for it to gather data when you’re still on a low position. The best thing to do is to keep producing content and to keep promoting and to have much patience. I think perhaps you’ll have a slight advantage writing in Polish, as the keyword competition will be lower.

      • Wojtek Reply May 15, 2018 at 9:33 am

        Thanks for the response. I see those first months you need to be very patient and do your job 🙂 However, we are writing in 2 languages, maybe later with 3. It will automatically switch if your web browser is in English or different lang. Can I ask which language of web browser do you use?

        • Marek Reply May 15, 2018 at 11:30 am

          Hmm, my web browser is set to en-US but I saw your blog in Polish. 🙂 Not sure how the automatic switching works but for SEO it’s best if there are separate canonical URLs for each language.

  7. Sheena Reply April 24, 2018 at 11:04 am

    I am about to officially launch my travel blog and looking for tips and advice that I can use and follow to promote my blog. This blog post is so helpful. Thank you. I’ll follow your tips and advice with my blog promotion.

  8. MerRyan Reply February 10, 2018 at 5:22 pm

    Thanks you are so kind to share your tips and allow us to share our website here… only you can understand how difficult it is to establish even a minute presence.
    My instagram is doing well http:/www.instagram.com/MerRyanSG
    But we made a youtube channel to extend reach and the results was disastrous – views were negligible and those who came in gave very unfavourable feedback! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLiHpCZp3C3yrVe7jv9N0xA
    It can be discouraging….. but thanks for your tips!

    • Marek Reply February 10, 2018 at 6:36 pm

      YouTube is tough! I myself get only views for things people are searching for (like reviews). Otherwise, it’s a painful process of slowly gathering subscribers…

      Love your theme on IG. 🙂

  9. Elijah Rodriguez Reply December 20, 2017 at 8:40 am

    Thanks for this! I’ve been working on my website aguygoesglobal.com for 4 months and was feeling pretty discouraged, but this is helping me get back on track. The amount of patience needed really isn’t talked about enough so I appreciate how candid you were 🙂

    • Marek Reply December 22, 2017 at 12:05 pm

      Yeah, it can be very tough at first! 🙂 Good luck with your blog!

  10. guidetour Reply October 30, 2017 at 6:43 pm

    thank you for sharing this topic . really great post

  11. Blaine Reply October 25, 2017 at 1:59 pm

    Good information: For me traveling was a decision of too much stress behind a desk and albeit i’m new to this, the lifestyle is so much better! Great information for a beginner! I would love to guest write for you if your open to it. blainesterrain.com

    Cheers!

  12. Mike Lares Reply July 19, 2017 at 1:05 am

    Cool! Just started my blog (http://hitinthai.com/) about Thailand (I’m half American, half Thai) and I want it to get promoted. The blog basically is about what’s hit in and around Thailand.

    This is a nice help

  13. Laura Reply June 29, 2017 at 2:40 am

    This is a great post. I appreciate that there’s actionable tips and an ordering of priorities, because everything seems so daunting in the beginning! You also have some great (specific) advice that I haven’t seen elsewhere. Thanks!

  14. Derek Reply June 11, 2017 at 5:03 am

    Great tips here! Thanks for sharing Marel, it really helps aspiring travel bloggers like us get started.

  15. Katherine L Reply June 9, 2017 at 8:53 pm

    What interesting article. There are so many travel companies in South America that we have to learn about Seo and travel blogs.
    Thanks very much

  16. Chris Reply May 31, 2017 at 6:49 am

    Wow! Thank you for an actually honest, well thought out article on the subject. There is so much garbage online like just fix your SEO and it happens magically so it is very refreshing to read something like this.

    While I am at it, please come check out my blog too! I specifically focus on budget off-the-beaten-track travel and hard to reach places.

    http://www.authentictraveling.org

  17. Artur Kraft Reply May 18, 2017 at 11:47 am

    Hi Marek,

    thank you for that article. I find it very useful! I know it might be a little bit outdated, but some things are still relevant! Thanks!

  18. Aria A. Reply April 12, 2017 at 5:53 am

    Really informative. I think this covered all the stuff starting bloggers need to know to get their websites out there using social media. Thanks for this! Definitely applying all that I learned.

  19. Becky Reply April 9, 2017 at 10:41 am

    Thank you for this post! I really haven’t been getting any traffic so far but I will try these ways out in the future 🙂

  20. Carlita Reply March 28, 2017 at 7:39 pm

    I found this on the top of my google search so obviously its working for you. Thanks for sharing!

  21. Rafael Santiago Reply March 25, 2017 at 2:38 pm

    It is so refreshing to hear from someone as successful as you about the struggles in beginning. I started not long ago and it is definitely not a walk in the park. I will use some of the tips you have provided. Thank You, Marek!

  22. Candra Reply February 19, 2017 at 6:49 pm

    This tips very good for a newbie like me. I dont about SEO. I just write, write and write..
    And i’m confused how to get many traffic. Google has already answered and leads to your site. thanks for sharing. I will try it

  23. Fliss Tournant Reply November 9, 2016 at 4:26 pm

    Trying to promote my own travel blog at the moment and have found these tips super useful!

  24. Christian Kroul Reply September 23, 2016 at 3:54 am

    I really enjoy this post. I think that you stated some great points. I would add using a sharing tool, once people are on your blog, like Addthis and having a recommended feed

    I know how hard it is I personally don’t get any traffic almost. I get one person a week, so i will try to implement this.

    I would love to see a comment on my post, since i put a lot of work into them and i make sure they are the best that they can be

  25. Kevin Chen Reply September 21, 2016 at 3:41 am

    The reddit travel tip is great! I’m going to use it to post some of my travel content from ThisEarthIsBeautiful.com

  26. Anna Reply September 20, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    Thanks heaps! This is quite insightful. I will incorporate these strategies in my blogging routine, let’s see how it goes.

  27. Sarah Reply September 9, 2016 at 11:39 am

    I really appreciate these tips – thanks for sharing. I recently started my own blog (and still struggling to get some traffic) after doing a bit of freelance writing for other people. It dawned on me that I can write for myself and benefit from it directly. It actually feels nice to see something published under my own name, too.

  28. Nathalie Reply September 3, 2016 at 7:07 am

    Wow thank you so much for the tips! Been working on our blog for a year, but just slow and mosyly for friends and family. But i like writing more and more and want the blog to become a bit bigger ^^ i also have a question: when wtiting posts to give tips and info, is it best to incorporate them between all the blogposts? My bf wants to have a tips and trick page apart from the posts themselves but i think its better to just post these as posts and divide them up in different categories to make it more userfriendly. Any thoughts?
    X

    • Marek Reply September 3, 2016 at 9:09 am

      Either way can work! But maybe you can put the tips in separate posts, while also creating an overview post that serves as an introduction and links to your best tips. Best of both worlds…

  29. Naveen Bisht Reply August 31, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Nice Post, I have already started some of the points.
    thanks for sharing.

  30. Pack The Suitcases Reply August 27, 2016 at 1:36 pm

    Hello, this is so helpful, thank you! Funnily enough, I’ve had the same thing happen with going ‘viral’ very early on. Okay, not properly viral, but our blog was featured on an Icelandic news website and we went from getting 4 viewers a day to 3000. We didn’t know we were going to be featured and it was far too soon, hardly anything else for people to click through to, and as such, the views quickly dropped off and hardly anyone signed up or returned. Grah! Anyway, good tips and I’m off to try to get my head around Google Analytics…

    Cheers, PTS

  31. Planetgravy Reply August 24, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    Great post man!
    On a personal note, we’ve hitted a wall on Instagram. Without wanting to toot our own horn, we do share cool travel pictures there, but we’re having a hard time reaching and converting people that would benefit from reading our blog.
    Having a small amount of followers, we try to reach more people through hastags. But we only manage to bring ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ from other travel bloggers because they’re mainly the ones to use and search travel related hashtags anyways – and unfortunately, if the ‘follow’ is not reciprocal they will unfollow days later.
    Any tips?
    Thanks for the good read! Really helpful.

    • Marek Reply August 26, 2016 at 2:55 pm

      It’s hard to say as I’ve not focused on Instagram much myself. The dirty secret of that platform though is that a lot of activity is automated, and some of the big accounts got to where they are now by being pretty spammy. It’s also a platform that’s great for ‘branding’ purposes but bad for getting traffic back to your blog.

      Someone said to me that having an original angle for your account can be very helpful. They were telling me about their account having travel photos that always featured their dog, so it had a clear ‘hook’ that made people follow.

  32. Llamateurs Reply August 13, 2016 at 9:34 pm

    Pretty useful article! Thanks Marku 🙂

  34. Ivana Reply May 22, 2016 at 3:30 am

    This is by far the best post I’ve read about increasing traffic. Thank you for the thoroughness and transparency. It’s hugely comforting and encouraging to know that my dismal numbers on Google Analytics should increase as I post more. I need to buckle down and get the content out there!

  35. Kornelija Reply April 26, 2016 at 2:25 pm

    This was great advice. Thank you for sharing!

  36. Jenny Reply April 25, 2016 at 7:18 pm

    Thanks for sharing. Just launched our blog last week so this was helpful.

  37. Erika Reply April 15, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    I really appreciate you taking the time to write this post. It helps aspiring travel bloggers like me know how to keep their expectations in check while giving good advice about what works well and what doesn’t. It is reassuring to see that, though you are now one of the most established bloggers out there, even you struggled getting page views up in the beginning.

    Congratulations on getting where you are and happy travels!

  38. milesandphilip Reply March 29, 2016 at 9:31 am

    Great article and really helpful. I never thought of Redit and will certainly try it . What do you think of Pinterest? Many people say that it improves your traffic massively.

    My website has only been up for 1-2 months and trying to keep it up to date while working full time is a big task:) .

    If anyone has any suggestions comments they would like to offer to me let me know. http://miles-and-philip.com

    • Marek Reply March 29, 2016 at 9:28 pm

      No experience with Pinterest myself but I’ve heard similar things. Seems like a great channel especially for very visual blogs.

  39. Bogdan Reply March 17, 2016 at 11:04 am

    I’ve just finished up writing my first city review, it’s about Naples, Italy. I was wondering, where can I share it and get thoughts and constructive criticism of the article? So far I have great feedback but only after sharing in on facebook, so just friends and friends of friends. I’d love to hear a travel blogger’s opinion on it! Thanks!

  40. Grey World Nomads Reply March 10, 2016 at 1:51 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge (for free!) It’s very helpful. How is it with reddit, if they blocked me as I sent more links to my posts as I commented (didn’t know). Would I see it? My links never get traffic on reddit, not even a trickle :/

    • Marek Reply March 10, 2016 at 3:31 pm

      This is mainly an issue in reddit.com/r/travel. I guess they get so much spam that you can get blocked easily in this subreddit. The only way to know if you’re blocked is to log out after posting and looking at the latest posts in the subreddit – if your post isn’t there it’s been blocked. Some people say that for every submission you make that links to your own site, you need roughly 10 other contributions that aren’t promotional.

  41. Krishnandu Sarkar Reply March 10, 2016 at 9:49 am

    Excellent writeup and tips for newbie travel blogger like me. Currently I have very few posts and I don’t get much visitors. It’d be great if you can check http://krishnandusarkar.com and suggest if I’m doing anything wrong.

    In the mean time, I’ll try to implement things you mentioned here one by one.

  42. Monika Reply February 11, 2016 at 10:11 am

    Such a great post
    I never knew about CommentMuv until now and have just installed it on both my blogs!
    You’ve also cleared my doubts about Stumbleupon, definitely not a thing for me 🙂
    And yes, i do agree with you about SEO. I have been blogging blindly for 2 years on bewilderedinmorocco.com and only now I see how important it is!
    THANKS

  43. Monika Reply February 11, 2016 at 9:58 am

    Hey I got a question regarding FB likes, you said it is utter garbage
    I also recently promoted my page on FB it brought me lots of likes but… nobody is active! Not a single person that I gained through FB promo!
    Did you buy them on Ebay or you mean you promoted and FB got your fans???

    • Marek Reply February 11, 2016 at 1:55 pm

      No I bought likes via FB’s own system. It’s been a long time since I experimented with it, though I still don’t recommend doing this as I’ve not heard of much success with this from anyone. I’ve had more success with simply boosting a successful Facebook post. If you see a post get WAY more engagement, you can pay Facebook to get that message in front of even more people, and this can be a good method. Only worth it for posts that have already proven to be popular though.

      Buying from an external source like Ebay pretty much guarantees those clicks/likes/fans come from a click-farm in the Philippines, not real followers. Some people do this to make their Page look more popular, but I think this is a short-sighted tactic.

  44. Jo Reply February 10, 2016 at 5:32 am

    Just kicked off my blog 2 weeks ago so these tips are awesome. I am already using most of the promo methods but some nuggets were totally worth the read. Thanks a ton.

    • Marek Reply February 10, 2016 at 12:25 pm

      Glad it was helpful! 🙂

  45. Laura Reply February 4, 2016 at 4:32 pm

    Looks like I have a lot of reading to do! Thanks for sharing your tips 😀

  46. Christina Robohm Reply February 3, 2016 at 7:03 pm

    This was great! I am reviving two travel websites in Northern Cali for the Gold Country and Mendocino Coast; your info and style are super digestible 🙂 If you’re ever up this way, let me know.

  47. Manish Reply January 18, 2016 at 4:50 am

    Thanks for the excellent tips. I have been blogging for last 5 months but would love some traffic push. Will definitely use some of your tricks. Btw, would you like to discuss guest post opportunity maybe?

    • Marek Reply January 18, 2016 at 10:42 am

      Thanks Manish, glad you’ve found it useful. I’ve actually put a temporary stop to accepting guest posts as I’m a bit swamped at the moment! But I may be up for doing some later this year.

  48. JShep Reply January 6, 2016 at 2:55 pm

    Great write up, gaining steady meaningful traffic is definitely the hardest job, gotta keep working at it!

  49. solosophie Reply November 4, 2015 at 11:29 pm

    Thank you so much for sharing this. 🙂 I love the analogy of the damp moss as it’s so accurate haha!

  50. Himanshu Reply October 24, 2015 at 1:26 pm

    Superb. I will certainly follow this and implement. Thanks for the info.

  51. Anca | Globaloud Reply September 28, 2015 at 1:21 pm

    This is really one of the most comprehensive articles about growing the blog audience. I’m still pretty new to this blogging thing, but I’m glad to hear that even some bigger blogger names had a difficult time in the beginning. Thanks a lot for comparing different traffic strategies, as I’m still not sure which of them gives me the best results.

    • Marek Reply September 28, 2015 at 1:29 pm

      Glad it’s useful. The more established blogs can make it seem like it’s easy, but in the beginning you need quite a bit of patience. 🙂

  52. Claire Reply September 26, 2015 at 10:26 pm

    Some great tips here! It feels like an endless struggle getting my blog off the ground sometimes, but i’m aware that persistence is key!! Thanks for sharing 🙂

  53. nicaraguayestravel Reply June 10, 2015 at 3:52 am

    Does anyone accept guest post about travelling in Nicaragua Central America?

  54. Maaike - travellousworld.com Reply June 3, 2015 at 10:00 am

    Thank you so much for sharing this info with us. I really enjoy reading about all the different methods people use to grow their blog.

  55. Chelsea Reply May 1, 2015 at 10:45 pm

    Hi Marek!

    Well, I will tell you, your Google SEO is working great 🙂 Found you organically, and really enjoyed this article and your advice. I have been fashion blogging for over a year, but recently left to go on a five month adventure around the world. I have enjoyed learning about the differences between travel blogging and fashion blogging. Biggest difference, is how much quicker I can put together a fashion post than I can put together a travel post. This has given me so much more respect for the travel bloggers out there.

    Thanks again for the advice, and I will be back coming back soon!

    Chelsea
    Ginger Side of Life

  56. Lester Moore Lambac Reply October 27, 2014 at 10:18 am

    Great post! Such motivation as I am just building my blog. Its really inspiring reading this blog. I got a travel blog about hotspots in the Philippines. http://phptourism.blogspot.com/

  59. Jonah Wilson Reply September 29, 2014 at 9:56 pm

    Great blog post! I always appreciate a very detailed, long blog post because I can sink my teeth into it and actually learn something. I rarely get anything out of a short bulleted list blog post. This was helpful for me since I’m in the process of starting a entrepreneurship travel blog.

  60. DestinationIsolation Reply August 21, 2014 at 1:51 am

    Thanks for the advice. View counts are addictive! The more you get the more you need 🙂

  61. Stuart Peck Reply June 23, 2014 at 2:52 pm

    A lot of great information in this post! Travel blogging really is like having a full time job! Great to see you making it work!

  62. Jazza Lesh Nomadasaurus Reply June 21, 2014 at 2:03 pm

    Great post. Thank you for laying it out like this. Very helpful. Safe Travels

  63. Charlie Reply June 18, 2014 at 2:14 am

    Excellent discussion, I really enjoy reading how other bloggers grow , and always find some good advice and reassurance in them =)

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