Tom If you have read our post on Hard Truths about being a Singapore Travel Blogger , you’d understand that being a Singapore Travel Blogger is not so easy at all. Afterall, you do not have fixed income and may will have a blurred distinction between work and play during your travels. In addition, running a Singapore Travel Blog is really akin to running a business. Meaning it’s tough!
However, if you’re still determined to start your own Singapore Travel Blog, here are 5 tips to start your own Singapore Travel Blog today!
Choosing the right domain and host for your Singapore Travel Blog
One of the most important choice that you have to make while starting a Singapore Travel Blog, is to find a right domain and a suitable hosting. But what actually is a domain and hosting? Simply put, hosting can be considered as the apartment or space that you are renting while domain refers to the address of the apartment. So…what is the meaning of a right domain? For a Singapore Travel Blog, the right domain must be catchy and can be remembered easily. Most importantly, Search Engine Optimisation or SEO, must be a major consideration when starting a website. Hence, if Kate were to start a travel blog, an ideal domain name would be “travelswithkate.com“. It is simple to remember, relates to the writer – Kate and also has a keyword (“travel”) which will help SEO as the website ages.
A great website to help start your Singapore Travel Blog journey would be GoDaddy. Hosting can start as low as $5 USD per month and domains as low as $2/year (for the first year only).
Writing the best CONTENT for your Singapore Travel Blog
As they say, CONTENT is king. It really is true. To stay relevant as a Singapore Travel Blog, you will have to write great content that is engaging and informative to your readers. When you have great content, readers will find them interesting and want to stay on your blog and continue reading. Not only does great content attract “eyeballs” (high visitorship), it also causes the “eyeballs” to stay longer (low bounce rate). Contrary to what your instinct tells you, you actually want “bounce rate” to be low. But what does bounce rate mean? Think of visitors as balls. If a ball bounces into your site, you want the ball to continue to stay on your site and not bounce out (low bounce rate). If many visitors visit your travel blog and leaves after visiting the first page (bounce away), it means that your site is not able to retain visitors (ie poor engagement).
Writing great content takes time. When we wrote the post of our experience aboard the Royal Caribbean Cruise Mariner of the Seas, we actually took more than 10 hours at one seating to write it. Not to mention the hours preparing the structure, the post as well as uploading of photos. Other posts such as the 101 Things to do in Singapore are “ongoing posts”. Content is continually added. This also means that time is still spent in updating the information. The result? If you do a google on “101 Things to do in Singapore”, you’ll find this post on SERP (Search Engine Results Page) 1.
How Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) enhances a Singapore Travel Blog ranking
Besides writing great content, SEO also helps to rank your Singapore Travel Blog better. Imagine if you have 2 websites that writes equally great content and both engages audiences just as well. How does Google or Bing differentiate (and thus rank them) and order them, one higher than the other? But first, we really need to ask – what is SEO? Some say it is an art while others say it is a science. Still others say it is a combination of both. In reality, search engines such as Google, have sets of rules that dictate how they should rank websites. These rules or indicators include keyword densities (and whether “keyword stuffing” – artificially adding keywords in a post, is done), bounce rate, age of a site and relevance. Eventually, for popular keywords, human vetting will also take place to ensure that those on the first few pages of Google’s search results, is deemed worthy to be there.
The big question is how do you use SEO to improve the page rank of your Singapore Travel Blog? The answer? No one really knows! But if you follow the rules of using relevant keywords (suitably), write great and engaging content, overtime, your efforts will pay off and be rewarded. We remember the first time when one of our posts was ranked on SERP 1, we were ecstatic! Memorably, it was during our staycation at Raffles Hotel. If you do a search for the post of the same name, you’ll likely still find that post on the first few SERPs.
Singapore Travel Blog and Social Media Channels
These days, social media plays an important part for blogs. Particularly, for travel and food blogs. This is because you can easily engage your audience through photos (Instagram) or short posts (Facebook) while telling them the latest information from your Singapore Travel Blog. Of course, to do so, you’ll have to take great photos and engage your audience regularly.
To take great photos, a technologically advanced camera does help. Knowledge about aperture and shutter speed (and how to use them effectively) takes you to the next level. However, it all comes with practice. Knowing the angle and the moment makes photo taking both an art as well as a science. Investing in cameras that take night shots, a tripod as well as a microphone (for videos) also aids this endeavour. Speaking of videos, Youtube is a great platform to engage audience who prefers to “watch” rather than “read”. Again, engaging your audience on Youtube, requires skills in filmography as well as video editing. Yup, they take time as well (see point above).
Maintaining a Singapore Travel Blog requires PASSION
Last but most importantly, travel blog, as the words suggest, requires one to love travelling and to love writing. If you love travelling but not writing, then starting a Singapore Travel Blog is probably not a great idea for you. But even if you love both travelling and writing, you must still possess PASSION. It is with passion that 2bearbear has been able to persist through the years (we’re 7 years old in a couple of month’s time!). It is passion that drives you to deliver better content. It is also passion that pushes you on even when results are far and few between…
We hope you have enjoyed our post on how to start a Singapore Travel Blog. If you love travelling, writing and have a passion for it, drop us a note. Perhaps you will be able to join us as a travel intern on 2bearbear.com soon!
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