How to Find Your Travel Niche
Your niche should be something you love and can consistently create content about. Here are some tips straight from the experts on finding your travel niche:
Follow Your Passion
Your passion should drive your niche. That way, your enthusiasm will shine through your content, attracting like-minded readers.
Ryan, The Fabryk
“We started to pivot towards the gay travel space since that was what we were way more passionate about and started to see as more popular.”
Write From Experience
Write about places and activities you’re intimately familiar with. This authenticity resonates with readers and builds trust.
Identify Market Gaps
Look for underserved markets within your passion. Nomadic Boys found success by providing up-to-date information about gay travel in Asia, a niche with limited resources at the time. By filling this gap, they attracted a dedicated audience.
Adapt and Evolve
Be flexible! Your niche can evolve as your interests and audience grow: The Fabryk began as a digital nomad blog but shifted to gay travel to better align with their passion and audience demand.
Pay attention to what works and what doesn’t, and don’t be afraid to experiment. You might just stumble on a brilliant new niche.
Narrow-Niche Content That Resonates
To build a successful travel blog, your content needs to resonate with your niche audience. Here are some of the key steps:
- Start by understanding your readers’ interests, needs, and pain points.
- Create content based on personal experiences, as authenticity builds trust and engagement. But also create content around things that might not be already available online.
- Build a community. This starts with engaging with your audience through comments, social media, and newsletters.
- Encourage feedback and discussions to foster a sense of belonging.
- Test different content types and topics to see what works best.
- Use tools like Google Analytics to track engagement and refine your strategy based on what resonates most with your readers.
It’s best to answer a question that your readers are already asking.
Stefan, Nomadic Boys
“The content that does best on Google answers questions that someone’s searching for without finding much content around the answer.”
Strategies for Attracting Readers
Even with narrow-niche blogs, building a steady stream of readers requires a multifaceted approach. Here are a few key strategies for attracting and retaining your audience.
Organic Traffic
Organic traffic is a cornerstone for many travel blogs, but recent Google updates have made this source more uncertain.
Stefan, Nomadic Boys
“We’ve witnessed a decline in traffic since these updates. We are nervous about it because we are not sure where this is going. In the past when this has happened we were able to quickly act and turn it around. This time it seems to have hit all travel blogs and affiliate blogs.”
This doesn’t mean you should throw all the rules out the window and completely turn your back on Google.
Ryan, The Fabryk
“We are quite SEO-focused at the moment for most posts (except story-based posts or one’s we do quite spontaneously). We do keyword research using Keysearch and make a list of keywords we know will rank.”
But the days of bloggers relying solely on organic traffic are gone. It’s just too risky. Implementing a multi-pronged strategy based on social media is the way to mitigate this.
Tuk, The Gay Passport
“Word of mouth is still my favorite way to build organic traffic. The rest comes from our Instagram and Facebook pages.”
Social Media
Social media platforms are powerful tools for driving traffic and building your brand.
Ryan, The Fabryk
“We are getting better daily by utilizing Instagram and YouTube as our other channels to drive traffic, and we’re seeing these numbers start to trickle upwards.”
Here are some quick tips on individual social media platforms:
- Instagram: Visual storytelling through photos and videos can captivate your audience. Mastering the art of the Reel is — wait for it — reely important.
- YouTube: While video content requires more effort, it can significantly boost engagement. YouTube is the second-largest search platform after Google, giving you access to a massive audience for years to come.
- Pinterest: When done right, Pinterest can be a major traffic referrer, as the Nomadic Boys can attest. To learn more, check out this little article of ours.
- TikTok: The newest kid on the block can be a great way to find new audiences. It also functions as a search engine, so people can continue to encounter your content even after you’ve forgotten about it. Out on a trip? If you’re already posting Reels, why not repost the videos on TikTok?
- Flipboard: With the right strategy, you can drive thousands of people to your travel blog with just one flip. This article can get you started.
Newsletters
No, email is not dead. Building a large newsletter audience can provide a consistent traffic source. Remember that you have to offer something to your readers in exchange for access to their inboxes — create a checklist, ebook, or something else that will entice them.
Then, once they’ve signed up, send them updates every time you publish something new to your blog, thus re-directing them there repeatedly.
Stefan of Nomadic Boys say, “We also have a large newsletter audience, which also acts as its own traffic referrer.”
Revenue: How to Turn Your Blog Into a Profitable Venture
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing, a popular revenue stream for travel bloggers, allows you to earn passive income by promoting products and services that resonate with your audience. By partnering with companies, you earn a commission for every sale made through your referral links. Ryan from The Fabryk shares, “We are affiliates for various companies, including Booking.com, GetYourGuide, and Viator.”
📌 Speaking of affiliate marketing, here’s some exciting news that readers of this article will be the first to hear: until September 30, Booking.com is increasing its rewards to 5% (from 4%) exclusively for Travelpayouts partners. An amazing program is getting even better. Get ready to supercharge your rewards with Booking.com!
The Nomadic Boys, The Fabryk, and The Gay Passport try all kinds of affiliates they can find and see what performs best for their audiences. Here, too, flexibility is important.
Tuk, The Gay Passport
“Hotel bookings currently have the best conversion rates. However, we predict that bespoke tours and activities will appeal to our more affluent reader base in the future.”
Other Ways to Monetize Your Blog
Beyond affiliate marketing, there are several other ways to monetize your narrow-niche travel blog:
- Advertising: Joining ad networks like Mediavine can provide a steady income stream. “We earn a monthly commission from Mediavine,” notes The Nomadic Boys. The Fabryk are also excited about a new partnership: “We just joined Journey by Mediavine, so it is early days, but we are very excited to start making advertising revenue from this.”
- Sponsored content: Collaborating with brands for sponsored posts and campaigns can be lucrative. For instance, the Nomadic Boys just got paid to attend a men’s yoga retreat, in exchange for a write-up.
- Content partnerships: Working with content partners to create or repurpose material with partner links can generate additional revenue. “We work with a content partner who helps us create new material or takes our old material, and we get paid on an article-by-article basis,” say the Nomadic Boys.
- Social media collaborations: The Fabryk boys say they “receive ad hoc campaigns from companies who want to collaborate across our social media channels.” That’s another good way to boost income.
The key message? Diversify your revenue streams to get the most bang for your buck.
Narrow-Niche Blogging: Advice From LGBTQ+ Bloggers
Be Authentic and Honest
Ryan, The Fabryk
“Just being ourselves. If, for example, we go somewhere and have a cringe-worthy experience at a gay bar, we aren’t going to try and send our readers there. Although we can’t please everyone in the niche, honesty helps us to build a greater connection to our audience.”
Write Things You’d Want to Read
Tuk, The Gay Passport
“That’s easy; we write what we personally want to read. As I said, we don’t follow SEO or keyword rules; we provide quality content to a niche audience, and it works.”
Foster Community Connections
Ryan, The Fabryk
“Niche blogging has allowed us to foster connections we would have never made otherwise. I feel a stronger sense of belonging in the LGBTQ+ community, which has boosted my confidence in the sphere.”
Handle Negative Feedback Constructively
Ryan, The Fabryk
“I ran a test ad on Facebook and received a ridiculous number of homophobic comments, which hurt a bit but ultimately motivated me even more.”
Adapt to Platform Changes
Stefan, Nomadic Boys
“With AI now answering more and more questions without crediting publishers, everyone is seeing a slow sharp decline in traffic.”
Embrace Niche Constraints
Ryan, The Fabryk
“Occasionally, I will have ideas, but as it is unrelated to gay travel, it seems pointless to pursue it. It ultimately constrains what we can write (but that isn’t always necessarily bad).”
Final Thoughts: Narrow-Niche Travel Blogging
Whether you are an LGBTQ+ blogger or not, the valuable insights shared apply to any niche. Being authentic, leveraging personal experiences, building community connections, and diversifying your traffic sources are key to success.