How I easily made ₦400,000 on my travel blog in a month

If you are reading this, it means my travel blogging master class is now live.

In this article I will be covering the following:

1. My travel blogging story and journey
2. I how made my first ₦400,000 in a month on my travel blog alone
3. Common mistakes travel bloggers in Africa make
4. Step by step guide on how to grow your blog traffic

My Travel Blogging Story

Tell me if you were told to be one thing, what would it be?

If you do not have the answer, take some time to think, if you do, I would like to hear it.

Well, I chose to be a tourism development advocate.

This stems from my love  and passion for Nigeria and development as a whole.

If you are ready for a story, now is the time to seat comfortably on your chair/table/bed, wherever it is you are reading this from.

You better not be reading this on the road, if you are, please pause and continue later. Please.

Now let’s start:

I left my 9-5 job in 2017, however, I had already started blogging.

I was invited to a conference on tourism in Nigeria, I gladly went since I had nothing else to do at the time.

I mean I just stopped working at my 9-5 and this was a weekday (by the way, quitting your 9-5 is not advisable for everyone, in fact it is over hyped).

So this got me really excited (the conference), because I generally love conferences and any avenue to learn.

I got in, greeted a few familiar faces and lets just say the conference transformed my mindset as to the way I see tourism.

Nigeria is blessed with rich ecotourism (50+ waterfalls, mountains, beautiful natural landscapes) a myriad of cultures and delightful cuisines not seen anywhere else in the world.

I say Tourism has the potential of generating 70% of Nigeria’s total revenue, thereby making tourism the new oil if well tapped.

Feel free to reach out to me if you want more statistics to find out why I say this.

In no fashion, I took it upon myself to spread the word about tourism in Nigeria and other African destinations hence my focus on travel blogging.

Now let me give you some perspective. I love providing solutions.

In fact people call me two things – problem solver and doer because that is what I am.

If you are following the sequence, now is time to tie the knot- I earlier said I am passionate about Nigeria and development, now include the love of problem solving into the equation, this gives you = THEFISAYO.

So it was only normal for me to seek to provide solutions in the tourism industry when I identified some gaps.

Fast forward to 3 years after I started, I have be featured on the following media:

• Channels TV
• Pop Central Television ( Channel 189 DSTV)
• PUNCH Newspaper (2019): Look for problems to solve
• Television Continental (2019)-Business Nigeria: Effects of Social Media on Tourism
• Silverbird Television (2018): Breakfast Show
• Television Continental (2018): Business Tonight 
• Netng (2018): YouTubers in Nigeria

And more.

I have been nominated and won the following awards:

Awards Won:

• Nigeria Tourism Awards: BEST TRAVEL BLOG 2019
• Top 100 Tourism 100 Tourism personalities in Nigeria: ATQ News

Award Nominations:

• Pyne Awards:TOURISM BLOG OF THE YEAR 2018
• Nigerian Teen Choice Award:Choice Blogger Award 2017
• Pyne Awards: BEST TOURISM INNOVATION USING TECHNOLOGY 2019
• Nigeria Travel Week Awards: BEST TRAVEL BLOG 2019
• The Balearica Awards: YOUNG TOURISM PERSONALITY 2019

And there has been other accolades that came because of the impact I have made and I am still making in the tourism industry.

I have spoken on stages with the best minds in tourism, an example is the present UNWTO Senior Expert on Communications in Africa – Kojo Bentum Williams.

That was a big win for me, and I celebrate that win till this day thanks to mentors like Professor Wolfgang.

Talking of mentors, if I told you it was easy achieving all that I have, I would be lying.

The beginning was really difficult, because this is not just as cause for me, it is also a business, it is what I do for a living.

I would also be lying to you if I told you that I still do not go through challenges here and there.

However, I have found growth in my support system – my mentors, friends and family.

One of my goals for 2020 is to add value to other people’s lives based on the knowledge I have gathered as a travel blogger, vlogger and an overall content creator over three years.

And that is why I will be sharing with you a few strategies for free that has helped my blog grow.

How I made my first ₦400,000 on my blog alone:

1. I had a service  I was delivering
2. I put it up on my site without any further marketing
3. People booked.

Haha! Only if it was that easy.

Really, step 1 and step 2 are both very correct, but I would not have achieved step 3 without an important tool.

SEO.

Yes, what helped me was that I fully optimized my site for search engines.

Optimizing your site for search engine will help you get discovered by people who do not know you.

All they need is to search for what they want on google, and if your site comes out with the solution they need, then you will be sure to get a customer.

How to optimize your site for SEO?

There are four main functions to look at, most of which is covered in my travel blogging course.

However, I will be covering one now.

This is Keyword.

This might either sound mundane or easy to you, but if you do not know what it is and how to strategically use it then your blog will not grow.

Google is responsible for 92.04% of total organic traffic.

Organic traffic means “not sponsored or advertisement free”.

95% of searchers (like yourself and I) never go past the first page of Google’s search results page.

Google is responsible for 92.04% of total organic traffic

Using keywords is your gateway to landing on the first page of SERP (search engine result pages).

It is also the gateway to getting TRAFFIC to your site.

This is what has helped my blog traffic grow.

Below are screenshots of the traffic on my site:

 

I use several analytic tools to monitor my blog traffic. The above analytic is represented by Jetpack.

 

Above is a tool called google search console. 

It is a Google tool that shows you how many people clicked on your blog from google.

It also shows you how your posts are performing on google in terms of rankings, clicks and more.

It is a really great tool to have.

More on this is covered in my travel blogging course.

Common mistakes travel bloggers in Africa make

Knowing that using the right Keywords on your site is a great way to improve your google search rankings, most travel bloggers do not practice it.

Why do I say this?

I analysed the sites of best travel bloggers in Africa and other continents.

One thing I noticed that really got me amazed was that most of these sites had really low monthly visitors from google.

My guess is that their traffic comes from social media alone. Because most of these bloggers have a huge following on social media.

But they are all missing a great and easy opportunity.

And that is Google.

If you do your SEO right, Google will do all the work of bringing all the right traffic to your site.

Below are some of the results of the top travel blogs I analysed and you can tell this is not a good look.

 

The organic monthly traffic is an average number.

Some of these sites might get more traffic than recorded here. But the tool shows that this is what they get on an average.

I know this because my site traffic was not fully covered on the tool. Below is the result of my site after I analysed it.

 

At that, 0 – 71 organic monthly traffic is not great look.

This is why I will be sharing with you a few strategies/steps to follow to increase your monthly traffic.

How to find the best keywords

Remember, there are 4 major components for a great SEO.

One of which is keywords.

The following are steps you should take to begin developing a great keyword strategy;

1. Open an excel sheet
2. Write at least 5 different titles on 5 columns. These titles should be keywords you want to rank for. E.g travel bloggers in Nigeria
3. Go to Ubersuggest and input the first keyword . Click the “Search” Button.
4. Click Keyword Ideas in the Left Sidebar.
5. Review the Keyword Ideas (low competition: relatively low SEO difficulty score of 34, which shows good promise for ranking on page one.)
6. Choose Keywords
7. Populate each column with the keywords you have chosen for your brand
8. Click here to see how this is done and to see the other steps to take.

This should get you started. However, note that it can take 3 – 6 months for your site to start gaining traction from google.

Meanwhile, there are other strategies you can take to make things faster. More of this is covered in my travel blogging course.

If you are looking to do one of the following:

1. Learn how to start a successful travel blog
2. Learn how to design your travel blog
3. Learn to build a profitable travel blogging business
4. Learn how to build your travel blog audience
5. Learn how to rank high on google AND GET MORE TRAFFIC
6. This and more.

I am happy to tell you that I will love to share with you all the strategies that have worked for me in my travel blogging masterclass.

Below is a testimonial from Nene, who is enrolled for the course.

JOIN THE TRAVEL BLOGGING COURSE

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0 – 71 organic blog monthly traffic is not great look. Learn how to grow your blog traffic to 10k + monthly. And make money from it.