Starting an LGBTQ travel blog can be a great way to travel full-time and earn some money to support your adventures. LGBTQ people are great adventurers who might require a bit more help when it comes to traveling, mainly due to safety concerns and gay-friendly spots. If you know useful information you can share with other queer folks, why not start a travel blog. Here’s what you need for a successful LGBTQ travel blog that will be beloved and respected among readers and fellow bloggers:
Find your niche
You can start a general travel blog, but it’s much better to narrow down your influence in order to attract the right audience. Your blog can focus on helping LGBTQ travelers find gay-friendly accommodation, transport and entertainment. You can also narrow down your travels to a specific region like Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia or the USA. With a niche, your audience will know just where to go for the best recommendations and they will never leave disappointed by your targeted content.
Learn about blogging and SEO
Before you start investing in your website and posting your content, it’s important to get educated on a few things. Learn about SEO and how you can use it to your advantage when it comes to gaining followers and earning money. You can also learn how to avoid mistakes when it comes to posting, editing, formatting and optimizing your content.
Pick a catchy name and domain
If you want your blog to receive a lot of attention from accidental visitors or to thrive on verbal recommendations, then finding a good name for your blog is the key to success. Your name must fit your niche, your personality and your lifestyle. It should also be catchy and clever. Make sure to pick a name that will be understandable and respectful for years to come because changing it is not really an option. And if you mix your blog name with a fun .me domain, you can create a very catchy combination that’s easy to remember. This domain allows you to be creative with the title and will stay in people’s minds for a long time, ready to be shared with friends and family.
Come up with branding
In many cases, people don’t remember names but they remember logos, colors and other branding elements. Be creative with your blog look but make sure it’s still easy to navigate with all the necessary blog tools like menus, search and contact information. Expand your brand to social media as well, especially Instagram and Twitter—this is where most young queer travelers look for information and inspiration.
Go deep and personal
While in most cases, travel blogs are light and happy reads, make sure to be very honest in your entries because the community will appreciate that. Every time you have a negative experience, make sure to mention it and highlight it for others to see and learn from your mistakes. And travel mistakes for LGBTQ people can be very costly, especially if you don’t want to go back into the closet! By being deep, personal and honest to the bone about your experience, you will stand out from the competition and become a respectable and useful source of information for all gay travelers.
Be patient
While the LGBTQ community of travelers is big, it’s much smaller than the community of travelers in the heterosexual world. Therefore, you will need to be patient and hardworking for your blog to start gaining traction. Post according to your schedule, keep your social media alive and success will follow as long as you’re patient. And don’t hesitate to support your fellow queer travelers because we need a lot more eyes out there and many different perspectives—having just white male gay travel bloggers is not enough to cover all identities!
One is for sure—the community will appreciate your efforts to bring travel closer to LGBTQ people and make gay travelers more visible. As long as you stay true to the community, your blog will be successful.
Peter Minkoff is a gay travel and lifestyle writer. Besides writing, he worked as a travel journalist for many publications in Australia and the UK. Follow Peter on Facebook and Twitter for more tips.
Peter Minkoff ist ein schwuler Reise- und Lifestyle-Autor. Er arbeitete als Reisejournalist für viele Publikationen in Australien und Großbritannien. Folge Peter auf Facebook und Twitter für weitere Tipps.