Dave and Vicky are currently living the life that many of us dream of. Not only are they traveling the world and having an amazing time in the process, they are also blogging and making a good amount of money in the process. However, these aren’t your typical travel bloggers… with only a little over a year of blogging experience, they’ve been able to make a good amount of money through their sites by matching up with the right advertisers. Be sure to check out the interview below as it’s quite the story for someone who is looking to make money online without using the traditional methods everyone is talking about.
1.) Please tell us about yourself and how you got into blogging?
We’re Dave and Vicky, two twenty – somethings who are traveling around Europe and Asia and have been for the last year. We quit our corporate jobs to take two years off and see what the world had the offer. Naturally, we started a travel blog, acoupletravelers which is mostly a personal blog about the countries we visit. We also do a bit of food blogging on AvocadoPesto, which is primarily Vicky’s personal recipe blog. We’re not really that hardcore into blogging, and if I might be honest I would say compared to many people we take it quite lightly and put in minimal effort. Still, we like that there is a record of our journey as we move from place to place.
Over the last year we have started to see the potential of earning your own income online and this has become our new focus going forward, y’know, digital nomads and all that. I now spend the majority of my time, when I’m not traveling, exploring the various ways that one can earn money online.
2.) What is the focus of your blog and why did you choose that niche?
Again, this just naturally came as a result of our trip – we were going to be traveling so we started a travel blog. To be honest, I think I’m more passionate about business and Vicky about food, and if we were to approach blogging more seriously we would focus in these areas, however, we hardly have the time now to be running multiple blogs and the travel takes priority due to our trip.
3.) How are you currently monetizing your blog traffic?
We are not monetizing our blog traffic at all. We monetize our blog through paid posts and working directly with advertisers, which requires little in the ways of traffic. We write income reports monthly to detail our progress, and as a result of expanding our contacts as well as the number of blogs/websites we own, we are now earning a healthy income onlinewhich for the last three months has hovered around $15k in monthly profits. It is quite crazy that we have managed this all in the last year, while traveling, and I attribute that to making some smart business decisions and seizing opportunities. As bloggers and writers, we’re really not super talented.
People might be wondering why we are not monetizing our traffic, and the short answer is that there isn’t much to monetize. We don’t get THAT much traffic (20k pvs/month), and most of the people that come are not interested in purchasing anything from us. Adsense earnings would be miniscule. Travel is just not that kind of niche, I think. Not all niches are created equal. Travel as a niche generally gets much less PVs than many of the other niches and the audience is less interested in purchasing tools, courses, books, etc because most of it is extraneous and not necessary, as opposed to some SEO tool that might drastically help your business. What we do is by and large the quickest and most lucrative approach to monetizing a travel blog. It is not a long term strategy. We are focused on short term gains.
4.) What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started blogging?
We started blogging 1.5 years ago, and started earning money after only a few months through this one opportunity that we are now very heavy into. If I had known what I know now, about these advertisers, this type of business, what they are interested in, I could have very easily and much earlier started earning what we are earning now. Unfortunately, at the time, no one really wrote about it, which is what we have tried to change in our income reports. We had to figure everything out for ourselves, but now we are very public about how it works, even though we are essentially just creating more competition for ourselves. It is a poor business move for sure.
5.) What are three blogs that you visit almost daily?
To be honest we don’t really read blogs, but from time to time I will check out Pat atsmartpassiveincome.com as well as Matt atmatthewwoodward.co.uk. That’s really it!
6.) Can you give us three recommended tools/services that you use with your blogging?
For blogging we don’t use any tools, really – we’re just not that hardcore about it. For my “business” I often check out Flippa as well as look for expired domains and what not on Godaddy auctions – nothing fancy for sure. I also often use elance to find virtual assistants, since they are super necessary for helping us run our business.
7.) What advice would you have for someone who is just starting with their first blog?
I think the best thing you can do is to get involved in your niche. Find out who the major players are and make contact with them. Share their content, write comments, email them questions. I’m not saying you should suck up but take a genuine interest in what they are doing and how they have approached the niche that you are in. In the beginning I really feel that traffic is best sought by having people with existing traffic share your stuff. The best way to have this happen is simply by building relationships. It will definitely come in handy down the line as well.
8.) What’s the best advice or tip you’ve discovered about blogging since getting started?
Try not to force it. If it becomes a chore than maybe it’s not what you’re meant to do? I started writing a lot for the travel blog and honestly realized that I didn’t enjoy it that much. What I do enjoy writing is the income reports, at least when I feel I have something interesting to say, so now I just write those.
9.) If you only had $100 to start a new blog, how would you use it?
Honestly I would probably hire a VA for $4/hour to help me send out emails, make contact with people, handle my social media, upload and format posts, etc. I think the time savings is the best that you can buy for $100. I also might invest in a logo, if I was really trying to build a brand. Other than that, I think the $100 is more of a red herring than anything else – you don’t need it and should probably focus on other things.
10.) How can readers of the blog get in touch with you?
Dave and Vicky are the authors of Travel and Food blogs A Couple Travelers and AvocadoPesto. Having spent 2 years in the working world, they exchanged their briefcases for backpacks, dress shoes for sandals, and beds for sleeping bags. In September 2012 they embarked on a 2 year journey across Asia and Europe. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!
Thanks again Dave and Vicky for taking the time to share your advice and story with the Blogging Tips community. If you would like to learn about other bloggers and how they are finding success online, be sure to read through our blogger interview series.
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