(This post contains affiliate links, for more information read this privacy policy)
If you are just starting out with blogging, then it can be difficult to know at first which resources you will need and what will be most helpful. A lot of it is just trial and error as well. You have to figure out what programmes you like to work with and what works best for you.
But to make your start into the blogging life a little easier, here are some of the best resources and tools for travel bloggers. Most of these resources are free!
Some of these might help you to optimise your pictures or help you to optimise your website for search engines. Other tools help you to monetise your website.
Best monetisation tools for your Travel Blog
Let’s start with some tools and resources that you are probably most interested in, which are the tools that help you earn money with your travel blog.
1. Travelpayouts
If you’re a travel blogger looking to monetise your content, Travelpayouts is one of my favourite resources. It’s a free affiliate platform that gives you access to 90+ travel brands, including Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Viator, Klook, Hostelworld, Airalo, Saily and many more. All from one central dashboard.
What I love most is Travelpayouts Drive, their free AI-powered monetisation tool. Once you install it, it analyses your blog posts, suggests relevant affiliate opportunities, automatically converts eligible links, and adds helpful recommendation widgets. It only takes a few minutes to set up, and it can start earning you commissions in the background while you focus on creating new content.
👉 You can sign up for free, and if you use my referral link, you can earn up to an extra $100 in bonuses as you complete your first milestones.
Read my full review on Travelpayouts, and how to get started!
2. Stay22
Stay22 is another one of my favourite ways to monetise my travel blog. It’s an affiliate platform that helps readers find accommodation while they’re planning their trip by automatically suggesting hotel booking websites like Booking.com at relevant moments. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up, and in my experience, it converts really well.
I actually got my first conversion on the same day I installed it. Besides the automatic hotel suggestions, you can also create your own affiliate links and interactive maps to add to your blog posts, making it easy to earn commissions in multiple ways.
If you’re a travel blogger, I genuinely think Stay22 is one of the easiest affiliate tools to start using. It’s completely free to join, and if you sign up through my link, you’ll receive a $100 bonus once you reach 100 bookings.
3. Skimlinks
Skimlinks is a monetisation platform that helps you create affiliate links for a bunch of different companies that they partner with. These aren’t just travel companies but can be all types of companies, such as : Nike, Sephora, TripAdvisor, Urban Outfitters, and many more.
4. Google AdSense
Most bloggers will start with Google AdSense to monetise their content. You can place Ads on your website that will generate an income through clicks and impressions.
There are better ad programmes where you can make more money, but you’ll need to first have a certain amount of traffic on your website to be able to apply. So best to start with Google Adsense and then switch later on.
Picture and Editing Tools for Travel Bloggers
5. Canva
The best website for creating beautiful Pinterest graphics and pictures. The Pro version gives you access to even more fonts and layouts, but also the free version gives you access to a bunch of great layouts. I use it for all of my Pinterest pins!
6. Tinypng
A free tool that lets you compress images and therefore reduce file sizes before uploading them to your website.
Would you like to start a blog as well? Here are the 20 first steps to starting a blog!
Best Resources for Website Optimisation
7. Themeforest
Themeforest, which is also known as Envato has a huge selection of different blog themes. I have also purchased my theme on their website. A premium blog theme just has a lot more customisation options.
8. Google Analytics
The best tool for analysing your website traffic. See where traffic is coming from, how long people stay on your site, or where visitors come from.
9. Yoast SEO
A WordPress Plug-in which will help you optimise your posts for search engines. It is a free plug-in and super helpful. It will for example tell you if your Title Tag is too long or if you need to add your keywords a couple more times in the text.
10. Rank Math SEO
Another WordPress Plug-in that helps you to optimise your content for search engines. It offers some more features compared to Yoast SEO, and is the plug-in I currently use for all my content optimisation. The free version is completely fine, and there is no need for the premium version. Make sure to only use one SEO plug-in at the same time.
11. Page Speed Insights
Use Page Speed Insights to analyse your website and see where you can make improvements to increase your website speed.
12. GTmetrix
Another tool that analyses your website and tells you which plug-ins or elements are slowing your website down. Definitely one of the best resources for travel bloggers.
13. Moz
Moz will show you the DA (Domain Authority) or PA (Page Authority) of any page and also give you information on backlinks and keywords. A great resource to help you make changes that will impact your Google rankings.
14. Google Trends
Google Trends gives insights into which topics are currently trending in certain parts of the world. That might give you some ideas for future blog posts.
15. WP Optimise
A WordPress Plug-in that lets you clean up for example Spam comments or Auto-save posts and therefore clean up some storage and speed up your website.
16. Google Search Console
Gives you insights into your website traffic, such as impressions, clicks, and keywords that people user to get to your page.
17. Screaming Frog
This is a software which lets you crawl your website and get all the information on Meta descriptions, H1 headings or Title Tags and much more. That makes it a great tool to analyse your website and see where you can make some SEO improvements. I mostly use it to look for redirects or broken website links. It is free up to 500 pages.
18. Coursera
Coursera is an amazing platform for learning some new skills and also get some certificates that you can share on your LinkedIn profile. There are a lot of interesting courses where you can learn a lot of skills that can help you with your blogging work. Such as SEO, Marketing etc. I recently took a course on Search Engine Optimisation and I learned a lot of things that are really useful for my blog.
19. Fiverr
On Fiverr you can find freelancers that you can hire to do some work such as designing a logo or creating some graphics etc.
20. Udemy
Similar to Coursera, you can find a lot of fascinating online courses on this platform to acquire some more skills.
21. Pexels
A website for free stock images that you can use on your website.
22. Pixabay
Another website to find some stunning stock footage.
23. PicMonkey
Awesome resource for editing your pictures and making great graphics.
24. Tailwind
This tool will let you schedule Pinterest pins and get lots of insights into your Pinterest traffic. You can try out one month for free.
25. Lightroom
Great tool for editing your pictures. Not only for your website but also for Instagram for example. Especially if you are using some Lightroom Presets, you can easily make your pictures look beautifully next to each other.
26. CapCut
A free video editing tool, with a lot of templates, which makes creating and editing short videos for TikTok so much easier. It’s also a lot of fun.
Best Compliance tools for Travel Bloggers
There are a couple of essentials you need on your website in order to be compliant. Here are some tools that I use for that.
27. CookieYes
CookieYes is a cookie banner, that makes sure that cookies only load upon consent of the user. Depending on your traffic, the free version might be enough! I have used the free version for many years before having to upgrade to the basic plan due to hitting the page limit. Try out CookieYes!
Best Productivity Resources for Travel Bloggers
28. Focus App
I don’t know a specific one, but any type of focus app can be helpful. Just browse the App Store. I usually have one that times 25 minutes and then a 5-minute break. In that way I like to work on something for 25 minutes and then do something else for 5 minutes and so on. These focus apps really help me to be more productive.
29. Google Drive
You can use a Google Drive folder to collaborate on a file with other people, but you can also just use it for yourself to access some files from different devices. Like when you are on your phone you want to write down some blog notes, you can just do so in the Drive and access them later from your computer.
30. Audible
Not really blog related, but I am typically more productive when listening to Audiobooks rather than music. With Audible, you will get access to a bunch of different audiobooks.
31. Notion
The best tool to plan out content and write down your ideas. I also use Notion to keep track of all my blog post ideas or other content ideas. You can also add things offline, which is great if you want to add some ideas while on the go. It’s one of the best resources for travel bloggers.
32. LanguageTool
A Google Chrome extension that easily fixes your spelling or punctuation mistakes when writing content. This saves you a lot of time for content edits.
And these were some of the best resources and tools for travel bloggers! What are your favourite blogging resources? Let me know 🙂
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means if you purchase a product or service through these links I will earn a small commission. That money is used for covering hosting costs for the website and to keep the blog running. For more information read this privacy policy. Thank you for your support 🙂
