How This 38-Year-Old’s Four Travel Websites Generate 6 Figures Per Year From SEO

My main drivers from social media are people reading about how they can live and work abroad, digital nomad jobs, how to work online without experience, and my free guides that guide them to my ebook.

My main strategy is still SEO, but as we know, things have gotten harder over the years.

In 2024, I’m going to work harder on email marketing and pick back up my TikTok game a bit more, too.

Her Thoughts on SEO

Since I learned about SEO and it “clicked” for me, I became obsessed with it. I love nerding out on SEO research and finding fun and awesome keywords I want to write about. It’s very important for my business and the main way I am even a full-time blogger. 

Being a blogger without SEO and actually making money from it…? I’m not sure if it’s possible?! 

One of my best strategies is “baby posts,” which I don’t know if I can claim this name, but it’s what I’ve been calling what I do for many years, but I essentially love writing baby posts. These are shorter posts on a very small topic. 

For example, a blog post on a specific hike in a state park, or a certain beach. This is a whole blog post on just this one tiny topic, a baby post, if you will. These might not bring in the hordes of readers many bloggers want, but a lot of these baby posts add up to a decent chunk of views, plus they hammer in my authority for the larger topic. 

Again, let’s take the example of a hike. I’ll write a baby post on XYZ hike – the specific hike only, and what you need to know about it. I might even write another baby post on another hike called the ABC hike. 

And these two hiking posts are part of my bigger “best hikes in 123 National Park.” I then write the “best things to do in 123 National Park” and include those two hikes, plus link to my “best hikes” article, thus growing my knowledge and authority on this national park.

Keyword Research

I simply write what I want to write about, but I make sure there’s a decent keyword that goes along with the topic I want! 

While I don’t 100% write for SEO, it is mostly what I do write about, but I guess I’m lucky in the fact that it usually lines up with my interests. 

Best hikes? Best beaches? How did I get a working holiday visa in Australia? Digital nomad stuff? Cheap countries to live in? Travel jobs? Woo! I love these topics, and they are often awesome keywords to go for. 

Even if the volume isn’t much (500ish/month, let’s say), I like the topic, I know it benefits my readers, and it’s going to mesh well with the content on my blog anyway, so I go for it. 

I love having clusters and having tons of blog posts about a certain area or topic. This is why I think my niche sites are actually more fun than my travel blog. I love growing more about a surrounding topic; it’s a lot more rewarding. 

So, like I mentioned above, I’ll write tons of baby posts to support my bigger articles. I rarely will write a “things to do___” post without having at least 3 “baby posts” stemming from it. Even this is not ideal enough for me, but sometimes it is what it is for my main travel blog. 

My niche sites? I usually have a hoard of baby posts to link to, and I think this is one of my best keyword strategies. I’ll find a “bigger” keyword like “best waterfall hikes in ___” and I’ll have a baby post for almost every single waterfall hike I mention. I usually try to aim for keywords that offer the most opportunity for me to stem off a bunch of baby posts! I love baby posts, can you tell!?

The bigger my cluster, the better. So, when keyword researching, I look out for these mega clusters that I can really get into.

Link Building

I’d say link building is pretty important. I took my new California site from a DA0 to a DA16 in just a few months. All I did was participate in a few link building threads, did a couple of guest posts, and did 1 or 2 HARO call-outs in the period of a few months. 

I use a few link building strategies, one being a link building group that I use occasionally on Facebook. I do guest posting, but I need to improve my frequency here. I do some blog collaboration articles (these are the easiest! You can find these groups on Facebook, too), and of course, HARO. 

HARO is certainly hit or miss, and it’s, more often than not, a miss. But when it’s a hit? It’s a good hit! You’ll usually get a link back from a high authority website with a high DA and maybe even get mentioned in a top online website, even Forbes! 

My biggest HARO win was back in 2016 or so when Business Insider somehow liked me enough to do a feature on me, and it kind of went viral! 

I even got another follow-up article written by me, and this, to date, was one of my best blogging wins on HARO. I wish I could get another one like this that falls in my lap this easily! 

Not only did I get some great backlinks (my article was even translated into numerous languages), but I got a massive boost in followers on Instagram, too.

And lastly, I use Link Whisper for internal linking! The day I signed up and paid for it, I knocked out so many missed link opportunities! I was shocked and embarrassed at how many blog posts I failed to link back to. 

I used to pay my VA to do this once every month, and now, with a few clicks, it gets done so much faster.

Her Content Creation Process

I have 526 published blog posts on my main travel site (which used to be closer to 650, but I recently did a big culling). And my three other niche sites have a combined 286.

My flow goes something along the lines of:

1. Keyword research
2. *do the thing I’m writing about and take extensive voice notes*
3. Outline blog
4. Write
5. Review article
6. Complete media
7. Format article
8. Edit
9. Publish

I should add a flow for promotion, but my current strategy is *talk about the new post when you remember to.* Oops!

Her Email Lists

I definitely use email. The Grow Spotlight has made all the difference. I offer a few freebies and entice sign-ups that way. The Grow Spotlight makes it pretty and highlights the email box more than other plugins to encourage sign-ups. I send an email twice monthly. 

Aside from Google traffic and “natural” email sign-ups this way, every time I have a semi-viral post on Reels or TikTok, I get a few hundred new email subscribers. 

I point them to my free guides that they have to sign up for. These guides also link to my product, which is an ebook!

How Much She Works

I work around 5 “real” hours per day or so. My partner and I value our slow mornings with coffee and convos, and our brains turn to mush after hammering away for five hours. 

We used to grind all day every day, but have slowed down a lot. We know we could make more money if we chipped away harder, but we don’t care! We don’t want to get burnt out (been there, done that!)

Since we travel a lot, we always take a few weeks off here or a month off there. And I’m essentially useless in December since that’s when I visit my family, and I get very little done.

When we do our road trips for our niche sites, we barely even touch our computers. We are just van-living around and exploring, and those trips are usually 6-8 weeks long.

Her Favorite Resources

I’ve gone through SO many resources, and I kind of got out of it for a while, if I’m being honest. 

After picking myself up a bit and slowly getting back into using resources, I have to say, Nina’s SEO group (not me, another Nina!) on Facebook is a great resource. She is really awesome at explaining things and making things make sense in the confusing world of SEO.

And I’ve been a long-time listener of Brandon’s Blogging Millionaire podcast. He’s been doing this for a long time, and his podcasts are really helpful and to the point.

I know it’s still controversial in our space, but if you’re writing off AI, you’re missing out. Many people think it’s a terrible tool, but they haven’t tried using it correctly. I won’t get into too much here, but for bloggers, it’s an immensely helpful tool when used correctly! 

If you think using AI is literally asking ChatGPT to “write a blog post on the top 10 things to do in Rome,” copying and pasting it into WordPress, and hitting publish, you’d be correct: AI is freaking awful! 

But when used correctly, actually prompting it, pasting in your voice notes from your visit, and then editing it as a real live human, you are saving so much time and effort. 

I just wrote three blog posts in one day because I used AI. I would have been lucky to have written one without using AI. And yes, I edited them all in great detail, and you would never know I used AI if I didn’t tell you. I’m not sure I could live without it now! It makes me a machine.

Oh, I even used ChatGPT to help me edit this interview here, so my proofreading time went from over an hour to a matter of minutes!

Her Go-To Tools

Aside from my ChatGPT mentioned above…

My life would be in chaos and shambles without Asana, telling me what to do and what assignments need doing every day. I can keep tabs on the team easier and on myself!

Affilimate helps me keep track of what my affiliates are doing, which is something I looked to increase last year, and in that year, I more than tripled my income from affiliates. 

The tool itself doesn’t necessarily help me increase my income, but the data and progress in a single, convenient platform (rather than logging into the 1000 affiliate platforms) help me better track and understand it! Even using their affiliate deep linking tool helps cut my time/my VA’s time down by a lot!

This might be a weird one, but YouTube is another “tool” I can’t live without. We don’t just use it to learn; we love GrowingAnnanas workouts to get us up from our desks! Seriously, blogging at a desk for hours gets painful, yes, for real! I have a “cracking” shoulder that makes me feel ancient, and I was borderline getting carpal tunnel for a minute there! 

I let it go for a while, but her at-home workouts have me making myself a priority again!

Her Biggest Challenge

The changes! I’m always up for a challenge, but sometimes in the blogging game, just when you think, “You got it,” another major change happens… 

Whether that’s a Google update, a new revolutionary tool, or a freaking pandemic. Change is inevitable, and I’m not afraid of it. I just wish I could enjoy the ride for more than a second before being thrown a new wrench to use.

Her Greatest Accomplishment

Simply *being an entrepreneur.*

I never would have thought I would become one. 2011 Nina thought she was going to teach English in Thailand for a year and then get stuck behind a desk at a soul-sucking job for the next 30 to 40 years.

This was never my goal. This was never my dream. This was never something I thought I could do. I couldn’t have fathomed this life before. And yet, here I am!

I’ve grown a business where I can take charge and oversee rather than do grunt work for a capped income.

I’ve created a business where I can spend over a month with my family and help them, and barely log in online and know I’m still generating income. 

I’ve developed a business that gives me ultimate freedom and flexibility in my life—something I truly didn’t know existed for a while and something I thought would take me forever to achieve.

I’ve got a business I’m proud of and love doing, which provides me with a great life. Seriously—pinch me!

What She Wishes She Knew When She Started

I wish I had known about the importance of analyzing and testing.

I’m great at implementing, but I could be better at trialing, testing, and understanding if things are working! I’ve recently started to get better at this, like using heat maps and actually looking back on analytics and graphs, etc., to see if what I’m doing is working. 

I got used to just doing and letting it ride, in whatever direction it went in and didn’t actually see what was working or not! 

I’m improving at analyzing everything and seeing what’s working and not working. It may seem a bit silly, but back in the day, blogging seemed to be a bit easier, and whatever you did, it kind of worked. 

Nowadays, it’s not flying! You need to analyze your data and stop spinning your wheels by doing things that aren’t working. I threw spaghetti on the wall and let it stick or fall, but finding out how and why it was sticking and the best way to make it stick is making more of a difference now.

Her Main Mistake

Grinding in circles… I worked so hard in my beginning years, but I was going in circles listening to everything everyone was saying in Facebook groups, on YouTube, etc… I needed to just go hard on learning the most important thing—SEO. 

Once I started grinding in one direction, I started going somewhere! I was trying to learn and apply 27935403 different things, plus trying to go hard on Instagram (when I didn’t want to be an influencer anyway! Just a blogger!)

Her Advice for Other Entrepreneurs

Don’t wait too long to hire help. The second I hired a VA and writers, I started making more money. 

Yes, it will cost you, but you can’t do everything. You’ll burn out and stagnate quickly because there’s only so much a singular person can do.

Being stubborn and not being someone who gives up easily are good traits to have. I wanted this so badly, and even though it took me a while to get here, I made it! 

And it’s awesome to look back at all the times you wanted to throw in the towel and see all your hard work (read: stubbornness) actually worked out! 

But the path will be bumpy until you make it over the hill!