Scale Your Travel Blog is a travel blogging coaching program with done-for-you SEO services by Mike and Laura from Mike and Laura Travel. This program includes a travel blogging course, group coaching, community, and assistance in keyword research, site audits, and blog post reviews. They offer their services to beginner, intermediate, and advanced travel bloggers.
Travel blogging is a form of content creation where you write travel-related posts in your blog. 33% of US travelers look for travel advice in travel blogs. You can make money with travel blogging, mainly through affiliate marketing, ad revenue, and sponsored posts. The average annual income of successful affiliate marketing bloggers is between $30,000-$50,000. Ads, on the other hand, can generate $900-$2,000 if you’re using Mediavine as an ad network. Sponsored posts range from $25-$1,000 depending on your audience size and client. While growing your audience with a blog can take a while, Scale Your Travel blog teaches ways how to make money from your website even if you’re just starting.
You don’t need to buy a travel blogging course to have a successful blog. They only serve as a way to accelerate the process. Furthermore, while travel blogging can be a lucrative online business, it also comes with its disadvantages, such as competition, unpredictable income, and slow return on investment (ROI).
Scale Your Travel Blog Review: Pros and Cons
Pros
Lifetime Access: You can learn at your own pace and revisit the course content whenever you want.
Group Coaching: You’ll be provided personalized guidance aside from the course.
Versatile: The lessons taught can be applied to other blogging niches, not just travel blogs.
Done-For-You Services: Scale your travel blog will do keyword research, site audit, and blog reviews for you to make sure that you’re on the right track to success.
Cons
Small Community: Scale Your Travel Blog only has 500+ travel bloggers in their community.
Expensive: Compared to other courses, this program is less affordable, especially for beginners.
Price
Scale Your Travel Blog is priced at $2,497 or 6 monthly installments of $427.
Refund Policy
Scale Your Travel Blog has a 14-day refund.
Origin
Scale Your Travel Blog started in January 2021.
Reputation
Mike and Laura have a small online presence outside of their blog. They have 2,860+ subscribers on YouTube, 11,800+ followers on Instagram, 1,600+ followers on Facebook, and 5,500+ followers on Pinterest.
What Is Scale Your Travel Blog?
Scale Your Travel Blog is a travel blogging coaching program that teaches you how to monetize your travel blog by growing your audience and creating predictable income. In this coaching program, you’ll be provided a 9-module travel blog course and group coaching as well as other services such as site audit and keywords. They’ll help you grow your traffic by using search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Scale Your Travel Blog also teaches how to monetize your website with affiliate marketing, ads, and sponsorships.
Who Is the Scale Your Travel Blog Course For?
Scale Your Travel Blog is for beginners, intermediate, and advanced travel bloggers. As long as you’re interested in travel blogging and you’re willing to put in the time and effort, this course is for you, especially if you want to make money from anywhere in the world.
Additionally, the course isn’t limited to travel bloggers only. Scale Your Travel Blog also provide its services to blogs with any type of niche. They promise that you can use their SEO strategies to grow email lists, generate leads for small businesses, and more.
Scale Your Travel Blog isn’t for you if you’re looking for overnight success. Making income through a blog generally takes time, therefore, you need long-term commitment. Moreover, if you’re already earning more than six figures from ads and affiliate marketing, you may not find substantial value in this program since it’s likely that you’re already well-versed in the strategies covered by Scale Your Travel Blog.
Is Scale Your Travel Blog Suitable for Beginners?
Yes, Scale Your Travel Blog is suitable for beginners. They offer their services to anyone, regardless of experience. As a beginner, this program will help you if:
How Is Scale Your Travel Blog Different from Other Travel Blogging Courses?
Scale Your Travel blog differs from other travel blogging courses by offering done-for-you SEO services. They also teach you how to continue making your website profitable during your blog’s growth phase, unlike more goal-oriented courses.
Aside from that, Scale Your Travel Blog isn’t that different from other travel blogging courses. They mention that, unlike similar courses, they won’t waste your time teaching you how to post on social media or use outdated SEO tactics. Instead, they claim that you’ll learn updated SEO and marketing strategies. However, these concepts aren’t unique to their course. Other travel blogging courses, such as Matthew Kepnes’s (Nomadic Matt) Superstar Business Master Class, and Jessie Festa’s (Jessie on a Journey) Travel Blog Prosperity offer similar lessons.
How Much Does Scale Your Travel Blog Cost?
Scale Your Travel Blog costs $2,497 for a one-time payment or $427 for 6 installments. Compared to other courses, this is a hefty price. For instance, Travel Blog Accelerator is priced at $499, Superstar Business Master Class is $99, and Travel Blog Prosperity is worth $49 per month.
However, Scale Your Travel Blog isn’t only a course. They also provide you with group coaching, a community, site audit, blog post reviews, blog post outlines, Q and A sessions, and done-for-you keywords.
How Does Scale Your Travel Blog Help You Make Money?
Scale Your Travel Blog helps you make money through affiliate marketing, display ads, and sponsorships.
How Much Can You Make with Scale Your Travel Blog?
You can earn $200 to $10,000 per month with Scale Your Travel Blog, according to student testimonials. This is a combination of income generated from affiliate commissions, ads, and sponsorships. You can earn more than $10,000 per month, though. Here’s a breakdown of the average earnings per monetization strategy that Scale Your Travel Blog teaches:
What Do You Get in Scale Your Travel Blog?
Scale Your Travel Blog Course Modules
In this module, you’ll learn the most common ways to monetize your travel blog or blogging skills. You’ll also discover how long your blog takes to generate income. Additionally, you’ll get access to their Facebook mastermind group.
This module will teach you how to set up your website in WordPress.org. Topics included in this bonus module are:
- Choosing your travel blog name and niche
- Setting up your blog
- Moving your website from WordPress.com, Wix, Blogspot, or Blogger to WordPress.org
- Setting up website essentials such as your homepage, menu, about page, contact page, sidebar, and resources page
- Using plugins
- Setting up Google Analytics and Google Search Console
In this part, you’ll learn SEO strategies, including:
- Keyword Research: How to find the best topics that would drive more traffic to your website
- Rank in Google: How to write blog posts that rank at the top of a Google search
Here, you’ll learn what backlinks are and how to leverage them to make Google work for you.
In this module, you’ll talk about:
- How to optimize your blog for Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework to make Google trust your website.
- How to make your website load faster. Google penalizes websites with slow loading speeds (greater than 4-7 seconds loading time) so you should optimize your website to load in less than 3 seconds.
In this section, you’ll be provided with the fastest and easiest way to earn money with your website through affiliate marketing. Scale Your Travel Blog will discuss:
- How to find profitable topics to write about
- How to join an affiliate program (even if you just started your blog)
- How to turn your audience into natural buyers without being sleazy
Here, Scale Your Travel Blog will help you fix your old blog posts to grow your audience with the content that you already have. In this module, you’ll learn:
- How to decide whether to retain, update, remove, or repurpose your old blog posts
- How to use Google Search Console to improve your old blog posts and grow your audience. Google Search Console is a free tool that allows you to optimize your website’s search performance in Google Search results
In this module, you’ll learn how to earn money with your travel blog through ads. The topics included in this part are:
- How to find the perfect ad network
- How to reach the blog traffic requirements
- How to optimize blog posts to increase your ad earnings
In this part of the course, you’ll learn:
- How email marketing can increase your affiliate income
- How to start and build a responsive email list that buys from you
- How to recommend affiliate products to your email list without sounding salesy
In this module, you’ll learn how to partner with companies by leveraging your travel blog. Scale Your Travel Blog will discuss:
- How to choose which brands to partner with
- How to connect with brands and capture their attention
- How to pitch and secure sponsorship deals regardless of your audience size
You’ll be given various templates such as a sponsorship media kit template, a privacy policy template, a blog post outline template, and a blog post review template. Here are other bonuses:
- Bonus #1. Additional Way To Make Money From Your Blog And Blogging Skills: You’ll learn how to earn an income by leveraging your blogging skills.
- Bonus #2. A Coursework Success Blueprint: You’ll be provided a guide to make travel blogging easier.
- Bonus #3. Common Keyword Assistance: You’ll receive common keyword assistance guides that will help you increase your traffic and income quickly.
Scale Your Travel Blog Reviews: What Are Students of Scale Your Travel Blog Saying About the Course?
Students of Scale Your Travel Blog say mostly positive things about the course. One student said that Scale Your Travel Blog’s help has been invaluable and they went from 25,000 monthly readers to 75,000 in just 6 weeks. Another success story mentioned that they got 150,000 website traffic monthly and were making $10,000 a month. Most of their students seem to be beginners who’ve reported that their websites’ growth has drastically increased after taking the program. Note that these testimonials came from Scale Your Travel Blog’s landing page. There are limited reviews of their students from external websites.
Who Is the Founder of Scale Your Travel Blog?
Laura Peters Abalos is the founder of Scale Your Travel Blog. She’s an expert in affiliate marketing, email marketing, and SEO. She runs Mike and Laura Travel alongside her husband, Mike Abalos. They’re full-time travelers and digital nomads. Laura also hosts The Online Advantage podcast under the Mike and Laura Travel YouTube channel.
Laura started their travel blog in 2014, however, it was only in 2019 that she started learning about implementing SEO, and in 4 months, they were able to apply for Mediavine. In January 2021, she launched Scale Your Travel Blog, which was initially just a course. After 6 months of launching the course, they’ve added additional services such as site audit, keyword research, and blog post reviews.
Laura’s current income streams mainly come from Scale Your Travel Blog ($40,000 to $50,000 per month), their Travel Blogging Summit live event ($21k-$51k per event), and their Mike and Laura Travel blog ($9k-$14k per month).
The Mike and Laura Travel Blog
The Mike and Laura Travel Blog is a travel blog by the couple Mike and Laura Peters Abalos. On their blog, they produce travel-related content inspired by places they’ve been to. While they initially started exploring the west coast of the US, they’ve since traveled to many parts of the world such as Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Australia, Italy, France, Mexico, Switzerland, and Chile. Their blog covers different topics related to their experiences, including travel hacking skills, budgeting tips, and remote work exploration. Mike and Laura Travel had been featured in many publications, such as Fodors, Yahoo News, Medium, and Databox.
Mike and Laura’s 3 Secrets to Exponentially Grow Your Travel Blog
Laura advised to not rely on volatile platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram. Instead, use Google as a platform and leverage SEO strategies to rank. One strategy she mentioned is to find topics that have low competition and high search volume as these will bring more readers into your website. After narrowing down a topic, model your blog post with what’s already in the top 10 search results for that particular topic.
Instead of just promoting any type of product, use user intent in understanding what people are looking for, look for topics that will most likely lead to someone spending money, such as product reviews or travel gear listicles, and write blog posts about them.
According to Laura, the best way to make money through email marketing is by adding your affiliate links. Building an email list is valuable because people who sign up for your list are your ideal audience as they willingly gave their email to you. An email list is also an audience that you own, and unlike in social media, no one can take your list away from you. Laura also recommended providing enticing freebies that get people to give you their email addresses.
Are There Free Travel Blogging Courses?
Yes, there are free travel blogging courses. Here are some examples:
What Is Travel Blogging?
Travel Blogging is a type of online content creation where you publish travel-related posts in your blog. This long form content can include your travel journals, tips, product reviews, photos, podcasts, and other forms of media that you want to share with your audience. It’s also a type of content marketing strategy that you can monetize.
It costs $100 to $500 upfront to start a travel blog, depending on the hosting, website builder, content management system, website theme, and plugins that you use. Here’s a cost breakdown of the basic expenses when starting a website:
Domain Name
Buying a domain name usually costs between $10-$20 annually, but they give discounts for your first year. The price depends on where you buy your domain name and the type of top-level domain (TLD) you’re going for. Popular TLDs include .com, .net, and .org. Some of the popular domain name registrars are:
Hosting Platforms
Web hosting plans typically cost around $10-$30 per month, depending on which plan you want to purchase. However, most hosting platforms also give discounts for your first year. Some popular hosting platforms are:
Paid WordPress Themes
While there are a lot of free and paid themes to choose from, you need to consider the loading speed of your website. Keep in mind that slow-loading pages get penalized by Google. Paid themes generally load faster. Paid themes also often provide drag-and-drop editors which makes website building easier especially for beginners. Using a paid theme will also make your website look more unique and stand out from your competitors. Some of the best paid themes are:
Email Marketing Tools
One of the most important ways to monetize your blog is by building an email list. A high-quality email marketing tool will help your emails avoid ending up in spam folders. Some of the most well-known email marketing tools platforms are:
Is Travel Blogging Worth It in 2023?
Travel blogging is worth it in 2023. Based on RankIQ’s findings, the travel blog niche has one of the highest percentages of blogs at 10%. Additionally, Optin Monster mentioned that 33% of US travelers look for travel advice in travel blogs. If you’re also planning on eventually selling digital products, having a travel blog can lead to more potential leads. According to Hubspot, businesses with blogs have 55% more visitors than those that don’t.
However, for you to monetize your travel blog, you need to learn effective strategies to grow your audience. According to Blogging Guide, 1 in 3 bloggers don’t make money at all, and only 10% earn $10,000+ in a year. Additionally, only 13% earn enough money to make blogging full-time.
Can You Make Money from a Travel Blog?
Yes, you can make money from a travel blog. According to a survey conducted by Income School, on average, bloggers earn $36.80 per 1000 views on their website. The average respondent in this survey has 60,500 page views per month on their blog, which means that they earn around $2,226.52 per month. From the same survey:
- Bloggers monetizing through affiliate marketing earn around $17.79 per thousand views
- Bloggers who use ads and affiliate marketing earn an average of $29.91 per thousand views
- Bloggers who sell digital products earn $67.04 per thousand views
The top travel bloggers make 6 figures a year. Nomadic Matt makes 50k per month through his courses, products, and affiliate marketing. Kristin Addis of Be My Travel Muse earns 15k-50k per month from Mediavine ad revenue, tours that she runs herself, and brand partnerships. Jessie on a Journey reported that she earns 6-figures a year through her courses, Mediavine ads, NYC photo tour sales, affiliate marketing, paid campaigns, and speaking gigs.
Do You Need to Buy a Travel Blogging Course to Have a Successful Travel Blog?
You don’t need to buy a travel blogging course to have a successful travel blog. Many successful travel blogs, including Mike and Laura Travel, figured it out on their own. Taking a paid travel blogging course only accelerates your learning curve and gives you structured guidance. There are plenty of free courses available that could offer some value, especially when you’re a beginner. Ultimately, whether or not you buy a travel blogging course depends on your learning style, goals, existing knowledge, experience, and budget.
What Are the Disadvantages of Travel Blogging?
Scale Your Travel Blog Alternatives
What Is My Top Recommendation for Generating Passive Income with Your Website?
My top recommendation for generating passive income with your website is local lead generation. Local lead generation involves creating specialized websites for local businesses. These sites get prime spots on Google searches, gathering leads that you can then sell to local companies.
In travel blogging, your income is unpredictable since you’re mostly relying on income from sources that you can’t control, such as affiliate marketing commissions and ad revenue. According to a survey from Influencer Marketing Hub, 57.55% of individual affiliate respondents reported that they made less than $10,000 from affiliate marketing in a year.
On the other hand, you can make $5,000 per website per month with local lead generation. And the cool part? You can scale up by building more of these sites. Since you're focusing on a specific local area, the competition isn't as fierce either. Plus, you'll get to build relationships with local businesses, positioning yourself as their go-to source, which means a steady income stream.
Now, if you're really into travel blogging, then keep doing what you’re doing! But if you're more interested in a reliable income without all the twists and turns of blog monetization, local lead generation might be your thing. You create digital assets that you have complete control over, and they keep bringing in money. Even if you're not going viral, as long as your websites are ranking well on Google, you're making a steady income.
So, if you're set on boosting your online income, why not give local lead generation coaching a shot? It might just be your ticket to a consistent passive income stream, minus the slow and unpredictable grind of travel blogging.
