Are you a digital nomad blogger and want to write for a digital nomad blog or any other blog for that matter, and share your story? Then this guide is perfect for you!
A few years ago I set out to create my very own travel blog in order to share my love and passion for travelling through Europe. This is how my blog initially started and allowed me to leverage my story of moving half away across the world to beautiful sunny Lisbon, Portugal!
Naturally, as time went on and I started building up my confidence as a writer and content creator, I started taking on a few freelance writing gigs that allowed me to write for a digital nomad blog, as well as other travel blogs too.
Not only has this been a great income generator, but also gave me the opportunity to expand on my writing portfolio and blog about the digital nomad lifestyle on my own blog.
So whether you are a digital nomad writer or freelancer looking to substitute your own income through writing jobs, or you’re thinking of starting your own blog and want to expand your credibility through features on other digital nomad blogs, this guide will help you navigate that!
Here I’ll share some of my top tips for starting a journey as a freelance writer today!
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Define Your Digital Nomad Story
First and foremost, you’ll need to define your story. Regardless of whether you’re looking to guest feature on other sites to build links to your own blog, or simply want to land a few freelance writing jobs, there is real power in owning your own story and writing from experience.
Do you live a digital nomad lifestyle, are you based in a digital nomad hotspot like Rome or Barcelona and have experience integrating into a local ex-pat community? These are all pertinent and will help garner credibility with sites you’d like to feature your work on.
Thus, decide and define your angle and approach and curate pitches and content around your own unique voice, experience, and knowledge base.
For example, if I had a writer reach out to me asking to be featured on Travel-Boo, the first thing I’ll do is check their credentials. Do they have their own blog, what do they write about, how knowledgeable are they on the subject of travel blogging. I would definitely steer clear from allowing a feature on my site that’s wildly unrelated to the world of travel and travel blogging!
Key takeaway: Define your niche, experience, point of view, and writing style in order to tailor your pitches when wanting to write for a digital nomad blog, or other related blogs and websites.
Tip: Travel journaling is a great way to keep track of your adventures, insider tips, and other forms of inspiration and may help define your own travel story and experiences. Why not keep a travel journal and refer back for inspiration down the road!
Write For A Digital Nomad Blog – Finding Digital Nomad Blogs To Write For
As part of defining your niche, it is imperative that you conduct some research into the world of digital nomad blogs! Find another digital nomad blog, or blogs, and compare their writing styles, topics, popular posts etc.
This will help you identify and narrow down topics that you could consider writing about and also provide insights into what type of information and keywords these sites are targeting. Doing this type of research may also highlight potential content gaps and allow you to approach these or other digital nomad blogs, offering your services to help fill these content gaps.
Of course, within every niche there are sub-niches and this may help further define your own writing style, or your own website’s niche if you’re looking to start your own blog too. When searching and comparing digital nomad blogs you’ll no doubt stumble across nomad blogs that cover an array of sub-topics such as solo travellers, female digital nomad blogs, gay digital nomad blogs and more.
Key takeaway: Niche down and do you’re researching to compare other the best digital nomad blogs, niches, content gaps, and targeted keywords.
Search Freelance Writing Website for Writing Opportunities
If your main priority is to write for other blogs in order to earn an income, then search for writing opportunities couldn’t be any easier thanks to the various freelance writing sites available.
These sites, including Upwork and Fiverr, are not only centred around writing jobs but also include a host of other freelance work opportunities.
In my short time writing for other blogs and sites, I have completed a number of assignments through Upwork. The pro here is that you’ll get referrals from clients that help boost your profile and credibility as a writer, which in turn helps you land more writing jobs down the line.
The negatives are that Upwork does take a chunk of your earnings as a commission split (at the moment this is set at 20% on my writing assignments), and this would need to be factored in.
The other con is that the field of freelance writing is undoubtedly a competitive one and many writers start out by charging rock bottom prices for their work in order to secure jobs. This may mean that you’ll likely have to do the same in order to get your foot in the door, and slowly start increasing your rates as you build up credibility and gain favourable reviews.
Key takeaway: Finding work on a freelance writing website can be a great source of income, or a big pain point and frustration. I consider them to be a stepping stone and doorway into the world of freelance writing whilst also allowing me to build up credibility through my client reviews.
Network Through Online Digital Nomad Communities
Apart from finding opportunities through freelance writing sites, networking with fellows nomads through an online digital nomad community is yet another fabulous way of opening yourself up to new writing prospects.
These could include Facebook groups such as the “Digital Nomad Jobs – Remote Work From Anywhere” Facebook group. On this group, with a membership of over 135,000 members, you’ll find a wide array of nomad job postings being advertised on a regular basis. Of course, these assignments are not only limited to freelance writing but, you can find some awesome opportunities advertised here. In fact, I managed to secure an ongoing writing assignment through this same group.
Other fantastic networking opportunities include meeting fellow nomads through conferences and events such as WebSummit held annually in Lisbon, Portugal, joining local Meetups in your area, or signing up to online nomad forums such as Nomad List.
Key takeaway: Never discount the power of networking with fellow digital nomads to find opportunities to write for a digital nomad blog. You never know who you may meet and when you may land your next freelance writing gig!
Enhance Your Freelance Writing Skills To Write For A Digital Nomad Blog
Undoubtedly one of the most important aspects to consider is the level of professionalism when it comes to presenting your work to clients or prospective clients. I cannot tell you the amount of time that I have received writing pitches that were not optimized to my site, grammatically incorrect, laced with spelling mistakes, or worst yet – plagiarised! Yes, it happens more often than you would think.
Whenever I have submitted work to a client I always ensure that I make use of the several freelance writing resources and tools that are available online. Must of which are even free!
Firstly, I familiarise myself with the client’s website and writing style. I use the Grammarly plugin to help me navigate spelling, whether American, British or Candian English spelling, to ensure I don’t present subpar work. I also prefer to present my work using Google Docs and format the structure in line with SEO best practices, making sure to incorporate keywords into headings and text.
Once I’ve finalized my work, I always pass it through a plagiarism scanner such as Duplichecker to make sure the work I’m presenting is considered 100% original. Both these tools, Grammarly and Duplichecker, offer free versions and super easy to use.
If you’re serious about enhancing your writing skills then you may want to invest in some freelance writing courses to help boost your writing abilities. Browse online course sites such as Udemy and check out the range of freelance writing courses on offer there.
Key takeaway: Make sure your formatting, grammar, spelling, style, and SEO optimizations are on point before submitting your writing work to a prospective client.
Up Your SEO Game As A Digital Nomad Blog Writer
If you want to write for a digital nomad blog or any other site for that matter, it is imperative that you have at least some basic SEO knowledge down pat. No SEO-savvy blogger would post or accept a random feature without the basics on-page SEO boxes being ticked first.
Of course, SEO is a wide and varied topic that isn’t something you’ll master overnight. In fact, it took me quite some time to feel comfortable with SEO and felt like I at least had some degree of knowledge in terms of what I was doing SEO-wise.
A fantastic resource that has helped me tremendously and is one of the best SEO courses that I would highly recommend is the SEO The Easy Way course from Gemma and Laura from Make Traffic Happen. I cannot tell you the countless hours spent trying to figure out SEO on my own, that is until I stumbled across this course, and it all started to make sense!
A keystone of any SEO optimization includes doing proper keyword research and building your content and pitches around these. Most blogger and writers cannot afford premier SEO tools such as Ahrefs, or SEMRush, that charge a pretty penny for their monthly subscriptions. Alternatively, most bloggers love to use tools such as Keysearch. This is the tool I’ve used to build a content strategy for my travel blog too.
Click here to sign up for Keysearch and be sure to use the discount code KSDISC to access a reduced rate on your monthly subscription.
Key takeaway: Be sure to master SEO principles and structure your content and pitches around well-researched and targeted keywords.
