Alex Wieteska-Gasior has all the time had a ardour for journey, and as quickly as she may, she moved overseas to show English.
This gave her the chance to dwell a nomadic life, which she started to doc on a weblog known as Roam & Thrive.
As soon as on the highway, she totally understood the significance of not solely experiencing new locations, but additionally taking good care of your self each mentally and bodily.
Her web site supplies sensible journey ideas and vacation spot itineraries whereas additionally leaning closely in the direction of wellness and retreat guides, maintaining a healthy diet, and health. Right this moment she’s making $5k a month and dwelling the lifetime of journey she’s all the time dreamed about.
Hold studying to seek out out:
- Why she created her weblog
- How her weblog led to different alternatives
- The place her revenue comes from
- How a lot visitors her web site will get
- How she grew her web site
- Her essential advertising and marketing methods
- Her ideas on AI
- Her method to website positioning
- Her key phrase analysis course of
- Her content material creation technique
- How she leverages her DMs
- Her go-to sources and instruments
- Her largest problem
- Her best accomplishment
- Her essential mistake
- Her recommendation for different entrepreneurs
Meet Alex Wieteska-Gasior
I’m Alex and I’m a content material writer and photographer. I’m initially from London, UK, the place I lived for many of my life, or till the age of 25.
I used to be actually fortunate to have the ability to develop up touring fairly a bit, primarily round Europe, after which, once I reached my late teenagers, additional afield.
All I needed to do was journey. Individuals would all the time ask me what I needed to do for a dwelling later in life and the reply was all the time “I don’t know,” whereas I used to be always occupied with how I may make a dwelling from journey.
Again then, running a blog, influencing and any kind of content material advertising and marketing didn’t exist, so I grew to become an English instructor as a result of it allowed me to journey.
I went to dwell in China, Nepal, and Chile, and I traveled a lot of Asia due to these alternatives, however the revenue wasn’t good.
It wasn’t sufficient to construct any form of wealth and I needed to construct my very own on-line enterprise, one thing that might give me the liberty to dwell life on my phrases.
That’s once I began Roam & Thrive, out of a 600-square-foot house in Barrio Italia in Santiago, Chile, the place I used to be dwelling on the time.
I did fairly a little bit of touring through the improvement of Roam & Thrive, dwelling nomadically in locations like Mexico and Costa Rica after which transferring again to Europe and at last to Puglia, Italy the place I purchased a home final 12 months.
I at present dwell in Puglia, Italy about 50% of the 12 months and journey the remainder of the time.
Why She Created Her Website
I created Roam & Thrive out of my ardour for journey and a want to encourage others to discover the world whereas sustaining a wholesome life-style.
The concept got here to me throughout a interval once I was touring extensively and realized the significance of not simply experiencing new locations, but additionally thriving bodily and mentally whereas on the highway.
Roam & Thrive focuses on offering sensible journey ideas, distinctive vacation spot guides away from the generic garbage you generally see on-line, wellness and retreat guides, and photographic inspiration to assist vacationers profit from their journeys.
Beginning out, I started by sharing my very own journey experiences and wellness practices on a easy weblog platform. My preliminary content material included detailed itineraries, health routines for vacationers, and recommendations on discovering wholesome meals choices whereas overseas.
As I continued to journey and collect extra experiences, I expanded the weblog to incorporate extra complete vacation spot guides, and Roam & Thrive started to maneuver extra into the luxurious aspect of journey, however a way more acutely aware luxe.
Progress got here via a mixture of constant, high-quality content material, partaking with my viewers on social media, and optimizing my web site for Google. As I developed my pictures profession, Roam & Thrive additionally began to get an increasing number of visible.
I’m somebody who’s extremely impressed by visuals once I’m doing journey analysis on-line and I needed Roam & Thrive to do the identical.
Total, Roam & Thrive stays my main focus and keenness and I haven’t began some other companies aside from being a contract photographer.
Roam & Thrive has grown right into a complete useful resource lately for vacationers searching for a wellness-focused, luxurious method to journey. By means of steady studying and adaptation, I goal to maintain increasing the weblog’s attain and influence, serving to extra folks journey mindfully and dwell higher journey experiences total.
How A lot She’s Incomes
I earn round $5-6k a month with Roam & Thrive. It fluctuates just a little all year long due to some various factors like advert RPMs, which content material is trending at totally different instances of the 12 months, and so forth.
Advertisements, that are run by Mediavine, present the biggest portion of revenue, about 45%, and after that, internet online affiliate marketing (35%), primarily for lodge, tour, and automobile rental bookings.
I additionally promote my very own merchandise like pictures prints (5%) from varied locations around the globe and I additionally promote a really specialist map-guide about Puglia, Italy (15%), which I believe is without doubt one of the most complete journey sources to the area that’s on-line proper now.
Roam & Thrive will not be my solely revenue stream, as I’m additionally knowledgeable photographer specializing in journey and life-style pictures for varied journey manufacturers and lodges.
I additionally make cash licensing pictures from my travels to purchasers.
My web site at present will get round 60-70,000 web page views per 30 days. It was extra final 12 months, however we suffered fairly a bit from the Google updates.
I work on my enterprise about 6-7 hours a day. Which may not all be for Roam & Thrive, as I’d must take a little bit of time to edit some photographs for a shopper or write a contract article for an additional mission, however that’s the typical. I take pleasure in it although, it doesn’t really feel like work.
Her High Advertising and marketing Technique
In relation to rising Roam & Thrive and reaching a wider viewers, my #1 advertising and marketing technique has all the time been simply creating immersive, interactive content material that resonates deeply with my viewers.
I believe for those who create nice and genuine content material, folks come again and I’d wish to assume I’m fairly dedicated to delivering the very best suggestions and content material I can and updating it when needed.
I journey to all of the locations I write about, {photograph} them in my distinctive model, and sometimes present myself in them so readers can see I’ve been to those locations and introduced a novel perspective to the desk.
It’s tremendous simple at this time to only sit at house and let AI spit out some low-quality, badly researched journey articles, and sadly, we’re seeing an increasing number of of this at this time so folks don’t actually know who or what to belief.
It’s vital to point out readers you’ve been there and know what you’re speaking about.
I additionally ship vacation spot e-mail blasts to my viewers as soon as 1 / 4 from trending locations I’ve just lately been to.
In it, my viewers will get suggestions on the place to remain, eat, and play in varied worldwide locations and it’s all very native, insider intel. You possibly can’t discover that stuff on-line or with AI; it’s fairly unique.
After all, I additionally use website positioning as the largest advertising and marketing technique, and social media, particularly Pinterest.
I don’t assume it’s distinctive, however as I’m in a really visible area of interest and knowledgeable photographer, I’ve been capable of leverage Pinterest as a platform to generate an unlimited quantity of visitors.
My technique there was to pin constantly and manually for years and to make use of good photographs. I believe the standard of the pin/picture on Pinterest issues quite a bit, in order a photographer I’ve been capable of leverage that.
Her Ideas on website positioning
website positioning has been important to Roam & Thrive, significantly originally. I believe now with all of the updates and Google doubtlessly transferring away from supporting impartial publishers, it could be getting much less vital, but it surely stays a spotlight for us.
Our technique has all the time been about discovering low competitors, lengthy tail key phrases and writing about that, although we’ve additionally tried to concentrate on a content material theme and write extra round that to construct extra authority. Watching what opponents have been writing about originally was helpful at instances.
Technical website positioning can be a key element. I guarantee my web site is quick, mobile-friendly, and has a transparent, logical construction whereas additionally being design-friendly.
Usually updating content material, constructing high-quality backlinks, and interesting with my viewers via social media and different platforms additional assist my website positioning efforts.
Key phrase Analysis
My key phrase analysis course of begins with understanding my viewers’s pursuits and desires, utilizing instruments like Google Key phrase Planner, KeySearch, and different sources to assemble knowledge.
I additionally see what’s working at present, what persons are studying, and whether or not there are any content material gaps to fill round these locations.
I concentrate on long-tail key phrases which are particular and fewer aggressive, analyzing search intent to categorize key phrases into informational, navigational, and transactional varieties.
Competitor evaluation helps me establish gaps and alternatives, and I map key phrases to my content material technique by creating complete pillar content material and supporting cluster content material.
Common monitoring and updating of posts and key phrases guarantee my content material stays related and well-ranked however I’m not nearly as good at updating posts as I’m creating new ones.
Hyperlink Constructing
Hyperlink constructing is unquestionably one thing I’ve struggled with prior to now, by no means actually having a clear-cut technique for it.
My technique all the time went one thing like “rank on the high of the Google Search and folks will naturally hyperlink again to you,” and in my circumstances, this has labored: our top-performing content material has probably the most hyperlinks.
I’ve used HARO fairly a bit prior to now to be featured or quoted in different content material for a backlink, and I’ve additionally written freelance content material for different websites in change for a backlink, however that’s just about it.
Her Content material Creation Technique
Our content material technique begins with the reader. I like to write content material for folks, not for Google, so I begin by watching and listening to what persons are doing with regards to journey.
My nostril is firmly within the business, so to talk, so I do know which locations are and could be trending shortly.
I’ll do a little bit of key phrase analysis after which I’ll journey to these, or as lots of these as I can, I’ll then do extra key phrase analysis and start writing about these locations.
I additionally are likely to take heed to my social media DMs. Many individuals ask for journey recommendation alongside the strains of “I’m visiting blah vacation spot quickly, have you ever been there?”
Oftentimes, the identical locations come up time and again, which makes me ebook the journey and create content material round it as I do know folks wish to learn it.
Typically I’ll do random key phrase analysis round a vacation spot I wish to go to; generally the journey is well worth the whereas and I’ll take it.
We’re happening about 350 articles.
Alex’s E-mail Record
Sure, I do have an e-mail listing, but it surely’s comparatively small as a result of I by no means put a lot effort into rising it or had a stable technique for creating it. Nonetheless, that is one thing I’m actively engaged on now.
To develop my e-mail listing, I’m specializing in creating helpful lead magnets reminiscent of journey guides, and unique content material, reminiscent of our Puglia map that guests can entry in change for a small payment and their e-mail addresses.
I am additionally optimizing sign-up varieties on my weblog to make them extra seen and attractive, and I am experimenting with pop-ups and inline varieties to seize e-mail addresses with out being intrusive.
Mediavine’s Develop program has been nice for this, with out me having to do a lot further.
Her Favourite Sources
I believe Brandon Gaille and his podcast, The Running a blog Millionaire, has been one of the influential sources for me, not only for running a blog recommendation but additionally inspiration generally.
I do love Area of interest Pursuits, too, and take heed to the podcast weekly; it’s excellent for business information and inspiration.
KeySearch has been and nonetheless is without doubt one of the most helpful instruments for key phrase analysis, particularly originally of what you are promoting while you don’t have the funds to pay for the extra superior ones like Semrush.
I additionally use and love RankIQ, Brandon Gaille’s personal key phrase analysis platform constructed for bloggers. It has allowed me to put in writing high and better-ranking content material and attain web page 1 of seek for many various key phrases.
I additionally use a Pomodoro timer on my desktop to get critical work executed. I are likely to get distracted fairly a bit once I write, so the timer helps me to concentrate on getting these phrases down.
Her Major Problem
Site visitors progress! This has all the time been the largest problem: getting sufficient visitors to have the ability to attain my monetary targets as a enterprise. It’s actually taken me years to get to a degree of excellent visitors and revenue.
In latest instances, all of the Google updates haven’t been good to us. Between the HCU and March’s core replace, we misplaced round 40% of our Google visitors, which is heartbreaking while you’re attempting to construct an internet enterprise.
As most entrepreneurs in the identical place will know, these elements of the enterprise are so irritating as we are able to’t do something about them.
Having no management over many elements of the enterprise is a problem, particularly with regards to progress, and that is the largest problem we face now.
Her Major Accomplishment
I imagine in small wins throughout every stage of constructing companies. Small wins which, over time, result in bigger and bigger ones. I’ve definitely had numerous small wins alongside the best way.
One was positively stepping into Mediavine and having the ability to earn a full-time revenue from my first web site.
One other is, in fact, when readers write to you thanking you on your content material and the way a lot you helped them out.
My “why” and true purpose for beginning out was to have the ability to information folks of their queries and searches and provides improbable journey recommendation that basically helps them.
When readers come again to us and say how a lot X content material helped them, in a way we’re attaining our “why.” I believe attending to that stage must be one in all my largest accomplishments up to now.
What She Needs She Knew When She Began
I believe each on-line writer would have liked to know extra about website positioning or hyperlink constructing methods, or methods to construct an e-mail listing successfully, however I assume these are simply a part of the educational course of.
I underestimated the significance of website positioning from the start. Understanding methods to optimize my content material for engines like google earlier on would have considerably accelerated my weblog’s progress and on-line visibility.
Her Largest Mistake
I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I hadn’t made fairly a number of errors, particularly originally once I first began out.
The main one was not investing sufficient in myself, my abilities, and my enterprise. I used to be very frugal beginning and, wanting again now, had I spent extra by myself schooling and studying issues like website positioning, I might have little question progressed quite a bit quicker.
The second pretty giant mistake I made was not having that enterprise mindset about my enterprise from the get-go.
For the primary couple of years, it was a aspect hustle, however I didn’t consider it as one thing that would succeed as a enterprise, so I handled it extra like a interest aspect hustle.
I believe if I utilized that entrepreneurial and enterprise mindset to it from the start, it might have changed into a worthwhile enterprise quite a bit quicker.
Her Recommendation for Different Entrepreneurs
Spend money on your self and what you are promoting early on with no matter sources you may. Go area of interest along with your web site.
Additionally, do not underestimate the ability of networking. Join with different entrepreneurs, business specialists, and potential companions.
These relationships can supply assist, present new alternatives, and supply insights that you simply may not have thought of.
And at last, not simply because I run a wellness-focused journey weblog however, care for your self. Entrepreneurship might be demanding, and sustaining a wholesome work-life steadiness is essential. Prioritize your well-being to maintain your vitality and creativity.
