When Pete Rojwongsuriya completed college, he went straight into the company sector in his native Thailand. However the hours had been lengthy, and the pay was low, so he began dabbling in entrepreneurship.
After promoting a web site he constructed for five figures, he tried to recreate his success with one other website. When issues didn’t go as deliberate, he determined to pivot and dedicate himself to his journey website, BucketListly Blog.
Ten years later, Pete has constructed his weblog right into a sustainable enterprise, incomes $10k a month.
However what’s much more particular is that, in line with Pete, he’s offering a much-needed distinctive perspective in an English-speaking journey running a blog trade that’s predominantly dominated by a Western perspective. And so, he’s serving to encourage non-Western English-speaking folks to pack their baggage and journey, identical to him.
Maintain studying to seek out out:
- What his first entrepreneurial initiatives had been
- What website he offered for five figures
- How he initially funded journey for his weblog
- The place his earnings comes from
- His important advertising and marketing technique
- The significance of search engine optimisation
- His strategy to key phrase analysis and hyperlink constructing
- How he creates content material
- How he grows his electronic mail record
- His favourite sources and instruments
- His best problem
- His important accomplishment
- His largest mistake
- His recommendation for different entrepreneurs
Meet Pete Rojwongsuriya
Hey, I’m Pete, the founding father of BucketListly Weblog, a journey weblog about solo touring and journey pictures, 2 of my favourite hobbies. I used to be born and raised in Thailand, which isn’t your typical background for journey bloggers, particularly throughout the realm of English-language blogs.
I’ve a background in laptop science and, like most freshly graduated Thais, I went straight to the company world and began working as an online developer for a global firm in Bangkok.
After working lengthy hours incomes merely $600 USD monthly, I made a decision to stop and shifted my profession into the design area, working at tech startups, earlier than venturing by myself and beginning every kind of companies.
As I used to be working full-time in an online utility company in Bangkok, I dabbled in entrepreneurship a couple of instances. My first try was a t-shirt design enterprise that sells distinctive graphics to be screened on t-shirts to design/style firms, however that ultimately went nowhere and I ended up quitting after a 12 months.
After the t-shirt enterprise, I continued to work full-time on the similar firm, and whereas doing so, I began my second enterprise, MyColorscreen.com, which was a neighborhood that permits Android telephone customers to share their house screens with each other.
The web site was gaining loopy traction after 1.5 years of operation and earlier than I knew it, an organization within the US supplied to purchase the web site and I offered it for five figures, which is a fairly large sum of cash for Thailand.
With the financial savings I received after I offered MyColorScreen.com, I made a decision to stop my full-time job and went on to start out my third enterprise, which was an online design and growth freelancing enterprise. It took me greater than 3 months of working tirelessly earlier than I truly landed my first consumer.
I spent weeks and months attempting to market my providers, pitching concepts to firms, growing Javascript plugins, and sharing them at no cost on GitHub and different net growth blogs, within the hope {that a} potential consumer would see them and get in touch with me for work. To my shock, it labored!
My first and solely consumer discovered me on GitHub and he requested me to assist him provide you with new design concepts for his buyer survey sass firm.
I ended up working with him for greater than 6 years as a freelancer, which kickstarted my journey as a digital nomad, because the work gave me the pliability to work remotely from wherever, and I ended up touring all over the world, beginning my weblog, whereas persevering with to work for him.
With the security web I received from the web site gross sales in addition to the continual movement of labor from my consumer, I went all in with touring manner again in 2013, and 10 years later, I’m nonetheless on the highway, now, not freelancing however working full-time on my journey weblog.
Why He Created His Web site
The thought of BucketListly truly started in 2013 as a social community as I used to be contemporary off from the profitable sale of my earlier web site. I needed to capitalize on it once more and recreate an analogous neighborhood for prime achievers and vacationers to share their bucket record concepts and achievements, therefore the title, BucketListly.
BucketListly Weblog was presupposed to be a enterprise weblog for the social community, a advertising and marketing channel for the app to raise my content marketing technique as I continued to create inspirational articles and journey studies to drive folks to make use of the app extra.
Sadly, the app enterprise went nowhere and by no means actually gained any vital traction the way in which I hoped it could, so I needed to ultimately shut it down in 2019.
The weblog, then again, has gained a lifetime of its personal with a small neighborhood of solo vacationers, largely from English-speaking nations like Singapore and Malaysia, forming round it. I made a decision to go all in with the weblog in 2018, stop freelancing altogether, and switch the weblog from a passion right into a enterprise.
5 years later, I now work full-time on BucketListly Weblog and am capable of dwell off it with out having to freelance on the aspect like I used to. I’m incomes passive earnings whereas touring all over the world, which is a lifelong dream of mine.
How A lot He’s Incomes
As of 2023, I’m incomes round $10,000 USD monthly on common via 2 important earnings streams, adverts and associates. I earned about 35% from Mediavine adverts, and 60% from affiliates, with Amazon, Reserving.com, and Viator, performing persistently nicely, whereas the remaining is from enterprise offers, preset gross sales, content material creation, picture and video licensing, and many others.
Understand that the earnings usually fluctuates every month relying on the season. The tip of the 12 months is at all times a enjoyable time for me because the earnings usually peaks across the vacation season.
For instance, I used to be incomes about $12,000 USD monthly on the finish of final 12 months, after which it crashed by virtually 33% in January and continued to climb once more every quarter because the 12 months progressed.
I began BucketListly Weblog as a passion in 2013 so I used to be incomes completely nothing for the primary 5 years of its existence. It was not till 2018, after I determined to show the weblog right into a enterprise that I began gaining extra traction to use for an advert community like Mediavine and began incomes a dwelling wage.
Technically, my journey took me virtually 10 years via trial and error, however in actuality, I’d say it took me round 5 years of engaged on the web site full-time (whereas touring the world) to get to the place I’m in the present day.
In the intervening time, BucketListly Weblog is getting round 164k distinctive guests and round 263k pageviews.
Pete’s Prime Advertising Technique
My advertising and marketing technique is fairly sporadic to inform you the reality, as I usually attempt to adapt to the forever-changing algorithm of Google, which appears additional relentless currently with its shuffling of search outcomes.
That stated, my important objective stays the identical: to concentrate on creating extremely detailed content material for my readers to assist them plan their journey extra successfully, so lots of my articles are long-form with round 3,000 phrases minimal.
My area of interest is all about backpacking and solo touring, with lots of my journey guides written in a manner that individuals can simply observe and adapt to no matter journey model every particular person would possibly choose, all of the whereas, saving a bit of cash right here and there.
I cowl just about any vacation spot on the earth, however throughout Covid, I made a decision to shift my focus a little bit extra in direction of touring in Thailand. I began masking hidden gems and off-the-beaten-path locations {that a} foreigner may not find out about, which labored out fairly nicely as journey in Thailand rebounded after Covid.
Some articles will be so long as 10,000 phrases relying on how lengthy the journey is, for instance, a 3-month itinerary in Europe or a 6-month itinerary in South America, and many others. My articles are sometimes accompanied by a ton of images that assist our readers get the texture of the place earlier than they go there.
My content material often doesn’t promote the romance of touring like most influencers’ content material. I targeted solely on offering sensible info and helpful ideas to assist make it occur to our readers, and that’s what I usually concentrate on after I write new content material for BucketListly Weblog.
I don’t outsource any of my writing. I wrote round 99% of the content material on BucketLIstly Weblog with a couple of exceptions. I do settle for visitor posts typically, often from the folks I do know or whom I interacted with on-line earlier than, however that’s about it.
The Significance of search engine optimisation
search engine optimisation is extraordinarily vital, as 88% of the visitors coming into BucketListly Weblog is from engines like google. I largely realized search engine optimisation via trial and error in addition to studying up on the present traits on web sites like SEOroundtable and the neighborhood over at Mediavine’s Fb group.
In the case of search engine optimisation technique, I usually swap between enhancing outdated articles and enhancing the person expertise and the technical aspect of search engine optimisation like page speed, picture load velocity, wealthy snippets, and many others. to maintain up with the present search engine optimisation development. I’d usually do this stuff at the least twice a 12 months and the remaining, I’d both spend most of my time touring or writing new content material for the weblog.
I’ve tried a couple of instruments to assist with my search engine optimisation technique like KeySearch, which helped me out fairly a bit to start with as I had no concept how search engine optimisation labored.
I’ve additionally tried out Ahrefs and SEMRush, however I’ve but to discover a purpose to speculate extra in them as I’ve been doing fairly nicely with out them. Perhaps within the close to future, I’d make investments extra in these instruments.
Key phrase Analysis
I’ll at all times do key phrase analysis on my first-hand expertise and the fabric I received from the place I visited. As soon as I do know what sort of content material I can create from the fabric I received, I’ll use instruments like KeySearch and Ahrefs to do a easy key phrase concept era, after which I begin writing my content material.
Typically, I may even go on Google and easily go searching for related search queries, try the opponents, see what I can do higher, and begin enhancing my content material from there.
Hyperlink Constructing
I do know hyperlink constructing remains to be extraordinarily vital in the present day, however as a solo entrepreneur and with all of the journey and content material creation I’ve to do, I not often get the time to correctly spend money on hyperlink constructing, so I don’t do as a lot of it.
I’d attain out or reply to very respected shops, however aside from that, I not often ever do hyperlink constructing on my weblog.
Pete’s Content material Creation Course of
In the case of writing for a journey weblog, it’s vital for me to have first-hand expertise with a spot earlier than writing about it. First, I’ve to get to that location, take all of the images and notes I’d want for content material creation, after which I brainstorm concepts as I’m going.
As soon as the journey is over and I’m again house, I’ll begin doing key phrase analysis and start writing content material.
I usually use Google Duties to maintain monitor of content material concepts and I’m going via them one after the other after I’m house. Not like different bloggers, I work on my own, so all I want is an easy job supervisor and I’m all set.
Day-after-day, I spend round 3 to five hours writing new content material primarily based on no matter is on the high of Google Duties and I work my manner down every day till I run out of issues to jot down. As soon as I hit the tip, I’ll begin touring once more and the cycle continues.
After I’m touring, I’ll have these newly created articles scheduled to be posted twice every week (8 articles monthly) so I can totally immerse myself in touring with out having to work for a couple of months on finish earlier than I come again house and proceed my content material creation’s cycle once more.
Mainly, I’m touring for half a 12 months and dealing one other half, which I feel is the right work-life steadiness for me. Typically, I even have months the place I don’t must work in any respect because of all of the articles I beforehand scheduled.
For instance, as of August 2023, I have already got articles scheduled on my weblog all the way in which to subsequent 12 months, so technically, I wouldn’t have to jot down something new for at the least 6 months, which is why I can usually take lengthy journeys like spending 6 months in South America, and many others.
My work hours differ. For the half 12 months of touring, I usually exit early within the morning and are available again late, visiting all of the locations I’ve to jot down about, taking images, and capturing movies. I alternate between a full day of doing that and resting days to have a while for me to loosen up.
For the opposite half of the 12 months, I’d spend round 3 to five hours on content material creation 5 days every week, and the remainder of the day, it’s a little bit exhausting to quantify as I’d alternate between experimenting with technical search engine optimisation, attempting out new instruments, and catching up on search engine optimisation information and opponents, all of the whereas enjoyable and having fun with my downtime earlier than my subsequent journey.
In the intervening time, I’ve round 550 articles dwell on BucketListly Weblog. When the articles go dwell, I usually share them on Fb and X (previously Twitter) and I ship out a e-newsletter to all my followers. I don’t do that for each newly revealed article.
I often group them up and ship them out about as soon as a month. It does get some visitors however nothing in comparison with the visitors I get from Google.
His E mail Listing
I’ve a semi-active electronic mail record of round 4,500 subscribers for BucketListly Weblog and I ship out round an electronic mail a month. I solely develop it through a subscriber type on the footer of the weblog by offering a free Lightroom preset on sign-ups, and that’s it.
I want I may spend extra time on the email list and rising it, however for the time being, I’m experimenting with enhancing the person expertise of my weblog in addition to extra content material creation, so the e-mail record is taking the backseat for now.
His Favourite Useful resource
YouTube is an infinite wealth of information and you’ll study virtually something on there, from creating journey pictures to growing your personal web site. In reality, my weblog is constructed on a CMS written in Ruby on Rails and YouTube is how I realized the right way to develop it myself and broaden the characteristic I needed.
I don’t have a particular channel, however if you wish to study extra about WordPress development, journey pictures, and extra, YouTube is the way in which to go.
Additionally, with regards to diving deeper into the nitty and gritty of on-line companies, web sites like Area of interest Pursuits have loads of beneficial interviews that make clear how issues actually work within the trade you could study from.
You can too try your favourite bloggers and seek for earnings studies and different self-reflecting articles to study from.
Pete’s Go-To Instruments
My indispensable instruments are:
Google Merchandise: Gmail for communication, Google Duties for to-do lists, Google Maintain for note-taking, Google Drive for doc sharing, and Google Images for pictures backups
Grammarly: I exploit Grammarly to assist repair grammatical errors, which occur extra usually than I’d wish to admit
Adobe merchandise: Can’t dwell with out it. All of the journey images on my weblog have been edited with Adobe Lightroom.
His Greatest Problem
After all, as a travel blogger, surviving Covid was one of many largest challenges my enterprise has ever confronted as web site visitors and earnings had been obliterated in a single day. I earned lower than the minimal wage in Thailand, which is extraordinarily low, the primary month after Covid.
Fortunately, the way in which I dwell my life, working on my own, having no debt, and making savvy enterprise choices, I used to be capable of trip the Covid wave out with out having a lot influence on me besides mentally. I’m spending lower than $30 monthly to take care of my weblog even now, for instance.
Lastly, Covid is over and BucketListly Weblog is now performing higher than ever earlier than. There have been a couple of hiccups right here and there on the finish of the primary quarter of 2023, because of the AI revolution and the most recent foray of Google core updates, however no matter comes my manner, I should adapt to it, as all companies do.
His Best Accomplishment
My best accomplishment is with the ability to create a like-minded neighborhood of individuals on BucketListly Weblog who take pleasure in an analogous manner of journey, exploration, and a lifestyle that doesn’t concentrate on extra and narcissism however, fairly, on immersing oneself within the tradition and place, and serving to one another alongside the way in which.
I at all times admire when folks come as much as me and inform me that they take pleasure in the kind of content material I do, specializing in displaying the place as a substitute of constructing all of it about me. That at all times warms my coronary heart each time somebody says that and I think about that my best accomplishment.
One of many first articles that went viral on Reddit and received my weblog observed was the Traveling the World as a Third-World Passport Holder article, which make clear how troublesome it’s to journey the world if you’re not from the Western nations.
It resonated with many individuals who, like me, needed to journey the world, however discovered it troublesome and unfair that we needed to undergo all of the processes to get to Western nations and but, once they need to go to our nation, they will simply hop on a flight and off they go.
One other article that I’m extraordinarily happy with is On My Way to Everest, one of many longest articles I’ve ever written, with over 15,000 phrases, documenting my expertise trekking to Everest Base Camp in Nepal independently for 15 days, each step of the way in which.
It doesn’t get a lot visitors and I doubt folks truly learn your complete factor however I can at all times look again at it, and be happy with my accomplishment, each bodily and digitally. Hopefully, the article will encourage somebody to do the identical.
What He Needs He Knew When He Began
I want I may return in time and inform my youthful self about all of the search engine optimisation data I’ve acquired over time via trial and error.
Issues just like the significance of a well-structured weblog, inner linking, utilizing the suitable rich snippets, the right way to write well-crafted affiliate content material, the right way to enhance web page velocity and picture load velocity, the right way to write for the readers, not for myself, and a lot extra.
Mainly, I went via hell earlier than I received myself right here and I want there had been somebody round for me to seek the advice of about this technical stuff.
Domestically, it was unimaginable, particularly in 2013, because the tech trade was nonetheless in its infancy in Thailand again then, and on-line content material wasn’t available like it’s now.
His Predominant Mistake
I want I had targeted on constructing a enterprise with my journey weblog proper out of the gate, manner again in 2013. I’d have been capable of develop my weblog quicker than I do now.
I used to be working as a freelancer again then so I didn’t actually really feel the necessity to work on my weblog. Now that I’m working full-time, I’ve so many elderly articles that I’ve to repair as they weren’t as much as my commonplace and are usually not offering any helpful info to our readers.
If I may begin over, I’d have began writing for the aim of serving to different folks fairly than simply writing for myself.
His Recommendation for Different Entrepreneurs
Trial and error is inevitable, and so the sooner you begin experimenting, the quicker you will notice outcomes. If you’re planning to construct a web-based enterprise like a weblog, arrange a WordPress weblog straight away, begin writing content material that may assist somebody, go dwell, and check the water.
You’ll by no means notice the true potential of your small business till you go dwell and see how your viewers interacts, and from there, you possibly can regulate and refine whereas persevering with so as to add newer and higher content material.
It could actually take years earlier than Google begins sending common visitors to your web site and begins incomes earnings. Don’t watch for the celebs to align, begin now, study, and develop from it.
