{"id":19456,"date":"2023-02-14T18:22:59","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T15:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.travelpayouts.com\/blog\/?p=19456"},"modified":"2025-07-23T17:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:07:06","slug":"the-story-of-thetravelbunny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.travelpayouts.com\/blog\/the-story-of-thetravelbunny\/","title":{"rendered":"From Travel Journal to Thriving Blogging Business \u2014 The Story of thetravelbunny.com"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How It All Began<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Suzanne, a travel blogger from East Sussex in the UK. I\u2019m married and travel with my husband, with friends, sometimes solo, and occasionally on press trips. I have two adult kids who have left home. So, I guess I\u2019m older than the average travel blogger!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Suzanne, the creator behind The Travelbunny<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve worked in the travel industry for around 20 years. Up until 2019, I worked with my husband organising corporate group travel for blue chip clients. My projects were mainly overseas and involved big conferences, product launches, and incentive travel \u2013 my favourite!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a team, we booked everything from flights, transfers, and hotels to excursions, restaurants, and entertainment. We also designed complete programs for incentive trips, which was my favourite part of the job. It was a lot of fun and a huge amount of hard work, but I got to see some amazing places while enjoying some very nice budgets. It goes without saying that I know how to book the perfect trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About The Travelbunny<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I began my blog, The Travelbunny<\/a>, back in 2011 as a personal journal to record my travels. At the time, I was travelling a lot for work to some amazing places and wanted a record of my travels. I\u2019ve always been a keen photographer, so I had a lot of photos too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The homepage of thetravelbunny.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t have a specific niche and, although it goes against all the advice I\u2019ve received, this seems to work for me. I love the outdoors, hiking, wildlife, city breaks, and a US road trip is always a good idea, so I include all of that on my site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I adore travel, discovering new places, enjoying new foods and cultures, plus I want to share all the amazing experiences I\u2019ve had. I hope to inspire people to travel and help them plan and book their best possible trip. If I can earn a full-time living whilst helping people do what they love, then I\u2019m happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been lucky enough to have some amazing travel experiences, including a recent press trip in Boston<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Article about Boston<\/a> on thetravelbunny.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blogging Journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, blogging stopped being just a hobby for me and I started working on The Travelbunny<\/a> full time. Nowadays, I see it as a business, but it\u2019s still a very enjoyable way to make a living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I run two websites now: The Travelbunny and a UK destination niche site called Hello Sussex<\/a>, which doesn\u2019t get as much attention as it deserves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The homepage of sussexbloggers.com<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I initially found blogging to be challenging, as I had no experience whatsoever with websites or the technical side. I\u2019m in my 50s, so it was all a bit hit or miss at first, but WordPress is pretty easy to navigate and I learnt as I went along. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon Gourlay\u2019s DNW blogging course about SEO<\/a> and the technical side of running a website also helped a lot. I started off with a WordPress domain, which you can\u2019t monetise, and then transferred to my own domain a couple of years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My main issue is having the time to implement everything I need to do, such as writing content, updating old posts, keeping up to date with affiliates, social media, etc. I now use a virtual assistant for certain aspects, but still prefer to write content myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traffic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Traffic on thetravelbunny.com is mostly organic (80% to be exact). I\u2019ve learnt a lot about SEO in the last few years and that\u2019s helped massively. My greatest mistake is that I didn\u2019t get involved in SEO sooner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Statistics from Google Analytics for thetravelbunny.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One of the biggest ways I\u2019ve increased my traffic is by working on my site\u2019s speed. Last year, I ditched a heavy theme (Divi) and worked on getting my core web vitals up to scratch while improving the overall user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This made a huge difference to my traffic and also got me onto Google Discover<\/a>. That generated extra traffic, which was a nice bonus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve also been delving into Google Web Stories<\/a>, but they haven\u2019t worked out for me so far. However, I know that some sites have had a lot of success with them, so I\u2019ll keep at it for a few months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I barely use social networks to drive traffic. When I publish a new post, I tweet it and add it to my Facebook page. However, I find that the traffic it brings doesn\u2019t merit the work involved. The same goes for Pinterest, which used to generate a lot of traffic for me, but not so much anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Metrics I Track<\/h3>\n\n\n\n