Travel Site - In Around 20 Pages...

[Lee_Owen]

I've lost the plot, not for the first time, I've asked AF for help so hopefully they'll get back to me, what with being the premier travel network although flicking through unsubscribed TD programmes I notice they have a few gems.

Anyway, I have a good domain, it ticked over with £6 a month in parking revenue, a few months ago I put a shell site on it and a few banners, now I want to complete 20 odd deeplink pages but I don't understand travel... with so many destinations, how can you wrap up one section on cruises? and flights and hotels and just use one page each, I've stretched to three pages plus main section with adventure, so expansion is possible.

I'm fed up of having unfinished sites, last month the site did £25, today alone £75, I literally lifted the indexes of cosmos tourama and adventure company that joined AF and plugged them in overnight for deeplink attraction but what to do with the other sections? the site has its own traffic stream so I can afford to do that and not worry about great engine placement but will when it comes to growth later on.

I haven't come across a stand alone cruise or ski company yet (although I'm looking at thompson for the latter) so I presume they're all independent, unless I use a major travel site from AF, I haven't checked CJ yet. I'm not going to be able to cover everything but I need it to at least be all encompassing, any tips for travel? Trains are looking better with two new companies arriving recently.

And yes I'd love a fully operating deep linking, 1 million page website data feeded to the eyeballs but with 100 other domains I want to develop, getting to deeplink stage on all of them is preferable before taking the next step. Any ideas? I've been racking my brains but I keep getting lost in it all.

I started with airport transfers and doing destinations the other month but ended up with holiday taxis second index and looking at 500+ individually linked page, not the plan, compact inidividual sections are needed at the first stage otherwise it won't get finished.

Thoughts? I know, should keep trying myself but I thought I'd ask. I'll get there in the end, just a pointer might help. Perhaps there isn't a way of doing one page on each on feeding off to several merchants without it just looking like a directory and website opinion page?

[sweetpete]

Hi Lee,

Yes Thomson Cruise and Thomson Ski are all actions in the Thomson programme.

We've also got the market leader Crystal Ski as a standalone programme on CJ.

I'm obviously going to push my own programmes here, holidays, charter flights, low cost flights, cruises, lakes and mountains, city breaks, ski, beach hotels and diy holidays all under the same cookie with Thomson on CJ.

Happy to discuss further with regards content / linking if you want to pm me.

Cheers
Pete

[t0m]

try making some useful content.

[Lee_Owen]

Originally Posted by t0m try making some useful content.

Yes, thanks for that, insightful but straight hehe I'll get there in the end, there must be some quick code I can put up for latest deals from certain sites I think that would have the desired effect, useful live content not just a banner or text, plug in applets of sorts.

[Lee_Owen]

Originally Posted by sweetpete Hi Lee, Yes Thomson Cruise and Thomson Ski are all actions in the Thomson programme. We've also got the market leader Crystal Ski as a standalone programme on CJ. I'm obviously going to push my own programmes here, holidays, charter flights, low cost flights, cruises, lakes and mountains, city breaks, ski, beach hotels and diy holidays all under the same cookie with Thomson on CJ. Happy to discuss further with regards content / linking if you want to pm me. Cheers Pete

I need a city breaks solution, lakes and mountains sounds good, hadn't considered that. I'll take a butchers at Crystal Ski as well, I'm on a silly motivation spree at the moment, getting a load of sites finished to a certain 'finished look' stage (alpha rooms gave me the idea kind of, he doesn't know that), it's paid off so far, got £75 in. I'll pm you now.

It came to me in a flash, live content with latest deals, have any of your merchants got plug ins like that or does CJ as a network offer that kind of data pulling? instant content, no worries about text filling, proper useful content. AF is going down the right route but need to really expand their tools and make use of their whole network travel offerings, do a jamster spree on live actionable content, there'd feature on thousands of different sites overnight then. I don't like pop ups though...

I really wish I could get paid for going into companies and giving them direction because I'm useless doing it with my own haha I simply think too big. That's why thinking small with this travel site is so difficult, I want to do 20,000 pages but know I haven't the resources yet.

[Lee_Owen]

Originally Posted by Pete Taylor 1 hour and 17 mins ago you started this thread "Travel Site - In Around 20 Pages" and now you want to do 20,000!

That's what I'm telling you. When I get an idea I think too big and can't think small enough to complete. With datafeeds and such like 20,000 is simple enough I'm sure. Read what I write please.

I think big, I'd love to do 20,000 but wish to just get 20 pages up first and see how that goes, naturally I'd wish to grow the site at some point with everything plugged in and automated, but basic revenue generation and site completion to a deep link stage is the first priority.

What I want and think of isn't necessarily what I can achieve, narrowing dreams and tasks and making it more manageable turning a project round so it's complete at each stage, that's vital right now.

[Pete Taylor]

The problem with a 20,000 page data feed site is duplicated content, with every Tom, Dick & Harry having the same information on their sites.

This is the reason that sites built with Web Merge have almost died in the SERPS listings.

[Lee_Owen]

Crystal Ski will do the job, could you possibly get me accepted today please? I've been waiting over a month for star trek to accept me and prefer to work with merchants that agree to pay out before I work with them.

And that's the star trek store not the federation, I applied but got turned down, apparantly gravity likes me too much although I've lost two stone since haha

I'll work with Crystal initally and try and merge in Thomson Ski after destinations added. Another section soon to be done. As long as the pages look full and complete I'll be happy, I've far too many half finished sites. The one time visitor won't care as long as they get a proper sample and click the right link and the repeat custom might like the sample variety.

Cheers
Lee

[Lee_Owen]

Where are you going skiing?

"Snezhanka"

Bless you... where you going on holiday?

"Snezhanka"

That's a bad cold you got mate, best not go skiing.

[superbreak]

Hi,

I think that Superbreak could help with your sites - I've PM'd you with the details, so please get in touch if you need more info.

We have programs (with product feeds) on Commission Junction and Affiliate Future, and could also offer you white label content.

Regards

[Expedia(SEO)]

Hi ya,

There are a great many travel programs out there with varying cost, feed and data types. It is easy to say to choose the best one, but all in all that is what you have to do.

Once trying a few of the programs or asking us for examples of the feeds and the content, you can take away a good idea of what will work for you. However, this said, I would not stop there.

We, Expedia, have had a lot of affiliate who are looking at exactly what you are, and we give them some of the same advice I am giving here, content is key. Search engines are looking for sites with little or no unique content and pushing them down as they are deemed of a low quality and in many instanced they are correct.

To advert this and make your site unique, add to your site your special flair of content, even if that is a couple of dynamic content pulls for restaurants, tours, and points of interest. This will not only look favorably to search engines, but will also show your site as an entity to trust and really get into.

Also, take a look at selling remnant ad inventory to companies like Wrightmedia and advertising.com so you can choose targeted and complementary advertising to your site. These will pull in a great deal of cash and will allow you to build a One-Sheeter for your site to sell directly to advertisers in your market due to the adserver’s tracking and targeting capability.

Anyway, that is a bit of what we recommend to our affiliates as well as the idea that most affiliate prefer to deal direct with affiliate programs like our from Expedia and Hotels.com.

Jai