Making Money from Travel Websites by Mike Henry - HTML preview

By Mike Henry

Table of Contents

Travel the world making money from the Internet................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................4
My story.................................................................................................................6
Why create a travel based site.............................................................................7
Instant price comparison................................................................................10
Targeted traffic................................................................................................10
Evergreen Content.........................................................................................12
Getting Started....................................................................................................13
Computer .......................................................................................................13
Digital camera.................................................................................................13
Basic setup costs............................................................................................14
Sound recording.............................................................................................14
Basic computing skills....................................................................................15
Writing ability..................................................................................................15
Eye for detail...................................................................................................16
Organizational skills........................................................................................16
Defining your target market............................................................................16
Registering a domain......................................................................................17
Hosting................................................................................................................19
Reliability........................................................................................................19
Support...........................................................................................................19
Location..........................................................................................................20
Price................................................................................................................20
Services..........................................................................................................20
Windows/Unix based......................................................................................20
Structuring your site............................................................................................22
Content Management Systems......................................................................22
Blogs...............................................................................................................23
Writing an ebook.............................................................................................23
Creating Content.................................................................................................25
Hiring Writers..................................................................................................25
User generated content..................................................................................25
Public Domain.................................................................................................27
Interviews........................................................................................................27
Free articles....................................................................................................28
Promoting your website......................................................................................29
Traffic – getting visitors to your website.........................................................29
Getting your site indexed................................................................................30
It’s all about links............................................................................................30
Get to top of the search engines with anchor text..........................................32
Getting initial visitors to your website.............................................................32
Forums............................................................................................................33
Social networking sites...................................................................................33
Blog Carnvials.................................................................................................34
Traffic from Search Engines...........................................................................34
Monetizing your website.....................................................................................37
Pay per click advertising.................................................................................37
Affiliate programs............................................................................................39
Affiliate Networks............................................................................................41
Selling links.....................................................................................................41
Directly selling advertising..............................................................................42
Selling to Sell..................................................................................................42
Interviews............................................................................................................45
Interview with owner of Durant Imboden Europe for Visitors.........................45
Resources and Further Reading.........................................................................50
Webmaster forums.........................................................................................50
Press Releases...............................................................................................50
Professional blogging.....................................................................................50
Photography...................................................................................................50

Thank you for downloading my ebook. I would love to hear any feedback on what you think about it, either positive or negative. Please also send me suggestions on how I might be able to improve this guide and I will happily you give you acknowledgment in the next updated version.

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Introduction

Travel and making money – the two activities may seem mutually exclusive, but I would like to show you how you can make money from tourism and travel using the internet. This guide is not a ‘get rich scheme’. At worst, you could make some money to help fund your travel or provide an additional stream of income, at best it could lead to becoming a full-time business where you can work and travel at your leisure.

More people are turning to the internet to both research travel destinations and make online bookings. You can profit from both. Guidebooks are often written by one person as they travel around a city or country. By the time the text is written up, edited and published, it can be more than a year before it is published. Places can change very quickly in a year.

When people think normally of careers which allow them to travel full-time, most people think of travel writing or travel photography. Travel writers will be the first to admit, that their profession does not pay much. I am going to guide you through how you can make money with travel by using the internet. Not just one time payments like what you would get if you submitted an article to a travel magazine, but ongoing passive income, even when you have stopped traveling.

I am going to show you how I was able to build a city travel and tourist guide, which now generates me enough money to live off full-time. Please understand, however it does take a lot of work and time before you actually start making money.

If you are interested in travel and making money, this ebook is for you.

My story

I started my first websites while I was living in Japan in 2005. My first online ventures was trading on Ebay. I bought Japanese antiques at local markets and online and sold them to people in the U.S. I had a lot of fun doing it was a good way to learn about doing business on the internet.

I loved researching products to trade and seeing one of my auctions go into a bidding war. When you start dealing in antiques and collectibles a whole new world opens up. I couldn't believe what some people would pay for certain things.

What I hated though was doing the packaging and going back and forth to the post office. I was selling around US$2000 a month and had dreams of becoming a power seller. Summer came around and eventually just couldn't be bothered going to the post office anymore.

I spent a great deal of time on the internet and I can't remember exactly how I came across it, but I found out about “affiliate programs”. I couldn't believe it how I could make money by selling other people's products and services. I started a website on Tokyo and had a lot of fun researching and writing for the website.

I researched various affiliate programs and put up links on my websites. I think then I still wasn't so sure I would make money from it. I will never forget when I got my first cheque in the mail. I think that was the point where I could see the potential of affiliate marketing. I had to put in time to research and put up the website, but once it was done I could keep making money from it.

My life literally changed when I discovered the website
www.webmasterworld.com I had access to the internet at my work, so in my free time I spent reading everything on that site. I had always wanted to run my own business and like many people I had millions of different ideas but wasn't willing to risk my savings on starting a business. The beauty of the internet was that I could start a website for practically nothing and the only risk was my time.

If it is so easy to make money online why isn't everyone doing it, I hear you ask. If you go to any webmaster forum you will find thousands of people who are making money online, but still it is only a small fraction of the population. My friends and family still have a great difficulty understanding exactly how I make money.

I have convinced a couple of people to start their own sites and some of them have even gone to the trouble of registering a domain. I have gone back and checked how their site is going a few months later and it is still a blank page.

I suppose the problem for most people it takes time and effort. It is probably easier for them to show up to a job Monday to Friday and live off their paycheck. When I started out I worked on my websites when I got home from work and on the weekends. I enjoyed it so much it never actually felt like work. If you do something you have a passion for you won't have to work a day in your life. If typing on a computer, taking pictures, marketing your websites and traveling to exotic places sounds boring and hard work, you can stop reading here!

Why create a travel based site

I have several different websites on different topics, but my main focus and source of income is from travel websites.

One of the first sites I created was Tokyo Essentials which I started when I was living in Tokyo. There are many different ways to make money on the internet, travel guides is just one of them. If you are reading this, you are probably also interested in travel, but a lot of the information in this book can easily be applied to help you to create websites on other topics.

If you are already interested in travel, it can make sense to create a travel based site. Of course there are many different niches within travel. Many people will tell you the importance of creating a website in an area that you have knowledge, an interest in or even a passion for. It is easy to spot websites where the operators have a true passion for what they are doing. However, I would also like to cover why I believe creating a travel based website is an excellent sector to make money in.

The online travel industry is one of the fastest growing areas on the internet. Check out these statistics from tia.org (2004 figures which are a little out of date now, but the figures should only increase).

“The Internet and online services are very popular with travelers. Travelers tend to be quite computer savvy, with two thirds (65%) of the 98.3 million travelers who are online-63.8 million-using the Internet to make travel plans in 2004. Among online frequent travelers, 70 percent use the Internet for travel planning. Use of the Internet to actually book travel continues to increase, with 45 percent of all travelers now online having made travel reservations on the Internet during the past year. That translates to 44.6 million online travel bookers, up six percent over 2003. The majority (83%) of online bookers are using the Internet to do at least half of all their travel booking. The number of online bookers doing all of their travel booking online continues to grow, with 40 percent now doing so, versus 29 percent in 2003. Interestingly, 82 percent of online travel bookers say they bought airline tickets for a trip taken in the past year, 67 percent booked overnight lodging accommodations, and 40 percent made rental car reservations.”

Before the internet people mostly used newspapers, guide books, magazines, information from friends and of course travel agents.
Travel articles in printed material are usually a single author’s experience at a particular time. Travel articles in print publications tend to also be part informative and partly entertaining. What you are often left with is a fairly rosy version of a particular place, with just enough detail to whet your appetite.

Travel agents work almost entirely from commission. The places they recommend are often where they receive the highest commissions. Their traveling is often limited to places to resorts which they receive generous discounts to, but you will have to pay the full price.

Guide books are generally a good source of information, but the information contained in them can get out of date very quickly. They are generally researched for anywhere up to a year, written and later published. It is not surprising that conditions of a particular place can change dramatically – prices go up and down, restaurants change chefs and hotels can fall out of favor.

The internet offers travel information to be edited and updated in a real-time basis. Errors in a guidebook have to be fixed in a subsequent edition. The internet also gives the ability for people to offer their own opinions and to seek advice. I will cover this later in the book as to how you can benefit from this with your own website, but it is important to understand that people want to hear from other people who have experienced what they are seeking, rather than a journalist on a free junket.

One of the reasons that Amazon has been successful is with its review system. People are able to give their own opinion as to what they thought of a book. In the past, we could only read a single review for example in a newspaper or magazine. Now we can read potentially hundreds of reviews.

I would recommend reading a book “ The Wisdom of the Crowds”, by James Surowiecki. The main premise of the book is that when large numbers of ordinary people give their opinion regarding a future event, the majority thought is fairly consistent with the final outcome of the event and generally more accurate than those of experts in the field.

There are already a few popular hotel review sites, but it is possible to create your own niche site. User review sites could work with restaurants, cruises, golf courses, diving spots, beach resorts and so on. I will cover later why user generated sites can work successfully and how you can make money from them.

Instant price comparison

The other advantage the internet has with regards to travel is price comparison websites. Trying to find the cheapest airline and seat availability using travel agents can be a time consuming process. With airline booking sites you just have to enter your destination, dates and instantly you can find the cheapest price from a range of airlines. You can do similar price comparisons with hotels.

It is beyond the scope of this book to describe how you would create your own price comparison website. Although it is worth noting, that even if you do not have the technical skills, it is possible to outsource the development.

Of course, you do not necessarily have to create your own price comparison engine to make money. Most of the popular websites have affiliate programs which you can make money for visitors you refer. We will be covering affiliate programs later in the book.

Targeted traffic

People use the internet for a number of reasons, sometimes they are doing research and sometimes they are just looking for entertainment. Popular entertainment sites can receive huge amounts of traffic, but since people are just looking to be entertained they are usually not looking to spend money. These sites often use flash banners or similar advertising. It is fairly commonly known that the click through rates on these banners is extremely low. These kinds of websites usually charge advertisers by the number of times a particular advertisement is viewed. Click through rates are low and sales even lower.

If you can compare this to someone looking for the best credit card rate, they are actively seeking information which if they find the kind of deal they are looking for; they are then prepared to make an application for the card. If it is an affiliate website they will receive a commission from the credit card company for the referral.

Finance and credit websites, are very profitable, but the area is very competitive. With regards to travel, people are generally seeking information on:
- the destination
- how to get to there
- what and where to eat
- where to go out at night
- travel scams and warnings
- how to get around the destination: taxis, public transport, car rental
- regulations, like visas
- costs, money and insurance
- what to do at the destination: tours, sites, activities
- where to stay

By providing information on any of the above, you can basically make money. For example with hotels you can provide a list of places to that are attached to an affiliate program. For example, someone looking for a place to stay in London, finds your site, likes the information that you have provided on the hotel and then decides to book the hotel through your affiliate link, which you then receive a percentage of the hotel booking.
The same can be done with tours, car rentals, flights and insurance. It might seem like that there are already thousands of different travel websites on the internet, but there are still unlimited niches that can be filled, on thousands of different places, in any number of languages.

With a travel website, your traffic is highly targeted. You do not have to necessarily get a huge amount of traffic to make money, like you would for example with a website which is created purely for entertainment.

Evergreen Content

‘Evergreen content’ refers to information that stays current with the passage of time. Travel information is often regarded as evergreen content. Of course details will sometimes need to be updated or refreshed a little, but once a single article is written, it will generally produce income literally forever.

You do not necessarily have to be a travel writer but if you are, having your own website can generate a great deal more income in the long run, than having your articles published in a magazine or newspaper. The hardest part is actually starting, as typically it can take more than a year or two to start producing a decent living.

Getting Started

To start an internet travel business, you do not need a great deal of money, but you will need some tools. With regards to equipment, at the minimum you will need: a computer, internet connection, digital camera and possibly a video camera. For the personal skills, you will need basic computer skills and some writing ability. An eye for detail and the ability to organize information can also help. Being creative will definitely be a big help. If you think you won't be able to come up with any good ideas, it is probably only because you have never tried. I guarantee when you start thinking about possible niches for a website you won't be able to stop.

I did a university course on marketing many years ago. The internet has completely changed how companies do sales and marketing Companies that were slow to get online are probably now bankrupt or have been bought out by web based companies.

Computer

Laptops or notebook computers are more expensive than desktops, but if you can afford one, they can be great to take on the road. Free wireless internet networks are spreading around the globe, so wireless capability is a definite advantage as you can create your website on the fly.

A high end computer is also not necessary, unless you are planning to do edit video. There is also a chance taking a laptop on a trip that it could go missing, or be damaged, so it is probably not worth spending a fortune on.

Digital camera

You also do not have to spend a lot of money on a digital camera, unless of course your site is about travel photography. Websites are not like print magazines which require high resolution pictures. You will probably end up cropping and reducing the size anyway, so unless you are creating a photography website a basic digital camera is fine.

Basic setup costs

Hosting is where you basically rent space on a computer server to run your website. Shared hosting is where you share the same server with many other sites. Unless your site becomes immensely popular shared hosting is usually adequate, at least at the beginning and costs around $5-$8 a month.

A domain name is the address which users type into the address bar to get to your site. A new domain costs around $10 a year to register. Disk space and bandwidth is getting cheaper and cheaper, so these costs will eventually be miniscule if you can have success with your site. If you compare these costs to a regular bricks-and-mortar business, like a travel agency in a shopping mall, you will quickly see how cheap it is to run an internet website.

Some things which would be nice to have:

 

Video camera

With the success of video sharing sites like YouTube, it will be no surprise that video on websites is becoming more popular. Search engines like Google still rely on text to return search results and as yet it is difficult to monetize video, so I think you should concentrate on building a text based site with some pictures before you move into video.

Sound recording

 

Some people may prefer to first record their content and then later transcribe it. A recording device could also be useful for doing interviews.

 

With regards to personal requirements, you will need:

 

Basic computing skills

You don’t need to be a computer genius to create a website. There are a large number of tools currently available to simplify the process. If you have money to invest in your website it can also be possible outsource the technical aspects of your website. It is a good idea however, to try and get a basic understanding of the various technical aspects of a website.

You can probably think of it the same as learning about cars. The more knowledge you have about cars, the easier it will be to at least speak to your mechanic. Not learning the basics will end up costing you more in the long run.

Some of the technologies which you should try to start learning include:
- FTP
- HTML
- RSS
- Digital image manipulation

If you are thinking about doing this long term, it is a good idea to at least learn some HTML and how to upload files to your web server using an FTP program. Software that automatically creates HTML often does not do a good job of creating ‘clean’ code. So it can be extremely helpful to at least understand basic HTML tags. To make something bold for example, all you need to do is to place the following tags around a word.

For example, this word is <b>bold</b>.

 

Writing ability

You do not need to be a professional writer to create a travel website. The ability to write clear and concise text is more important. People reading from a computer screen also tend to skim, so lists and bullet points work well. I will also show you later how you can get other people to help write for your website.

Eye for detail

It helps to have an eye for detail when creating a travel website. When providing directions or including important details like a telephone number, your site will quickly loose credibility if you make mistakes with these important details. Fortunately, people are quick to let you know your information is incorrect and unlike a travel guide book, the information can be updated immediately.

Organizational skills

One of the most important factors in creating a successful website is usability. When you are researching your site, you will have articles, maps, hotel reviews and photographs all of which need to be organized in a logical and consistent manner. No matter how great your information is, if people can’t find it on your site, it will be practically worthless. Website design is also an important factor, but at the heart of this is how you organize the information.

Visit your favorite websites and see how they organize their information. People who visit your site and are unable to find what they are looking for quickly will not hesitate to move on to another website.

Defining your target market

Like any business you need to research and define your target market. It will help a great deal if you have an interest and some knowledge in the area of the site you are creating.
The internet is huge, so it is important to try and focus on a particular niche. People creating a website for the first time either try to cover too much or cover an area that is not popular. Historical ruins in Thailand, is an example of a niche that is potentially too narrow and unprofitable.

Also you should consider the expected wealth of your target market. If you focus only on backpacking in Asia, you may not make as much money as say a site focusing on luxury resorts. Of course your priority should be to do what you are most interested in, but it should be something to keep in mind.

Remember that once you have created one website, you can then create another one in a different niche to your original site.

Some examples of niches include the following:
- an activity: cruises, diving, skiing, golf
- a city or a country: New York, Paris, Kenya
- for a particular age group: singles, traveling with kids, seniors, honeymooners
- travel related businesses: flights, travel insurance, hotels, camping grounds

Another consideration is “search volume”. A higher number of searches on a set of keywords, can possibly result in more traffic. Of course, higher volume often results in higher competition. The key is to find topics that large numbers of people are searching for, that has few quality websites on the topic.

Wordtracker is a useful tool for doing keyword research (free and paid ve