Monetizing a travel affiliate blog

[firestart]

Hi,

I own a travel affiliate blog (something like holidaypirates or holidayguru: we search good travel deals and post affiliate links to Expedia, Momondo and so on)

Right now I have little to no money to spend on PPC ads (Adwords, Fb Ads)

Traffic is about 300 hits/day, Facebook fan page is about 13.000 fan (real fans, not bought or fake ones)

So far I only earn a few buck with Adsense, but traffic is too low to hope to sell some real travel (the travel niche is very hard to sell)

How could I increase my daily income? I feel like everything is set up but I'm missing the crucial point!

I need

1) huge traffic
2) a steady income (I was thinking about some self clicking adsense bots?)
3) conversion (it's almost impossible to sell a travel package with only 300 unique hits per day)

 

[blogzandstuff]

well clicking adsense bots, or any type of bot traffic will get you banned by Google as they have the most advanced detection anywhere. there are cheap traffic sellers, promoters etc on here

 

[firestart]

yep that was my "last chance" but I bet you and experts here can help me with other clever methods

 

[blogzandstuff]

building backlinks and guest posting are two ways if you have a limited budget. you need to get your site out there. write original content about destinations people might want to visit, you could have a travel advice section addressing common problems people might have. you need to make your site a destination for any would be traveller, then they'll keep coming back. Your niche is competative, adwords a FB ads would cost a fortune.
i have run travel sites before so i know how difficult it can be in this industry as it's dominated by the big players. You could narrow your niche market

 

[firestart]

Truthfully I'm beginning to think I've chosen a bad niche, since I'm in competition with big players indeed. I'm torn about focusing on growing my fan base (13.000 are to few to convert something) or trash everything.

Thing is that the website is well done: it has two white label search engines, it's daily updated, so now it's "only" a matter of traffic. Any "tricky" advice on how to grow my fans (real ones) or traffic would be great!

 

[Aluminium]

Sell Amazon products as an affiliate - just make sure the products apply to your page.

 

[Jobdollarr]

Reanalyze your keywords.
Sometimes this is far different from what you think.
Pages affect conversion, also keywords to embed in your site

 

[firestart]

Sell Amazon products as an affiliate - just make sure the products apply to your page.

do you think I could make any money with product sellings and so little unique visitors? (300/day)

 

[firestart]

Reanalyze your keywords.
Sometimes this is far different from what you think.
Pages affect conversion, also keywords to embed in your site

problem is that I'm fighting again guys like booking.com and similar who seems to own basically every keyword, that's why I was focusing on other traffic sources (social)

 

[blogzandstuff]

Competition is a good thing, it means there is a market. No good building a site that is about 3rd century Mongolian monk sandal collecting as there would not be a market, sure you'll be number one. I'd take some time and checkout your competition, make a file or use a notepad and pen and look at their sites from a visitor point of view. note down what they are doing and find ways to do it better.
Facebook was not new when they started, there was already Myspace and Friends reunited etc, they just did it better than everyone else.
Sure travel is a compitative niche, but there is room.
Why not put together a free e- book and give it away to build a list. You could also show deals on Amazon and Ebay. Do you have live news feeds for travel destinations, or weather updates.

 

[Jobdollarr]

Yes, you can rely on social media, as long as your domain is not blocked.

But I agree, social media brings an important role for the quality of the traffic.

Many ways to make traffic, directory, submit search engine, bookmarks backlinks

 

[TRUE Media Partner]

How could I increase my daily income? I feel like everything is set up but I'm missing the crucial point!

You can drive your traffic to some related CPA offers (hotel/tickets booking, insurance, etc).
You can find them at https://truemediapartner.com/

 

[tapioka]

why not make a travel package on your own and sell it for a limited people? I mean like make a travel buddy package. Plan a unique trip for your reader such as backpacking for 3 day and 2 night to Brazil with you as their guide or Sri Lanka or where ever unique. You could buy you flight, food and hotel from the fees and still make some money from it.

Or maybe you could open service as their travel planner.

 

[firestart]

I don't know if it's legal to be some sort of "online travel planner". In some countries you have to have some authorization to do that!

 

[hollypham]

@firestart: do you still have this site or you trashed it already ? I might be interested in buying the site depending on the metric you have so it possibly could benefit us both.
@tapioka : that s such a great idea though in some countries, as OP said ...it s almost impossible without the proper licesnsing , and to have this proper licensing, the person needs to come up with lots of $$$... Sad..

 

[katurexx]

Thank you for the share, clear and simple.

 

[katurexx]

Nice work and don't get your activity look like

 

[lim033]

Thank you !