Sherb
Ban reason = Abuse of Mods
- Dec 26, 2010
- 1,968
- 18,139
I’m meticulous. When my wife and I decided to take a vacation to Iceland, I started planning immediately. Flights, rental cars, attractions, sights, restaurants, hotels, the whole nine yards. I piled an itinerary with the perfect mix of downtime for recovery and nonstop adventure.
While planning, I noticed that a lot of the things I was following were itineraries and photo logs from travel bloggers who did okay SEO and whose sites were jumbled messes of colors and pop ups and buy-ins.
The way I figure it, my knowledge of web design/SEO, my attention to detail when it comes to travel, and my love of photography were the perfect trifecta to build a beautiful one-off travel site for a vacation in Iceland.
Iceland is a hot (not literally) tourist spot, especially for Americans (my target market). I know when I was buying up tours, experiences, hotels, etc, there were a few times I ended up going through an affiliate link on one of these articles from a travel blog. So here is my plan:
Begin drafting up a minimalist one-page website (nobody likes clicking through to get to the next day and the next day, etc) with a run down of our trip and itinerary, unobtrusive slider galleries for each day underneath each day heading, and information. I’m not going to bog down the galleries with selfies, just images of the sights. I’m not going to bog down the day by day breakdown with personal anecdotes and stories, just information, tips, and tricks.
So here is the plan:
END GOAL:
Have the website make back the costs of the trip and make the vacation profitable within 12 months of returning from the trip.
MONETIZATION METHODS:
TIMEFRAMES:
Inception/domain purchase April 2 2017, Pre-planning April 2 2017 to April 28 2017, Vacation April 28 2017 to May 7 2017, Development and Design May 8 2017 to June 14 2017, Site launch June 15 2017.
In the pre-planning phase, updates will come on Sunday evenings EST on April 9, April 16, April 23.
CURRENT COSTS THUS FAR:
Flights: $1,871.32, Car Rental: $1,230.58, Hotels: $990.63, Attractions: $188.19, Fees: $72.25
After the remaining attractions, hotel payments, food, and miscellaneous charges, I anticipate the trip will end up costing around $6,000 to $7,000.
ALREADY COMPLETED:
TO DO THIS WEEK:
While planning, I noticed that a lot of the things I was following were itineraries and photo logs from travel bloggers who did okay SEO and whose sites were jumbled messes of colors and pop ups and buy-ins.
The way I figure it, my knowledge of web design/SEO, my attention to detail when it comes to travel, and my love of photography were the perfect trifecta to build a beautiful one-off travel site for a vacation in Iceland.
Iceland is a hot (not literally) tourist spot, especially for Americans (my target market). I know when I was buying up tours, experiences, hotels, etc, there were a few times I ended up going through an affiliate link on one of these articles from a travel blog. So here is my plan:
Begin drafting up a minimalist one-page website (nobody likes clicking through to get to the next day and the next day, etc) with a run down of our trip and itinerary, unobtrusive slider galleries for each day underneath each day heading, and information. I’m not going to bog down the galleries with selfies, just images of the sights. I’m not going to bog down the day by day breakdown with personal anecdotes and stories, just information, tips, and tricks.
So here is the plan:
END GOAL:
Have the website make back the costs of the trip and make the vacation profitable within 12 months of returning from the trip.
MONETIZATION METHODS:
- AdSense (one text banner ad in the header, one in the sidebar, nothing obtrusive)
- Affiliate earnings (from hotels, attractions, and gear purchases in in-text links, again nothing obtrusive)
- Potentially an email list
TIMEFRAMES:
Inception/domain purchase April 2 2017, Pre-planning April 2 2017 to April 28 2017, Vacation April 28 2017 to May 7 2017, Development and Design May 8 2017 to June 14 2017, Site launch June 15 2017.
In the pre-planning phase, updates will come on Sunday evenings EST on April 9, April 16, April 23.
CURRENT COSTS THUS FAR:
Flights: $1,871.32, Car Rental: $1,230.58, Hotels: $990.63, Attractions: $188.19, Fees: $72.25
After the remaining attractions, hotel payments, food, and miscellaneous charges, I anticipate the trip will end up costing around $6,000 to $7,000.
ALREADY COMPLETED:
- Purchased http://icelandin8days.com
- Set up base Wordpress install
TO DO THIS WEEK:
- Finalize itinerary for trip
- Contact hotels and such to ensure reservations are set
- Look up some affiliate networks
- Find fast-loading minimalist theme
- Set up plugins and site privatization pre-launch
- Begin drafting out content
Good luck!
