One Destination for your Travel Needs

A recent report by JupiterResearch indicates that US online marketers will spend $2.1 billion on affiliate marketing fees in 2008. This represents all different types of affiliate marketing and not just travel marketing, but assuming that travel makes up 10 to 15% of online transactions one might venture that the travel affiliate market generates at least 200 to 300 million dollars and commissions and at least 2 billion dollars in revenue. Another report by Value Click estimates the affiliate market size to be closer to 500 million based on data from CJ, Linkshare and other aggregators of affiliates. The estimates between these two studies very widely and suggest that the travel affiliate market size may range from 50 to 300 million dollars, but however it is examined it is a large market with a diffuse group of players.

Niche marketing is becoming increasingly important as the online travel space becomes more and more competitive. Developing a web portal focused on providing specific keyword target information is more important than ever. No one can expect to build a general travel site and then start getting organic search traffic as the big guys have spent millions and now completely dominate this segment of the market. The result is that the new webmaster must be hyper focused on a specific travel niche. What are some ides of niche sites that might be successful with the right marketing and content.
- City Specific Websites for 2nd Tier Cities
- Websites targeted at specific vacation areas
- Websites targeted at specific types of travel
- Websites targeted at specific geographic regions or names

If your looking for a new URL I always suggest a dot.com. With a little effort this is still possible. For instance I am from Salt Lake City and lets say I am interested in starting a website with information on Salt Lake City Hotels. With a little effort I found that both saltlakehotelguide.com and wasatchskivacations.com are still available (as of June
10, 2009). Both these URL would be great for starting a niche keyword focused website. However, if I had to choose I would pick saltlakehotelguide.com as it is likely to convert better to sales since we know people searching this term will more likely be looking to directly book a hotel. Also, wasatchskivacations.com is more of a seasonal term.

Being specific and focusing on one topic also gives the added advantage that you can produce interesting and authoritative content to your visitors.If you expect to drive search traffic based on informational content its important that you provide real information that provides a tangible value to the visitor. Search engines and in particular Google seem to be getting better all the time at evaluating meaningless content that’s developed specifically for search.