Are small travel / holiday sites worth the effort any more?

[timter51]

I've had Puerto Del Carmen .co.uk for a while, and thought recently I should do something with it. It's the most popular resort town in Lanzarote, and over 1m Brits visit Lanzarote each year (can't find stats for PDC). Google KWT stats are good -

12,100 average local exact monthly searches
38,790 including longtails

14,800 peak local exact monthly searches
53,760 including longtails

Reading the recent travel related threads though (Orlando, holiday.com), I'm wondering whether it's worth it. I was going to put effort in, a genuine travel guide site with fresh content, monetised with Expedia affiliate tools. Has anyone had any recent success with small travel sites like this? I imagine you have to feed off longtail searches, or throw ££££ at it trying to rank for the main kws. Any thoughts or advice appreciated!

 

[boxfish]

Can you give an example of what you mean when you say "I was going to put effort in, a genuine travel guide site with fresh content"

 

[Brassneck]

Haven't sites like tripadvisor cornered the market unless you have brilliant content or some other unique aspect?

 

[martin-s]

Ranking competition for Puerto Del Carmen is quite high according to Moz (45%).

I'd be tempted to find something with lower ranking competition and go after that instead.

That said, with traffic volume like that it might be worth trying PPC.

 

[Retired_Member38]

Haven't sites like tripadvisor cornered the market unless you have brilliant content or some other unique aspect?

Trip advisor have set the bar - if you can't provide an overall better experience than trip advisor then you should probably just list the domain on Domainlore and dump it.

 

[fish]

Travel / Tourism / destinations is one of the most highly contested verticals online. Deep pockets required if you want to sell holiday related products off it.

Forum + directory + local barter type of site would stand a better chance of success imo, user generated content is where you may be able to get visibility on goog et al. Whatever route you choose with this one you'll have your work cut out. Just my thoughts ....

Good luck with your endeavours

 

[accelerator]

I'm not in travel much, but I'm guessing the best way to compete would be on quality of site. So if you're going to do it, go to the place and take good photos and videos, and then out content your rivals.

Rgds

 

[Brassneck]

I'm not in travel much, but I'm guessing the best way to compete would be on quality of site. So if you're going to do it, go to the place and take good photos and videos, and then out content your rivals.

Rgds

I think it will take a lot more than that.

A look at Tripadvisor for Puerto Del Carmen has 60 thousand reviews, nearly 7 thousand forum posts and 2 thousand user submitted photos.

 

[accelerator]

I think it will take a lot more than that.

A look at Tripadvisor for Puerto Del Carmen has 60 thousand reviews, nearly 7 thousand forum posts and 2 thousand user submitted photos.

It's not just volume of content though, it's quality of content and how it's organised.

The main question mark over viability is going to be monetistion options. As usual, the more middlemen you can cut out, the more you'll be able to make.

Rgds