Starting A Travel Website? Caution!
Hello everybody! Hope all is well!
I am going to share my very recent experience of building a website. In fact, I have been finished that worked just now, means just before I start writing here.
First of all, let me know are you thinking to start a travel website or travel blog? Or, do you wish to start something similar in the recent future?
If yes, then you must follow this short write up.
Let's start the story
I am a travel mad person. Often I load my backpack and run away towards nature. With family, I make at least 3 trips in a year.
I saved all my memories in Microsoft word and in my hard drive (All still and moving snaps from my favorite cameras). So, now I was thinking to start another website. So far I owned 2 other niche websites which are not actually my passion, but they are my business. This time I finally decided to convert my passion to my niche.
So far, looks good! How do you think?
Actually not only me the only travel lover here, anyone, almost everyone loves to travel. Few people like adventure, few love leisure.
So, at the same time, anybody can wish to start a travel website. That's the point actually. I am here to make them aware before a step in.
What did I face?
I have just decided to start a travel website. I didn't start yet. Because, before stating a website you have to decide a name as well as a domain name.
I collected 200 travel based domain name. The number is pretty big for a single website. I wanted to keep the word "travel" in my website domain name, though I sought out a few uncommon names besides. I used 5 domain name generators to select all these and it took me one full morning and afternoon.
I started to check the availability of all those names in WA domain platform today in the evening.
I am still wondering, only 4 domain name among all 200 were available!!!
Too many travel websites???
I get fade up and started to think about too many competition. Can you guess my feeling?
I selected 200 names and only 4 are available, and I expect, even if I collect another 200, the same result will be waiting!
How can I survive? In fact, how any new travel blogger can survive?
It is too much competition in building a travel website, and it's really hard to rank in Google unless you have something extraordinary talent.
Common travel-based name failed, some of my uncommon and favorite collections also couldn't pass out!
So far, not more than 40 travel websites were known to me. Besides popular sites like Booking.com, Tripadvisor, Expedia, Trivago, HolidayQ, Airbnb, Hotel.com etc., I came to contact with a few travel blogging websites. I never expected there are too many.
I got extremely worried and took another step.
I decided to check every domain name by typing in the Google Chrome URL bar.
A domain name for a travel website --- A big deal
To be honest, I never expected to experience another stunning statistics!
Earlier I found, almost all of my selected domain names were unavailable. Now I find most of them are not available on the internet!!! Rather, only 10% are available in the online world.
So, I get relaxed about one thing, at least there is NO too many competition.
But, why all those domain names are unavailable! A new question arises; right?
In my searching, I found most of the websites were showing "This site can't be reached". That means, either, someone blocked the website or someone started to build a website in this name but didn't last long. Another probable option, the name is not available within Wealthy Affiliate platform (I am not sure whether it is possible or not).
However, besides the not reachable websites, I also found several unsecured website, and several domain names are waiting for a special sale at a huge cost (such as $2890).
So what I found, people block the popular domain names at a low price and then sell them at a huge price. Not a bad business at all. How do you think?
Finding a domain name for your Travel Website
You can positively start a travel website. If you are a good travel writer you can beat anybody. Additionally, you learning all about SEO here in WA. Every travel bloggers in the world do not know everything that you are learning in WA.
But, before starting a travel website, you have to find out a unique domain name, which is not easy to find out. As an example, "Nomadic Weekends", "Rucksack", "Wander Trail" etc (already established).
So, have a nice day.
For me, it's time to search a unique name for my travel website. Don't know when shall I get one.
Recent Comments
9
This post is actually pretty relevant to me as my brother and I are actually building a travel store right now so it's great to know what kind of competition we are in. It's a little bit different for us though because the store used to be relatively generalized so domain and logo and everything is already bought. I only have to build the brand into a travel brand just like how Apple's apple logo is tech based.
Anyways, thanks for this post!
Travel store, does it mean a store for travel packages, hotel, transport or travel-related items? What you have to decide to keep in your store. If it is e-commerce, then it's a different story and all the procedure for building a e-commerce is a bit different than a blogging website.
However, I am not going for e-commerce, rather I am looking for a blog based website. One of my travel based e-commerce is running already. To be honest, it's not easy to handle an e-commerce web-store.
Anyway, after all, anybody wants a mindblowing domain name for her/his website. That's the big deal.
Congrats to you that you already have chosen one, and best wishes for your success.
Yea, it's an e-commerce store. I decided to reboot my general store and narrow it down a little bit into the travel niche since I love it so much. It's a side project that mostly my brother will handle, but I will be using the stuff I learn on Wealthy Affiliate to generate traffic. Best wishes for your success as well.
Oh, It's great.
But one thing I can say, generating traffic by SEO for blogging website is fine, and we learn it here. But e-commerce traffic generation is a bit different, especially product SEO. It also needs rapid advertisements.
If you are thinking to connect your web-store to Amazon or e-bay then that's different, but if you are looking to build your e-commerce brand then it takes time and a lot of advertisement (as per my personal experience). However, once it gets popular you can make much more profit than affiliate marketing for sure.
I hope you'll do it well.
Best wishes.
Thanks for the advice. I do have some experience in this field and have taken a few courses on e-commerce in the past. I'm trying to run an experiment to see if I can be profitable organically instead of paying so much for ads. It's almost like a hybrid affiliate marketing and e-commerce website too.
There are lots of different elements to it and I still don't have everything figured out. I will spend some time working on it and let you know what happens.
Thanks again for your insight!
Hybrid website for e-commerce and affiliate marketing is a better option. As you have taken a few courses on e-commerce then it's fine and great. You must have some ideas then.
Best wishes to your business.
See more comments
Travel is still wide open. Finding a unique niche and domain is the secret. You have to zero in on a niche. Then you have to be very expert in your posts. Lots of competition out there but you can do it. I spent 50 years in the travel industry, so I know it is a good market. Find your place in it.
Joe
It is great to hear a supportive voice from a travel industry expert. Thank you for let me know that travel is still a good market. Let's see how can my blogs perform.