Niche Travel Site
The BuildUp Bookings team loves client projects, but without testing and experimenting any digital marketing agency cannot evolve and learn new things. A few years ago, the BuildUp Bookings team wanted to try a new challenge: starting a niche travel website in a competitive destination and drive traffic through Facebook, Content Marketing & SEO strategies.
Starting with a brand-new (never used) domain and a simple WordPress install, the BuildUp Bookings niche travel website has driven over 21,000 unique visitors with $0 invested in any paid traffic.
The website strategy focused around three primary areas and two main marketing channels.
Opportunities & Areas To Address
- Starting with a blank slate, content-wise, both topics and keywords were researched to organize the website.
- Website design and layout focused both on selling the unique beauty of the destination as well as driving email signups/newsletter subscriptions.
- Content needed to be created in a cost-effective way — focusing on just the high-impact pages, blog posts and supplemental content that can drive traffic.
Planning & Execution
- Link building was key to start to drive organic traffic – email outreach to local businesses in the destination proved to be the most effective and inexpensive method to pick up traffic.
- Facebook proved to be an excellent way to drive awareness – short micro video clips were used to sell the area’s beauty and drive site traffic on social media.
- Top keywords were researched and adjusted as needed – the top-performing pages were expanded upon and improved to generate Featured Snippets for dozens of keywords.
- Mini-giveaways on the website (swag + stickers) helped grow email signups and start the newsletter list.
Results / Lessons Learned
- With minimal resources and budget, you can still win in Google. The niche travel website has keywords outranking top travel sites like TripAdvisor, VacationIdea and USA Today Travel Tips.
- Google AdSense can be tweaked to monetize travel content in a quick and easy way, however native advertising remains the top option for revenue-generating destination sites.
- Driving newsletter signups requires a compelling offer – freebies and area information are excellent bribes to subscribe.
- Engagement of video on Facebook outpaces other ad post formats by a wide margin – reuse videos where possible to get the most bang for your buck on production costs.
