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Advice needed- Flight affiliate website

by zionbar
11 replies
Hi guys

I need an advice ( give and u shall receive right? )

I own a domain name - MrFlight.com

Which is great for a website that'll use for booking flights and hotels ( using affiliates)

Any advice regarding that? How do I technically start a site like that? Wordpress maybe? Is it a competitive niche or how competitive is it actually? Your thoughts please !

Thanks guys
Zion
#advice #affiliate #flight #needed #website
  • Profile picture of the author rjd1265
    So your going to start a site that books flights and hotels, is that what i understand?

    No, there is no competition for this type of stuff

    I am sure you can outrank sites such as Expedia, Travelocity, Hotels,com, Flights.com Kayak,Orbitz, Trip Advisor with your wordpress site
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex The Lion
    Competing with the giant flight booking websites probably isn't going to be a great idea, unless you have a huge marketing budget, though if you can think of something outside the box a little, you could see success.

    An idea could be to offer one holiday deal offer each day. Find the best deal you can each day and post it on there.

    If possible, you could try and get exclusive 24-hour deals with other companies.

    Or you could focus on being the authority on intergalactic space flights, though they haven't taken off just yet.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnhossain1971
    The Tripadvisor is working for Hotel booking for a long time & most of the time customer book flight by going to air site. So you need to give more facilities than these sites to gain in this business. Thanks a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author zionbar
    lol im not looking to compete with expedia
    im trying to think how to make money off this site... any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author MarketingRain
    Well most people will be going to tripadvisor, expedia, etc, to book flights and hotels, so naturally you will be competing with them. Perhaps make it a resource of deals for larger flight websites (using affiliate links), and drive traffic via social media.
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    • Profile picture of the author zionbar
      Originally Posted by MarketingRain View Post

      Well most people will be going to tripadvisor, expedia, etc, to book flights and hotels, so naturally you will be competing with them. Perhaps make it a resource of deals for larger flight websites (using affiliate links), and drive traffic via social media.
      and thanks for the advice I really appreciate it.
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      • Profile picture of the author kilgore
        No offense, but I loathe threads like this. Here's how I read them:
        1. I have visions swirling in my head of easy online money
        2. I found a cool URL that I like
        3. I can't be bothered to think for myself
        Seriously, if you can't think of your own business idea, if you can't come up with your own business plan, if you can't come up with your own way to use your own skills, your own talents, your own hard work, and your own creativity to carve out your own niche in the face of all the competition that was mentioned above, how do you expect to be successful?

        Honestly, I can think of a hundred ideas for a site called Mr. Flight. Someone like me, who is very technically minded, might mine Sabre looking for price anomalies or other one-off deals I could share with my users. A writer who travels a lot might create a blog with funny stories and tips for getting free upgrades or finding elusive power outlets in busy airports.

        But the thing is that I have no idea what's already out there and where there are holes in the market that need filling. And more importantly, I have no idea about what you are bringing to the table. What are the skills, knowledge, and natural talents that you possess that you're going to be able to leverage to beat the competition?

        Even you enter a subniche like finding your users bargain flights to Zanzibar, it's more than likely that Expedia and Kayak already are serving that need in some way, shape or form -- not to mention 1,000 wanna be internet entrepreneurs like yourself -- so you had better have something that's going to differentiate yourself from everyone else out there. And you're not going to get that "something" by asking a bunch of strangers on a public forum. That can only be gotten by looking into yourself and deciding what you have to offer.

        P.S. If you want an almost guaranteed way to monetize your domain, flip it to someone or a company that has a plan for how to make good use of it. I'm no domain expert (not by a long shot!), but it seems like a pretty good domain to me and I'm sure someone would want to buy it from you at a profit.
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  • Profile picture of the author zionbar
    thats exactly what im thinking, maybe a directory of flight booking sites like expedia and such with articles that tells people how to get the best filght deals etc

    how can I do that technically? wordpress? can you recommend a theme for that maybe ?
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  • Profile picture of the author webmarketer
    MrFlight(of fancy).com

    Find a need in the market. Serve that need.

    Do your own legwork and research.
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    • Profile picture of the author Andre Slater
      First the name of the site doesn't tell me booking flights and hotels???

      Second, how much do you personally know about booking flights and hotels?

      Who is your market? Is it people looking to book flights and hotels and great prices?

      If you said "yes" to the last question, then how much value can you provide to those people?

      Can you offer anything they cant find on the top booking sites?

      Clever domains don't make you money

      Money is made by marketing and financial transactions...

      To make money you need people with money in their pockets

      And you have to give those people content and value and gain their trust by wanting to help to get them to part with it.

      Focus more on helping a group of people and coming up with a website that helps them solve problems instead of clever domains.
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        You have a ton of competition. And I'm not even talking about the herd of 900 pound gorillas already mentioned. There are tens of thousands of site owners signed to their various affiliate programs, and most of them have similar pipe dreams.

        If you think having a clever domain name and a few affiliate offers will make significant money, you're about 20 years late to the party.

        That said, there are still opportunities out there. However, they don't involve simply promoting flights and hotels.

        They involve creating experiences. For example, if you were in my neck of the woods, you might do quite well partnering with resorts, golf courses, restaurants, fishing charters, etc. to create winter getaways. Or do something similar for winter sports like skiing and snowboarding.

        Perhaps you could partner with a cosmetic surgery practice to promote procedure vacations.

        Focus on creating experiences for people with disposable income and a willingness to spend it on travel.
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