10 replies to this topic

[hm9]

Hello, I published this website awhile ago but it still doesnt generate enough traffic. Can you please review it in terms of content and ease of navigation etc. . any criticism or constructive feedback would be very welcome. Please advise of the best ways to monetise from the site and ways to improve traffic ranking



http://www.discountedtravels.co.uk

Thanks in advance


<<<moved to Website Hospital as more appropriate forum>>>

Edited by iamlost, 10 September 2011 - 02:26 PM.

[Black_Knight]

Are you believing that this is the only or best travel comparison site out there?

Off the top of my head, for the UK market I can immediately think of http://www.travelsupermarket.com/ and http://www.lastminute.com/ but there are literally thousands of others. They have years of history, thousands of repeat customers, and multi-million pound marketing budgets.

If yours isn't better than all the better known ones, why should anyone use it?

You have canonical issues, zero content, and some really big blatant design flaws. But your biggest problem is not the site, it is the marketing plan and business plan. What can your site beat all the giants at?

Edited by Black_Knight, 11 September 2011 - 04:33 AM.

[hm9]

Thanks for the feedback: You mentioned that the site 'zero content, and some really big blatant design flaws..... it is the marketing plan and business plan. What can your site beat all the giants at?'

Can you elaborate on what you mean by big blatant design flaws? and how to improve it?
what the best marketing plan and business plan? what do you ean by zero content? it is supposed to be a travel comparison website. can you advise of how to best improve this

Can you advise of any tools, approach and how to make it stand out of the crowd?


Thanks

[fisicx]

Everything about the site indicates you are just getting feeds form other sources.

The formatting is awful, there are empty areas instead of the promised discounted deals, there are no contact details and when I did search for something I ended up on the service providers site.

As BK indicated, there is no reason to trust you or use your services when there are far better and more professional holiday providers.

[hm9]

Not sure if you noticed but there is a page dedicated for contacts: http://www.discounte.../contactus.aspx

remember the site is not a travel agent . it is a travel comparison site and only displays deals from other tour operators. as indicated in the about us page: http://www.discounte...uk/aboutus.html


can you point me to the page where you did search for something and I ended up on the service providers site.?

[jonbey]

I just searched for a flight and go redirected to travelsearchresults.com

The page only shows flightline and lastminute flights.

The prices are all a lot more than I am paying (I picked a flight that I have already bought tickets for in the last week).

If other users are having similar results then you may struggle to win the all important returning customers and positive reviews.

I think that for such a site to work you need to be providing the prices yourself and then directing the customer straight to airline, not to another agent.

Edited by jonbey, 11 September 2011 - 12:49 PM.

[Black_Knight]

There's a famous quote that is often used in regard to websites, which comes from the movie Field of Dreams:

If you build it, they will come

The quote is generally used as a negative - that it is a fallacy to believe that just building a site will bring visitors.

If you build it, next to ten other bigger, better, faster, more trusted ones, they won't come.

You have to have a USP (Unique Selling Point) in any business. Without that, nothing else you do really has a chance at all. Note well that it is not just a Unique Point, but that it must be a unique point people desire enough to be sold on it. USP.

This has always been true - long before there was electricity, never mind electronic commerce. There's another famous quote, this time directly from the business world:

Differentiate or die.

Follow the link in my signature.

[fisicx]

Not sure if you noticed but there is a page dedicated for contacts

It's just a contact form. There is no address, phone number or email.

You say it's just a comparison site but that's not clear on the homepage. All the indicators are that you are an affiliate site. The actual results are not good, the layout is very poor and I keep ending up on the holiday providers site.

You don't seem to have grasped the point that there is no reason for the search engines to promote your site or for people to your use your services.

People aren't stupid, they can spot this sort of site a mile away and steer well clear.

[Scratch]

My main tip would be to focus the site around one slice of the "discount travel" search market. If you're competing against the big boys, you'll be way down the search rankings for the popular terms, so you'll only get crumbs from a big traffic pie.

It's much better to get a good slice of a smaller pie. Aim to get in the top 3 for a few less popular terms. Not only will you get 10+% of all the searches, but you could also match the expectations of the searcher better, but showing them exactly what they searched for.

Look at the Formula One leader board for this year: http://www.formula1....results/driver/

9 of the 28 drivers have no points. Does that mean they haven't completed the races and driven well? No. It means that they've been outside the points in every race.

Only the top 10 finishers get any points: http://en.wikipedia....scoring_systems

And the top finishers get considerably more. Search engine traffic is very similar.

Now, you could do a fine job, but if you can't consistently come in the top 10/5/3, you'll get very little or no return for your effort.

In terms of prize money (traffic, in our terms), you're better off moving down to a less competitive category, where you can get top placements. For your site, that means targeting narrower search terms.

[glyn]

TD affiliate site, I'd be masking all references to affiliate networks with redirects. Outsourcing content creation, using timed release over the period of three months to start hitting organics. Look at your competitors and you will see that it a common theme with their format.

But before that I'd be spending big on advertising to see whether your website actually has offers that are interesting to people. Just because a publisher makes a deal available through a network, it doesn't automatically mean it is going to be something that is competitive and attractive to those that are the intended audience.

BK makes some very valid points, as always.

Your logo has JPEG deterioration noise, that is something you really want to have cleaned. Builds no trust.

[jonbey]

do you think hm9 is still here and listening? 2 months ago he asked .... if anything the homepage seems more cluttered and full of aff links than it did 2 months ago, if my memory is reliable...