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Monetising a travel guide website – divereport.com

2 points by natetan 11y ago

I run http://www.divereport.com - the original plan was to sell Ads directly to dive centers, which worked with face-to-face sales but much harder to get renewals even with positive statistics showing that advertisers are getting good value from the site. Part of the problem is that they do not necessarily understand or believe the statistics so we are changing the way the contact aspect works to make it more obvious when customers come through us - even if it is a bit more restrictive to our users. To change this, prove they are getting good value.. and to see if they decide to repurchase could take up to 9 months and it would be useful to make some more money through the site before then. The site gets around 15k uniques, 50k page views, 2.4 avg page views, 60% bounce, 23% returning. I am considering reluctantly putting Adwords on some pages, but ideas for how best to generate some shorter term revenue (and estimates for how much these methods may make) while we sort out advertising relationships would be super welcome!

alexanderine 11y ago
Hi I have took a quick look at your website, having worked in the tourism for 5 years in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt! I can tell you my 2 cents from an initial look: 1- You NEED a responsive website to support the 70% world web traffic. 2- You have to take an aggressive approach, your business model is greate but you need to create and dictate the value, for example create recommended on "Divers Report" badge that has a back link to your website,dive centers always love to include a badge or a real testimony on their websites. 3- Try the wow factor, your database at this point is amazing, however the design could be more appealing. 4- You said you were thinking of including Adwords on some pages, I think you mean Adsense, as Adwords are advertised on google search pages not your own. 5- try as much as possible to make the dive centers pages on your website reflect their true style, perhaps videos they could give you, or HD pictures or featured images with their own logos and brand so they can feel it's theirs and they will keep coming to check on it and maybe add their latest news/ posts or offers. Am working in the tourism and in the web development in Egypt I have 2 successful companies and trust me you will be surprised of how these little tweaks will better get you perceived. Good luck. Alexander
- natetan 11y ago
  Thank you Alexander - some really good thoughts there. Yes sorry, I did mean Adsense. The badge is something I considered - but was worried it would have low take up.. maybe I will create this and push it out and see how the response goes. Really good food for thought. Agreed we can probably make a bigger thing of dive center images to make the pages better reflect their businesses. Agreed - we have a new layout designed.. although it may take a while to implement due to cost/time constraints. Thank you again for your time to reply!

2 points by natetan 11y ago

alexanderine 11y ago

Hi I have took a quick look at your website, having worked in the tourism for 5 years in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt! I can tell you my 2 cents from an initial look: 1- You NEED a responsive website to support the 70% world web traffic. 2- You have to take an aggressive approach, your business model is greate but you need to create and dictate the value, for example create recommended on "Divers Report" badge that has a back link to your website,dive centers always love to include a badge or a real testimony on their websites. 3- Try the wow factor, your database at this point is amazing, however the design could be more appealing. 4- You said you were thinking of including Adwords on some pages, I think you mean Adsense, as Adwords are advertised on google search pages not your own. 5- try as much as possible to make the dive centers pages on your website reflect their true style, perhaps videos they could give you, or HD pictures or featured images with their own logos and brand so they can feel it's theirs and they will keep coming to check on it and maybe add their latest news/ posts or offers. Am working in the tourism and in the web development in Egypt I have 2 successful companies and trust me you will be surprised of how these little tweaks will better get you perceived. Good luck. Alexander

natetan 11y ago
Thank you Alexander - some really good thoughts there. Yes sorry, I did mean Adsense. The badge is something I considered - but was worried it would have low take up.. maybe I will create this and push it out and see how the response goes. Really good food for thought. Agreed we can probably make a bigger thing of dive center images to make the pages better reflect their businesses. Agreed - we have a new layout designed.. although it may take a while to implement due to cost/time constraints. Thank you again for your time to reply!