How I'm NOT making money with HotelsCombined.com affiliate program

If you are trying to create a brand for 123Hotels it needs to look the part. Sure you have a great domain that is easily remembered, but when a user visits your site and it doesn't look like a professional, trustworthy place, your brand image is ruined instantly. If you create a clean, professional look you can expect lower bounce rates and more time on site. This leads to more sales and also more referrals if a user is satisfied. The customers experience is your #1 priority when it comes to branding. You have been focusing on the domain and not how users actually view and use your website.

- Redesign the site
- Use more free and cheaper advertising methods (craigslist, etc. )
- Create small niche travel websites that refer users to 123Hotels (so you can get more organic, targeted traffic to your site)
- Continue social network marketing and brand building

 

I just emailed you to your gmail account.

 

Well it sounds like you are in this for the long term. By that I mean you seem to want to build a brand, not just some crappy affiliate site that you will ditch in a few weeks. People will 'like' your Facebook page if it offers something of value, when people actually like something, the majority of the time they will click that all important like button. Yes purchasing a few likes can be great for a little boost at the beginning, but once the ball is rolling you will find these come on there own.

Like a fair few people have mentioned in this thread, maybe you need to re-design your page. Offer something to the user that they want to read and use. Include beautiful pictures of places they want to go, that encourage them to search for that hotel through your feature.

Create a separate niche blog away from your main money site. Drive organic traffic from this. But also post articles and posts to your main site. Have something so customers want to return and read updated posts. When you've included a new post on your site, tell your Facebook, Twitter, G+ followers about it. Encourage them to come to your site and read the latest information.

3-5 posts per day is a lot in my opinion. Perhaps 1 per day whilst you get started, giving the readers a reason to return each day. All it takes is that one right person to 'share' a post they like and you've got a whole heap more traffic.

Broaden your traffic sources; SEO, social, PPC etc. Don't just rely on one. Only fools make this mistake.

All PPC has a steep learning curve, especially if your on a budget. If done right though, the traffic can be great.

 

I too have a dead site that has generated $11 in last 4 months. I think the only trick in having success in this area is to drive lot of traffic, free. Otherwise one will never make anything

 

For ALL Hotelscombined affiliates I would try this.

1. Go for a specified niche. Choose "Los Angeles hotels" as the theme and "The standard Los angeles" and "The standard LA" as keywords for example. You can add more themes later. IF it works out for you.
2. Create pages specific to each hotel on YOUR site. Make sure it has a BOOK NOW button everywhere and link to THESE pages not the hotels.hotelsombined.com which is only good for HC.
3. Look on DP or to Fiverr.com and buy a load of links from "travel niche" or "travel links". As many as possible within budget.

Now do whatever else you had planned.

 

I don't think your site design is too bad, you may want to play a bit with the design and see if that helps. You also need to get some kind of logo
that will also help to identify with the branding (if you don't already have one). Don't forget the forums and blogs that deal with travel - there are a lot of them.

 

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Dude.... You are completely wrong about the inability to index your site, this mistake could be the key to your doing better. I know this because I own a Hotels Combined site, its crap, I admit that it needs a lot of work, but I bought it for 75 bucks, its a project I just haven't gotten around to yet, anyway it is indexed, check it out. ( go to Google and enter this and you will see the search results populate with about 100 pages... ( site:http:// --------------- )). This should totally change the way you drive traffic to your site and should save you a considerable amount of time and money! Best of luck, please let me know how it turns out.

Update: since I just registered a minite ago in order to post this, I cannot put up links for 7 days, so I had to omit the link so try this. After this code " site:http:// add "the cheap hotel dot org" and you should be in business.

 

Update. hotelscombined.com affiliate review.

Hotels Combined is a big con to get lots of links to their site. if you search for any city anywhere hotel ... they come up in Google. Why? Because we are all linking to them and selling their wares.

It is impossible for 99% of webmasters to make money with that system. You are basically competing against someone that YOU are helping. Madness.

I bought targeted traffic for my site, bought adwords and lots of fiverr links etc. All the usual SEO stuff. I made nothing as my $3 commission was not enough to trigger the payout.

I have had a lot of success on the web with various projects and this was a waste of money and time. Stay away from Flippa and have a great Xmas.

 

I am actually one of their affiliates and yeah, it's kind of hard to earn from hotelscombined affiliate program. It took me 1 YEAR to be able to withdraw my earnings because of the minimum withdrawal amount of $100 ... the earnings are too small, 3 bookings and I got about $2 or so... i wish they could offer a bit higher

 

http://123hotels.com looks pretty slick if you ask me!

How HC treating you after this time?

 

I don't think HotelsCombined is the primary problem. I understand their commission is among the highest in the sector. The problem is that there are way too many travel sites, so competition is fierce. I have one too (nicevacationspot.com) which has generated only $0 so far.

 

I think your site is good and how you customized the search box. The problem is your site is nothing moee than a search box, there are no unique contents. And not targetted to any sub markets. You need to get qualified visitors to your site. I have made 10-20 HC sites with each generating 200-300 a month the first two months . For eg bestresortasia.com hotelprimer.com and roomratesdirect.com

 

May I know how many unique visits a day for your site?

 

A very interesting thread!
I have looked at the site 123hotels.com and here is my honest opinion why I would not book there myself:
- Main reason: I do not see what value I get from it comparing to other sites I am already using (like e.g. booking.com)
- Even if I see some value, I need to check it is legitimate before trusting it my credit card. How?
- My first check is the link 'About' - it does not reveal any information where the company is located, no address, phone number, email. How can I reach it if I have any problem?
- Instead it mentions someone called HotelsCombined, I wonder why
- My next check is "Contact us" - again no address, phone, email and the other link does not even work.
Just my 2 cents.

 

I think your site is good and agree with the catchy domain name, one question I have is how have you added facebook links to the header, are you using an iframe?
Thanks
Richard

 

Hotels Combined is somehow a grave unless you have few millions uniques per month.If I had domain like yours I would give a try dubai-booking dot com' white label. They are new on market, but their design is absolutely beautiful and they do pay - tested! My traffic is low - so my only option is affiliate, but my friend got white label - his visitors are amazed. What I like most - is that their affiliate program is not open to general public - fair enough for those spent on their websites. Its not pay per click - pay per sale.I consider it as one more advantage, I don't believe in pay per click.Pay per click story always has same end - sooner or later you will give up.
In addition with them you get 2 in 1(flights and hotels) with matching design - I don't know any other affiliate program offering same options.

 

Umm... there are many factors to consider, it is not easy to get big profits with a website if you don't have a good marketing plan in your hands. For example take pieces of content and post multiple times per day into a blog is better than 100 different actions.

 

The Best way to get targeted traffic I have found is thinking about your target market what are the top 10 problems that your target market will have. Then answer those problems in a blog post and promote the blog post. If you come up with 10 problems that is 10 blog posts. Create videos that you can embed into your blog post. Everybody likes videos! Where are your target audience hanging out online? Advertise on those sites by contacting the site owner. Find sites that cater to your target market and see if they have a newsletter they send to their list and contact the list owner to see if you can advertise to their list.

 

I would make an e-book with travel tips, guide to traveling cheap, something like that. Brand it with your domain then market the e-book/guide. Get them to trade you their e-mail address or like your Facebook page in exchange for the guide. Then you at least get something instead of just a bounce off your site. Sending a lot of people to your website is pointless unless their ready to book travel. Let the e-book get them ready to travel, then they will go to the website...