A Short Tale about the Long Tail of Travel

Hello again

As you may know if you read this blog regularly, I am building a niche site about holidays in the sun.

When I started, the intention was to have categories under the main site that would be based around longer-tail keywords, because with the travel niche being so competitive in internet marketing, I realised I would have no chance on the more popular keywords such as “hotels in Spain”.

So, I picked a few keywords that looked less competitive.

The problem is that the training I got during the Thirty Day Challenge taught me how to evaluate keywords but did not take into account any regional targeting.  Trying to apply the same criteria to the UK market just does not work.  Whereas, for example, in the 30DC we are taught – go for a keyword with traffic at no. 1 of 80 a day or more, and phrase-matched competition of 30,000 or less – these criteria are not right for targeting the UK, and the problem I have is that I cannot find any information on what the UK criteria should be.  Maybe I should email Dan Raine in Manchester?

Meanwhile, until Dan Raine reads this or until I find the answer somewhere else, I just have to muddle through as best I can, testing this and that strategy and finding through my own expenditure of time and money what works and what doesn’t.

There must be many people new to Internet Marketing who are targeting the UK market who are in the same position – it would be good if there were a central resource for our experiences.  (Maybe there is – if you know of one, PLEASE let me know!) The problem with Internet Marketers as a group is that they are all so cagey about what they do, I mean exactly what they do, in case someone “steals” all their business or spams them up.  Or something.

Anyway, back to the long tail of travel.  In the travel industry, this means something like the process whereby suppliers bring an ever increasing choice of micro-niche holidays to the market, aimed at an ever-decreasing number of customers per product.  In Internet Marketing, long tail is similar, but based around keywords, using an ever-increasing number of micro-niche keywords, aimed at an ever-decreasing number of web page visitors per keyword.

As I understand it, the reasons we go for long tail keywords are:

• they are highly targeted to visitors who searched for something very specific, and are very likely to buy
• there is very little competition even in a competitive industry

The big problem of course is that you still need some minimum amount of traffic in order to get some sales.  evaluating that traffic is very difficult using the standard tools like Google’s Adwords Keyord tool or Search-based Keyword tool, because the numbers just are not there for the really low volume, focused keywords.  The only way I know of really assessing the traffic is either to make a test site (a la Thirty Day Challenge) and get it to number one and see for yourself what the traffic is like, or to do a short Adwords test.  The 30DC site build takes time – and if you are aiming at a low volume keyword, you could spend a couple of days on the site and all its initial promo only to find that there is no traffic.  Ever.  This has happened to me several times now.  So, I am moving towards using Adwords as a test as this costs less than £10 a time; usually less than £5; and saves about two days work.

So, my plan for the travel site was to build categories where I could go for longer tail keywords, yet have everything under the umbrella of a strongly-branded site, a site that in time would earn reputation and authority and where the sum of all its microniches would be greater than if they were all separate sites, thanks to the domain authority.  This was always the plan, but what has changed recently is that I have found a few travel affiliate blogs and had an interesting dialogue or two with some of the authors.  It seems that in travel, you basically have to go long tail – and then go looooonger.  It is just so competitive that you can ONLY go for the low traffic, long tail keywords.  Attacking “hotels in Majorca” will leave you, even after quite a lot of work, in a very long queue behind Expedia, TripAdvisor, Holiday Watchdog, Thomson, ulookubook.com, sunshine.co.uk, Alpharooms, Thomas Cook and the rest.  Because in travel, these big boys are on the ball when it comes to the internet.  It’s not like engineering components.

I am changing tack, therefore, to go even longer tail.  I am also thinking more laterally about the travel keywords – seeing what I can come up with that does not just include the destination in the keyword, but could be based around a specific attribute of travel, say based around  travel advice, travel tips, safety etc.  Whatever – it has to be long tail, and I think I will need to verify the traffic via Adwords, if I can.  As you can tell, I am learning as I go.

So why am I bothering with travel at all given that it’s so competitive?  Why not just go for low hanging fruit instead?  Well, I am INTERESTED in it for one.  Secondly, a customer is likely to generate at least £15 and as much as £100 in commission, so you don’t need as much traffic as if, say, you are selling DVDs (also ridiculously competitive – but without the commission levels – why would anyone do that?)  Mostly, though, it is the interest thing.  I have already spent too much time over the last few months trying desperately to inject humour into my writing about really dull topics, and I can do it, but it’s a killer.  Here’s an example:  Oil Filled Radiators.  See what I mean?  I tried..

So on I go with the travel niche.  I will keep on with the microniche sites too, but there are only so many hours in the day and the travel site, now at 50+ articles since starting on 1 Oct (and no traffic), takes a  lot of work!

***** If anyone reading this would like to offer advice to me and to others on succeeding in the travel niche, please leave a little comment.  Go on, do it now..