Visitors/income ration on tourism site

[wolfadeus]

I just started a website with travel information an general background info on a European city - currently I am not running any ads, since my there are very few visitors, but I am already thinking of how I could monetize my website (AdSense will be the first thing, I guess).

My question is: How is the ratio between visitors and income through google ads for tourism sites?

Are there branch-specific estimates, such as "100 visitors a day make 1 Dollar" or so? Thanks for your advice!

[LifeinAsia]

Too many variables to suggest a ratio. It all depends on the amount the advertisers are paying for the ads displayed on your site and the click-through rate by your visitors (which in turn often depends on the type of visitors and the relevance of the advertisers).

If you spotlight a very competitve location (like a Las Vegas or New York City), the advertising rates will tend to be much higher than for a small European city that doesn't have a lot of tourism.

Also, if people are coming to your site just for information, they are less likely to click on ads than for a site where people are coming to book a reservation or buy something.

[wolfadeus]

Oi, indeed, this could be an issue - it is pure information and no commercial stuff; however, the city is among the European top-destinations and content-wise I think that I will do pretty well.

Any suggestions how I could add a more commercial flavour? Adding a hotel or restaurant section is pretty saturated, I won't be able to compete on that one.

[hunderdown]

I don't know that you necessarily want to add a "more commerical flavor." Add something unique and useful that will get you links and maybe even some publicity.

Stuff like this:

--a guide to public restrooms
--where to find the best mixed drinks
--specialized, printable, self-guided walking tours

[LifeinAsia]

It depends on what type of information you have- specifically, what type of original information does your site have that people can not find anywhere else?

Just because hotels are on many other sites doesn't mean you can't include them on your own to help you monetize the site. If someone is already on your site getting good travel information, give them the opportunity to make a reservation right then, while the idea is fresh in their minds. It can be as simple as using a "book a hotel reservation now" link to an affiliate program site.

(Will the world go to your site to book a hotel reservation instead of Expedia? Doubtful. Will someone on your site who wants to make a reservation click on your link instead of going directly to Expedia? Possibly.)

This is one of the first ways we monetized our travel sites. It was slow at first, since our destination only had about 3 dozen hotels available for online booking through Expedia and others. But it expanded and we built on it and grew to other destinations.

[europeforvisitors]

Also, if people are coming to your site just for information, they are less likely to click on ads than for a site where people are coming to book a reservation or buy something.

That hasn't been true in my experience. Most of the visitors to my editorial travel site aren't necessarily coming to book a reservation or buy something, at least not on their first visit. But they are researching ways to spend their money, since that's an integral part of travel planning. So, as they make their plans, they click on affiliate links and AdSense ads, and they book everything from hotel rooms to car rentals to travel insurance.

One of the things I find interesting is that, even though I rank #1 for a number of important hotel search terms, very little of the traffic on my hotel affiliate pages comes from search. Nearly all of it is internal, generated by users who come for destination or other travel-planning information and click on my hotel pages after they're on the site. And when they're on those hotel pages, a great many of those users actually book hotel rooms.

Never underestimate the power of information as a driver of AdSense clicks and conversions. Contextual targeting by itself is only half the battle: the other half is reaching an audience of qualified prospects, and that's what a comprehensive information site (a.k.a. "content site") on the right topic can deliver.

[Lipik]

Let me guess wolfadeus, Salsburg? ;-)
If you serve good practical information, fast loading pages, divide your text in sections with a small title above (b.e. in bolt text or italic), some good practical links on every page, your site has a good future.
As mentioned already above, there are much variables. But a CTR around 5% is possible, 0.10 until 0.30 cent pro click?
The biggest problem might be traffic, and a good place on SE's. How many pages? the more the better of course but one sometimes a 10-page site attracts more visitors than a 10.000 page site...
Maybe more important is good pages.
Succes!

[gendude]

You might work up something using Google Maps as well - you can integrate Google Maps into your site, and display unique locations/shops/etc.

[europeforvisitors]

The biggest problem might be traffic, and a good place on SE's. How many pages? the more the better of course but one sometimes a 10-page site attracts more visitors than a 10.000 page site...

Yes, but a 10-page site won't attract as many repeat visitors as, say, a 100-page or 500-page site. It also won't generate as much internal traffic and revenue opportunities. If your topic is limited in scope (a small- to medium-sized European city, for example), you need to own the topic, or at least to have a significance Web presence for the topic. Otherwise you'll bump against a revenue ceiling pretty quickly.

[Moosetick]

As you can see, I'm new here but from what I'll I've read, it seems you should first build your site and its traffic and then concern yourself with the money.

[Jean]

it seems you should first build your site and its traffic and then concern yourself with the money

I think that's what most of us used to do pre-AdSense.

Now it seems that more and more want to make lots of money with little effort in the shortest possible time....my guess is that it rarely works, at least not long term.

[wolfadeus]

Thanks everybody for your advice, I appreciate that and I like especially the idea with the guide to public toilets (=McD's ;)).

As for the thoughts on page numbers and when to start making money: The site has about 150 pages with mostly travel-guide-like content that is genuine, however, rather classic - I planned to use it as a basis to add "original" goodies, such as the toilet guide, later.

I want to add at least 50 new pages with mostly text information in the next couple of weeks, which is actually rather easy since I am from the place and know it well.

The CTR is also a crucial question for me because I host it on a free university server now and will add google ads after I got some traffic and moved to a commercial server that will allow me to make money on it. I thought that 200 visitors a day would be a good start for that.

Thanks you again for all your advice!