World Choice Travel for everyone that knows them offers one of the best travel affiliate programs out there. I've been with them since 2004 and have really liked their set up (minus a few exceptions). They are releasing a new travel affiliate portal page that looks better. It's being release tomorrow and looks a bit better then their old one. I'm still not sure if it is going to better in terms of SEO but I'm going to try it out. Here is what they have to say
This new version has been built with an emphasis on unique destination content and will include the following updates:
Use of the new multiple product search box
Its own cascading style sheets. On our current page the look and feel is controlled by the hotel CSS which is added to the hotel (default) header. With this new page, we will no longer be supporting CSS in the header.
Hotel destinations are randomly selected based on a combination of popularity, availability and price and are dynamically updated every four hours. This provides for unique destinations and hotels to allow your customer choice when shopping on your site.
The destinations and hotels on the Travel Portal will have a 4-hour lifespan. When the time expires, the system repeats the steps above updating the destinations and hotels
This process provides for unique destinations and hotels (within the set of rules above).Hotel listings will include star rating
Hotel destinations will include a link to the hotel merchandising page
And here is a screenshot if you are familiar with how the old one looked.
Hi Jeff,
I enjoyed reading your post and am looking to potentially use World Choice Travel as my affiliate travel partner for a website I am in the process of developing.
I was interested to see that you have been using WCTravel since 2004 and was wondering if you could provide a bit more detail on your experience with them, ease of booking, commission surprises (good or bad), and particularly SEO issues. One of the things i am concerned about is to make sure my hotel pages are indexed correctly in the search engines so I assume I will need to have the hotel description pages stored statically on my servers so they can be indexed as opposed to being pulled dynamically from the WCTravel servers… is that how you have used the system as well?
Also, I was reading about their XML for Travel interface and was wondering if you had experience with that method of accessing their system?
Finally, I was wondering if you had also explored the Hotels.com/Interactive Affiliate Network (IAN), and if there was a reason you went with WCTravel.
Thanks, any insight/advice would be most appreciated.
Cheers,
Rami
Hi Rami,
I’m an affiliate of both wctravel and Ian’s affiliate programs.
Although both offer tools to promote travel accommodations you really have to work to customize your site so that the search engines see it as unique content.
Every affiliate has access to the same tools and content so to be successful you have to create new content yourself. Or have it produced yourself.
You can produce unique destination specific content and then link to each of the hotels as onetravelsource.com does. They are using wctravel’s XML services and that comes with a lot more work and is a lot more expensive. I would absolutely recommend using their XML services if you have the money to pay for the upfront costs of setting it up. It makes a world of difference. The best thing about using their XML service is that it helps produce static pages which we all know is good for the search engines.
If you are on a budget you can produce normal old html pages with destination specific content yourself and then link to hotels through your affiliate links.
I’ve produced a small site that has a few static pages so that it’s picked up by the search engines for a client.
I’ve produced a video showing why it’s better to not use wctravel’s ready-made travel portal page you can view here:
WCTravel’s Ready-Made Travel Portal Is Bad For Search Engines
Hi Jeff,
We are very new to wctravel program and have few travel domains, two are area specific and one is general travel related domain. We are approved but big problem is not have much idea for development.
Can you suggest me some resources or person?
Thanks,
Ajay
Jeff,
Do you think that WCT is better than IAN? How do they compare? We are considering this type of program. Have you pleased with the results of yours?
Thanks,
Scott
Hi Scott,
I haven’t promoted any travel affiliate programs in quite a long time as I sold off my main travel sites.
I’d recommend signing up for both ian.com and wctravel’s affiliate programs and look around. They both offer features different than the other so it will depend on what you’re looking for you to decide who to go with.
If I had one great tip for travel affiliates is to use a program that offers XML services so you can pull data into your own site and produce static html pages with it. Otherwise you’re stuck with the same non search engine friendly sites other affiliates have.
So yeah, If you have a large budget go with a custom designed site that generates static pages using XML. That’s really the way to go. And hire someone to write custom travel destination content for your site. That goes a lot way as well on search engines.
Good luck!
Jeff
Thanks for the feedback. I figured the only way to make this work for any money was through an effective seo strategy. We have XML capability. Do you have any thoughts on Expedia’s (WWTE) system? It appears that they offer something similar as well.
Hey Scott,
No, I’ve never heard of Expedia’s private label affiliate service until now. I checked it out and they don’t offer much information on it. They do say:
“No-fuss maintenance: Tools, including dynamic booking engines and deep-links for search engine optimization, are automatically included to make merchandising and maintaining your site a breeze.”
I’m not sure what that means. Are their pages static and running off XML, I don’t know. Might be something to ask them about.
Since you first commented I had to look back at both Ian.com’s and WCT’s programs and found I can no longer log into WCT’s site. I’m not sure what has happened. Maybe they just shut down my account since I wasn’t using it. Ian’s on the other hand still works. So I was able to login and download their database of Bed and Breakfasts.
Using Webmerge I recreated an old site I had running awhile back out of their database. You can see it live here: Bed And Breakfast
Of course the entire site is static, so it’s not running off of a database. That’s good to keep server load down, but bad when you want to update.
The site contains a little over 2,000 pages with links linking directly to Ian’s backend which you can customize with your footer and header. Pretty simple and it does the job for a small site like this.
This is the route to take I think for people just starting out with travel affiliate programs. You need static pages with some kind of unique content. That is an absolute must if you want to earn any affiliate commissions.
Anyway, I might write more on how I created that site later. If anyone is interested.
Otherwise, let me know if you sign up for Expedia’s travel affiliate program. I’d like to hear how well they’ve set it up.
Jeff,
I have talked with and received the agreement from Expedia. I cannot get anyone at WCT to return my calls or respond to my emails. Not a good sign. Expedia now either owns or has integrated with IAN. The contract that I got from Expedia was an IAN contract. They appear to have everything WCT has and more. Better commissions and more properties and deals. With my experience so far with WCT, Expedia/IAN must have better support as well.
Will let you know more if I ever hear from WCT, but I am not holding my breath at this point.
Hi Jeff,
currently I’m interested to try to become travel affiliates as I have several unused related domain which have been parked for a while. I read your post above and it seems that you know exactly how to make a great travel website with affiliates. I also read that you’re a website designer. Well, I can’t help but really like to ask, how much will I have to spend to make a great travel website with affiliates. In this case, how much I will have to pay you to make one 🙂 Hope it’s moderate 😀
I have signed up with IAN.COM i just can’t figure out how to upload there templates.. or do I have to create a website of my own? and If I did how would I intergrate all of there search bars, hotel info, etc..
If someone can please help me please email me at: ez760@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Ez
Gosh Darned, now you would have had to go in and say”Play Nice Folks!” Isn’t bashing a travel resource commonplace by now? Okay kidding aside I still am WCT biggest fan, though am not yet up and running with them yet. I say this as I have done an exhaustive search for travel affiliate offerings and have a great working knowledge of EAN/Expedia, and a few others i will refrain from naming. I usually do not comment on old posts like this, yet it is still highly relevant as WCT continues to be in business. Plus they have now left EAN and company in the dust. I hate to say that and almost feel like a traitor as my friends and allegiance has always been to IAN or EAN as it has been changed to. I supported EAN for a few years though everytime they say they have great things in the works on a consistant basis it has meant something bad or something is going to be taken away from my website, not an enhancement. Like EAN is the only company out of 25 affiliate offerings I studied that does not pay any commissions on Flights and now they did away with Car Rental commissions. This is greedy anyway you cut it up and try to put it back together it just adds up to pure greed and most disheartening is they do not give one damn. Why the bold assumption? Because if they did they would for starters go on their Facebook Page and/or their Linkedin Group page with an explanation that means something. Tell us the grand scheme, not just hope we will not notice or the issue will be forgotten. I am simply more vocal though have recieved emails in private from the groups most popular people. They are not wanting to rock the boat yet really pissed off and actively looking for a new deal. This was though AT&T’s problem when judge Green finally deregulated Ma Bell and forced them to play nice. Expedia is that large, to the point if 1000 of us go away, no big deal. And the reason for the EAN to WCT comparison is this: the other affiliate offerings are even worse , oh not worse but just never really put into place professionally enough to be a true contender. There really is almost nothing WCT does not do better than all the rest, yet people are unhappy with them too. Like me for example. They are really finecky about opening a little bandwidth up for the XML producers. Ridiculous and makes me wonder who these CEO’s are? There is not one slight doubt in my mind that I right today could step into anyone of these travel giants and do a better job of reorganizing the companies affiliate offerrings and quickly bring up dramaticallly the bottom line profits for both company and affilates. If it is not win-win than it’s lose-lose, and a forgone conclusion they are steadily going to fall apart [I am referencing the company “and” the re-sellers] and eventually the affiliate offering will go Chapter 11. Of course they will simply blame it on the recession or the dangers of travel in modern times, perhaps the low job market will evade suspicians for awhile. I am so positive in my abilities I would work for free for 1 year to just prove the point. Any takers, I have references and CEO experience, and yes most importantly, “A Plan!”
Who was it that said to play nice? You should hear when I am not nice -heehee! All the best guys and gals, and the best Christmas and New Year to you all– Roman Terry, CEO for Get A Trip, Inc.