You probably heard that this company has generated $1.56B in year 2019 without owning any property, airline, or even a rental car!
And now you might be asking: how does Tripadvisor make money?
And most important, can you personally make money with the same business model that Tripadvisor.com follows?
If no, then what should you do? And if yes, then how and where to start?
These questions and more I will be answering in this short article where I tell you how I personally started a business that makes me the most of my income with the same model of the Tripadvisor website and app.
So, without further ado, let’s begin!
How Does Tripadvisor Make Money?
Tripadvisor makes money through referral marketing (aka affiliate marketing), which means that they get compensated from hotels and restaurants for the customers who book at these places after finding them on Tripadvisor’s website and app.
And this is a legitimate business model and lots of people make money with this method, including myself, and without needing to start a big website and spend on branding like it is with Tripadvisor.
This is the same way how hotels.com makes money and profit online, and how booking.com makes money.
And if you are willing to learn and do the work, then you need to read the following section.
Can You Personally Make Money with Tripadvisor’s Business Model?
Sure! Almost anyone can do it if the can work on their laptop and if they are motivated, but you need the right training and tools, which is something that doesn’t cost a lot.
I personally started making money with Tripadvisor’s business model, affiliate marketing, around three years ago, and I started with a very low investment.
And the nice thing about this model is that you don’t even need to be involved in hotels bookings and travel in order to make money with this model, you can follow the same method to make money with almost any industry you can imagine.
For example, I make money with Tripadvisor’s model in Yoga, basketball, dieting, green energy, testing equipment, and many other industries (niches).
For example, on one of my sites, I make money by recommending a custom Mediterranean diet for people looking to lose weight while still eating a healthy and delicious food.
And you can do the same. You can choose any niche that you want to make money with and apply the same Tripadvisor’s model.
For example, you can create a business about auditing and refer your audience to professional auditors or accountants in a certain area in exchange of a commission.
You can do the same by referring people looking for lawyers to qualified lawyers in their area and get a commission.
You can recommend an online course about soccer, tennis, graphic design, …etc., to people learning these skills and get a commission from the course owner.
And so on.
And of course, you can make a website around travel and tourism and make money with the same model by referring people to hotels, cruise trips, airlines, rental cars, …etc.
Can You Earn Money with Tripadvisor itself?
Of course.
You can work as an affiliate for Tripadvisor by joining their affiliate program and placing ads or links to their website on your website, and if someone clicks on those links or ads, goes to Tripadvisor and book a hotel room, you get 50% of the commission that Tripadvisor gets from the hotel itself.
But to make money with the Tripadvisor business model, whether in the travel industry or any other industry, you must first follow three steps in order to be able to view offers to people who need them and make money as an affiliate.
And this includes creating a simple website that doesn’t need any technical knowledge or coding, like you will see in the next section.
Start a Mini-Tripadvisor.com Website in 3 Steps?
1 – Decide on a Specific Group of People to Target
This is what we call choosing a niche for affiliate marketing.
And this is a very important step if you want to make money with affiliate marketing.
You need to focus on a specific group of people that have something in common in order to be able to connect to them and make your promotions relevant and convince them to purchase the products and services you recommend.
For example, you can target parents whose kids are learning soccer or basketball or tennis.
Or you can target people looking to lose weight with a specific diet, like I do with one of my websites where I recommend a custom Mediterranean diet.
And of course, you can make it about traveling to a certain country, or about retreats, and you can make money promoting hotels, flights and trips like Tripadvisor, or you can make money with Tripadvisor.com themselves.
2 – Create a Simple Website
This doesn’t need any experience or technical knowledge.
You need a simple WordPress site like the one you are on right now.
I have no technical knowledge in websites, yet I have created many affiliate websites that work and make me money like Tripadvisor.
Don’t worry, in the following section, you will learn about the place that allowed me to create these websites with no experience at all.
3 – Add Helpful Content That Answers People’s Questions
This is how you bring people to your website and this is how you convince them buy the products and services you recommend.
For example, if your website is about traveling to Sicily, you need to see what questions people ask on Google and answer them on your website.
Some examples are:
- Best restaurants in Sicily
- Best hotels in Sicily
- Best resorts in Sicily
- Cheap flights to Sicily
- … Etc.
And in each of these articles, you would list the top recommended services through an affiliate link (unique link for tracking) and get a commission if someone clicks on any of these links and books the service you recommended.
Or if you want to make it easier on yourself, you can join Tripadvisor’s affiliate program, and you can either place ads for them, or you can even place the search box itself on your website, and if someone uses it to look for a certain hotel, and then they go to book a room there, you get 50% of the commission that Tripadvisor gets from that hotel.
So, this is how you can create a simple website and monetize it with the same way that Tripadvisor makes money.
And if you are interested in doing so, but you don’t know how to start, then the next section is for you.
The Place Where I Found Everything to Start a Tripadvisor-Like Website
What I’m going to recommend is the greatest place to learn and start with affiliate marketing from scratch in order to make money with the same model of Tripadvisor.
This place is an online platform that is called Wealthy Affiliate.
This platform has offered me with all what I needed when I had no experience at all, such as:
- The great web hosting that you need in order to never worry about the technical stuff.
- The easy-to-follow, step-by-step affiliate marketing training.
- The best affiliate marketing tools you need to use in order to find opportunities for making money like Tripadvisor.com.
- And the best of all, the amazing community support of 2 million internet entrepreneurs that joined this amazing platform in order to make money like the Tripadvisor website and app.
- And many more amazing things.
And the great thing is that you can get all of this in order to start and grow your business a very low cost.
You don’t need to pay millions of dollars and start as big as Tripadvisor in order to make money the same way.
This place I recommend provides you with all of what you need at an affordable monthly cost.
Want something better?
This platform offers you a starter membership that you can join for free to take a look and try the training and tools and get to know the community before investing any money for the premium membership plan, which is extremely affordable.
