Anyone else use TripAdvisor.com to promote their travel hubs?

1. 94

   JessBrazposted 10 years ago

   I recently signed up for a TripAdvisor.com account. The thought of using it to promote any of my travel hubs didn't initially occur to me when I signed up. My husband and I like to read reviews of potential travel destinations on TripAdvisor when we're planning a trip. The travel bug has been biting me a lot lately (I think it's been this looooonnnnngggg winter that's making want to get out of dodge for a bit) so I found myself on TripAdvisor looking up different destinations.
   
   I signed up for an account and submitted a couple of reviews, just for the fun of it. I appreciate a really well written review of a destination I might travel to, so I figured maybe I could provide that for someone else who might be considering travelling to one of the places I've been to in the past.
   
   After a day or two, it dawned on me to put the link to my hubpages profile in my TripAdvisor profile. The reviews I wrote on TripAdvisor are also destinations that I have published Hubs about,so I added a little "If you'd like more information about this destination, check out my full review at: link to my Hub. Initially I wasn't sure if TripAdvisor would allow that, but they published my reviews and photo's and didn't remove my link to my hubs. So I guess it's acceptable, as long as your review actually has some substance to it and isn't just a blank page with a link to your hub.
   
   Within the first week, my reviews on TripAdvisor were read almost 5,000 times and received a handful of "helpful" votes. One member even messaged me asking me for more information about a review I wrote, and we've been messaging back and forth all week. She actually checked out the travel Hub I wrote about a resort she'll be travelling to this summer. Of those 5,000 reviews that were read, maybe only a handful of people made their way to my travel hubs- but it's a handful more traffic than I had before.. And I've noticed that one of my other travel hubs that I didn't promote on TripAdvisor seems to be rising as far as traffic is concerned.
   
   Has anyone else used TripAdvisor to write reviews and potentially drive more traffic to their travel related hubs? Anyone have any tips, advice, warnings, etc about using this site?

   replyreport
   1. 95

      DeborahNeyensposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      When I publish a travel hub, I will go to the Tripadvisor forums and look for people who are asking questions about the location that is the subject of my hub and provide a response with a link to the hub. I have had a good amount of traffic from Tripadvisor as a result but I just noticed today that they removed one of my responses as being against their TOS. That's never happened before but admittedly I was being lazy and didn't really provide any content in my post other than something like: "Here's my take: [link to hub]." But when I've provided an informative response and said something like "If you'd like more information, check out my article on the subject: [link to hub]," there hasn't been a problem. I also make sure not to link to my hubs in every forum post that I make so as not to appear spammy. I also write reviews on Tripadvisor but have never posted links in those because I didn't think it was allowed. It's nice to hear you've been able to do that. And it never occurred to me to put a link to my Hubpages profile in my Tripadvisor profile. I'll have to do that. Thanks for the tip.

      replyreport
2. 94

   JessBrazposted 10 years ago

   Oooohhh. I Love your tidbit about using TripAdvisor to look up what kind of things travellers are looking to learn about a particular destination! I was looking at TripAdvisor mainly as a promotional tool. It hadn't occurred to me to use it as a means of research as well. That's so smart.

   replyreport
3. 94

   Susana Sposted 10 years ago

   If you find a good place to promote your work I wouldn't tell everyone. All you need is for a load of hubbers to go over to tripadvisor and start posting their links and in no time they'll all get removed.

   replyreport
   1. 94

      JessBrazposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Oh my. I never thought of that before. lol. I take it back!! TripAdvisor is awful... Nobody go there. lol.

      replyreport
4. 58

   NewYorker11posted 10 years ago

   Isn't TripAdvisor a nofollow site? Sorry for the question, I am relatively new to this.

   replyreport
   1. 86

      WryLiltposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Most large sites are nofollow. But a lot of their content gets indexed well, so when a thread or review gets a lot of Google traffic, people will click the links.

      replyreport
      1. 58

         NewYorker11posted 10 years agoin reply to this

         That is very useful WryLilt. Thank you.

         replyreport
5. 83

   LauraGSpeaksposted 10 years ago

   I wrote a review on Trip Advisor and placed a link to one of my travel hubs about two years ago.  At first, I think it did slightly boost traffic to my hub, but after a while new TripAdvisor reviews are written and the old ones fall to the end of the reviews.  So enjoy it while it lasts!

   replyreport