Traveling is such a big business and you can profit off it with affiliate partnerships with some of the largest and most popular booking companies.
In our newest video tutorial, we’re going to show you how to create a travel booking website that you can integrate with affiliates like book.com, TripAdvisor, Agoda and others.
The best part about this is you can do it yourself and you can use a free WordPress theme to save money while you create your booking website with WordPress.
There will be a video tutorial that we will link to this text tutorial. The video usually covers more of the finer details but this text tutorial also will supplement that video so hopefully both are helpful!
We’re going to walk through every step from setting up a WordPress website with Hosting to installing the theme and plugins for WordPress to customize the travel booking website. Some of the links may be affiliate links.
Step 1: Get Hosting
We want to set up our WordPress website. In order to do that, we are going to get hosting which will let us have control of our website and how we will install WordPress. Hosting is also how we have access to a server that can store all of our content for the travel booking website with WordPress.
The host provider that we are using and the one we recommend is Hostinger.
There are a lot of hosting options available, most are very similar, so it’s really up to you to decide which you want to use. For us, the choice is Hostinger because…
- We’ve never had any problems with them
- They’re fast and they get the job done for us
There’s other reasons to use Hostinger also but again it’s up to you. We’ve just never had any problems with them and they are a very popular option for many. Ultimately, the decision is up to you for which hosting service you use for your WordPress website.
Use the link above or here to go to Hostinger and sign up. The premium plan is usually good enough but you can always choose the business plan if you want more storage and the additional features.
Step 2: Install WordPress and Register Domain
Now that you have hosting, go through the set up process to install WordPress.
Create a blank site since we are going to install the Blocksy theme and the plugins we need to make the travel booking website.
In this process you’ll also be able to register a free domain with Hostinger if you signed up for one of the plans that allow for it.
Step 3: Install the Blocksy Theme
Now that we have WordPress installed and our website up and running, it’s time to install the Blocksy theme so we can start adding the plugins we need to create the travel booking website and integrate affiliate programs for booking.
- On the wordpress dashboard
- Hover over appearance on the left hand side
- Click on themes
- Click on Add new
- Search for the Blocksy theme
- Install it and activate it
- After the them his activated, we want to install the Blocksy companion plugin that will be at the top of the website.
Click to install that and activate it
- After it’s activated we are going to go to the starter sites tab and scroll down to the bottom
- Find the travel booking template and install that
Now we have our travel website template for WordPress. We’re getting closer to having a travel booking website with WordPress.
Step 4: Sign up For Travel Affiliate Program
Now that we have our WordPress theme let’s sign up for an affiliate program so we can connect different booking sites and agencies with our website. This also is how you can earn money as a travel booking affiliate.
- The site we are going to go to is called TravelPayouts
- Create an account and select some affiliate programs to join
- Some of them will require approval but others will automatically be approved
We can continue to create our website even if your affiliate applications are pending as you are watching this video tutorial
Step 5: Edit Travel Website + Referral Widgets
Now that we have our affiliate programs. We can go back to the WordPress website and customize it.
To customize your website, we’ll be using the elementor page builder. To turn this out, you can go to the homepage and click on edit with elementor or go to the wordpress dashboard and hover over appearance and click on pages and click on homepage and click on the button to edit with elementor.
The video for the travel booking website with wordpress will show you how to use the elementor pagebuilder to customize the background images, edit the text, add modules and sections and everything else.
To add a travel booking widget you can go to Travelpayouts and copy and past the code in the widget tab for any program
- Then go to the elementor pagebuilder and click +
- Search for the HTML module in the search box
- Drag the module where you want to place it
- Paste in the code
- Then click on publish for the elementor pagebuilder
- Once you refresh the page or go to the website, you will see the module.
Step 6: Adding Referral Links for Travel
To add referral links for the different travel booking programs, you can go back to the Travelpayouts page and click on the tools. You’ll see a link tab.
Click to copy the link you want. It will already have your referral code attached to it.
Go back to the WordPress website and copy and paste and link it to any text or image or widget. That’s all you have to do!
🙂
Step 7: Edit About and Contact Page
To edit the about page and the contact page, you can go to the pages list and also click to turn on the edit with elementor button.
The only thing to note here is that the contact page has a contact form. If you want to edit that, go to the WordPress dashboard and click on WP forms to modify.
To change the admin email address, go to the WordPress dashboard and hover over settings and go to the general tab.
Step 8: Edit Header and Footer
- To edit the menus, you can go to the WordPress dashboard and hover over appearance and click on menus.
- You can create a new menu or edit the existing one from the Blocksy theme demo website for travel
- You’ll notice that the display locations are also selected in the existing wordpress website menu
Step 9: Theme Options
To customize the colors and layout options you can go to the theme options.
The theme options will be under appearance on the WordPress dashboard.
Once you go to the theme options, you will see a bunch of tabs that you can go through for all the general settings for the wordpress website you are making.