From travel bloggers to successful affiliates: An exclusive interview with The Hawaii Vacation Guide

We had the exciting opportunity to sit down with Jordan Fromholz and Erica Gellermanto of The Hawaii Vacation Guide. As an affiliate on the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN), we wanted to pick their brain on how they got into the industry and uncover the ways they have been able to continue to find extreme success. 

The Hawaii Vacation Guide is a travel blog that arrived on the scene in 2019. The site features hundreds of tours and activities that can be experienced across Hawaii. And in February 2020, they launched their YouTube channel.

We were thrilled to chat with the husband and wife duo who are avid travelers and have lived in several countries across the world. Read their whole interview below! 

How did you end up in the travel blogging space? 

Not on purpose! We had moved to Hawaii because Jordan was taking a gap year from work.  Once we were there, we were looking for more things to do online and realized that there was a lot of incomplete or outdated information out there. So, The Hawaii Vacation Guide was born!

Did either of you have any blogging experience prior?

Erica: Not really! I was a freelance writer for the year before we started The Hawaii Vacation Guide, but I was writing accounting articles. So that’s really different.

How did you come to work with the FHDN? 

Someone from the FareHarbor Strategic Partnerships team reached out to us because we were sharing information about tours in Hawaii who were using FareHarbor. We weren’t making any affiliate revenue from it at that point, just sharing the experiences.

What were some of the struggles or roadblocks you faced early on? 

Our first try with affiliates was reaching out directly to companies to work with them because we would see other bigger blog sites doing that. But, that was challenging. We were so small at the time and the operators were busy running tours. So it was really hard to get a hold of anyone and it still is. 

What are some of the more recent struggles or roadblocks you’re facing and how are you dealing with them?

It’s more that we have so many ideas for our business and a lack of time to execute.  For instance, we have a directory of our favorite tourism activities on our website and it is a challenge to always try to keep that updated. 

We pride ourselves in actually going on tours, but we can’t go on some tours with our kids. So we have to try to manage that to make sure we’re recommending what we think is the best — and keeping that updated in our directory.

What is the most recent change you made that yielded results?

A year ago we were thinking about how people use our website and decided to create our directory. We hired a developer to build one that people could filter and search with nice thumbnails and landing pages. It’s a really clean way for people to navigate.

We were able to put a lot of information that we learned at the Spark conference to use, like how to improve conversions with high quality pictures and call-to-action buttons.

What do you look for when selecting activities to promote or how do you select activities?

Sometimes people who read our newsletter will recommend activities, and that’s a great way to learn about new ones. They’ll be like we love what you recommended, but we also did this and that was awesome and you guys should check it out.

We also just look around to see what sounds interesting to us. We do a lot of activities based on our own personal interests; we really like snorkeling.

In a few words, what do you think makes a successful activity listing?

We think that operators need to include an informative description of the tour. Tell them what to expect, like if breakfast is served or when the tour starts. Include items in the itinerary, your cancellation policy, gear that’s included, if there is bathroom nearby, all the important details. 

We also have a lot of big write ups on our blog and FAQs with great pictures. 

If someone is starting out, what would you suggest their first steps be? 

Creating a good website. For us, if the content works right, it drives more bookings. We know there are other business models out there. You could have a purely affiliate website and just use Google Ads. But, we found it better to focus on valuable content that builds our expert authority and trust. 

If you could start over again, what would you do differently?

Would we change anything? No, we had to make mistakes and make it messy at the beginning because that’s how you learn.

What advice would you give your younger affiliate marketer self? 

I would say that you have to work really hard and know that you may not make any money for years. This blog was a side hustle for us for a very long time. You should go into it with the perspective that you’re going to have to work your regular job and do this at night. There were many nights that I was freelance writing until 11pm and then working on this.

What tools do you use that make your affiliate marketer life SO much easier? 

We use Asana because we’re starting to build a team. With contractors and employees, Asana has been great to stay organized.We use Framio for editing and reviewing videos. We’re also an Adobe family and we use their software for editing.

Do you have a favorite tour or activity you have been on?

Jordan: Yes, I love manta night snorkeling on the big island. They come within an inch of your face! And yes, it’s absolutely thrilling.
Erica: Mine is a snorkeling tour at Lanai. It’s still in the county of Maui, but six miles off Maui so it’s just beautiful and usually meets a pod of spinner dolphins on your way out. And it’s not just five dolphins. It’s like a hundred dolphins. 

If you’re interested in becoming an affiliate on the FareHarbor Distribution Network, simply fill out your business’s information on this form.