Your travel blog might already have the content readers need. The bigger question is how quickly they can find it… and how easy you make it for them to take the next step.
That was the focus of our latest Stay22 Office Hours session. Tania Kabanyana from the Partner Success Team and Margot Lassalle, our Director of Digital Success, walked through practical ways creators can improve affiliate placements across their websites.
The session covered homepage optimization, internal links, and custom elements before putting the advice into practice with live website makeovers. The common thread: use the data you already have to reduce the distance between your readers and the content that converts.
Here are some of the changes worth testing on your own travel site.
1. Use Your Booking Data to Decide What to Feature
Your homepage doesn’t have to revolve around your newest article. Start by looking at what your audience is already booking.
In the Stay22 Partner Hub, head to “Transactions” and export your data as a CSV or spreadsheet. The export can help you see which destinations and pieces of content are generating bookings, so you can make smarter decisions about what deserves more visibility.
For example, you may find that a seasonal article continues generating bookings well beyond the season itself. If the data supports it, that content may deserve a permanent spot on your homepage instead of disappearing once the event or travel period has passed.
The same principle applies to destination content. If your data shows that readers consistently book trips connected to a particular place, make it easier for them to read those articles.
A “Popular Articles” section is one way to do it. You could also reorder destination cards or move high-converting content higher on the page.
2. Make High-Converting Travel Content Easier to Reach
Once you know which content is converting, look at how many steps it takes to reach it.
A homepage can include plenty of useful information while still making the most valuable travel content harder to find than it needs to be.
For example, if your homepage prioritizes an About page while high-converting destination content sits several clicks deeper, consider moving those travel-planning paths higher in the navigation.
The goal isn’t to remove brand or personal content. Everything is strategically placed to make sure readers who arrive ready to plan a trip can find the right article without unnecessary detours.
The same applies farther down the page. If destination guides or recent travel content sit below several other sections, test moving them higher.
Then look at your navigation.
Can someone interested in one of your strongest destinations find the relevant article immediately? Or do they need to click through a broad region, open another page, and keep digging?
Fewer steps can create more opportunities for readers to reach the recommendations that help them finish planning their trip.
3. Make Your Affiliate Links Easy to See on Mobile
A link can be perfectly placed and still underperform if readers barely notice it.
During Office Hours, the team emphasized how important it is to think about affiliate placements on smaller screens. Text links can disappear into a paragraph surprisingly quickly on mobile.
Give those links enough visual contrast to stand apart from the copy around them.
Your brand colors can still guide the design, but think about accessibility as you choose them. A pale link on a light background, for example, may be difficult to see. A stronger color or an underline gives the reader a clearer visual cue.
During the session, the team suggested that an article might include around five or six hyperlinks when the links are fairly subtle, depending on article length. A much bolder treatment should be used more selectively so the page doesn’t become visually overwhelming.
There isn’t one ideal number for every article. The point is to make useful affiliate links visible without turning the page into a wall of competing calls to action.
4. Use Buttons for High-Intent Affiliate CTAs
Buttons were another placement the Stay22 team encouraged creators to test. They give the reader one obvious action and can be especially useful on mobile, where a text link may be easier to miss.
That action can be commercial: “View prices on Booking.com.”
Or it can sound more like a recommendation from the creator:
- My favorite place to stay
- Stay where I stayed
- My top recommended hotel
The CTA you choose should fit the way you normally speak to your audience.
Buttons themselves are created through your website builder rather than Stay22. Once you’ve built one in WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or another platform, you can generate the affiliate URL through the Allez Generator in the Stay22 Partner Hub and use that URL as the button link. A campaign ID is optional, but adding one can make the placement easier to track.
Buttons or Maps: Which Should You Use?
The best format depends on what the reader is trying to do.
For a standard destination article or a specific accommodation recommendation, a button can work well because it directs the reader toward one clear outcome.
A Stay22 MAP becomes more useful when location itself is part of the decision.
For example, someone reading about a concert venue, festival, or major attraction may be asking, “Where can I stay nearby?” A map can help them compare several options around that location.
For a specific hotel recommendation, the decision is narrower. A direct button can get the reader there faster.
5. Put Accommodation Recommendations Earlier in Your Articles
The placement of a recommendation can influence whether a reader sees it and acts on it.
During Office Hours, the Stay22 team said the strongest conversion opportunity often appears within the first 20% of a page.
That means a useful accommodation recommendation may be arriving too late if readers have to work through most of an itinerary before they see it.
One way to bring those recommendations forward is with an accommodation table or recommendation box.
You could organize it by budget:
Or make the choices more specific to the experience:
- Best option for the view
- Best option for convenience
- Best option for value
The second approach can be especially useful when your own experience is the reason someone trusts the recommendation.
This also lines up with Stay22’s broader affiliate data. “Where to stay” content, hotel-focused pages, itineraries, and destination guides all show strong booking intent because readers are already working through the logistics of a trip.
The closer your recommendation sits to that planning moment, the easier it becomes for the reader to act on it.
6. Create Reusable Affiliate Elements
Not every affiliate opportunity needs to live inside a paragraph. The Stay22 team also discussed custom elements such as accommodation tables and anchored travel resource boxes.
Try an Anchored Travel Resources Box
An anchored resource box sits alongside the article and follows the reader as they scroll. It can give readers quick access to useful travel resources without requiring them to hunt through the page.
Someone skimming an itinerary, for example, may still want to jump directly to accommodation, tours, or transportation.
Keep the finished version focused. Three or four of your strongest affiliate placements may be enough. That keeps the box useful without making it compete with the article itself.
Mobile deserves another check here. An anchored resource box can work well on smaller screens, but look at the rest of the page before adding one. A photo-heavy article or a page with several prominent links may already have plenty happening visually.
The element should make planning easier, not give the reader another obstacle to navigate.
Build It Once, Then Reuse It
Custom elements require more setup than adding a text link.
The tradeoff is that you usually don’t have to build them from scratch every time.
Many creators can create these elements directly through their existing site builder. Once you have the structure, save it as a reusable template and adapt the links or recommendations for each article.
A little more work upfront can give you a placement you can use across dozens of pages.
7. Get More Specific With Your Destination Pages
Broad destination categories are helpful for organizing a website. They aren’t always where a reader is closest to booking.
For example, a broad regional page may help someone browse, while a city-specific hotel guide can catch a reader much closer to choosing where to stay.
If you have destination pages with several layers, look for places where you can surface specific countries, cities, or articles sooner.
The same thinking applies to affiliate recommendations.
A broad hotel search across an entire region gives the reader plenty of choice, but it also asks them to make several decisions before they confirm a booking.
A specific article such as “Where to Stay in [City]” or “Hotels Near [Attraction]” speaks to a much narrower question.
Stay22’s affiliate trends data points in the same direction. “Where to stay,” hotel, itinerary, and guide URLs feature prominently among high-intent content patterns.
A broad category can help someone browse. Specific content can help them make the decision.
8. Test Your Layout Instead of Guessing
Some website changes sound like obvious improvements until you test them.
For example, if an image and a nearby button lead to the same destination, you may be giving the reader two competing ways to perform one action.
Try a simpler version. Make the image clickable and remove the extra button, or test the reverse. Then compare the results.
Look at one period with the original layout and another with the new version. Check whether clicks increased, but account for any meaningful difference in traffic between those periods.
That gives you evidence for the next decision instead of another design opinion.
You can apply that process beyond buttons. Test which content sits highest on your homepage. Try a different CTA. Move a recommendation earlier in an article. Then see whether reader behavior changes.
Your site already gives you plenty to work with. The goal is to learn which version gives your audience the clearest path forward.
Small Changes Can Create a Shorter Path to Booking
You don’t necessarily need more content to find more affiliate opportunities.
Sometimes a strong article is simply too difficult to discover. A hotel
recommendation arrives after the reader has already left. An affiliate link blends into the page, or one of your strongest destination guides is buried beneath content readers rarely touch.
Start with the behavior you can already see.
Use your Stay22 transaction data to find the content and destinations generating bookings. Make those pages easier to reach. Then look at the placements inside them and remove unnecessary friction between the recommendation and the click.
A homepage reorder might take a few minutes. Turning a text link into a button takes even less.
Test the small changes. Your next conversion opportunity may already be sitting on the page.
Want more practical feedback on your travel affiliate setup? Join us for our upcoming Stay22 Office Hours session on September 3, 2026, where our Partner Success team answers creator questions and shares practical ways to get more from the content you’ve already built.
👉 Join Stay22 and start monetizing your audience’s travel intent.
