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So Voyage
So Voyage

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I Built SoVoyage.fr — A Travel Deals Site Using Astro JS, Markdown, Netlify CMS and Firebase

#astro #seo #web #webperf

Hi everyone 👋

I’m an indie developer and I recently launched SoVoyage.fr — a website that helps travelers find flight deals, promo codes, and low-cost airline offers, all in one place.

SoVoyage preview

The goal:

💡 Make it easier for people to travel more for less — with clean, fast, and always up-to-date content.

🧱 How I Built SoVoyage

I wanted something fast, SEO-optimized, and easy to maintain — without relying on a heavy CMS or complex backend.

Here’s the stack I chose:

✅ Astro JS

  • Static site generator → fast and lightweight
  • Ideal for content-focused pages like travel deals
  • Full control over HTML, metadata, and SEO structure
  • I use SCSS with Bootstrap for styling and layout
  • Astro outputs static pages, while allowing interactivity where needed

I also integrated several helpful Astro modules:

These modules saved me a lot of time and helped ensure the final output is clean, fast, and well-structured.

✅ Markdown for Content

  • Each promo or deal is written as a .md file
  • Super easy to edit, version, and deploy
  • Ideal for static rendering and SEO crawling

✅ Dynamic Page Generation per Brand

Each airline or travel brand (Transavia, Ryanair, EasyJet...) has its own page, generated at build time from Markdown files.

That means:

  • I can add or edit content with just a text file
  • Astro builds individual, optimized pages like /code-promo/transavia/
  • Each page gets custom meta tags, structured data, and clean URLs

✅ Netlify CMS

  • A lightweight admin panel for non-dev editing
  • Connected to Git + Markdown — no DB needed
  • Makes content updates super easy from the browser

✅ Firebase for Brand Ratings

While most of the site is static, I use Firebase to store and display brand ratings (like user scores for each airline).

  • Ratings are pulled dynamically on the client side
  • Updates happen in real time without rebuilding the site
  • It keeps the site interactive without sacrificing speed

✈️ What’s On the Site?

  • ✅ Promo codes for airlines like Transavia, EasyJet, Ryanair...
  • ✅ Flight deals updated manually or automatically
  • ✅ Dynamic brand ratings via Firebase
  • All optimized for mobile, performance, and user clarity

🚀 What’s Next?

I’m working on expanding the site with destination pages, editorial content, and lightweight tools for budget planning.

💡 The entire site is static, fully SEO-optimized, and passes Google PageSpeed Insights with a perfect score — 100 on all metrics, including mobile.

If you're building a content site, want to see how Astro performs in production, or just love smart travel deals, check it out:

👉 https://sovoyage.fr

Thanks for reading!

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