As an online marketer, you understand why SEO is important for your online success. Without a well thought out plan of action and implementation of search engine optimization, search engines will not understand how to correctly index the pages of your website, and without that, you’re bound to lose precious traffic that’s important for your business.
While SEO is typically implemented the same way for many verticals, digital marketing for the travel industry is a little different and requires an enhanced strategy. Here’s a list of relevant factors that should be implemented into the pages of a travel website:
1. Be Highly Browsable
When a person is planning their vacation and searching for travel related information on the internet, they want to visit sites that allow them to feel the experience of their destination. Expedia conducted a study that revealed 69 percent of individuals will turn to the internet search engines when they are planning their trip.
Travel websites should include background information on various things to do and see around the areas where a person is planning to visit. Blogging for SEO is an effective method that could be used on travel sites that are mainly used for bookings or reservations. This allows travelers to start planning where they will visit when they go on their trip.
2. Include Plenty of Visuals
Travel websites should also include a large amount of images. People want to see where they are going and there’s no better way to let them know that then by presenting them with stunning visuals. Of course, by including extra images, it will slow down the loading time of a travel related site. That’s to be expected and quite all right for this vertical. Be sure to include plenty of visuals if you are running a vacation destination website.
3. Use Various Travel Search Terms
When individuals are planning a family trip, they often go through different stages that allow them to explore the areas that they want to visit. Generally, a person will begin by typing in search terms that are fairly broad such as, “cheap family vacation” or terms relating to a specific destination such as, “where is Jamaica?”
When they’ve narrowed down where they want to travel, they will type in more specific keywords that relate to hotels or resorts. You might find a person searching for “best restaurants near Honolulu.” A wide spectrum of keywords should be included on each page of a travel website. There can be content that is broader in scope and internal links to more specific information.
4. Words Words Words
Quality sites in the travel industry will typically include over 2000 words per page. That’s almost double the amount that is typically used on sites in other industries. The reason for this is that people want to be told a story and almost experience the trip before they hop on the plane. This doesn’t mean that keyword stuffing should be used. Instead, thorough descriptions of destinations should entice people to want to experience those areas in person.
5. Responsive Design
Mobile search has grown in a huge way in the past few years. Google discovered that travelers who were searching for vacation destinations use their smartphones 70 percent of the time. This clearly shows the importance of having a responsive design for your travel website.
Consumers will switch between tablets, computers and smartphones to do their research. This makes sense as there are many facets to planning a trip such as locating a destination, exploring its amenities, booking flights, finding a hotel and locating transportation.
6. No Ads and Larger Sites
When looking at the top 10 sites in the travel industry, the use of AdSense was cut in half compared to sites in other industries. Instead, these sites include more internal links, descriptions of places to go and sites to see as well as images to complement the descriptions.
7. Paid and Organic Traffic
When marketing a travel website, you always have the choice to use paid ads. Often, the question arises as to finding the right mix between organic and paid traffic. It’s definitely best to combine a mix of both when you are marketing a travel website. A study was conducted that showed when brands in the travel industry bid on their own brand names, it increased clicks at a rate over 40 percent.
8.Investment in Social Media
As with other industries, marketing can be conducted in social media channels. It does not affect the Google algorithm, but it does help boost awareness of a brand. This is the same for travel websites. It will help increase traffic and should be used if there’s an allowable amount of budget left for its implementation.
As you can see, SEO for travel websites have unique factors that should be implemented so that traffic stays on the page and explores more areas of the site. Using a professional SEO firm to assist with SEO services can help create a travel website that’s not only visited but bookmarked and used for planning a whole vacation.
About the author: Riya is an inspired writer, passionate about traveling, lifestyle and encouraging startups. She understands the importance of productivity at work and never stopped finding new ways to create her work productivity. Connect with Riya on twitter, @sanderriya.