People prefer travel agencies to make their trips easier. Getting from point A to point B or going on an exotic holiday is effortless with the services they offer. However, in an increasingly digitised world, it may be hard to stand out in the sea of other agencies that compete online. When people search for travel agencies online, they mostly select the results on the first page. How do you make sure that your business does not get left behind? The answer is through travel SEO, by optimising your travel website for the search engines. Compared to the second-best alternative, pay-per-click advertising, travel SEO is cost-effective and gives results in the long run.
6 SEO Tactics for the Travel Industry
In general, SEO strategies play a crucial role in making a website visible online. How, though; does SEO for travel agency help improving the business? Below we have discussed the SEO tactics that can be used for travel websites.
Your Website Should Be Mobile Friendly
Though people generally have laptops and PCs in the office, people do a lot of web searches while they are on the go. When people are in a rush, they’re more likely to book their tickets using a phone than waiting until they get home to use a computer. As a part of your travel SEO strategy, make sure your website is accessible for them. Now, making your website mobile-friendly is not just about making sure that customers can use their phones to access your site. You need to design the website to look good and function on a cell phone. Here are some things to keep in mind for optimising travel websites for the mobile phone:
- Your web design should be responsive and look good no matter what device you’re accessing it from.
- Make sure that you reduce your site’s load time. If a consumer has to wait a long time for something to load, they may give up and look elsewhere. Publish your mobile website in the AMP format so you can achieve a quick and easy mobile site.
- Be sure to optimise your images. It’s important to find the balance between the image size, dimensions, and quality.
- It’s important to not use small text when you are designing a mobile site, as this may make everything hard to read. Test out the right text that is large enough for people to read without having to zoom in every time they need to read something.
- Avoid flash animation, as they do nothing for travel SEO.
Let’s Talk About Keywords
Using keywords as a part of SEO strategies for travel websites isn’t just about choosing a single word like “Japan”. It’s about coming up with a string of words that a traveller would search for, such as “plane from San Francisco to Japan”. It’s vital to be as specific as possible. It’s your job to figure out what people are going to want when it comes to making travel plans. If you have the services that people search for—for example, a hotel booking service—optimise your page’s content with a long-tail keyword like “book a hotel in Hawaii”. Vary the phrases to fit what you believe a customer would type in when looking for these services.
Local SEO
Once your on-page factors are covered, it’s time to optimise your website for local SEO so that it shows up when people search for travel agencies near them. Create a Google My Business profile for your website and update it with accurate details of your business. If you have listed your business across various citations like local directories and social media pages, ensure the NAP details—or name, address and phone number—are consistent across the listings.
Take Advantage of Social Networks
In today’s era, it is rare to meet a person who is not in some form of social media. This is why you need to be taking advantage of social media for travel SEO. You’re in the perfect industry to show off. Even a series of pictures can inspire thousands to want to see a place. A nice shot of a tropical beach or a landmark in Europe could be enough to make someone want to pack their bags and give your agency a call.
One suggestion for a travel agency is to make sure you aren’t posting something incredibly generic. You can research on Google for other travel agencies to be sure that you aren’t using a photo that has been used to death.
Start a Travel Blog
Start a blog! This is a fantastic way to get backlinks to your site from other travel bloggers or websites. Your blog can be full of exotic and must-see places for people to explore. Publish stories of customers who have used your services and encourage them to share their wonderful experience while travelling. You can post anything from tips to travel guides and upcoming events. Since your website’s homepage signals Google about your business, you can include the most popular content from your blog on the homepage of your website.
Link Building
Practice link building; it is one of the most important off-page SEO ranking factors. Earn a valuable link to your site by submitting your site to popular travel directories. Building citations like this will not only help boost the organic traffic of your business but also will help you build authority to your site. Sites like TripAdvisor, CNN Travel, Yahoo Travel, and more are the perfect place to earn a good reputation. Apart from building links from such reputed third-party websites, you should also add internal links. When users click on the internal links, they can navigate from one page to another with ease; also, Google discovers more webpages from the internal links.
Everyone loves a great vacation. No matter what someone’s ideal image of a vacation is, your travel agency can provide that for them. You just need to be accessible to new and returning customers. Following the above tactics will aid in your website’s visibility online and improve your standing among other travel websites. Make your company the first choice for everyone’s next trip around the world!
