SEO Guide for Travel and Adventure Brands
As a species, we have constantly curious minds. Google is our go-to in our search for answers for over 8.5 billion questions each day. Thankfully, our favourite search engine quenches our never-ending thirst for information. World leader Google is now synonymous with the internet. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO allows you to rank your travel and adventure websites on Google when potential clients search for the tours and activities you provide. An immeasurable amount of information is available at the touch of a button. It's hard to imagine or recall life without such easy access to data and information.
Is travel and adventure SEO worth doing?
Interestingly, reports show that more than 50 per cent of traffic to travel and adventure sites are directly from organic searches. A further 42 per cent comes from direct sources and referral traffic, mostly from reputable public relations channels. Traffic from SEO or inbound marketing sources is impressive at over 80 per cent.
If you consider that a combination of the various social media and influencer platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and other such channels only count for 2.2 per cent of website traffic. It makes total sense that travel and adventure brands utilise PR agencies to improve their SEO for their businesses. There are over 200 factors to consider to ensure your website occupies one of the top spots on Google.
SEO Marketing Strategies
You need to understand your business and core information. Who is your ideal client? How do you differentiate your tourism business from your competitors, your customer journey offerings and the experiences you offer? You should consider these parameters to understand what people search for when looking for travel or adventures like yours.
There are no miracles in the land of SEO. Put yourself in your customer's shoes and think about the search terms they may use. Ask your team members to do the same and compile a comprehensive list of these keywords and phrases. Continue to add to this list by finding the different words and phrases used during their research and buying phases and understand the most profitable terms to optimise your website.
You can also use Wikipedia and look at a destination or type of travel or adventure and explore the subtopics that might be relevant. Use an incognito Google search, type in the terms for your comprehensive list, and note Google’s autosuggest and ‘related to’ results.
Now that you have a comprehensive list of applicable terms, you can split them into 'research' and 'purchase-ready' sections, forming top-of-funnel and bottom-of-the-funnel keywords. By logging into your Google Search Console, you will see which search terms are already ranking on your site. For example, if you see #2, 'adventure travel in Asia’, you rank a strong second place. Look at the search volume, cost-per-click (CPC) and competition data for each of your search terms. It's essential to consider the keywords; if they have low traffic, are too vague or have exceptionally high competition, cross them off! Various plugins, such as Keywords Everywhere, can help you simplify the process. Google Keyword Planner (KWP) provides the data intended for Google Ads but is also a good source of information for SEO keywords and phrases. Generally, terms with a high cost-per-click have a lot of commercial or booking intent behind them.
Choosing the right keywords for your travel and adventure nich
'Top ten adventure holidays' would be a popular search and likely be very costly per click and too vague for your niche business. Perhaps a more powerful iteration could be, for example, 'guided adventure tours in Thailand'.
Create SEO content
Creating knowledgeable content informs Google that you are an authority in the travel and adventure niche. Cite valuable sources and provide authoritative content. Aim to have a well-curated collection of 1,500-plus-word blogs about a key topic and enhance the article with videos, maps, images, graphics and other informative details. Use internal links that point back to the essential booking pages.
Working with professional writers will ensure that you are consistent with your brand voice is essential. If you have expert travel and adventure specialists on your team, they can work with your chosen writer to create unique and fascinating content. You can build multiple versions of your core content to include blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media posts and e-books with the exact focused keywords.
On-page SEO and ‘SEO audits’ for travel and adventure websites
Whilst videos and beautiful photography pages might look appealing, they do little to improve your rankings; you should have at least 400 words of copy on every page. Work with your webmaster to ensure your website page titles and URLs contain your target keywords. Include keywords within your copy, but don't over-stuff with SEO making it sound unnatural. You can use various tools like Yoast to improve your click-through rate. Ask your web developer to conduct regular website audits to ensure there are no error reports, broken links, bad titles and missing image alt tags. Don’t forget to test that your pages are phone and tablet friendly.
On average, the content marketing industry says that you should spend handsomely promoting your content. Share it on LinkedIn, boost it on Facebook, include it in your newsletter, share it on your social channels, and showcase the blog on your home page to drive clicks. Every post is regarded as new content, so Google knows your page is fresh.
Off-page SEO; gather backlinks for your best content
An essential ranking tool is backlinks, in other words, having other sites link to yours. If you have created strong content, this will occur naturally over time. You are promoting your content by encouraging others to link to it. Quantity over quality is essential; Google will penalise you otherwise, so only reach out to relevant blogs within your niche. You could also ask your content writer to create a guest blog to be featured on a site you want to appear on.
Use travel and tourism PR for the ultimate backlinks
Your travel and adventure public relations agency will connect to super-authoritative sites, major magazines, blogs and digital newspapers. Your agency will utilise its connections and create great pitches that interest journalists or editors. For instance, an article in Conde Nast Traveller holds high value from a profile perspective. It creates awareness, showcasing your authority and website backlinks. Google places enormous value on links from the press; the SEO boost can last for years.
Invest time and effort into TripAdvisor and ensure your information is up-to-date, your listing is optimised and encourage client reviews.
Remember that Google hates inconsistency; it can mess up your SEO rankings. Be consistent and provide regular targeted updates to your website.
