TripAdvisor Acquires Viator: What it Means for Tours & Activities
Achieving the top spot in the Google results is a coveted prize amongst businesses in all industries, and the tour and activity industry is no exception. Tour and activity operators strive to implement a search engine optimization strategy that allows them to earn the top rankings on the results page, ultimately increasing their visibility online, driving more traffic to their website and boosting their conversions.
Search Engine Optimization Basics for Tour and Activity Operators
- Search engine optimization (SEO) is the concept of generating web content that is tailored to be as relevant as possible to certain key search terms, so when those terms are used, your brand appears at top of the ‘organic’ Google results. Organic results are results that occur naturally in response to the search terms used and are not paid placements.
- When thinking about which keywords to target, think about which keywords are likely to attract the site visitors who are most interested in what your brand offers. If you run a kayaking company in Honolulu, use keyword terms such as “kayaking in Hawaii” rather than your specific brand name, because that is what people who want to do that activity are using to search for possibilities.
- SEO also requires businesses and web brands to offer valuable, fresh content to readers. Tour and activity operators can do this by creating interesting landing pages, adding videos, and posting blog updates.
- Mobile capability is critical in today’s SEO landscape. Google and other top search engines promote pages that are mobile-friendly. In order to rise in the Google results page rankings, tour and activity operators need to implement a responsive web design as well as offer a booking engine that accepts mobile bookings.
- Many website creation tools, such as WordPress, have plugins (Yoast, in the case of WordPress) that can assess how optimized a page is for a given search term.
Tools to Assist Your SEO Campaign
There are many tools that you can use in order to assist your SEO campaign and develop an effective SEO strategy for your tour and activity brand. Moz is one of the most well-known tools in the industry, as it allows you to identify the keywords that are trending and that will be most useful to your particular brand. By utilizing the right tools and resources, you increase your chances of boosting your rankings and earning that desirable top spot on the search engine results page.
Learn More About Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a concept that complements your SEO strategy. With SEM, you can purchase pay-per-click advertisements that will give you a more prominent position on the Google results page as well as on many of the popular social networking sites. A PPC ad will help you increase your site traffic, but it’s important to monitor its impact on your overall conversions.
Increasing your visibility online and improving your online brand reputation is just one component of your distribution strategy. This allows you to boost your presence on the most powerful search engines, and also shows your agents that you are committed to promoting your tour and activity brand. You also will want to create a distribution strategy that allows you to reach out to more agents and attract travelers from a variety of different demographics and locations around the world. In order to learn more about how search engine optimization fits into your distribution strategy, download the Rezdy distribution ebook today.
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Simon has over 15 years’ experience as an IT professional. He also has extensive experience in the travel industry from being an around-the-world traveller and managing a dive centre in Southeast Asia for over 3 years. Simon is now dedicated to providing the best online booking solution for tours and activities operators; he is the brains behind Rezdy.Outside office hours Simon is a true activity addict – mountain biking, sailing, swimming, beach volleyball – just to name a few. But most of all he loves diving in Australian waters.