Let us first start with a very quick introduction to SEO and in more particular about the purpose of SEO. Why should someone in the travel business care about SEO?<\/p>\n
#1 \u2013 Getting more leads from search engines<\/h3>\n
The purpose of SEO is to help a website appear higher in the search engine result pages (SERPS) for keywords related to your business. For example, when a user opens Google and types \u201crent a villa in Sicily\u201d, the websites optimized for SEO, appear first in the results (after the paid ads \u2013 more details below) and this means more qualified leads for those websites.<\/p>\n
A research study<\/strong><\/a> by Google on the behavior of \u2018travelers\u2019 showed that a large percentage of people start their travel and booking process through search engines.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s obvious that if your website does not have high rankings for your business keywords, you are already losing a large percentage of your potential customers to competitors.<\/p>\n What is more interesting is that despite that fact that there are big brand websites like booking.com, airbnb.com, tripadvisor.com (to name a few), user\u2019s still turn to search engines when they are ready to start their trip planning process.<\/p>\n Travel websites that don\u2019t practice SEO, will not appear in the top results organically but they can still get traffic from those searches through PPC and in particular Google AdWords.<\/p>\n While this is a perfectly good practice and AdWords one of the best ways to get highly targeted traffic to your website fast, in the long term is not as cost effective compared to SEO<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n The reason is simple: when you stop advertising with AdWords, traffic will decrease while with SEO once you achieve good rankings targeted traffic will flow-in 24\/7. In addition, for every visit you get from AdWords, you will have to pay a few dollars per click and depending on your daily budget, it can minimize your traffic and lower your conversion rates.<\/p>\n SEO is not less expensive, there are costs involved<\/strong><\/a> but in the long term is a better investment.<\/p>\n Can you imagine\u00a0how many bookings \/ leads you could get if you had 2000 people visiting your travel blog or website every single day? How could this change your business plans?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been working in the travel industry for a few years now and know from experience that a constant flow of targeted traffic can really transform a business and generate opportunities for growth that otherwise could not be possible.<\/p>\n Although we always say that nothing is guarantee in SEO and Digital Marketing, achieving good rankings in a correct way can make a huge difference for travel businesses.<\/p>\n Now that everybody understands the importance of travel SEO, let\u2019s see in more details ways to optimize your travel website for search engines.<\/p>\n First in the list is local SEO<\/strong><\/a>. Local SEO is a way to optimize your website so that is shows up when people search for your location or when searching through mobile when located in an area close to your physical business address.<\/p>\n If you examine several travel related searches in Google, you will see a pattern like the screenshot above\u00a0i.e. Google shows: 5 PPC Ads on top, Local SEO (Google Map) results, organic results and then more PPC ads below.<\/p>\n In order to get your business listed in the local SEO results you have to do a number of things like:<\/p>\n The above list is not complete but it\u2019s enough to get you started.<\/p>\n Note: General SEO practices (like the ones I will describe below), do have an influence on Local SEO as well.<\/p>\n The homepage is an important page for all types of websites but in the case of travel websites, it\u2019s even more important.<\/p>\n In terms of content your homepage should include things like:<\/p>\n In terms of SEO, the homepage should give several signals to Google about the nature of the business and the areas of operation (location of properties).<\/p>\n To be more precise, let\u2019s say that you have a travel website showcasing several holiday villas for rent in Costa Rica. Your home page title should reflect this. An example of a good SEO title would be: \u201cExclusive Holiday Villas in Costa Rica | ReliableVillas.Net<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The homepage description is also important since it may show up in Google results when users search for your domain. It has to be eye catching and SEO friendly. Here is an example of a good homepage description:<\/p>\n \u201cBeautiful Villas for Rent in the most stunning areas of Costa Rica. Browse our collection of exclusive villas and receive discounts for early bookings.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Besides the title and description, you definitely need to make sure that you have schema information on your page together with your address and other contact details (as explained in local SEO above).<\/p>\n A good structure for a travel website has the following characteristics:<\/p>\n To visualize the structure of your travel website, it should look like the diagram below.<\/p>\n If you are using WordPress, then most probably your \u2018City \/ State\u2019 and \u2018Specific Area\u2019 pages will be categories (archive pages). Regardless of the platform, you need to make sure that these \u2018destination pages\u2019 are SEO optimized.<\/p>\n This means that they should have unique titles, unique content, proper H1 tags, included in the sitemap submitted to Google and also showcase the properties available for the particular area.<\/p>\n Special attention should also be given to the page URL. For maximum optimization the URL should also include the destination i.e. \/villas-in-miami\/<\/p>\n Read my previous post: How to SEO your WordPress categories and tag pages<\/a><\/strong> for more examples and step by step instructions.<\/p>\n Next in the list are property pages. The purpose of a property page is to give potential customers more information about the particular property and convince them to convert (by either submitting a contact form or completing a booking online).<\/p>\n A good property page has the following items:<\/p>\n In terms of SEO a property page should include:<\/p>\n Breadcrumbs<\/strong><\/p>\n A breadcrumb at the top of the page giving users and search engines an easy way to go back to the \u2018Area Pages\u2019. For example, the breadcrumb of a property page located in Miami should look like this:<\/p>\n Home >> Florida >> Villas in Miami >> Large Villa with Private Pool in Star Island<\/em><\/p>\n Note: <\/strong>Read more details about breadcrumbs and SEO in my Advanced SEO Features<\/a><\/strong> article.<\/p>\n Unique and informative titles<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a bit tricky especially when you have a number of similar properties on your website. When crafting the title of a property page think about the characteristics that make the particular property unique and different from the rest.<\/p>\n Avoid mentioning the general location in the title but make it more specific like the examples below:<\/p>\n Large Villa with Private Pool in Star Island<\/em><\/p>\n 4 Bedroom Villa in Cefalu with direct access to the beach<\/em><\/p>\n Page Content<\/strong><\/p>\n The content of the page has to be<\/em> unique. One of the most common problems with travel websites is content duplication and this is mainly because a property may be listed to more than one websites.<\/p>\n Property owners list their properties in different websites to increase their chances to make bookings and they usually do this using the exact same content. This may not be a huge issue for big websites like airbnb, tripadvisor or booking.com but for smaller websites this is a problem.<\/p>\n For SEO purposes and for a better user experience, you need to differentiate your content as much as possible. A good way is to try and describe the property features like a story instead of just stating the facts (that are already published on other websites).<\/p>\n For example, consider this standard introduction:<\/p>\n \u201cThe property is located 30km from Rome Airport and has 4 bedrooms and \u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n And consider this \u2018story like\u2019 introduction:<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you arrive in the airport, you are only 15 minutes away from a remarkable holiday experience in Italy. A 4-bedroom luxury villa is waiting\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Besides content uniqueness, other things you should take into account are:<\/p>\n Content in Tabs<\/strong><\/p>\n It is normal to use TABS in your pages to organize them better but you should know that Google will probably ignore that content<\/a><\/strong> or give it less value.<\/p>\n If the content in a tab is dynamically generated i.e. users have to click on the tab to trigger the generation of the content, then this is completely ignored.<\/p>\n For a more optimized page, try not to have important content in the tabs. You can still use them but keep your most valuable content visible all the time for Google and users.<\/p>\n \u00a0User Reviews and Rich Snippets<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the factors that influence conversions (bookings) in the travel industry is user reviews and ratings.\u00a0 For the owner of a travel website or blog this means 3 things.<\/p>\n 1st<\/sup> \u2013 That you need to show reviews and ratings for your properties. How you can get those reviews is a different story (to be covered in details in a new post so make sure you subscribe<\/a><\/strong> to my newsletter), but good reviews do make a difference.<\/p>\n 2nd<\/sup> \u2013 You need to add schema information to your reviews and ratings<\/a><\/strong> so that Google may show them in the search results.<\/p>\n 3rd<\/sup> \u2013 You need to have the reviews and ratings visible in the page and not in a TAB.<\/p>\n Besides the above factors, you should have in mind that technical SEO practices are always important.<\/p>\n For example, things like: page speed, mobile friendliness, correct use of canonical URLS, the 404 page, correct implementation of multi-language websites, paging, optimization of images and videos, sitemaps, correct configuration of Google Webmaster tools and many more are necessary for a fully optimized travel website.<\/p>\n Note:<\/strong> Read my SEO tips<\/a><\/strong> article and how to perform an SEO Audit<\/a><\/strong> of your website for a complete list of all factors you need to take into account when evaluating technical SEO.<\/p>\n It is widely accepted in the SEO industry that although social signals do not directly impact rankings, they can help in a number of indirect ways.<\/p>\n A travel website should have an active social media presence because:<\/p>\n Create business pages on all major networks (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter) and make sure that your social media profiles are SEO optimized<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Build a decent fan page for your Facebook business page<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n Post regularly on your social media pages. The posts should not always come from your website but post content related to travel tips, things to do in your destinations, interesting things to know about your destinations and content that is not too promotional but something that readers may find interesting to read<\/a><\/strong> and share.<\/p>\n Monitor mentions of your brand in all networks and make sure that you reply to any comments, good or bad.<\/p>\n Monitor mentions of your destinations and try to engage in discussions or answer related questions without being too pushy or over promotional.<\/p>\n Allocate a monthly budget to use for Facebook promoted ads (either promoting your properties or blog posts).<\/p>\n Check that a page shared from your website shows correctly on social media (good photo, title and description).<\/p>\n There is no way to avoid discussing about link building when talking about the promotion of a website in a highly competitive industry like travel.<\/p>\n Off-page SEO<\/a><\/strong> is still one of the most influential ranking factors and good quality incoming links are necessary to achieve high rankings.<\/p>\n How can you get links that matter for your travel website?<\/strong><\/p>\n Link building is always difficult and time consuming and you should be careful not to go the easy way and get links from low quality websites (even if they are somehow related to travel), because you risk in damaging your domain\u2019s reputation in the eyes of Google and this is not good for your business in the long term.<\/p>\n Press releases \u2013 Travel is one of the few niches that press releases are useful. Reporters and travel journalists are looking into press releases to find destinations and deals to propose to their readers and many times if you have good offers you may see your website and properties listed in big travel portals and besides the free publicity, this is also good for SEO.<\/p>\n Mentions (links) from travel review websites and portals \u2013 Besides press releases, you can also make connections on twitter or Facebook with travel bloggers or journalists and give them incentives to visit your website.<\/p>\n By making connections, I don\u2019t mean sending them a message asking for a link to your website but trying to establish a conversation with them and maybe inviting them to visit your properties or sending them an exclusive offer for their readers etc.<\/p>\n As I said above, it\u2019s time consuming and you need to think outside the box to make this work but when it does the benefits are valuable for SEO.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t forget about the easiest form of link building \u2013 internal links<\/strong><\/p>\n Although internal linking is part of on-page SEO<\/a><\/strong>, I included it under link building to emphasize it more because from experience this is something that most travel websites and blogs get it wrong.<\/p>\n![\"Online](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/online-travel-sources.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Importance](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/travel-seo-importance.png\")
<\/p>\n# 2 \u2013 More Cost effective compared to the next best alternative (PPC)<\/h3>\n
#3 \u2013 SEO can guarantee your business growth<\/h3>\n
How to SEO your Travel Website<\/h2>\n
#1 \u2013 Local SEO<\/h3>\n
![\"Travel](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/travel-results-google-150x150.png\")
<\/a>\n
#2 \u2013 Homepage SEO<\/h3>\n
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#3 \u2013 SEO for\u00a0Categories and TAG Pages (Destination Pages)<\/h3>\n
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![\"Travel](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/travel-website-structure.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Destination](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/category-seo-example.png\")
<\/p>\n#4 \u2013 SEO for\u00a0Property Pages<\/h3>\n
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![\"Travel](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/travel-reviews-and-ratings.png\")
<\/p>\n#5 \u2013 Technical SEO<\/h2>\n
#6 \u2013 Social\u00a0SEO<\/h2>\n
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Social SEO best practices for travel websites<\/h3>\n
#7 – Link building<\/h2>\n
![\"Example](\"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/travel-blog-example.jpg\")
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