Running a travel business becomes pretty challenging during pandemic times. There are a lot of concerns the travelers have and travel restrictions but at the same time, the ways to promote a travel agency are still the same. In this guide, we have gathered some winning ideas on how to get more traffic to your business website with the help of content, SEO, and PPC.
Despite SEO being complex technically, there is no effective SEO without valuable and optimized content. So, let’s discover how to attract more traffic to the website, following the best content creation and search engine optimization practices.
Prepare a Content Plan
The first step to begin with is to prepare a content plan for your website blog and main pages. Analyze the most popular queries of your travelers and suggest the set of articles to create in response to their questions. How can a content plan help you with attracting traffic to your website?
The matter is that lead generation needs a constant content update, and your content plan will serve as a guide to follow when preparing new materials. What’s more, search engines need some time to index the article and tailor it to the specific queries, so the earlier you write it - the better for your business.
Gather Your Semantic Core
After you are ready with a content plan, proceed with gathering semantic cores for each of the articles. A semantic core means the set of keywords the travelers use to find the information they need. To research the most relevant key queries and questions, use Ahrefs, Uber Suggest, and Answer the Public.
Use these keywords in your article organically so that a search engine can quickly understand the essence of the page, matching its content with the users’ intent, and search query.
Answering the popular questions of your customers is another effective tactic for attracting leads with the help of content and SEO. Write down the set of the questions your travelers ask frequently, use Answer the Public to research additional questions, and come up with something like the ultimate FAQ guide on a certain topic.
Keep Your Travelers Updated
Updating your travelers on pandemic-related changes, travel restrictions and new rules is a good tactic to attract new traffic since a lot of people are looking for sources with clear explanations, proven information, and step-by-step guidance. Use this lack of verified information on Covid-related restrictions for travelers as an opportunity to fill in the gap and establish your agency as a source of reliable data.
Employ Testimonial Marketing
Testimonial marketing is a very powerful tool in the field of tourism and travel. This is the tactic to attract more traffic and qualified leads, streamline decision-making and build the loyalty of your customers. Below are some ideas to use this strategy:
Tell the Stories
The travel business is about selling emotions, impressions, and adventures. Sell them using the power of storytelling content. Telling branded stories is one of the most effective marketing tactics to date, so you can follow this strategy as well to better engage your prospective travelers.
Telling real stories is also an option to not only attract traffic to your website from social media for example but to sell a trip to a certain destination. Being inspired by the story, potential travelers are likely to feel the desire to go on an adventure, choosing your agency for professional support. That’s why you are also welcome to share life-proven tips, in addition to the story you tell. For example, you can kindly remind your audience of the necessity to have Covid insurance they can buy from EKTA TRAVEL.
Use a Lot of Visuals
Using a lot of visuals in your marketing content is another ever-green tactic to attract more prospective leads and improve the behavioral factors on your website at once. For example, you can ask your travelers to share some photos and use them as a part of your SEO content. Such custom images are the best options ever since they add uniqueness to your content, plus help you build credibility.
Use Videos
In addition to images, using videos as a tool for attracting new traffic is also a winning idea. While the video content share is projected to reach 87% by 2022, you are welcome to promote your business with the help of videos already now.
For example, you, as a travel business owner, can shoot a video about a hotel, prepare a city guide, briefly review all the sights worth the attention of tourists, and embed these videos in your SEO content, plus promote it via social media.
PPC advertising as a part of search engine marketing is one of the most effective strategies to quickly grab the attention of the users and land them on the offer page. According to statistics, 65% of internet customers click on PPC ads, and what’s more, this tactic is easier and more effective compared to SEO. While you have to wait for a search engine to index the web pages and begin to boost your SEO rankings, the results from PPC advertising are almost instant since the promoted page gets the top place among the search results.
Let’s find out how to use PPC marketing to promote a travel business and attract more qualified leads to your website.
Create Dedicated and Reusable Landing Pages
Creating dedicated landing pages and promoting them via PPC is one of the best practices for search engine marketing. Promoting landing pages have several significant advantages compared to promoting the whole website of a travel agency:
So, consider the following PPC tactic.
1.Choose the service package your travelers like most
2.Create a separate landing page dedicated to it and describing all the details
3.Set up a PPC campaign with the help of Google Adwords
4.Be smart with the keywords you use for the campaign - they should match the essence of the offer
5.Target different audiences - for example, you can show your ads to those from the city your business is located in, or to those from the destination you are selling the trip to. The last approach is suitable when you promote a hotel booking alone since a lot of tourists are looking for accommodation already on the spot.
Promote Packages
Selling impressions in a bunch is an even better tactic than promoting a landing page alone. For instance, the example below shows the way to sell travel packages in the UK. The benefits of such an offer are that you can sell more while doing less, and you travelers are getting more as well. The example below showcases the sightseeing tours, and this is an attractive opportunity for those visiting the city for the first time.
Consider PPC as an option to sell your special or new services, for example, VIP excursions and so on.
What’s more, promoting your content with the help of this tactic is also possible. For instance, Airbnb promotes their article with top places in London to visit, and you are welcome to do the same - just choose the best content piece to promote.
Experiment With Intents and Paint Points
One of the best things about running PPC ads is that you can tailor your promo to any intent or key query. For instance, in the example below, the PPC campaign ranks for the “cheap hotel” query which instantly highlights the pain point of the audience. To implement this tactic even more successfully, analyze the concerns and pain points of your travelers in advance. Proceed from the questions they ask you most frequently and approach running PPC ads with a pain-focused tactic in mind.
As one more option, consider selling hot deals with the help of PPC. This is one more tactic that is suitable to sell impressions to budget-sensitive travelers but it has good chances of getting a high conversion rate.
Talking about the ways to promote a travel business with the help of content and PPC, it would be wrong to miss social media marketing. Social media is one of the strongest channels to attract prospective leads, engage them with the content, tell branded stories and stay in touch with current customers. Let’s find out how to drive more traffic to your website with the help of social media.
Use as Much UGC as Possible
The content generated by users is a perfect marketing opportunity, especially for a business that sells emotions and experiences. So, encourage your travelers to mention your brand when sharing their posts, ask for permission to reuse the photo in your profile or even website, and do it to show your prospective leads the impressions and emotions they can get after booking a tour with you.
And one more point on UGC - one of the best things about it is that it is free to create and use. Most modern travelers are eager to share their trips on social media, and in response to the professional help you have provided, they would mention your business even without the need to ask them about it.
Bet on Visual Content
Most social media are highly visual, especially Instagram. What’s more, Instagram is a perfect place to promote a travel business since it allows for sharing visual and video content, which, as a rule, triggers the right emotions among prospective travelers.
So, the next tip is pretty simple - mix user-generated content with the ones you create on your own or borrow from travel bloggers and influencers to run a visually attractive social media profile. Being lured by the beautiful picture, your visitors are likely to find out more about the destination, location, and the options to visit it. So, make sure to always have a link to the website and your contact data at the end of each of the posts.
Redirect Them to the Website for a Special Offer
The Fear of Missing Out is an old strategy but it still works when applied right. Using the FOMO tactics to promote special offers, hot prices, the last flights, and accommodation discounts can be a perfect strategy to boost decision-making and improve your conversion rate.
So, consider offering something special to your social media subscribers every day. Even despite the pandemic challenges, there are still some hot deals the travelers expect travel agencies to share and offer. Use this opportunity to trigger additional sales and increase traffic to your website.
As for the latter task, don’t forget to share a link to your website, preferably, to the search system where the users can find the deal they need on their own.
Promoting the travel business is as hard during the pandemic as never before. Still, the travel industry begins to recover while travelers are getting used to the new rules and restrictions. Fortunately, the best digital marketing practices are the same so there is no need to reinvent the wheel to attract qualified leads to your travel agency website. Get started with creating top-notch content, taking the users’ pain points and concerns into account, making it SEO-optimized and then, promoting it via PPC, along with the service landing pages.
