Digital Marketing Success for Travel Websites

For Travel and Tourism Websites
DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCES
Ecotourism Master Class – February 3rd, 2015
Ferdinand Weps
Co-Founder & Managing Partner
TrainingAid
TrainingAid | Skills Training for Tourism Professionals | www.trainingaid.org

OUTLINE
Digital Marketing Strategy: Make the Most of Your Online Presence
SEO & Content Marketing: Optimize for Search, Engage Travelers
Examples & Inspirations: Travel Digital Marketing in Action
Key ingredients of digital marketing success based on your business goals.
What you need to know about SEO & its roles in content marketing.
Learn from the best & ﬁnd lessons and ideas for your digital marketing eﬀorts.
2.
3.
4.
Digital Marketing Basics: the What and the Why
What’s digital marketing all about, and why is it important for travel brands?
1.

1.Digital Marketing 3.SEO & More 4.Examples2.Your Strategy
Digital Marketing: What Are We Talking About?

Digital Marketing: Why Does It Matter?


Content Marketing: Marketing
through valuable, relevant and
consistent content, with the goal
of attracting a target audience and
driving customer action.
Inbound Marketing: Marketing
through activities that bring visitors
in by earning their attention with
interesting and valuable content
(óOutbound Marketing).
*Both content marketing and inbound marketing are relevant to social media marketing,
which should be considered part of content marketing and often takes advantage of
inbound marketing tactics.
Digital Marketing: Key Terms & Concepts


SEO (Search Engine
Optimization): The process of
improving your website’s visibility
by impacting search engines’
organic search results.
Web Analytics: Ways of
measuring consumer reactions
to your digital marketing eﬀorts,
from consumer demographics to
their online behavior.
Digital Marketing: Key Tools & Approaches

•  Build a focused & measureable marketing strategy which
is in line with your overall business goals and priorities.
•  Track your performance based on consistent
performance indicators.
•  Focus your marketing eﬀorts by prioritizing your goals
and approaches.
Your Marketing Strategy

1) Track & Measure Your Digital
Marketing Success
Make sure to incorporate analytics into your
digital marketing strategy, so that you can
track and measure your eﬀorts and evaluate
your performance based on data.

Google Analytics Report Examples:

The ultimate goal of your digital marketing efforts is to achieve your
conversion goals (the goals you set for specific actions you want
your site visitors to take), which should be defined in your strategy.
2) Focus on Goals That Matter
Newsletter Signup Online BookingBrochure Download Online Inquiry Form

Set Goals in Google Analytics to track your conversion
goals (e.g. newsletter sign ups, online purchases).
Analyze conversion rates by displaying data on Goal
Completions on Google Analytics reports (e.g.
Acquisition reports).

3) Customer Profile:
Know Your Audience
Build a customer profile based on what you
know about your current and/or desired
customers.
•  Your Ideal Customer: What are some of the
personal attributes, professional priorities, social
concerns, and lifestyle choices?
•  Decision-Making: What are important factors
that influence their purchase decisions?
•  Interests & Motivations: Which topics and
content types are they most interested in? What
are they looking for in a trip/destination, and
what do they enjoy most?

4) Focus on the
Journey
Your customers are engaging with
your content in different ways at
different points along their
customer journey.
>> You need targeted approaches
to different types of interactions in
order to maximize conversion rates.

Multi-Channel Funnel > Time Lag / Path LengthMulti-Channel Funnel > Top Conversion Paths

5) Attribution: The
Value of Customer
Interactions
Use Google Analytics’ Attribution Model
Comparison Tool to ﬁnd out which channels
are more likely to lead to last interactions.
Based on this data, test your assumptions
and adjust your marketing eﬀorts.

Visitor 1 Visitor 2 Visitor 3
CONVERSION / PURCHASE

Google Analytics - Attribution Model Comparison Tool


Define Your Conversion Goals: Rather than simply counting numbers of views
and clicks, clearly define what actions you want site visitors to take.
Build a Roadmap: Based on your conversion goals, build your digital marketing
strategy to guide your efforts.
Focus on Engaging Your Customers: Focus on content that reflects your
customers’ wants and needs, and pay attention to how they interact with you.
Some Takeaways…

•  Search Traﬃc: Helping search engines understand your content
better and improving your organic search ranking.
•  Digital Presence: Supporting your overall content marketing eﬀorts.
•  Reach Your Audience: Making your content more likely to be found
by travelers.
•  Not JUST about Search: It’s not just about keywords and SEO-
friendly website practices, but also about the quality of your content.
What’s SEO All About?

•  Build Great Content: In
addition to technical details of
SEO, focus on building
attractive content around
relevant topics.
•  Don’t Forget the WHY: The
main goal of your marketing
eﬀorts is to engage, inspire
and connect with your
audience.
Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture

The more satisfied your site visitors are with your content, the longer
they stay & the more often they visit.
To keep your visitors happy:
•  Make a great first impression (home page & the rest of the site).
•  Minimize frictions & roadblocks (e.g. page load speed, broken links).
•  Offer clear calls-to-action.
User Experience Matters for SEO

The percentage of visitors
who enter the site and
"bounce" (leave the site)
without viewing other pages
on the site.
Bounce rates are key to SEO
as they serve as an indicator
of user satisfaction.
Bounce Rates
Google Analytics Report (Acquisition > All Traﬃc > Channels)

Google Analytics report
comparing the behavior of those
who have been to your site
before and those who are new
to the site.
New vs. return visits are also an
important indicator of your
website performance.
New vs. Returning
Visitors
New vs. Returning Visitor Report (Audience > Behavior)

In a nutshell, your website content needs:
1.  Relevance: Create content that’s relevant to the context of what
searchers look for, and the topics they’re interested in.
2.  Importance: Promote your content so that it becomes popular
with those who ﬁnd it, and aim to keep your site visitors happy by
satisfying their needs.
What You Need to Do…

Search engines decide
which pages are more
relevant and important
based on a number of SEO
ranking factors.
What Determines
Search Ranking?

Focus on those factors that have
most impact on search ranking:
•  Click Through Rate (CTR).
•  Relevant search terms.
•  Number of back links.
•  Social media interactions (e.g.
Google Plus, Facebook).
www.searchmetrics.comWhich SEO Factors
Are Most Important?

SEO-Friendly
Website Practices
Finding & Optimizing
for Keywords
Link Building
Strategies
Social Media’s
Role in SEO
Speciﬁc SEO Tactics

The ratio of clicks to impressions
SEO Report on Google Analytics
How many times does a page
appear on the search result
page, and out of those
impressions how many result
in visits to that page?
Click Through Rate (CTR)

Eliminate Unnecessary Steps: Can your site users
easily find what they want right from the home page?
Using “flat” site architecture helps.
Improve CTR: Site Architecture
Avoid Content Silos: Make sure that the lower level pages
are linked from different sections that are relevant in
content, and interlinked with each other.

Google Analytics
Behavior Flow Chart
Analyze Traﬃc & Interaction Patterns

Where to Use Your Keywords
Sample Page Optimized for “Wildlife Travel”
On-Page Optimization:
•  Use your target keywords
as part of the indexable
content of your website
(=content that can be read
by search engines).
•  Make sure to use them in a
natural way, within the
context of related content.

•  Relevant: speciﬁc, focused on your business.
•  Likely to Convert: in line with your audience’s search intent.
•  Related in Themes: pick group of related keywords.
•  Popular: receiving high enough traﬃc volume.
•  Low-Competition: do not have too much competition.
Target keywords that are…
Find & Optimize for Targeted Keywords

Popular terms that describe broad
categories make up only a small
portion of searches performed online.
Search results for common single
keywords such as “travel” or “hotel” are
mostly large aggregator websites.
>> Too competitive.
Why “Low-Competition”?

Examples:
•  “Italy travel” vs. “walking tours in northern Italy”
•  “Iceland holiday” vs. “best place to stay in Iceland”
•  Long-tail search terms are more specific and contain more information
about the searcher’s intent.
•  To find the right long-tail keywords to target, focus on terms that are
relevant to your areas of expertise, and the specific questions your
customers may ask when searching.
•  Those who are searching with long-tail search terms are more likely to be
further down on their customer journeys.
Long-Tail Keywords

Keyword Research Steps
1.  Gather ideas.
2.  Experiment with modiﬁers.
3.  Experiment with AdWords.
4.  Reﬁne keyword themes.
5.  Determine competition.
6.  Select & apply.
How to Find the Right Keywords

Google Analytics’ Acquisition report for Organic
Search cannot display accurate data on keyword
searches (“Not Provided”).
Solution: Connect your Google Analytics account with
Google Webmaster Tools to access more information
on which keywords people use to get to your website.
How to Monitor Data on Keywords

•  Diversify your link portfolio: Don’t
focus too much on one type of links.
•  Build links from popular sites: Focus
on links from globally and locally
popular sites.
•  Links from trusted sites: Focus on links
from sites with high domain authority.
Search Results Page with Moz SEO Toolbar
DA = Domain Authority
Link Building: Key Goals

•  Organic & Editorial Links: Links that come naturally from other sites
because others ﬁnd your content worthwhile. These are among the
best ways to naturally expose your content to search engines'
crawlers.
•  Manual & Self-Created Links: Links you earn by asking or adding to
other sites yourself. Not as valuable as organic links from trusted
sites, but when done well, these can be a helpful part of your link
building eﬀorts.
Link Building: Inbound Link Types

To Attract Organic & Editorial Links:
•  Be found by having high-quality, relevant and useful content.
•  Get noticed by being newsworthy.
To Build Manual & Self-Created Links:
•  Reach out to relevant and trustworthy sites with good content.
•  Create content that you can suggest to others to replace old/expired
links.
Link Building Approaches

•  Quantity: Engagement levels
(numbers of likes, shares, etc.)
•  Quality: The relevancy of social
content.
•  Authority: The authority of social
accounts.
www.backlinko.com
“Google’s 200 Ranking Factors: The Complete List”
Social Signals as
SEO Factors

•  Choose social media platforms
strategically based on where your
audience is.
•  Engage followers in meaningful
conversations.
•  Inspire with great travel content.
•  Create and promote “shareable” content.
•  Don’t forget to track and measure your
social performance.
How to Make the Most of Social Media
Google Analytics Report on Social Traﬃc
(Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals)


User Experience Matters: From simple navigation menu to clear calls-to-action,
making your website user-friendly is a key part of your SEO performance.
Focus on Quality, Not Just Quantity: Technical details are important to SEO, but
without quality content search ranking won’t help your business.
Focus on Key SEO Ranking Factors: To boost your SEO eﬀorts, focus on some of
the most important SEO ranking factors such as backlinks and social media.
Some Takeaways…

Examples & Lessons:
Navigation Menu

“Self-Centered”
Navigation Menu
•  Usability: Are you designing
your navigation menu with the
user in mind, or simply listing
everything YOU want to
include?
•  Flow: Are you considering
logical and useful ﬂow of your
website content from the
user’s perspective?

User-Oriented
Navigation Menu
www.gadventures.com
•  Travelers’ Interests: The menu
guides travelers to diﬀerent
sections, helping them explore
trip options.
•  Key Questions: The navigation
focuses on key questions most
travelers will want to ask: e.g.
“What type of travel experience
can I ﬁnd?”, “Where in the world
do I want to go?”

www.visitcopenhagen.com
•  Main Goal: To help travelers get
to know the city and plan their
visit.
•  Simple Guide: The site structure
makes it easy for travelers to ﬁnd
answers to their key questions -
what’s there to do in the city,
where to go for eating and
shopping, and where can I stay?
Simple & Clean Design

Examples & Lessons:
On-Page Optimization

This page ranks high for search
terms such as: “conservation
volunteer travel” and “conservation
volunteer abroad”.

This page receives high organic
search ranking for terms such as
"northern lights tours norway” and
"northern lights viewing norway”.

This page about Galapagos Islands
travel is a good example, using
relevant keywords such as
“Galapagos islands vacation”,
“small ships”, and “Galapagos
cruise”.

The top photo on the blog post on
“Deaf tourism and Wesemann
Travel” is added with the alt tag
“deaf tourism in zanzibar”, which
tells search engines that this image
is relevant to the topic of “deaf
tourism”.

Examples & Lessons:
Link Building

Natural Habitat Adventures Strategic Alliances: Build industry partnerships with trusted
organizations by working with like-minded companies and
actively participating in relevant communities.

Pack for a Purpose
Be Newsworthy: Earn media coverage by having and being
a good story that’s newsworthy.
Harness the power of your network: Get the
members of your community (especially those
who have active online presence) to link to you.

Examples & Lessons:
Social Media

World Nomads
Google Hangouts are among the most exciting aspects of
Google Plus. Hangout are recorded, so you can both
engage an live audience and have a piece of video content
that you can use and re-use afterword.

Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants
#kimptonlove
#winewednesday
Share fun and engaging content by using your own
hashtag, or by joining a relevant and popular “social media
holiday” such as #traveltuesday and #winewednesday.

1.  Think about your digital marketing strategy.
2.  Set up goals and start measuring (Google
Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools).
3.  Review and analyze your website and search
performance.
4.  Work on strategic content marketing
approaches (e.g. blogs, link building)
5.  Explore social media marketing ideas.
WHAT NOW?

Thank You!
Stay In Touch & Keep Sharing Your Stories…
Facebook.com/TrainingAid
Linkedin.com/company/trainingaid
Ferdinand Weps
Co-Founder & Managing
Partner, TrainingAid
ferdinand@trainingaid.org
TrainingAid | Skills Training for Tourism Professionals | www.trainingaid.org

Digital Marketing Success for Travel Websites

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