Tourism SEO Services

Tourism SEO Services: The height of the Virginia Beach tourist season lasts from late May to early September. During this time, people flood in from all over the country and the world. Many businesses make the majority of their money during tourist season. This is why focusing on Tourism SEO Services is a critical part of your Virginia Beach business.

You don’t have to be an expert to know that people on vacation come with money to spend. If your business is positioned correctly, you could be in the purchasing path of these vacationers.

The purchasing path is the time an idea enters a customer’s mind to the moment they make the purchase. Google has segmented this path into tangible bits to help businesses offer customers the most value.

Search engines are flooded with businesses and, unless you’re in a prime beachfront location, you can’t rely solely on foot traffic. This is where SEO comes in. The right SEO strategy will help you gain visibility in a saturated space on and off-line.

In this post we’re going to discuss:

• What SEO is
• The benefits of SEO
• Types of SEO Content
• How to use SEO to capitalize on the tourist season

First, let’s talk a little about tourism and the traveler’s journey.

Tourism

The tourism and hospitality industry is vital to many local economies. It supports salaries for residents, hospitals, and schools.

Tourism for the coastal city of Virginia Beach has been steadily climbing in revenue for the last 5 years. In 2017, the city generated a record-breaking $2.45 billion during the tourist season. It hosted visitors from all over the US, Canada, and other countries around the world.

Google breaks down a traveler’s journey into 4 parts: dreaming, planning, booking, and experiencing.

Each of these parts are called moments. Within these moments are micro-moments. Micro-moments are the quick searches done when someone wants to know something right away. These quick searches are increasing in volume and converting to sales.

Businesses that build a content strategy around these moments see an overall increase in intangible results. Identifying user intent during these moments and offering the best value is the key to success.

Value is measured by how well you satisfy their search need. No matter how great your content is, it doesn’t matter if customers can’t find it.

Using the right SEO techniques will help gain visibility in your industry.

What is SEO?

The term SEO stands for search engine optimization. In the digital age, businesses are only as competitive as their visibility in search results. SEO is a system of processes performed in order to rank higher in search engine results.

SEO techniques seek to generate traffic to a website or a webpage via free search results. Techniques include using keywords in titles, content, metadata, and building backlinks. Essentially, you are positioning yourself to be found in the natural search path.

Because Google is the most popular, SEO evolves with each change to Google’s ranking standards. Local SEO seeks to help brick and mortar businesses gain foot traffic via an online presence.

Types of Content

Content marketing is a great way to take advantage of longtail keywords with less competition. Longtail keywords are phrases that contain 3 or more words. They are more specific search terms and allow companies to create niche content.

The content you create for customers will depend largely on where they are in their traveler journey. Content for the dreaming phase will be different from content in the planning or booking phase.

You should be visible at all stages. Creating a great experience for your customers will keep them coming back to you year after year.

Here some common types of content:

Blogging – This is a tried and true method of creating content. Blogs are harder to succeed within 2019, but despite this, they are still a great way to provide the information your customers are looking for. Local small business blogs should feature the town around your business.

Video

Video is a great way to display a more relatable view of your business. Content that includes video or visual media is more likely to be shared. Showcase your products, interview local experts, or let your customers talk about why they love your business.

User-generated content

User-generated content includes anything you showcase from your customers. It can be fan art, travel photos, selfies, and more. This is a great form of reputation management. Customers that see others enjoying your business will feel more confident using your services.

FAQs

Voice search is quickly taking over micro-moment searches. When someone performs a voice search, an answer box appears. Many searchers don’t go past this point. To capitalize on the answer box, create a FAQ page. Your frequently-asked-questions page should be pertinent information people in your industry ask often.

In all content, using popular keywords is critical to the success of your content.

7 Benefits of SEO for Tourism

50% of internet search traffic is from mobile devices. What do you do when you travel to a new place and find your tummy grumbling? You whip out your phone to find the nearest place to eat based on reviews.

If your business doesn’t show up in search results, you’re missing out on profits. Here are 7 benefits of SEO for tourism.

1. Targeted Traffic

Using SEO tactics means you use popular keywords in your industry. Targeting relevant keywords means you get found by the people looking for what your business provides. Satisfying the intention of what they were looking for will lead to sales.

If you have high traffic numbers but low conversions, you have a good guess that somewhere in your content you aren’t providing the right value.

2. Local Search Ranking Leads to More Sales

According to a study by Google, 50% of people who search for a local business will travel to that business within 24 hours. Tourists use their phones as personal guides in a new land. They are looking for entertainment, food, accommodations and more.

Ranking for popular search terms improves the chances of winning their business.

3. Get in Front of Leisure Travelers

63% of people traveling for vacation use search engines as their first planning tool. This is in contrast to business travelers who start on hotel websites. Your optimized content will catch potential customers in every phase of their purchasing path. This will make sure that your business is one they make a note to visit.

4. Stay Competitive

The internet connects stores to customers on opposite sides of the world. This has increased possibilities for some and created hardships for others. As people do more shopping online, local brick and mortars lose business. This is evidenced by the recent closings of several major retailers.

Adaptation to changing times is a basic survival principle for any endeavor. SEO helps build a virtual storefront and allows your business to stay visible in a growing market.

5. Highest Ranking Sites Get Continuous Promotion

Long after you create your SEO content, you’re ranking in search engines will stand. Properly executed SEO can take 6 months to a year to see tangible results. Once your site ranks on the first page, it can stay there for years.

Websites ranked on the first page of Google lose clicks the further down the page they are. Your business may as well not exist if you rank on page 2 or 3. Search engine optimization brings you front and center where your content can be discovered.

6. SEO Improves Your Visibility

The major purpose and benefit of SEO are that it improves your visibility. In the digital age, relying solely on foot traffic is not enough to pull in customers. When a customer does a voice search for a restaurant near the beach, you want your business to show up in the results.

7. Good SEO Builds Credibility

Content marketing is part of a good SEO strategy. Good content can establish you as an authority on a subject and build trust with your readers. For example, if you compile a ‘local events’ list, customers that try those things will keep coming back to your site.

This also improves the chances that other businesses will want to collaborate with you.

How to Use SEO to Capitalize on Tourist Season

For sticky, humid climates like coastal Virginia, beach season can’t last long enough. The good news about SEO is that the work you do for this year will continue to pay dividends for next year’s beach bum migration. The following are some ways to use SEO to capitalize on the tourist season.

Partner With Local Events

To capitalize on tourist traffic find out where people are spending their time. Is it food trucks on the beach or open-air concerts? Collaborate with these local businesses. Offer to guest post on their blogs or trade social media for the day.

The links you build from other websites back to your pages help to build visibility in search results. Also, offer your services for free or at a discount. From there you can direct customers to your business.

Newsjacking

Newsjacking is taking a subject that’s trending and refocusing the topic on your business. The most popular form of this was the Amazon drone hoax. Drones were the talk of every news feed so they concocted a story about delivering packages with drones.

It had the desired effect and raised their profile. Amazon is continuing with this story for other major news events even though there is still no concrete evidence they are actually coming out with drone delivery.

Try this with a calendar of events in your town.

Keep Your Reviews Visible

Online folks trust reviews about as much as they trust their bestie. People check reviews before they make a purchase online and in real life. Reputation management is a vital part of a good online strategy. So don’t be afraid of the ‘humble brag’.

Keep your positive reviews front and center on your website. Make sure to address negative reviews quickly. Customers will be more confident using your service when they see how you handle issues.

Try an SEO Service

Running a successful business often requires wearing many hats. You’re an accountant, a chef, a marketer, an event planner, etc. But the best businesses focus on what they are good at.

Hiring an SEO service allows business owners this focus. SEO is a combination of continuous effort over time. Done wrong, it will take longer to get the desired effect. Done really wrong, you can get your site banned from search results.

You’re an expert in your industry. Consider letting another expert grow your traffic and revenue.

Things to Remember

The benefits of SEO are available to all who seek. But it’s not an overnight process. It requires consistent, continual effort before you start to see tangible results.

For the tourism industry, mobile phones have changed the way people travel. Desktop searches are still strong but traffic from smartphones is gaining share each year. Mobile phones create short bursts of search traffic and are gone just as quickly. Taking advantage of these micro-moments are integral to business success.

To capitalize on SEO, identify where your clients are in their search journey. Target your content toward the ‘buying moment’ or the ‘planning moment’. It’s important that you understand the user’s intention so you can offer the most value.

Businesses that have diligent SEO implementation reap the benefits of heightened visibility, increased foot traffic, and higher conversion rates.

If this sounds overwhelming, don’t fear. Partner with professional SEO service and stress less.