4 essential steps to get your travel website on the map
Let’s face it, when it comes to dreaming of your next holiday destination, the vast majority of us will research, plan and book everything online.
If you’re in the travel or hospitality industry, how does your website currently stack up? Could your online presence do with a boost?
Ponder this:
1. Is your website visually appealing?
What grabs your attention when planning a trip? We all get drawn in by visuals, whether its crystal blue waters, scenic mountain ranges or exhilarating attractions – images are what captivate your audience. Having a website that showcases the best of your destination or product visually, will stimulate interest and encourage the user to explore your site in more detail.
Recently, we worked together with the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife to revamp the Shark Bay World Heritage website. This natural wonderland is one of only 19 UNESCO world heritage listed sites in Australia.
Our client required a website to illustrate its beauty to the world, with appealing imagery that highlights the region’s diverse and fascinating landscapes, unlike anywhere else in the world.
Primarily used as a resource and planning tool for travellers and students, the images were also essential to balance out the impressive volume of content made available on the site.
2. Do you have engaging video content?
Keeping to the theme of visuals, if you’re not creating some form of video content by now – you should be! It’s what consumers with the travel itch are seeking out and using more than anything to get travel ideas and inspiration.
Having a YouTube channel ensures you’re staying relevant and creating purchase intent for your destination or product. And it makes for great social sharing too!
3. How does your website look on mobile?
As consumers continue to gain more trust and reliance in mobile devices for their travel planning and decision making, it’s a no brainer that you should have a mobile friendly site. And, when you start to look at key traveller demographics, 2 out of 3 millennial travellers have no concerns planning their entire trip on their smart phone.
Desktop still takes the cake for securing bookings, but having a responsive site ensures a positive mobile user experience, and leaves a lasting impression for your brand across all platforms.
In the case of Shark Bay, one of the key challenges was to improve the fluidity and user experience, allowing the sheer amount of content on the site to be easily accessible, no matter what the device.
The new mobile responsive Shark Bay website provides travellers with an ‘on the go’ mobile experience. So if they are searching for attractions and tourist information while visiting, they can easily navigate and locate what they are looking for, regardless of where they are.
4. Do you have an effective search strategy?
Hitting up a Google search. It’s among the first place people go to when looking for travel inspiration. If you want to plant a seed in a traveller’s early decision making process, you need to stay competitive in search. Having an effective SEO strategy will ensure you rank highly for relevant search terms, increase your exposure and generate more organic leads.
The travel and hospitality industry easily lends itself to leveraging everything that digital marketing has to offer, and hopefully these tips are just the start of how your business can evolve online.
Could your website do with a serious makeover? Get in touch with Perth Web Design to start transforming your travel business online.