digital marketing success for travel and tourism websites

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For Travel and Tourism Websites DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCES Ferdinand Weps Co-Founder & Managing Partner TrainingAid

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Page 1: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism 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

Page 2: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

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.

Page 3: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Digital Marketing: What Are We Talking About?

Page 4: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Digital Marketing: Why Does It Matter?

Page 5: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

             

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 (óOutbound 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

             

Page 6: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

             

             

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

Page 7: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

Page 8: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your 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.

Page 9: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Google Analytics Report Examples:

Page 10: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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 Booking Brochure Download Online Inquiry Form

Page 11: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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).

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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?

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

Page 16: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

Page 17: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Visitor 1 Visitor 2 Visitor 3

CONVERSION / PURCHASE

Page 18: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Google Analytics - Attribution Model Comparison Tool

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

                           

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…

Page 20: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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?

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

Page 22: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

Page 23: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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)

Page 24: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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)

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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…

Page 26: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Search engines decide which pages are more relevant and important

based on a number of SEO ranking factors.

What Determines Search Ranking?

Page 27: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.com Which SEO Factors Are Most Important?

Page 28: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

SEO-Friendly Website Practices

Finding & Optimizing for Keywords

Link Building Strategies

Social Media’s Role in SEO

Specific SEO Tactics

Page 29: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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)

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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. 

Page 31: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Google Analytics Behavior Flow Chart

Analyze Traffic & Interaction Patterns

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

Page 34: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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”?

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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

Page 42: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

•  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)

Page 43: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

                           

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…

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Examples & Lessons: Navigation Menu

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

“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?

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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?”

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Examples & Lessons: On-Page Optimization

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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”.

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Examples & Lessons: Link Building

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

Examples & Lessons: Social Media

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1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

Page 58: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

1. Digital Marketing 3. SEO & More 4. Examples 2. Your Strategy

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.

Page 59: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

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?

Page 60: Digital Marketing Success for Travel and Tourism Websites

Thank You! Stay In Touch & Keep Sharing Your Stories…

Facebook.com/TrainingAid

Linkedin.com/company/trainingaid

Ferdinand Weps Co-Founder & Managing Partner, TrainingAid

[email protected]

TrainingAid | Skills Training for Tourism Professionals | www.trainingaid.org