Destination marketers aren't taking full advantage of the web's potential to attract travel consumers, according to 'Building a Destination Website' in the Wanderlust Report, Volume 1, Number 2.
In a recent issue of their online newsletter, destination branding agency Wanderlust shared best practices for building a website that both travellers and search engines will love.
Mark D. Shipley, President and Chief Strategic Officer of Wanderlust, commented that considering the maturity of the industry's online presence compared to most other categories, he was continually amazed at how few resort, destination and attraction websites follow best practices for site design, content strategy and search engine optimization.
Wanderlust indicated that in the old web 1.0 days, marketers used websites as 'brochureware'; a place to point campaigns in other media, a place to close the deal.
But things have changed. Today, it's perfectly reasonable to expect your website to attract travellers early in the buying process through inbound links, organic searches and paid searches, which are often necessary to gain traction. At the same time, your website should help nurture consumers until they're ready to buy. To accomplish these aggressive goals, websites must offer content that is compelling - not just to humans seeking travel information at all stages of the buying process, but also to search engines on a quest for relevance.
Why cater to two such diverse audiences? Upwards of 70% of all travel planning begins online. The place most people start? While Bing has made inroads recently, it's still Google. The position of Google as the de facto search engine of choice rests squarely on the company's ability to deliver the most relevant search results. Google goes to great lengths to evaluate every page on every website, indexing and ranking each based on its relevance to a particular search term.
Shipley walked through an example of online search functionality. When you search for 'family-friendly resort in the Poconos,' Google wants to make sure that you get what you're looking for, so the search engine carefully screens sites for content that matches your keywords. Unfortunately, the resorts aren't doing their part to facilitate successful searches. On the first page of results from this sample search, only one in ten listings is actually a resort. The other nine are aggregators and repackagers who make my search more difficult and commodify the resorts competing for my business.
Clearly, developing a successful and attractive travel website for today's sophisticated internet marketplace requires more than a flashy interface or a repurposing of resort collateral. It requires an understanding of what consumers are searching for and how you can leverage Internet search technology to maximize site traffic. Shipley concludes that the effectiveness of your site hinges on the strategies and decisions you make right from the beginning. (Travel Industry Wire, October 2009)
