web optimization is vital within the journey trade. Whereas most vacationers may acquire inspiration on TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, they may nonetheless search on Google earlier than buying.
In reality, in accordance with Kevin Indig, journey was the fifth largest trade on the net by natural visibility in June 2024.
If you wish to generate extra bookings or get extra prospects, you’ll need to do web optimization. To write down this information on journey web optimization, I interviewed seven skilled journey SEOs:
Kevin Indig additionally very kindly shared his paid publication on travel SEO with me.
The fundamentals of web optimization are the identical for each trade. It is advisable to create high-quality content material, earn backlinks, and ensure your web site is freed from technical points.
However journey web optimization has some distinctive challenges:
- Journey isn’t only one trade however is made up of many various industries and gamers—there are on-line journey companies, comparability websites, accommodations, airways, cruise operators, tour operators, automotive rental firms, journey know-how firms, journey bloggers, and even journey insurance coverage.
- You’re competing with Google itself. Google has its own travel product, which it’s glad to insert into the SERPs. Google additionally dominates the SERPs by exhibiting many various SERP options for travel-related key phrases, which normally reply the question (e.g., issues to do in Barcelona).
- Standard key phrases are additionally dominated by large worldwide manufacturers like TripAdvisor and Reserving.com.
- Many journey firms, similar to tour operators, solely serve a specific native space.
- Many vacationers don’t go to or ebook journeys through a enterprise’s web site. That is very true for airways and accommodations. As an alternative, vacationers may search through Skyscanner or Reserving.com.
- Seasonality and real-world occasions (e.g., terrorism, pandemics, pure disasters) can affect your search visibility.
On this article, we’ll present you the best way to remedy these issues.
The most well-liked travel-related key phrases are dominated by Google, SERP options, and large websites.
Coupled with Google’s insistence on rolling out AI Overviews (now in six more countries, apart from the U.S.), many phrases are out of attain for many journey web sites.
That is why many of the specialists I spoke to are actually specializing in key phrases that truly drive enterprise. Usually, these are middle- to bottom-of-the-funnel subjects.
For instance, as a substitute of concentrating on top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) phrases like “london tour” or “issues to do in London”, a London-based tour operator might goal key phrases like “harry potter strolling tour for muggles in london” or “world conflict 2 strolling tour london” (offered they provide these excursions.)
Whereas search quantity might not be excessive, these key phrases exhibit intent. Somebody looking for “harry potter strolling tour for muggles in london” is near the acquisition resolution—they’ve already determined to go to London or are maybe already in London. They’re more likely to convert.
This key phrase can also be simpler to compete for: Key phrase Issue (KD) is just 6 and there are websites rating within the high 10 with low Area Rankings:
To seek out these key phrases with enterprise potential, enter a number of seed key phrases into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer and go to the Matching phrases report. For instance, as a London-based tour firm, I would enter the areas I cowl (e.g., Westminster, Kensington, Paddington, Soho).
I’ll undergo the report and pick the key phrases which might be related to my web site. I might even slim down the report by particularly in search of key phrases with the phrases “tour” or “excursions”:
After you have your listing of key phrases, you’d wish to rating them on their ‘enterprise potential’, or how commercially related they’re to your web site. The best method is to ask whether or not your services or products matches within the subject. That is how we do it at Ahrefs too:
Alternatively, you may go in deeper with numbers and use this method, as suggested by Brennen:
(Month-to-month Search Quantity) x (Key phrase Click on-through Charge) x (Web site Conversion Charge) x (Avg. Gross Margin or Income per Transaction)
By way of this method, you may see that even when site visitors potential is low, so long as it’s commercially related, it could possibly nonetheless be impactful to your organization’s backside line:
To get round competing with massive websites within the SERPs, a standard web optimization technique is to begin with low-competition keywords. In the travel space, as Alex shared, this can manifest as targeting keywords for less popular destinations.
For example, look at the difference in search volume and keyword difficulty between these two keywords:
- Things to do in London
- Things to do in Southampton
It would be easier to target the keyword “things to do in Southampton”.
This would work even if you’re a London-based tour operator. You could easily create an article about the things to do in Southampton—and include a day trip to London as one of the items. (And pitch your tour, of course!)
To find keywords about these less popular destinations, Google for a list of cities or towns in your target country. For example, a search for “cities in England” brings up a list of cities from GOV.UK:
Copy and paste the cities into Keywords Explorer. Then, go to the Matching terms report, click Clusters by Parent Topic, select the Include filter, and add a few common modifiers, like “things to do”, “where to eat”, and “where to stay”. (James Brockbank has a list of common travel modifiers here.)
Going by the report will floor key phrases for much less well-liked locations that we will goal.
“Taylor Swift”.
If there was one thing shocking I heard from a lot of my interviews, it was the worldwide famous person. The rationale: She’s presently holding her Eras Tour all world wide. And search quantity for her tour areas is spiking:
Which implies: A possibility for journey firms to reap the benefits of Swiftonomics.
It’s not simply Taylor Swift. The Olympics, Tomorrowland, and even the Asian meals pageant in your native space might be subjects you create content material about. These trending occasions or subjects might have low search quantity however they might be the primary motive why somebody is touring. It’s vital to seize these alternatives.
As Kevin identified in his e-newsletter, solely KLM bothered to grab the second to rank for “flight paris Olympics”:
The best method to discover trending subjects or occasions is your self. Should you’re based mostly within the space, you ought to be conscious of many of the occasions which might be occurring. Alternatively, you should utilize Google Trends or enter your location (e.g., “London”) into Key phrases Explorer. Then, click on on the Progress column to type by probably the most progress in search quantity.
You’ll be able to see why so many journey web sites are concentrating on Taylor Swift (and don’t neglect her boyfriend, Travis Kelce too!). There’s additionally curiosity in flying to Austin, Texas from London:
Matter clusters, or content hubs, are interlinked collections of content about a similar topic.
For example, our beginner’s guide to SEO is a content hub that links to the major aspects of SEO.
In the travel industry, you can make content hubs based on a potential traveler’s journey. Nina explains:
Start from “what would my audience need to know to plan a trip to this specific location based on their specific travel style?” Map out at least 10 posts in a topic cluster that helps someone go from “hmmm where should I go this summer?” to “I’ve got a fully booked trip and a great tour I can’t wait to go on!
Then rinse and repeat with different clusters, so that the blog becomes a one-stop shop for a person’s trip planning.”
What does a typical traveler’s journey look like? Here’s a diagram from Brennen that showcases the five stages of traveler intent:
For example, for an adventurous traveler, you could recommend a destination like Uzbekistan. A content hub for Uzbekistan may look like this:
- Why you should visit Uzbekistan
- When is the best time to visit Uzbekistan
- Things to do in Uzbekistan
- Best cities to visit in Uzbekistan
- The best Uzbek dishes you should try
- Where to stay in Uzbekistan
- Best restaurants in Tashkent
- Best restaurants in Samarkand
- Silk Roads tour Uzbekistan
- Uzbekistan Kygyrszstan 10 days tour
- Horse riding in Kygyrszstan and Uzbekistan
You can then take those ideas and put them into Keywords Explorer to see how searchers are searching for them and whether they have search volume:
Jared mentioned one thing that shocked me throughout our interview:
Persons are nonetheless utilizing offline, high-street journey brokers as a result of they need that first-hand expertise.
Journey may be very private. Each vacationers aspires to a unique itinerary—some wish to see each touristy attraction, whereas others wish to go off the overwhelmed monitor. Some simply wish to laze on the seashore, whereas others don’t thoughts the difficult climb up Kilimanjaro.
That is what Google is attempting to do within the SERPs as nicely. They’re attempting to prioritize content material that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority, and belief (also referred to as EEAT). And the travel SEOs I talked to agree with infusing first-hand experience into your content.
The best way is to visit those locations in-person. As Nina tells me:
I do lots of research before I go somewhere, take heaps of photos, and take notes along the way. I speak to locals as much as I can, and speak to other travellers because my experience may not be indicative of everyone’s.
Being honest about what you do and don’t know is incredibly important. Being okay with sharing the negatives will build more trust than sugar-coating everything.
Make sure you’re not boring your audience with random nonsense, but add in your experience face planting in the cobblestones when you tried to wear high heels or that the restaurant says it has parking but you’ll need to turn down the side street to access it.
But this strategy has limitations. After all, it’s impossible to visit every location. So, another way is to hire freelance writers.
You shouldn’t hire just any freelancer though. It seems outrageous, but freelance writers can lie, as Katie experienced once. A freelance writer told Katie she went to a particular class and so was qualified to write about it. Turns out, after some fact-checking with the teacher of the class, she was never a student. She merely took something similar and thought she could write about it anyway.
So, you’d want to seriously vet these writers.
Here’s what Katie suggests:
- Look at their writing portfolio — Have they written about the location or experience before? Do they live there currently and have lived there for a long time?
- Ask for photos from the writers — Real-world photos are less likely to be faked.
- “Grill” them about the specifics of their experience — For example, Katie might ask them about their best airline points redemption. That answer can’t be generated from AI or cobbled together from the top-ranking pages.
Matthew does things differently—he goes straight for the best. Most of his contributors have written for major publications and guidebooks.
Most of these writers are themselves entities on Google’s Knowledge Graph, which contributes to the EEAT of his site. Additionally, since they also write for other publications, they occasionally link back to their articles on Horizon Guides.
When it comes to first-hand experience, Matthew looks at what’s already on the SERPs, interrogates LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude) to find out what’s already known, then goes to his contributors and asks if they disagree with any of it or whether they can add something new.
An example he gave me was the topic “hiking in Vietnam”. Most websites that rank for that keyword want to sell the visitor a trip to Sapa. But in reality, at least in his opinion, Sapa is simply too busy and too touristy, which may make for a poor trip for someone who’s flying hours to Vietnam. So, they offer alternatives instead of following what everyone else is writing about.
How do they hire writers? It all comes down to relationships. Decades in the industry have built both Matthew and Katie a rolodex of writers they can reach out to.
Katie also recruits from travel writing groups she belongs to and X:
For an assignment, looking for a travel writer who has Frontier’s all-you-can-fly pass. Pay $400+, please fill out this form.https://t.co/np73qkabBz
— Katie Hammel (@KatieHammel) April 24, 2024
The one strategy that most of the experts I talked to use is digital PR.
For example, Katie ran a campaign where they used their internal data to find the best and worst U.S airports for cheap international flights. The page got a total of 91 backlinks from 76 referring domains:
Most of these links were from media sites like USAToday, LA Times, SFGate, and TimeOut:
Likewise, one of Jared’s digital PR campaigns for his client yielded a respectable 68 backlinks from 58 referring domains:
Again, this campaign got links from media publications like USAToday, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Frommers:
There are no surefire tips for making a digital PR campaign work, but here are some tips from the pros:
- Use your company’s internal data — For example, both Going and Hoppa used their booking data to create linkbait campaigns.
- Third-party data also works — Don’t give up just because you don’t have access to internal data. You can also use third-party data, like what Jared did for the best cities for biking campaign.
- Look at what’s trending or what people are talking about — What’s the cultural or societal hook? Jared’s campaign worked because there was a rise in interest in cycling due to the pandemic.
- Make your campaign hyper-local or design it to have a hyper-local angle — Local publications typically have less to report about, so they’re happy to feature or link to an interesting piece of content. For example, the best airports and best cities for cycling have individual hyper-local angles built in—the PR manager can reach out to each city’s newspaper to tell them they’ve been featured.
- Come up with multiple angles — When pitching journalists, don’t just use one angle. Brainstorm multiple angles — a national publication might be interested in the entire post, but an LA-based publication might only be interested that LA is featured.
You can learn more about digital PR in our guide: Digital PR: The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Brand Unmissable
In accordance with Brennen’s expertise, web page load time is strongly correlated with rankings within the journey trade.
Which is smart, contemplating that pages for journey web sites are media-heavy with a number of photos, images, and movies.
So, you’d wish to be certain that your web site masses quick. To verify your web site’s pace, run a crawl with Ahrefs’ Site Audit. Then, head to the Performance report.
If you connect your API key from Google PageSpeed Insights to Site Audit, you can even check your Core Web Vitals, the three metrics that Google uses to measure a user’s experience on a webpage.
You can learn more about what Core Web Vitals are and how to improve them in our guide: What Are Core Web Vitals (CWVs) & How To Improve Them
Many journey queries are extremely business. Even a TOFU question like “issues to do in Barcelona” has tons of sponsored outcomes:
The reality is that whilst you might rank excessive, get a number of natural site visitors, and educate vacationers on a vacation spot, they could run a Google search and easily click on on a paid outcome and find yourself buying from that web page.
You want paid advertising and marketing to transform prospects within the journey trade.
That’s why Brennen means that journey web sites ought to run paid advertising and marketing campaigns too, particularly retargeting campaigns. For instance, if somebody has learn your article on “issues to do in Samarkand”, you may wish to retarget them along with your Silk Highway tour or Samarkand tour pages.
Last ideas
Journey is an especially saturated and aggressive trade. If you wish to compete with the giants within the SERPs, you’ll want first-hand expertise, concentrating on key phrases that drive conversions, and creating content material that individuals wish to hyperlink to.
This information ought to offer you the whole lot it’s essential rank excessive and get extra bookings or affiliate revenue in your journey web site.
