WITH millions of Brits travelling abroad and throughout the UK, it’s vital travel companies have an effective SEO strategy in place to keep ahead of the competition according to expert search marketing agency.
QueryClick who help businesses raise their online profile and help them understand and attract their ‘virtual’ audience, understand that the travel sector is highly competitive and therefore the key to success is in making websites as visible as possible for as many relevant key words as possible.
A recent report published by leading search specialist, Epiphany, illustrated just how sophisticated and competitive the online travel market is despite challenges faced to the industry as a result of the economic downturn.
Chris Liversidge, founder of QueryClick, who has worked with travel giant British Airways to help boost its online presence said: “Epiphany’s travel sector report for 2012 found that the turnover in 2011 experienced an increase of £2billion and a massive 90 per cent of the UK population took a holiday between September 2010 and 2011.
“Every day, millions of consumers make highly targeted searches for travel, accommodation, hospitality and leisure solutions via search engines.
“These findings clearly show that an annual holiday is still a big part of our culture regardless of economic pressures and other challenging factors.
“With this in mind, it’s crucial that SEO is a core component of any travel industry marketing plan to ensure sites rank high in search engine results for key words and phrases which will increase the company’s visibility online.
“It’s particularly important to target optimising the website with non-brand search terms as consumers often search for generic keywords related to their inquiry and these have a high percentage of new visitors which grow your brand audience as well as revenue.”
Epiphany found that top performers in search engine visibility rankings and keywords include TripAdvisor, Lastminute.com, Travel Supermarket and Thomson.
Chris added: “Big names are dominating the current travel market and many of them can attribute this to investing in their website to compete in the already crowded market place. The end goal is simple: ranking in a high position for key search terms can bring large numbers of high-value consumers to your website.
“It’s also key to point out that if your site allows for a pleasant booking experience your new visitors will become long term customers, returning via brand searches in the future.”
QueryClick has provided some top tips relative to help those in the travel sector, get the most out of their online performance:
- Understand your users to know which key phrases they are searching for and target these effectively on your website. For example, when it comes to holiday searches people start of with a generic term, ‘hotel Marrakech’, and refine their search using longer tail key phrases before converting ‘hotel Marrakech Nouvelle Ville’.
- Increase visibility in Google local search results by encouraging reviews from customers on travel orientated sites like Tripadvisor. Additionally, reviews from customers should be displayed on its website using schema micro data which will enhance listings within the search engines.
- Build image SEO as striking pictures attract consumers. Including image SEO in a travel SEO campaign also means it is easier to get ranked in Google Image Search and images also show up in regular Google search via Google Universal search results.
- Multilingual SEO is important as many websites assume consumers all speak English but most people search the Web in their native tongue. This increases the possibility of outmatching competition in other languages and local Google versions.
- Hotel businesses should ensure it has an optimised Google Places or Google Plus Local page.
QueryClick is a full service search marketing agency, providing expertise in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) and Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO). Clients include a range of blue chip and multi national companies across Europe, including Mint Hotel.
More information about QueryClick and the services they offer can be found at http://uk.queryclick.com
Issued on behalf of QueryClick by www.holyroodpr.co.uk on info@holyroodpr.co.uk or 0131 561 2244
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