If you have a product or service, you’re familiar with marketing campaigns to drive your business. But what if your business deals with tourism? Tourism marketing is slightly different than the marketing of perishable items. For example, the travel website design will play a bigger role than print advertising. In fact the best marketing plan for a tourist destination is probably having a great website.
What Does a Customer Need From a Travel Website?
The two main incentives when using the internet are information and entertainment. Your travel website needs to provide both. Let’s say you own a campground, and want to know more about successful camping websites. You’ll want to take note of what those camping websites are doing in terms of information, pictures, and website design that make them successful.
Why Website Design Is Just as Important as the Copy.
Camping websites can have excellent copy, but still lose site visitors if the website is difficult to navigate. If the information is presented as a “wall of text” it is unpleasant to read. Columns are much better. The background should be white, or at least a pale color, and the text needs to be black. Don’t try to make the design edgy with a dark background and light-colored text, as it turns most visitors off.
Next, take a look at the menu bar. This can be along the left-hand side of the screen, or along the top. Make sure each button leads somewhere, not just to a dead-end. For camping websites, the menu bar might list:
-How to Get There
-Pricing
-Where to Stay
-Things to Do
-Know Before You Go
It is not necessary to reinvent the wheel on this project. Site visitors want simple, straight forward information on their trip. If you confuse them, you’ll lose a potential customer.
Search Engine Optimization: What It Is and How to Add It to Your Website.
Have you ever wondered why some internet search results are on the first page and some are 16 pages in? It has to do with relevancy, and that is determined by key words. When the key words of a search match the words in an article, that website gets a higher spot on the returned searches list. About 75% of searches are driven by SEO actually.
To be one of those websites with a better spot on the list, it is necessary to use key words that appeal to internet users. This can be accomplished through trial and error, or you can hire an SEO marketing team to write some copy for your website. SEO has a better marketing result as an inbound lead than standard outbound leads, and this technique costs 61% less on average.
If you are selling a product, service, or tourism location, you’ll need marketing to make a profit. All marketing relies on getting the word out among consumers first, Then it is just a matter of providing enough information to entice them into buying, or in the case of tourism, visiting. If you haven’t already, try adding a well-designed website with solid SEO to your marketing plan.
