Your guests are searching for you. Maybe they are planning a trip? Perhaps they are parked just a few km away? They are deciding on their next travel destination, but can they see you? As a travel SEO specialist, it is my job to make sure they can…
The Role of SEO in Your Travel Marketing
Travel SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is no dark art. It is a series of steps that you follow to optimise your travel website for Google search. A site with good SEO will rank highly and a travel site without SEO will not rank at all.
It is invisible.
SEO is basically a dance with Google, but your competitors are dancing too.
SEO is fundamental to any digital marketing strategy, whether you are in the travel sector or not. It increases qualified traffic to your website, and warm leads mean sales.
It is a slow burner, but it works.
Travel SEO is about creating the digital foundation for steady, long-term growth. You are not getting into that constant bidding battle with your competitors.
Once you have done the work to optimise for search engines, travel SEO is mostly about monitoring and maintenance.
5 Benefits of SEO for Travel Marketing
The big benefit here is that you become visible. If people are searching for a destination or a service like yours, they can find you, but the benefits of travel SEO do not stop there.
- It is passive: you can front-load the work (do it once and do it well)
- It gives you an edge: your weakest competitors probably are not doing it
- It is cost-effective: cheaper than paid advertising
- It is more effective: most website traffic comes from organic search (not ads)
- It is measurable: SEO tools can measure the ROI of travel content
How I help You with Your SEO Content Strategy
My role is to drive qualified leads to your website: guests.
I do this by designing relevant, engaging content that pleases your prospect and Google at the same time.
Marketing content can be images, video or podcast. However text is crucial across all media because it tells search engines what the content is about, and if it is relevant to your target market.
Luckily, I am also a copywriter. I know how to make your offer attractive, and turn site visitors into real life guests.
Which Travel SEO Services Can I Offer You?
If you are in the travel sector and interested in adressing German guests and need help with content SEO, I can help.
Maybe you are using an existing provider but you are unhappy with the ROI?
Maybe you are writing a wonderful blog for your destination, but traffic is low because it is not optimised correctly.
Do you have regional objectives? Do you need to integrate multiple destinations into a regional marketing strategy?
My results are measurable. So if you like data, you are in the right place!
I always take the holistic view. I am interested in what specific tools and approaches we can use to meet your goals.
Because I offer a broad menu of services, I do not need to upsell anything, I just pick the ones that work.
No two travel destinations are the same, and the competitive landscape always contains unique and exciting SEO challenges.
I want to see your business in your unique context. If it looks like you need less of one approach and more of another, I will tell you.
SEO Content Audit & Strategy
Is your current content working hard enough?
I will analyse the content of your entire website and tell you if it is working for you or against you (yes, that is possible). Each piece of content, from blogs to landing pages should be optimised to reflect your marketing objectives.
Once we have run the audit, we can:
- Look at your medium/ longer term goals
- Carry out keyword research for your travel business (and your competitors)
- Create a long-term, SEO content strategy for measurable results
- Optimise your existing content
Relaunch: Consulting & Support
Are you re-branding or relaunching your website?
Your developer has worked hard and your new site looks great. Everybody is happy. The last “person” we have to please is Google. Many of my clients come to me feeling a bit confused how to do that.
They have a shiny new (expensive) website, but their bookings are not going up.
Where is the ROI?
Thankfully, a targeted mix of SEO tactics and clever copywriting can help.
In these situations, I normally start with the following:
- On-site SEO (metadata, H-structure, technical optimisation)
- Copywriting landing pages that convert visitors into guests
- Optimising your Google Business profile/ local SEO
- Copywriting and optimisation of your booking platforms
Blog Content & Landing pages
Are you a marketing manager who needs unique, inspiring content that engages your visitors and boosts search visibility?
I design delicious SEO content for your hotel or travel destination that amplifies your USPs. Blogposts, landing pages, copy for content hubs ‒ anything your content strategy needs.
You do not have a content strategy? Let’s combine your customer knowledge with my writing and publish the kind of content that drives traffic and conversion.
Multilingual SEO Services: translation & Co
So you have a great website but you need it translated into German to address this audience?
Maybe you would like to attract more German speaking visitors to your location.
I have got you covered. I help you to make the transition to a new market through SEO based website translation and copywriting.
Launching a multilingual site is a great time to look at SEO. What works for one segment, may not work for another.
For example, your German clients might be looking for family skiing and child-friendly restaurants, but your American guests are retired and want folk culture and castles.
If you want to speak directly to your customer’s needs, then we need to see what they are searching for. We want to use natural, conversational language that native speakers can trust and international guests can understand.
Your words are your verbal branding, and I make sure that they resonate for the right people, in the right way.
You can find a full breakdown of my travel SEO services here.
Who Can Profit From SEO in the Travel Industry?
SEO is useful throughout the sales funnel. In fact, SEO is an essential part of any modern business.
If you are online, you need to be visible. SEO is simply the most sustainable and cost effective way to be seen.
Remember those paper based business directories? The difference with SEO is that it is not just about being in it (Google is not alphabetical!), it is about being at the top. Research shows that people very rarely look past page one.
Here is a list of my different client groups and their travel sector and how I help them to win through targeted SEO and content strategy.
SEO for Destination Marketing
Your region has a lot to offer. Maybe you are looking to bring visitors to a beautiful mountain village with skiing opportunities. Perhaps you are looking to diversify the regional economy or develop tourism for an entire region or province?
You know that SEO will be a crucial part of your digital marketing strategy. With its local, national, and international reach, SEO is the foundation for sustainable, measurable growth.
With the travel sector going digital, there are many challenges and many technical boxes to tick. However, as travel habits change, there are also many opportunities for existing travel destinations to boost their profile.
With new destinations entering the market, solid SEO is now more important than ever. Destination marketing requires a multi-channel approach across traditional, digital, and social media.
SEO is where it all begins.
If your region has something special to offer ‒ and I am sure it has ‒ then we need to celebrate that and make sure people know about it!
If you have big plans, I am ready to help.
SEO for (luxury) hotels
Your guests are out there and we want them to choose you.
But to be chosen, you have to be found.
Yes, your venue can be listed on a variety of platforms like Booking.com as these are essentially hotel search engines. They are great for customers and will be an important part of your SEO and marketing strategy.
As part of my service, I will make sure that your listing is written in clear, attractive English and German. Your words will be charming, engaging, and optimised for people searching for hotels in your area. This way, you will be found on those booking platforms.
Show your best self online through SEO
However, those platforms can not fully communicate the refined elegance and individuality of all that your venue has to offer. And they are a costly intermediary as they charge increasing fees for their services.
Booking sites are a useful tool, but they lack class and sophistication. One of the problems with these platforms is that when customers search for a hotel, they see you alongside your local competitors.
For some hotels in highly competitive markets, this association is not always positive. Customers do not see your hotel in context, and they do not know how wonderful you are!
We can change that with an SEO strategy for your hotel. Effective SEO for hotels is about making your destination the most relevant option for your customers.
When they are planning their trip on Google, your customers see your hotel first (before they even think about entering a booking platform).
Yay!
We will use travel SEO to…
- Discover what your customers are searching for (keyword research)
- Analyse the strengths and weakness of the competition (competitor insight)
- Optimise your website so that Google loves it (technical SEO)
- Perfect your local SEO and boost reviews (Google Business Profile)
- Create a content plan to drive qualified traffic to your wonderful website
- Measure the impact and refine the strategy over time
I have helped several luxury hotels and short-term rental businesses worldwide to build, improve, and maintain an effective multilingual SEO strategy that adresses international and/or German travellers.
You are looking to boost your hotel’s SEO and save on fees through direct bookings?
SEO for Travel Agencies
As a travel agent you are in a very dynamic space. Travel habits and technology have changed rapidly in a short period of time.
Digital technology, climate change, and global events have combined to disrupt the travel market and create new challenges.
As an agency, you will be looking for a way to consolidate repeated business and explore new opportunities. There are many ways to do that, and SEO is the solid foundation for every one of them.
For agencies, we are talking about:
- Competitor monitoring & analysis
- Marketing emails
- SEO content design
Do you run a travel agency?
SEO for Hotel Recruitment
If you work in Human Resources in a hotel, you know how hard things are at the moment. The hospitality industry has faced huge challenges recently and recruiting and retaining good staff is a tough job.
This is especially true for hotels who do not have a dedicated HR department or only a small one.
For many of my hotel clients, recruitment is their number one priority at the moment. They have the venue, they have built the reputation, and their sales strategy is working well.
Sadly, they cannot get the staff.
Where SEO and copywriting can help
The recruitment market is fluid, and professional hotel staff are looking for new opportunities. To be competitive in the job market, hotel owners and HR managers need to do two things really well:
- Create unique, benefit-focused job descriptions (copywriting).
- Make sure the right people find (SEO) and then read them (UX).
When I work with hotels to improve recruitment, it is my job to make your hotel sound just as wonderful a place to work in as it is to visit. Once that is done, the next task is to make sure that your new staff can find the advert.
This means SEO for the vacancies section on your own website, but it also means posting SEO optimised job descriptions on the recruitment sites that are used by your potential employees.
Without good copy and targeted SEO, potential staff will be reading but not applying; you will be losing great people to your competitors.
Recruitment headache?
SEO for Travel Website
Travel websites need traffic. Over 60% of traffic to travel websites and blogs comes from organic search.
That means people are typing in things like “Best restaurant near me” or “the most romantic hotel in the world” etc etc.
All websites need SEO, but the most competitive travel sites are often focused on a specific niche. This means that there are usually some good opportunities to be found.
By optimising their site for a certain target audience and creating a dedicated SEO content strategy, travel websites can make sure that they are being seen by the right kinds of visitors.
If your travel website is not SEO optimised for your target audience, you will have a higher bounce rate and minimal time-on-page.
Good travel website SEO attracts visitors who like the content and stick around. It is these visitors who will show commercial intent by signing-up for newsletters or commenting on blog content.
If you want more traffic to your travel website, SEO will help.
SEO for Tour Operators
As a tour operator, you are taking all of the hard work out of travel planning. In an age of almost endless travel options, a tour operator is providing a useful time (and head-ache) saving service.
Tour operators have a special place in my heart because they remove so much burden of choice. Sometimes, it is just easier when somebody else organises everything.
Operators can offer travel packages to target specific customer segments, across a wide range of locations. Your customers can book an experience without worrying about the variables. That is your job!
However, in order to be competitive, tour operators must best their direct rivals in the sector as well as established booking sites.
Great on-site SEO is essential to ensure that you rank. A dedicated content strategy will drive qualified traffic to your products and services.
Maybe you are an established tour operator looking to become more competitive? Perhaps you are thinking of moving into the package holiday space? I can help.
SEO for Travel Blog
Travel bloggers love to write and have exciting adventures (I should know!). However, mesmerising stories and vivid photography are just the starting point.
Bloggers need traffic to make their business model work. Without traffic, you are just writing an online diary. This is great for you and the grandchildren, but not so good for the mortgage.
While travel destinations, hotels and agencies can rely on other marketing channels for their traffic, bloggers are wordsmiths. They are almost entirely dependent upon SEO to make sure that people can find them online.
If you are a wondrous writer and you have a brilliant blog, I can help drive traffic internationally as well as with a German audience. I understand you because I am doing it!
From one travel writer to another
For Example, for the keyword “reisebloggerin” (“travel blogger”) I managed to rank my German travel blog Komm mit nach woanders on Google.de within only 6 weeks. After 6 months, I ranked on page one.
This process was even faster with the keyword “madeira reiseblog” (“madeira travel blog”) as I had written extensively about my travels to Madeira beforehand.
If I can manage to rank at the top of Google.de with my travel blog, we can make it happen for you too! If you have a travel blog that is not quite performing, give me a shout.
We will talk blogging!
Takeaways
- Travel SEO is about visibility. Without SEO you are invisible on the internet.
- Good content drives visibility.
- Visibility drives traffic.
- Great copywriting turns traffic into bookings.
Conclusion
I am here to make sure that German and international customers can find your travel business on the internet. If you are an international travel destination or hotel with a blog or website, I know how to get you ranking high on Google.de.
Thinking about SEO? Send me a quick message and tell me what travel SEO services you need.