Are you looking for ways to drive more traffic to your travel website from search engines like Google? Or perhaps you want to make more sales and grow your business further. You can achieve all these if you optimize your website through Search Engine Optimization.
You can find many SEO strategies for travel websites once you do your research. But to make it easier for you, we have come up with the best SEO tips for travel websites.Â
Take a look at the list below for a handpicked list of our best tips.
1. Focus on user experience
One of the most important things that your website should focus on is the user experience. You should always have the website visitor in mind. Itâs not just about ranking high on the search engines anymore. The site should be able to meet the expectation of all the users who will visit.Â
Google uses RankBrain, and what this system does is observe what the users do when they go to your site. It will check bounce rates, dwell time and CTR. So make sure to consider user intent when optimizing for SEO.
2. Use a short domain name
If you have only started planning to build a website, then you are probably wondering what domain name to use. Your domain name is the address where users will be able to access your website. There has always been a debate on what is better, a long or short domain name.Â
With a short domain name, users can easily remember your website and brand. They can even type it straight to the browser because it is easy to recall. When choosing a domain, you can consider branding or keyword domains. The first option is good for recognized brands. If you are just starting, you may opt for getting a domain that will highlight your business, services, etc.
3. Use HTTPS
If you have not yet done so, you may want to HTTPS. Because security is very important to Google, your site can get a boost in ranking when it has an SSL Certificate. Users are also less likely to access your site if they see that it is not SSL certified.Â
If you are going to get data from users, moving to HTTPS will assure them that the information is encrypted and that it cannot be corrupted.
4. Use relevant keywords
You cannot just use any keywords to get people to go to your website. Itâs important that whatever you choose will be relevant with your branding and the services that you offer. With the user in mind, think of the specific searches that they will make when looking for a travel website.
Itâs important to answer what their needs are. They may need some help in âbooking a hotel to Londonâ, or perhaps âtips for traveling to Rome soloâ, or even searching for âflights from New York to Parisâ.Â
Look for keywords that not only have a high search volume but have low competition so that you can rank quickly for that particular keyword.
5. Focus on one keyword
If you have found several keywords that you think you can use, that is good. But do not get too excited and use all those keywords for all the pages on your website. Itâs not enough to stuff your content with so many keywords, hoping that it will push your pages to the top rankings.Â
Quality is what is important.
What you can do is focus on one keyword and its long-tail variations. According to Neil Pate, long-tail keywords make up about 70% of all web searches. They usually consist of at least four words, they are phrases that people actually type when they are searching for something on the internet.
6. Make your URL is SEO friendly
Here are several ways you can make your URL SEO-friendly. First is that you keep it short, do not use too many keywords. Keep it brief by using words that describe your content. Adding prepositions and conjunctions are just distracting. Several findings have shown that the shorter the URLs (somewhere between 50-50 characters), the better. If you have more than 80 characters in your URL, you might get a lower ranking.
It is also important to use top-level domains. Use the usual .com or .net instead of the more unique ones like .biz, and the like.Â
Although this does not hugely impact your rankings, it does make users more confident that your website is a trustworthy source.
7. Use hyphens (-) instead of underscores(_)
If you are going to have several words in your URL, it is important that you separate those words using hyphens, and not underscores. That is because instead of several words, Google will actually read it as one word if you are using underscores.
Hyphens are treated by Google as word separators, but underscores are not treated the same way.
8. Write a unique title tag
Moz claims that the âtitle tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content.â Basically, the title tag will convey to search engines what your page is all about.Â
It is what will be seen on browsers, on social media, and on the search engine result pages (SERPs).Â
There are several important things you need to remember when writing a title tag. First is that every page of your site should have its own title tag. Search engines are able to gauge that your content is unique. Keywords are also important but donât just keywords or its variations over and over.
Try to keep your characters to 60, beyond that and your titles may not be displayed correctly.
9. Write a unique meta description
A strong meta description is what appears under the URL of your page in the search engine results page, and even across social media platforms. It helps your title and URL and it specifies to the potential site visitors what your site is all about.
You need to write your meta description with the end-user in mind. What are they looking for? What do they need to see so that they will choose to go to your site over the other websites in the SERPs?
Your meta description must begin with the most important information that your readers need to know. Use long-tail keywords and donât forget to include a call to action.
10. Write unique content for services pages
Your service page must specify all the things that you can offer to your potential customers. While they may not be the first thing that is seen by potential clients, this is where you do your elevator pitch.Â
Make sure to add testimonials so that they will know how other clients have benefited from your services.
11. Write evergreen content on your blog
You want to make sure that your content has lasting value. Regardless of the season, or the year, it will be deemed useful by people who read them.Â
So what are examples of evergreen content?Â
Before we get to that, you must know what are the examples of content that are NOT considered evergreen content.
If your blog is full of news or content that focuses on a fad or a season, then that is not evergreen content. You want write-ups that will have no expiration date. Some great examples are top tips, instructionals, product reviews, and lists.
12. Pay attention to spelling and grammar
If you want to be known as a website that is trustworthy, you will need to pay attention to the details. Make sure that there are no words misspelled, and that all the contents, from the service pages to the blogs, have no grammar mistakes in them.
13. Put the keyword into the headline
The headline is a prime spot to put your keywords in. They are what grabs the attention of your consumer. Search engines also use them to gauge whether your content will meet the needs of a consumer.
14. Put the keyword into the subheading
Aside from the headlines, your keyword should also be found in the subheadings. Itâs very important to include an H1 tag as most of the results in the first page of Google have them.Â
Aside from the H1, you can also add keywords on your H2-H6 tags. You donât need to use the same keyword for all your subheadings. You can use variations of the keyword.
Your content should also have enough of the keywords in it, but take care to not put too many as it can negatively affect your ranking
15. Donât over optimize your content
While there is no doubt that utilizing keywords is one of the most important SEO tips for travel websites, there is such a thing as over-optimizing. Take care not to practice keyword stuffing.Â
Many SEO practitioners consider this a black hat trick.
Not only will you get penalized by Google by lowering your rank, but your site might also actually be removed. Stick to having a keyword density of 2%-5% and creating relevant content and your rank will surely go up.
16. Craft engaging intro paragraphs
While the title is the first impression you make for all visitors of your page, itâs not what will make them stay and pursue your content. The responsibility of that falls on the introduction.Â
If you fail to engage readers with your introduction, then they will not read any further. Expect to have a high bounce rate if you cannot write a good introduction.
So what makes a good introduction then?Â
You want to write something that will hook your readerâs attention right away. Do not bother with too many words, write something brief but interesting. Then you can transition to what your whole content is about.
17. Publish at least 1,500 words of content
You may be asking what is the ideal length of content?
Some make use of the âtop 10 average methodâ to determine how many words should their content be. What they do is get the ten blog posts on their site that garnered the most traffic and compute how long the posts are.
If you donât have enough content to compute for the average, you can just make sure that your blog posts will have at least 1,500 words. Google always prefers more content. Just make sure to break up your posts into sections so that readers will not get overwhelmed with too much information.
18. Make your content super easy to read
An easy to read content is not just about the number of works you have written. It can be quite daunting for readers to be bombarded with nothing but text.Â
There are simple things you can do to make content easy to read.
First, break your article into sections. This will be easier if you had an outline of how you wrote your content. You can just add subheadings. Make sure to have short sentences. Try to keep your paragraphs at 2 or 3 sentences only. You can also add other media, such as videos and images.
You can also use bullet points and lists of images.
19. Use keyword in your images
One of the best SEO strategies for travel website is to optimize your images.Â
Many users utilize Google images to search for what they need. This is especially helpful for those who are looking to buy something. Instead of a regular Google search, they just type their query on the image search.
What you will need to do is make use of the alt text and write a description of your image.
 Donât just add it to one image, but all images you put in your content.
20. Compress images for site speed
If you have a lot of images in your content, you need to make sure they are compressed so that they will not affect the speed of your website. You can find websites that compress your images for you, such as Compressjpeg or TinyJPG.Â
WordPress also has a plugin, Imagify, which can do this for you.
21. Link internal pages
Another excellent SEO tips for travel website is to link to already existing pages in your site. You can have them go to sites that offer relevant information.Â
This will not only boost more traffic to your website, but it will expose the visitors further into what you can offer to them.
Try to link pages that have a good impression. You can check your Search Console eport for this.
22. Link out to relevant websites
Aside from linking to content on your website, another good SEO practice is to link to other websites. This will establish that you are a trustworthy site.Â
Just make sure that whatever external site you link to, they must be an authority on the subject or topic you are referring to.
23. Donât link out to bad quality websites
Itâs important to be able to distinguish a good website and a bad quality website. First of all, donât link to a website that is not related to the industry you are in.Â
Make sure that the websiteâs content is also of good quality and steer clear of sites that have been penalized by Google.
24. Have other websites, partners link to you
Another way to boost traffic to your site is to have other sites link to yours. You can do this by sharing content on social media.Â
Also, take advantage of the second largest search engine in the world â YouTube. Try creating videos for your most relevant content and donât forget to promote it.
25. Build a healthy backlink profile
Make sure to monitor the sites that backlink to your site. They must come from trusted sites. Not only that, they actually have to be relevant, meaning they must be in an industry or niche similar to yours.
26. Donât buy hundreds of backlinks!
In the case of backlinks, quality is more important than quantity. Even though there backlinks available that can link to you for the right amount of money, your efforts should still be focused on getting authoritative sites to notice and link to your own website.
27. Fix broken external links
If you are going to be linking to external sites, you need to regularly check that all the links are working.Â
There are tools that you can use to see which ones are no longer working. If you see broken links, contact the site right away so that they can update.
28. Fix broken pages on your website
Use Google Webmaster Tools to see if there are links or pages on your website that do not work anymore. FIx it right away by deleting or adding important content.
29. Make sure your website is indexed
It is next to impossible to get traffic to your website unless you are indexed by Google.Â
If you want to know if your site is indexed by Google, just go to the search engine and type site:yourwebsite.com.Â
The numbers seen will show how many pages have been indexed. If you do not see any results, check out SEO tip for travel website #32 for how you can request Google to index your site.
30. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
There are many Internet users who no longer use a desktop or laptop to access the Internet. Most of them use their handheld devices, such as mobile phones or tablets.Â
Therefore, your website must be optimized so that it is mobile friendly.
Iâve already pointed out how important user experience is in SEO. Imagine how a consumer using a mobile phone would feel when they access your website but cannot read the content because it is only for desktop viewing.
31. Speed up your website
If you are looking for a simple but effective SEO tip for your travel website, hereâs one:Â
Improve your page speed.Â
No one wants to waste time waiting for a page to load. You can be sure that if your site loads slowly, more often than not, the consumer would have looked for another resource to go to.
This report from BBC actually says that half of the consumers will not even wait for three seconds before they give up and go to another site.
32. Submit your website to Google Search Console
If you find that your site is not indexed by Google, you may go to the Google Search Console and look for the URL inspection tool.Â
Paste the URL and then click the Request indexing button.
33. Create your social media presence
Another SEO tip for travel websites that must not be ignored is having a social media presence.Â
Granted, it does not directly affect your ranking on the search pages, but it is one of the best ways for your content to be spread across platforms.
Some of the things you can do to ensure social media presence is to actively share content. Donât just post when you have a new blog article, share images, testimonials and more.Â
Also, make sure that your display social buttons are seen everywhere on your page. This makes it easier to instantly share your site to their contacts.
34. Use Google Analytics to track your performance
If you need to check how your website is doing, there is no better tool than Google Analytics. If you know how to use it, youâll be able to make changes and get better results.
Whatâs great about Google Analytics is that first and foremost, itâs free!Â
Itâs also easy to set up so that you can collect data right away. You can also customize reports and even link it to other platforms or tools, such as AdWords.
Youâll be able to get information on where your traffic comes from, and even relevant information like their interest and age. There are many other things you can get from the report, and all these will help you see if you are actually reaching your goals.
35. Check your competitors SEO strategy
It never hurts to see what your competitors are doing in order to improve their SEO ranking.Â
You can easily use Ahrefs Site Explorer to check the keywords that driving traffic to your competitorâs website! Even new keywords they are using can be searched. You can then decide whether you want to target that keyword for your own website or not.
So there you have it, 35 actionable SEO tips for travel websites that you can start implementing today!
Do you have any other tips?
6 thoughts on “35 Actionable SEO Tips For Travel Websites”
Great work David!
I’ll be sure to use these SEO tips in order to grow my own website.
Keep up the great content!
Thanks for the comment! Let me know how it goes.
Agree and disagree on the 1,500 words per page. While it’s important to give as many details as possible on the topic, you want to make it easily digestible for humans. Focus on user intent instead. If you can cover the topic and answer all the questions in 1,000 words, so be it. If it takes 2,000, it’s fine. But don’t add words for the sake of word count.
Hi Matt, thanks for stopping by! That’s a general rule of thumb. According to a 2016 study that the average content length for Page 1 results is around 1,900 words. I fully agree, if the topic can be covered in 1,000 words it’s still ok, it depends on the nature of the subject.
Great article! This is really useful toward my SEO research and can definitely be applied! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Simon!