Think about the home page on your web browser. Maybe it’s cued up to your favorite entertainment website. Or, perhaps it’s the front page of a national or local news outlet. Regardless of where you start your browsing journey, each of these sites have one thing in common: fresh content.
Imagine if you went to, for instance, Entertainment Weekly’s website, and all of the stories on the front page were from a few months ago. That wouldn’t be helpful for you as a visitor, and it certainly wouldn’t reflect well on them as a news outlet.
As a travel agent, when you're building and running your website, you should keep this idea in mind. Making sure your website has fresh content and that you’re tending to its content on a consistent basis is key to continuing to establish your business footprint. Here are some pointers to help develop a strong content strategy.
Stay Relevant
In the dynamic world of travel, staying relevant is a necessity. Keeping your website content in sync with current events and trends not only will resonate well with visitors but also ensure that they keep coming back for more. This is why it's vital that you update your site's content regularly. That way, you can signal to search engines about the active state of your platform and improve your SEO performance.
If you find yourself slacking off on sharing new posts or letting existing ones become outdated, think about the effect this could have on where your business appears in search engine results. Put simply, staying vigilant means ranking better.
Strive for More Traffic
Your audience won't stay engaged unless you're posting daily updates across your platforms. A few examples might include news flashes about your recent travels or regular blog posts showcasing trending tourist destinations worldwide.
Overall, a website that appeals to the topics of the day or week is much more likely to get engagement than one that doesn’t. As a visitor, coming to a website where it’s apparent the person behind it has taken care to tend to user experience is going to be a much more rewarding experience than one that hasn’t. It stands to reason, then, that you give the people what they want.
Pay Attention to Trends
Maintaining relevance via regular updates means providing consistent value not only to current clients planning their next vacation but also to potential customers who might stumble upon your services while browsing.
The easiest way to think about it: your audience is always on the lookout for timely information that can influence their travel plans. If, for example, you sell a lot of travel to a destination with a yearly music festival, perhaps you could post about that festival—a blog about what to do while a visitor is there, or how to best navigate the city or country during that time.
Since your website is a marketing tool for your business, you’ll want to be sure you’re providing added value with your content and introducing prospective customers to the way you think and how you might work with them.
Build Your Reputation
To establish yourself as an authority in the travel sector, you must share insightful advice. Not only will this draw prospective clients, but it will also build trust among existing ones, leading them to come back to you time and time again. It might sound simple, but it can be a crucial step in differentiating between never hearing from a lead again and booking their next trip.
Take time to think about the type of content you could create next. What season is it? What have you been selling a lot of lately? Does the type of content you’ve been producing align with these trends, or do you need to adjust? These are the questions that should be guiding your content production process, and ultimately exist as a top priority as you work to generate leads and continue to build the foundation for your business.