In the digital world, the tourism industry heavily relies on local SEO services to attract travelers and drive bookings. According to a study conducted in 2024, 80% of global travelers surveyed feel it’s essential to be able to book their trips entirely online. Tourism businesses can struggle to stay relevant and visible without a strong online presence.
What is Local SEO?
Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO) focuses on optimizing a website to improve visibility in local search results, helping businesses attract customers from specific geographic areas. Local SEO will help your business connect with nearby audiences.
Why is Local SEO Important?
Local SEO is essential for tourism businesses that attract customers from or to a specific geographic area. According to SEMRush, 800 million searches per month contain a variation of “near me.” If your audience is local, you need to optimize for these types of searches.
Local SEO helps businesses stand out in their community by increasing their visibility in Google’s local pack, maps, “near me” searches, and location-specific search results. It’s also a cost-effective way to compete with larger brands by targeting audiences who are more likely to convert.
Check out strategic local SEO’s impact on conversions for this campsite business in 2024.
Local SEO Best Practices
Jump to a section:
Google Business Profile
Reviews
Localized Content
Partnerships
Other Local SEO Tactics
Google Business Profiles: A Customer’s First Impression
A Google Business Profile (GBP) is one of the most critical tools for tourism businesses. When travelers search for services like “beachfront hotel near me,” “best tours in New York,” or even a search of your business’s name, your GBP is often their first point of contact. A well-optimized profile can significantly impact your visibility and credibility, which is why it’s the main focus of our local SEO programs.
Optimizing your Google Business Profile can substantially increase views over time, just like it did for this attraction client!
Key Tips for Optimizing Your Google Business Profile:
- Accurate Information: Ensure that your business name, address, and phone number (NAPs) are consistent across all platforms so that you’re not missing out on potential customers.
- High-Quality Images: Upload photos of your facilities, attractions, or products to entice potential customers.
- Updated Details: Regularly update hours of operation, seasonal offerings, and any special events or packages.
- Categories and Attributes: To appeal to your target audience, use appropriate categories and attributes, such as “family-friendly” or “pet-friendly. “
- Post Regularly: Posting regularly on a Google Business Profile helps businesses stay visible in local searches and showcase their latest updates, promotions, and services to potential customers.
- Reviews: Reviews are a key ranking factor for your GBP. The number of reviews and their star ratings are ranking factors, so you want as many positive reviews as possible.
Reviews: Building Trust Through Customer Feedback
Reviews are essential not only for your Google Business profile but also for your website. According to Moz, reviews are considered to be a key local search ranking factor. Additionally, many consumers in the tourism industry base their decisions on the experience of others, making reviewing quality and quantity crucial. We would recommend doing the following:
- Encourage Feedback: Politely request reviews from satisfied customers through follow-up emails or in-person conversations.
- Respond to Reviews: Engage with both positive and negative feedback. Thank happy customers and address concerns professionally to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.
- Highlight Testimonials: To build credibility, feature glowing reviews on your website and social media channels. The more specific, the better.
A reputation management program can simplify collecting, monitoring reviews, and responding to both positive and negative reviews.
Localized Website Content and Keyword Targeting
Your website is the cornerstone of your local SEO strategy. It’s important to target local keywords and develop localized content to help search engines and travelers understand your business’s connection to the area. Without localized content and keyword targeting, it will be incredibly difficult to rank well in search engine results.
Best Practices for Localized Content:
- Create Area Guides: Publish blogs or pages about local attractions, events, and dining options.
- Use Location-Specific Keywords: Incorporate location-specific phrases like “best luxury hotel near Central Park in New York” into your content. You have a better chance of ranking and converting for location-specific keywords rather than generalized keywords such as “best hotel.”
- Add a Map: Include an embedded map on your website to help users locate your business easily. These can be embedded from Google Maps.
- Case Studies/Testimonials: Case studies and testimonials build trust by showcasing real customer experiences.
- Use Local Business Schema: Local business schema helps search engines understand and display key information about your business, such as location, hours, and services, which improves local search visibility.
Together, these practices establish credibility and make your business easier to find through search.
Highlight Partnerships
Collaborating with other local businesses and promoting those relationships is a great way to enhance your credibility and your keyword rankings.
- Trust Signals: If a potential customer sees that your business works with other reputable companies, it may assure them they need to contact you. This can be done through photographs, blog posts, or page copy.
- Backlinks: Backlinks are when another website links back to your website. Backlinks from credible websites can improve your rankings by increasing your EEAT (experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness) score with Google. Collaboration with other local businesses is often done in a ‘backlink-for-backlink’ fashion. In addition, you would gain traffic from your partner’s website!
- Directory Listings: Getting your business listed in an online directory is key for local SEO for both of the above reasons and for generative AI. Directories are often used as a resource for generative AI, such as ChatGPT or Google’s AI Overviews, because they contain lots of information. If a user would like more information, they’ll click on the directory as a resource, which could have your business listed in it, leading to increased traffic to your website.
Other Local SEO Tactics to Consider
- Mobile Optimization: Many people use smartphones for travel planning. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly to capture this audience.
- Schema Markup: Use structured data to help search engines understand your business’s offerings, such as events, reviews, and pricing.
- Social Media Engagement: Maintain active profiles on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, tagging your location and using local hashtags to attract attention. Social signals can help with your SEO rankings, especially with generative AI.
Considering Local SEO for your Tourism Business?
Local SEO is not just an optional strategy for tourism businesses; it’s necessary in a highly competitive market. By optimizing your Google Business Profile, encouraging and managing reviews, and producing localized website content, you can drive more traffic and convert more travelers into loyal customers.
If you’re considering local SEO, contact us today for a free consultation! We have decades of experience helping tourism businesses grow their online presence.
