Content is King (Still)

It's no secret that having great, unique content on your destination website is important. We shouldn't be asking why at this point, but if you must: your website visitors read your content and decide whether or not you'll be a good resource for planning their trip, search engines use content for indexing, and other website owners read the content and decide whether or not to link to you (and linking is a ranking factor, so more links = higher rankings).

Remember that content is not just words on the page, but audio, video, and images as well. Just make sure to include a transcript below audio or video clips and alt tags with your images so the search engines (and folks using web readers) can read those too.

Draw Content from Your Existing Teams

So, I get it, you don't have time to write a bunch of unique content. But you already have the content; you just need to compile it to be web friendly. And where do you go when you want to compile keyword-rich content about your destination, but don't have time to do hours and hours of keyword research? Your sales and visitor center teams! They may have information stored in Word documents that they take with them on FAM tours, or they may have it all stored in their brains. Either way, get it onto your site! Here are a few pointers:

  • Ask your visitor's center team to write down the questions they get asked all the time, along with the answers they give. Turn each question into a page or blog post.
  • Or, have them keep a list of questions they get asked for the next month and see if you spot trends in the questions. If people are asking these questions in person in a visitor's center, they're also asking online. Create the content to match the queries.
  • The FAM tours your sales folks take meeting planners on are some of the best windows into what makes your destination special. Go on one, take pictures and video, and write about it! Steal their two-day itineraries and make them into blog posts or itineraries for your website visitors.
  • Tweak itineraries for different users (make them friendly for families, couples, singles, people with one day, people without a car, folks traveling with pets, etc.). Google can't give itineraries (yet) through Direct Answers, so it's something that they'll have to send people to your site to get.
  • Numbered lists (e.g. Top 10 Free Things to Do in Tucson, 8 Hidden Gems in Downtown Petersburg, 6 Hole in the Wall Restaurants in Flagstaff) are great. Also, use bullets and short paragraphs to break up the content on the page to make it more easily digestible for your visitors.
Increased Content Is Increased Exposure

You're thinking, "Erin, that's great, but the reason why I can't add this great content to my site is that it will look like I'm playing 'favorites' with partners {by including them in an itinerary or blog post} and other partners will get angry." Well, tough! They'll get their time in the spotlight (via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram love, or website Coupons, home page highlights, etc.). Don't worry about hurting your partners' feelings. Be okay with getting political and writing about only a few members at a time. They'll get attention from you sooner or later. And in the mean time, visits to your site will increase (because of all the great new content) and they'll get increased exposure as well.

So, go bug your visitor's center and sales teams right now and get that great content up ASAP!

If you have specific questions about how to convert print content to great web content, contact your SEM Analyst or Account Manager at Simpleview and we'll help make the process pain free.