Social media and the tourism industry are a match made in heaven. You can see evidence of that in the sheer number of travel blogs associated with Instagram accounts. But don’t be fooled — this relationship isn’t limited to travelers in glamorous locations and their followers. Tourism and activity industry professionals can use social media outlets to reach their audience, too; in fact, a good blog can be used as the center of your social media platform presence. We’re here to give you six tips that will help you get the most out of your travel blog.
Get to know your target audience members
The first thing to consider honestly and clearly is who you’re writing for. Of course, you’re going to write for your customers, but you may also want to reach a wider audience beyond them, too. You want to write for everyone and anyone that has an interest in your business and that you could potentially form a mutually beneficial relationship with. That could be travel agents, other locals in the hospitality or tourism industry, tourism and travel bloggers and influencers, or another entirely. Whomever you decide to write for, make sure that your choice is clear so that you can better focus your writing. Another important step is to remember that whichever audience you end up choosing, that group is multifaceted in and of itself. Segmenting your audience(opens in a new tab) will allow you to more appropriately “speak” to them.
Once you know who your audience is and have created your corresponding customer segments, you will be in a better position to plan your content strategy. You’ll be able to more accurately determine which topics are relevant to your readers and when to write posts about them.
Write great content
There are many things you can do to make your blog content more attractive and grow your audience, but the first step to elevating your blog is to have high-quality, relevant content. Writing great content begins with topic selection. Familiarize yourself with the questions and problems your target audience has, then use your blog as a way to answer those questions and solve those problems. Local events and trending topics in your industry should also inform your topic choices, so make sure you stay current.
Finally, maintain a steady stream of well-written posts. If you aren’t confident in your writing skills or you’re having trouble writing the amount of blog content you need, consider getting some professional assistance. There are resources out there to help you find the best writing companies(opens in a new tab) that offer blogging and other copywriting services.
Encourage your readers to share your posts
It’s important that you grow your audience, especially after you’ve first launched your blog — The more exposure, the better. A good place to start promoting your blog posts is your social media accounts. That way, you’re more likely to have more exposure to your target audience. Encourage your audience to share your posts across their social media channels as well, so that you can extend your reach in a more organic way. Make it easy on your readers! Add social share buttons to your blog and include a call to action for your subscribers to share your posts if they like what they’ve read.
Use great imagery
What’s a tourism industry blog without great photographs? Whether you operate a major tour company or run a small attraction, you want your audience to see what you have to offer. Your blog posts need high-quality images to get and maintain your target audience’s attention.
Content with great visuals is not only more memorable than text-based content, but it also keeps your audience around longer, boosting search engine metrics like time on page.
Optimize your posts for search
Ensuring that your posts rank high in search engine results for relevant keyword searches is yet another way to expand your reading audience. This process is called SEO (search engine optimization). The idea is you write your posts in such a way that Google and other search engines give your content page one priority when people search for related topics.
It would be possible to dedicate an entire post (or even an entire blog) to this subject alone due to its complexity. In the meantime, you can apply these simple tips to get started:
- Use relevant keywords in your posts, but use them naturally. Overuse of keywords is not favored by search engines.
- Use title and header tags in your posts.
- Enhance readability with white space, subheadings, and bullet points.
- Write a helpful meta description for each post.
- Reach out to other bloggers and ask for backlinks when relevant.
- Use high-resolution images.
- Use keywords in your headings and image descriptions.
- Link out to authoritative sources in your blog as well as to other pages on your website.
Reach out to guest bloggers
Clarifying your target audience and familiarizing yourself with their needs allows you to do much more than write for them. When you know who you are trying to reach, you can begin the process of building relationships with loyal customers, industry influencers, and people who work in complementary industries. One of the benefits of creating these connections is that you also create opportunities to share audiences with others through guest blogging.
Guest blogging is simply having another person write a blog post for you as a guest. For example, if you operate a company that gives walking tours in New York City, you might ask the owner of a famous local restaurant to write a blog post for your audience. There are various benefits to having a guest blogger(opens in a new tab) write for you:
- You attract the guest blogger’s audience to your blog.
- Your social media following will grow.
- You foster a relationship with the blogger by giving them exposure.
- You enrich your content offerings.
- You’ll likely earn a backlink and social media promotion through the guest blogger’s own channels.
Additionally, consider the benefits of guest blogging for other sites. First of all, it’s important to reciprocate, but keep in mind that, when you guest blog, you also expand your audience, increase your thought leadership, and earn more attention for your brand.
Final thoughts
By optimizing your blog, you can increase your audience, generate leads, build your authority, and drive traffic to your website. Follow the tips listed above to take your blog to the next level.
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