Did I just swear in this headline? Yes, yes I did.
I’ll be honest. Writing controversial headlines might not always be the best tactic — especially for the initial headline on your website — but they are eye-catching.
While the blasphemous swear word may have piqued your interest, what really sold you was the clarity of this headline. You assumed that if you visited this post and carried on reading, you would walk away knowing how to write pretty awesome headlines.
And you would be correct: although there’s no magic formula to writing a perfect headline, if you follow our tips below, you’ll be able to develop an attention-grabbing headline that will help you build a better web presence.
Keep It Clear
When people view your tourism business’s webpage, 80% of the viewers will read the headline. and 20% of those probably won’t read much more than that(opens in a new tab).
To go against the grain and improve that ghastly statistic, you need to create a great initial headline on your webpage.
The first and most important thing to keep in mind is to keep your headline clear and precise (there’s a time and place for creativity, but I’ll get into that later). The viewer should know exactly what kind of tour(s) you are providing based solely on the headline.
Take a look at the website we designed for Surf Tours Nicaragua(opens in a new tab). As you can see, the initial headline tells you a lot about the tour in just a few words — they sell all-inclusive surf packages and surf camps in Nicaragua. There is absolutely no ambiguity.
If they had said, ‘Tours in Nicaragua’ they probably would have attracted a lot less people to their site during organic searches. Why? Because they would have competed with all the big players in the tourism game, like Intrepid Travel(opens in a new tab) and Tour Radar(opens in a new tab).
Due to Surf Nicaragua’s clear and specific wording, they are successfully reaching their target audience, and they are ranking highly in searches that relate to what they offer.
Include Keywords
Speaking of good ol’ search engines, make sure that the headline is composed of words that appeal to both real-life human beings and search engine crawlers.
So how do you do that? Well, try using words that people frequently search for that are relevant to your tour. The good news is that there are a lot of tools hanging about in the cloud (i.e., the internet) that will help you do exactly that.
In addition to the ever popular Google Adwords Keyword Planner, we also recommend KeyWord Tool(opens in a new tab), Ubersuggest(opens in a new tab) and KeyWordDiscovery(opens in a new tab).
All of these tools give you data regarding what kind of keywords people are searching for and how many people are searching for them.
Pro-tip: While it is important to use keywords in headlines to boost your search engine rankings, make sure they also resonate with your target audience. And when crafting the headlines, please, please don’t include the same keyword more than once. This practice could deter some potential customers, and it will most definitely put a gigantic frown on Google’s face.
Buffer It with a Hero Photo
When people are looking at a headline, they are viewing not only the words comprising the headline but what is surrounding the headline as well.
And since tours are usually a sensory overload, it is hugely important that you target the viewer’s senses as soon as they view your website’s initial headline.
A great way of doing that is to surround your headline with a great photo — happy customers having a great time on a sunny day. So, the viewer will not only gain vital information about your tourism business through your headline, but they will also be able to picture themselves (happy and in the sun) on your tour.
Subheadings
Now that you’ve gotten the viewer’s attention with your website’s headline, it’s time to reel them in even further with a great subheading.
Unlike headlines that should address exactly what your tour business does, subheadings should highlight what makes your tour great.
In the previous examples, the subheadings read ‘2015 TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence’ and ‘25+ Years of Local Experience’.
These subheadings do two things: 1) they heighten the viewer’s interest and 2) they add credibility to your website.
If you are new to the tourism game or haven’t yet put much of an emphasis on TripAdvisor — which, by the way, is a massively important tool for tour operators — try playing around with creative subheadings that will put a unique spin on the kind of tours your business provides.
Writing great headlines (and subheadings) definitely takes some playing around with. And while creating that ‘perfect headline’ is definitely a huge help in getting people on your site, you have only begun the battle — now you need people to stay on your site and actually book sales.
Want some help with that? Start by crafting great tour descriptions and an about page that resonates with your audience.
And if you want to really rake in those sales, though, book a call with us to learn how we can design you a sleek and super affordable website that will never go out of date.
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