[Updated March 8, 2023]
Website maintenance is vital to your tour business, yet isn’t widely talked about in the industry. Your website usually makes the first impression with prospective customers, so it is essential that it functions perfectly and contains current information. Here at Tourism Tiger, we believe that maintenance is just as important as having a beautiful site built in the first place.
Plus, if you don’t keep your site updated and maintained, you’re going to eventually need to pay for a new one. Maintaining your website is crucial to success in today’s hyper-competitive internet economy. Are you wondering why yet?
1. It’s the face of your company
Your website is the most important impression generator of your company. Before the internet, salespeople were the front lines of a business’s external relations. Their job was to generate a positive first impression of your company by reflecting the values and quality of the business in their interactions. Now, however, before a prospect even reaches your sales team, they are likely to visit your website.
Think about it like this: your website is a snapshot of your company that allows visitors from all across the globe to independently form an opinion about your business. So, it’s essential that you ask what sort of first impression your website leaves.
A well-maintained website that contains accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information portrays a high level of professionalism. A website with incorrect information, broken links, or outdated content shows a lack of care that generates a feeling of distrust. Obviously, that is far from ideal when people are trusting you with their leisure time and money, especially in the tourism industry as they often book for whole groups. The very least they expect is that the information on your website be an accurate depiction of current offerings. The likelihood of someone booking a tour on a website that lists dates from last year is pretty slim. If your website is not up to par, your expertise will not help you one bit.
2. SEO is constantly changing
SEO could quite easily be considered the most important reason(opens in a new tab) to manage your website. Google updates its search algorithm very regularly. Many successful techniques in SEO used just 5 years ago are now being penalized by the search engine. Additionally, as of March 2023, Google Analytics is changing to GA4. There are many changes in the algorithm associated with this change, so it is vital to update along with Google.
Not only does Google advance its algorithms constantly, but it also “crawls” or reviews and analyzes your site consistently. This allows it to assess how often content is being updated. There is some complexity to the details, but it is logical that Google prefers(opens in a new tab) “fresh” content. Whether in the form of new content, consistent changes, or improving user experience — it is a factor in Google’s algorithm. If you and your competition have very similar offerings, both generating off-page buzz, freshness could be the deciding factor of who is ranked higher. While a well-maintained website is not the only key to ranking on the first page of Google, it is an important factor.
3. Getting hacked isn’t fun — stay safe by staying updated
Security may not have the glamor of SEO, but it shouldn’t be overlooked by any means. Analyzing how your website may be at risk and staying on top of software updates are both vital in ensuring that your site is safe along with any data stored there. Here at Tourism Tiger, we add SSL certificates to all of our sites, load via HTTPS, have daily backups, and stay on top of WordPress core and plugin updates. Using out-of-date software or programming languages means you are not receiving newer security patches and are missing out on the latest tactics to combat hacking.
4. New trends and technology are emerging every day
Programming languages, new features, and technological advances all are rolling out at a breathtaking pace. Keeping with the times is essential in order to be perceived as a leader in your area. An outdated website can drive visitors away. Users are conditioned to expect a website to look a certain way, which is why user experience is so critical to gaining sales. If your user experience is out of date or confusing it can be detrimental. On the other hand, a fresh site that is easily navigated can have amazing positive effects on your sales numbers.
At Tourism Tiger, we take great pride in our TigerCare website maintenance services. We provide full-time support to keep content up to date alongside taking care of all security-related tasks and making sure that your site is on the leading edge of new technology.
In today’s technological age, your website is one of the most powerful tools at your business’s disposal. It’s necessary to capitalize on this and cultivate all of the potential benefits as well as staying sleek and modern!
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