Tourism has changed dramatically over the past few years. More people are booking their vacation online and they're doing so in greater numbers than ever before. The internet is playing a major role in how people plan their vacations, where they visit and how much they spend. Having an online presence is the first step to having a good digital marketing strategy.
As a destination, you have to be able to compete for the attention of visitors. Your website is the first point of contact, so it’s important that you make sure it conveys the right message. Have you ever wondered how that translates into your overall marketing strategy?
When it comes to the design and construction of your website, it's easy to get caught up in the visuals. However, if you're a tourism destination, the goal of your website should be to help visitors find what they need and make it easy for them to convert into customers. Often, we find that in web design we trade off functional sections for cool effects. Although images and effects can help your website look modern it's important to keep in mind how visitors will use the site.
Focusing on visually appealing websites instead of the functional aspects can lead to evaluating conversions and actions that were not key drivers for the initial design. Having a clear strategy for the website, along with a map of how it all works and what entry points your site will have can help in establishing KPIs that will dictate how the website is optimized.
When you're designing your website strategy, try to keep these things in mind:
What are the objectives of the website? What about your business objectives?
What are your current users/customers needs and how do they want to interact with your brand?
What types of users you want coming to your site (and how they interact with it).
What searches do you want to rank for?
The type of website you create will dictate how people interact with your brand. Suppose that one of your main objectives is to give out important information about current conditions, as well as resources for things to do. Another objective might be getting more people to sign up for your newsletter so that you can build up your first party data.
As a best practice when creating your website strategy, all objectives should be considered so that you can determine what needs to be included in order for them to succeed. From having a lead form on every page to creating easy booking journeys, the objectives should always lead the strategy.
Another key factor is understanding what your audience needs, what questions they might have, and how you can best serve them with the information on your site. In order for this strategy to work, though, you have to know exactly who your audience is—and this means doing some research into demographics and psychographics so that you can tailor content according to your target market.
This process starts by asking questions: What are we trying to achieve? Who are our customers? What do we want them to do? Why do your customers come here? What do we want them to learn?
As a destination, you may have many different types of users. There are those who are coming to your destination for the first time, returning visitors, and those who may be visiting from another country. Each of these groups will have different expectations when they arrive at your website.
For example, those who are visiting for the first time will want to learn more about what your destination has to offer. Returning visitors may want to see what things have changed since their last visit or maybe even find out if there were any new attractions that opened up while they were gone.
Lastly, visitors from other countries want information in their native language, and they want to be able to easily access it. Building a website that can serve multiple segments is not uncommon, so having a strategy in place will make that easier to achieve.
A good website strategy will also help your marketing department create great content that is keyword rich. The content creation process is usually a lengthy one that requires a lot of time and effort. Knowing what you want to rank for on search engines will be instrumental in optimizing your website with the type of content that converts users. This is especially helpful as you start defining your metadata. Having titles and headers that can rank organically will be the key in increasing organic traffic overall.
Lastly, there's always room for improvement and it will be much easier to update a website at a later date if you know what the intention for each section, page, form or functionality was from the beginning. The strategy turns into a blueprint that serves as a guide when making those updates. This will also give you the ability to effectively measure what is working so that you can update your website accordingly with a goal to further strengthen the relationship between you and your customers.
Website strategy is a crucial component of online marketing. At Hawaii Think Tank we're passionate about helping businesses grow by providing valuable resources, tools, and services to help them succeed.
If you want to learn more about website strategy, and how to create one, Marketing Consultant Online has put together a 2-hour website strategy workshop that can help give you a different perspective on website development from a marketing standpoint. The Website Strategy Workshop is designed for marketing managers who are looking to change their approach to creating a digital presence for their businesses.
The workshop includes ready to edit templates, a printable planning worksheet and some bonus SEO checklists and website briefs.
