Actionable SEO Tips For Travel Agencies in Nepal | MarphaTech

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seo tips for travel agency

The growth of digital marketing in the travel industry is huge. This has imparted significant challenges for smaller travel agencies to be found online. As they need to compete with OTAs (Online Travel Agency) such as TripAdvisor, Booking and so on for the search engine positions. Despite the dominance of OTAs on search engines SEO is still a key strategy for travel agencies.

Why is SEO important for travel businesses/websites?

People make most of their travel choices through online channels. They are researching, planning, comparing and booking their vacations via the internet. So, no matter how affordable prices and travel experiences you offer your business is unlikely to succeed if your website isn’t showing up in notable search results.

SEO must be a prominent digital marketing strategy if you want to compete with OTAs and your competitors. Having said that, for achieving optimal results it requires the expertise of SEO experts. Not to worry we will share some basic and actionable SEO tips to improve your travel agency website.

On-Page SEO tips for a travel website

1. Perform an SEO audit of your website

SEO audit is important for identifying strength and weaknesses and possibilities of your website for long term success. It includes assessing on-page and off-page activities, analyzing backlinks and social media engagement, keyword clustering, site structure, broken links, duplicate content and so on. 

2. Optimize page titles and descriptions

Titles and descriptions are one of the important on-page SEO factors. Make sure each page has a unique title and description. Try to include a focus keyword or its synonyms on title and meta tags.

3. Conduct keyword research

Keyword research is vital for SEO strategy. Focus on long-tail and specific keywords rather than broad and short keywords. Brainstorm the keywords that your target customers are likely to search for.

If you can offer “flight from Delhi to Kathmandu”, that’s the keyword you should be using. Or, if you can help people “book a hotel in Kathmandu”, use that one. This means you should focus on specific and informational keywords and stay away from broad keywords.

Also, use the keywords smartly in your website content. It’s best to use one main keyword per page and use its variations naturally. Do not try to stuff the page with keywords referring to the same subject.
How many keywords should you target for each page?

4. Create SEO friendly URLs

There are several ways to make SEO friendly URLs. How to make SEO friendly URL?
  • Use shorter URLs (typically up to 80 characters rank higher)
  • Include a keyword in the slug
  • Use hyphen and avoid underscore
  • Use top-level domains (com, .net)
  • Also, ensure that your website has HTTPS secured.  

5. Optimize images 

There are two aspects of optimizing images on the website. One is optimizing an image for SEO and others are focusing on content and visual content.
Image optimization tips for SEO:
  • Write SEO friendly ALT text
  • Reduce image size for fast page load speed
  • Use mobile-friendly images
  • It’s better to add images on sitemap as well
  • Choose the right format. PNG and JPEG are the most common formats.
The visual aspect of the image includes: 
  • Use unique and high-quality images
  • If you’re using third party image beware of copyright

 6. Optimize site content

Naturally placed keywords in the website content help improve search rankings. But do not practice keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing results in negative user experience and can harm your site’s ranking.

Some of the best ways to optimize website content are:

  • Stick to 2-5% keyword density 
  • Make sure every page has enough content
  • Write blogs over 1000 words
  • Link to internal pages smartly
  • Make sure the content is super easy to read
  • Fix internal and external broken links

7. Optimize for mobile devices

The use of smartphones as a means of internet surfing is increasing rapidly. 52% of global traffic is generated through mobile devices.

Most people are likely to travel with mobile devices rather than laptops. According to Google, nearly half of smartphone users research, plan and book their trips using their mobile phones.

Here are simple yet effective tips to optimize the site for mobile devices:

Local SEO for your travel website

Every travel agency should optimize for local search. Travelers often search for hotels, restaurants, and related businesses within a particular location. For instance, a tourist can search for “best 3-star hotel in Kathmandu” and you should be showing up in the search engine results.

Google My Business

google my business screenshot
Google My Business (GMB) is the feature of Google that helps businesses manage their online presence including search and maps. It helps your business to show up for location and service-based searches. Getting on GMB increases your chances of showing up in Google’s local pack, Google Maps, Local Finder as well as inorganic results. You must verify your business on GMB before it shows up in the lists.

Rich/Review Snippets

Add schema markup to your local business address and include it on a homepage. Schema markup or structured data is a code containing the business information that you put on your website. This helps search engines to crawl information about your business in a way they can understand it.

Conclusion

The travel industry is booming and is highly competitive. Small and local travel agencies are struggling to find their place in search rankings. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t compete with big agencies and OTAs. You need a clear and workable SEO strategy not just to improve website ranking but also earn customers. These actionable SEO tips for the travel agency website will provide you an opportunity to excel online and compete with bigger companies.

If you don’t have time and expertise to produce SEO strategies and implement it don’t hesitate to reach out to us. 

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