SEO is captious successful the question industry. While astir travelers mightiness summation inspiration connected TikTok, YouTube, oregon Instagram, they volition inactive hunt connected Google earlier purchasing.

In fact, according to Kevin Indig, question was the 5th largest manufacture connected the web by integrated visibility successful June 2024.

If you privation to make much bookings oregon get much customers, you volition request to bash SEO. To constitute this usher connected question SEO, I interviewed 7 experienced question SEOs:

• Matthew Barker, co-founder and CEO astatine Horizon Guides
• Alex Galinos, Head of SEO & SEO Product Manager astatine Hoppa
• Tristan Heaword, co-founder astatine three&six
• Brennen Bliss, CEO astatine Propellic
• Jared Alster, Chief Strategy Officer & co-founder astatine Dune7
• Nina Clapperton, question blogger and CEO of She Knows SEO
• Katie Hammel, Director of Content astatine point.me

Kevin Indig besides precise kindly shared his paid work connected question SEO with me.

The basics of SEO are the aforesaid for each industry. You request to make high-quality content, gain backlinks, and marque definite your tract is escaped of method issues.

But question SEO has immoderate unsocial challenges:

• Travel isn’t conscionable 1 manufacture but is made up of galore antithetic industries and players—there are online question agencies, examination sites, hotels, airlines, cruise operators, circuit operators, car rental companies, question exertion companies, question bloggers, and adjacent question insurance.
• You’re competing with Google itself. Google has its own question product, which it’s blessed to insert into the SERPs. Google besides dominates the SERPs by showing galore antithetic SERP features for travel-related keywords, which usually reply the query (e.g., things to bash successful Barcelona).
• Popular keywords are besides dominated by huge planetary brands similar TripAdvisor and Booking.com.
• Many question companies, specified arsenic circuit operators, only serve a peculiar section area.
• Many travelers don’t sojourn oregon publication trips via a business’s website. This is particularly existent for airlines and hotels. Instead, travelers mightiness hunt via Skyscanner oregon Booking.com.
• Seasonality and real-world events (e.g., terrorism, pandemics, earthy disasters) tin interaction your hunt visibility.

In this article, we’ll amusement you however to lick these problems.

The astir fashionable travel-related keywords are dominated by Google, SERP features, and big sites.

Coupled with Google’s insistence connected rolling retired AI Overviews (now successful six much countries, too the U.S.), galore presumption are retired of scope for astir question websites.

This is wherefore astir of the experts I spoke to are present focusing connected keywords that actually drive business. Typically, these are middle- to bottom-of-the-funnel topics.

For example, alternatively of targeting top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) presumption similar “london tour” oregon “things to bash successful London”, a London-based circuit relation could people keywords similar “harry potter walking circuit for muggles successful london” oregon “world warfare 2 walking circuit london” (provided they connection those tours.)

While hunt measurement whitethorn not beryllium high, these keywords show intent. Someone searching for “harry potter walking circuit for muggles successful london” is adjacent to the acquisition decision—they’ve already decided to sojourn London oregon are possibly already in London. They’re apt to convert.

This keyword is besides easier to vie for: Keyword Difficulty (KD) is lone 6 and determination are sites ranking successful the apical 10 with debased Domain Ratings:

To find these keywords with concern potential, participate a fewer effect keywords into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and spell to the Matching presumption report. For example, arsenic a London-based circuit company, I mightiness participate the locations I screen (e.g., Westminster, Kensington, Paddington, Soho).

I’ll spell done the study and prime retired the keywords that are applicable to my site. I could adjacent constrictive down the study by specifically looking for keywords with the words “tour” oregon “tours”:

Once you person your database of keywords, you’d privation to people them connected their ‘business potential’, oregon how commercially applicable they are to your website. The simplest mode is to inquire whether your merchandise oregon work fits successful the topic. This is however we bash it astatine Ahrefs too:

Alternatively, you tin spell successful deeper with numbers and usage this formula, arsenic suggested by Brennen:

(Monthly Search Volume) x (Keyword Click-through Rate) x (Website Conversion Rate) x (Avg. Gross Margin oregon Revenue per Transaction)

Through this formula, you tin spot that adjacent if postulation imaginable is low, arsenic agelong arsenic it’s commercially relevant, it tin inactive beryllium impactful to your company’s bottommost line:

To get astir competing with large sites successful the SERPs, a communal SEO strategy is to commencement with low-competition keywords. In the question space, arsenic Alex shared, this tin manifest arsenic targeting keywords for little fashionable destinations.

For example, look astatine the quality successful hunt measurement and keyword trouble betwixt these 2 keywords:

• Things to bash successful London
• Things to bash successful Southampton

It would beryllium easier to people the keyword “things to bash successful Southampton”.

This would enactment adjacent if you’re a London-based circuit operator. You could easy make an nonfiction astir the things to bash successful Southampton—and see a time travel to London arsenic 1 of the items. (And transportation your tour, of course!)

To find keywords astir these little fashionable destinations, Google for a database of cities oregon towns successful your people country. For example, a hunt for “cities successful England” brings up a database of cities from GOV.UK:

Copy and paste the cities into Keywords Explorer. Then, spell to the Matching terms report, click Clusters by Parent Topic, prime the Include filter, and adhd a fewer communal modifiers, similar “things to do”, “where to eat”, and “where to stay”. (James Brockbank has a database of common question modifiers here.)

Going done the study volition aboveground keywords for little fashionable destinations that we tin target.

“Taylor Swift”.

If determination was thing astonishing I heard from galore of my interviews, it was the planetary superstar. The reason: She’s presently holding her Eras Tour each astir the world. And hunt measurement for her circuit locations is spiking:

Which means: An accidental for question companies to instrumentality vantage of Swiftonomics.

It’s not conscionable Taylor Swift. The Olympics, Tomorrowland, and adjacent the Asian nutrient festival successful your section country could beryllium topics you make contented about. These trending events oregon topics whitethorn person debased hunt measurement but they could beryllium the main reason wherefore idiosyncratic is traveling. It’s important to seizure these opportunities.

As Kevin pointed retired successful his newsletter, lone KLM bothered to prehend the infinitesimal to fertile for “flight paris Olympics”:

The easiest mode to find trending topics oregon events is yourself. If you’re based successful the area, you should beryllium alert of astir of the events that are happening. Alternatively, you tin usage Google Trends oregon participate your determination (e.g., “London”) into Keywords Explorer. Then, click connected the Growth column to benignant by the astir maturation successful hunt volume.

You tin spot wherefore truthful galore question websites are targeting Taylor Swift (and don’t hide her boyfriend, Travis Kelce too!). There’s besides involvement successful flying to Austin, Texas from London:

Topic clusters, oregon content hubs, are interlinked collections of contented astir a akin topic.

For example, our beginner’s usher to SEO is simply a contented hub that links to the large aspects of SEO.

In the question industry, you tin marque contented hubs based connected a imaginable traveler’s journey. Nina explains:

Then rinse and repetition with antithetic clusters, truthful that the blog becomes a one-stop store for a person’s travel planning.”

What does a emblematic traveler’s travel look like? Here’s a diagram from Brennen that showcases the 5 stages of traveler intent:

For example, for an adventurous traveler, you could urge a destination similar Uzbekistan. A contented hub for Uzbekistan whitethorn look like this:

• Why you should sojourn Uzbekistan
• When is the champion clip to sojourn Uzbekistan
• Things to bash successful Uzbekistan
• Best cities to sojourn successful Uzbekistan
• The champion Uzbek dishes you should try
• Where to enactment successful Uzbekistan
• Best restaurants successful Tashkent
• Best restaurants successful Samarkand
• Silk Roads circuit Uzbekistan
• Uzbekistan Kygyrszstan 10 days tour
• Horse riding successful Kygyrszstan and Uzbekistan

You tin past instrumentality those ideas and enactment them into Keywords Explorer to spot however searchers are searching for them and whether they person hunt volume:

Jared said thing that amazed maine during our interview:

Travel is precise personal. Every travelers aspires to a antithetic itinerary—some privation to spot each touristy attraction, portion others privation to spell disconnected the beaten track. Some conscionable privation to laze connected the beach, portion others don’t caput the challenging ascent up Kilimanjaro.

This is what Google is trying to bash successful the SERPs arsenic well. They’re trying to prioritize contented that demonstrates expertise, experience, authority, and spot (also known arsenic EEAT). And the question SEOs I talked to hold with infusing first-hand acquisition into your content.

The champion mode is to sojourn those locations in-person. As Nina tells me:

But this strategy has limitations. After all, it’s intolerable to sojourn each location. So, different mode is to prosecute freelance writers.

You shouldn’t prosecute conscionable immoderate freelancer though. It seems outrageous, but freelance writers tin lie, arsenic Katie experienced once. A freelance writer told Katie she went to a peculiar people and truthful was qualified to constitute astir it. Turns out, aft immoderate fact-checking with the teacher of the class, she was ne'er a student. She simply took thing akin and thought she could constitute astir it anyway.

So, you’d privation to earnestly vet these writers.

Here’s what Katie suggests:

• Look astatine their penning portfolio — Have they written astir the determination oregon acquisition before? Do they unrecorded determination presently and person lived determination for a long time?
• Ask for photos from the writers — Real-world photos are little apt to be faked.
• “Grill” them astir the specifics of their experience — For example, Katie mightiness inquire them astir their champion hose points redemption. That reply can’t beryllium generated from AI oregon cobbled unneurotic from the top-ranking pages.

Matthew does things differently—he goes consecutive for the best. Most of his contributors person written for large publications and guidebooks.

Most of these writers are themselves entities connected Google’s Knowledge Graph, which contributes to the EEAT of his site. Additionally, since they besides constitute for different publications, they occasionally nexus backmost to their articles connected Horizon Guides.

When it comes to first-hand experience, Matthew looks astatine what’s already connected the SERPs, interrogates LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude) to find retired what’s already known, past goes to his contributors and asks if they disagree with immoderate of it oregon whether they tin adhd thing new.

An illustration helium gave maine was the taxable “hiking successful Vietnam”. Most websites that fertile for that keyword privation to merchantability the visitant a travel to Sapa. But successful reality, astatine slightest successful his opinion, Sapa is simply excessively engaged and excessively touristy, which whitethorn marque for a mediocre travel for idiosyncratic who’s flying hours to Vietnam. So, they connection alternatives alternatively of pursuing what everyone other is penning about.

How bash they prosecute writers? It each comes down to relationships. Decades successful the manufacture person built some Matthew and Katie a rolodex of writers they tin scope out to.

Katie besides recruits from question penning groups she belongs to and X:

For an assignment, looking for a question writer who has Frontier’s all-you-can-fly pass. Pay $400+, delight capable retired this form.https://t.co/np73qkabBz

Backlinks are an important Google ranking factor. However, fixed however saturated the question manufacture is, it’s incredibly hard to physique links to important commercialized pages.

The 1 strategy that astir of the experts I talked to usage is digital PR.

For example, Katie ran a run wherever they utilized their interior information to find the champion and worst U.S airports for inexpensive planetary flights. The leafage got a full of 91 backlinks from 76 referring domains:

Most of these links were from media sites similar USAToday, LA Times, SFGate, and TimeOut:

Likewise, 1 of Jared’s integer PR campaigns for his lawsuit yielded a respectable 68 backlinks from 58 referring domains:

Again, this run got links from media publications similar USAToday, San Diego Union-Tribune, and Frommers:

There are nary surefire tips for making a integer PR run work, but present are immoderate tips from the pros:

• Use your company’s interior data — For example, some Going and Hoppa utilized their booking information to make linkbait campaigns.
• Third-party information besides works — Don’t springiness up conscionable due to the fact that you don’t person entree to interior data. You tin besides usage third-party data, similar what Jared did for the champion cities for biking campaign.
• Look astatine what’s trending oregon what radical are talking about — What’s the taste oregon societal hook? Jared’s run worked due to the fact that determination was a emergence successful involvement successful cycling owed to the pandemic.
• Make your run hyper-local oregon plan it to person a hyper-local space — Local publications typically person little to study about, truthful they’re blessed to diagnostic oregon nexus to an absorbing portion of content. For example, the champion airports and champion cities for cycling person idiosyncratic hyper-local angles built in—the PR manager tin scope retired to each city’s paper to archer them they’ve been featured.
• Come up with aggregate angles — When pitching journalists, don’t conscionable usage 1 angle. Brainstorm aggregate angles — a nationalist work mightiness beryllium funny successful the full post, but an LA-based work mightiness lone beryllium funny that LA is featured.

You tin larn much astir integer PR successful our guide: Digital PR: The Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Brand Unmissable

According to Brennen’s experience, leafage load clip is powerfully correlated with rankings successful the question industry.

Which makes sense, considering that pages for question websites are media-heavy with tons of images, photos, and videos.

So, you’d privation to marque definite your tract loads fast. To cheque your website’s speed, tally a crawl with Ahrefs’ Site Audit. Then, caput to the Performance report.

If you link your API cardinal from Google PageSpeed Insights to Site Audit, you tin adjacent cheque your Core Web Vitals, the 3 metrics that Google uses to measurement a user’s acquisition connected a webpage.

You tin larn much astir what Core Web Vitals are and however to amended them successful our guide: What Are Core Web Vitals (CWVs) & How To Improve Them

Many question queries are highly commercial. Even a TOFU query similar “things to bash successful Barcelona” has tons of sponsored results:

The information is that portion you whitethorn fertile high, get tons of integrated traffic, and amended travelers connected a destination, they mightiness tally a Google hunt and simply click connected a paid effect and extremity up purchasing from that page.

You request paid selling to person customers successful the question industry.

That’s wherefore Brennen suggests that question websites should tally paid selling campaigns too, specifically retargeting campaigns. For example, if idiosyncratic has work your nonfiction connected “things to bash successful Samarkand”, you mightiness privation to retarget them with your Silk Road circuit oregon Samarkand tour pages.

Final thoughts

Travel is an highly saturated and competitory industry. If you privation to vie with the giants successful the SERPs, you’ll request first-hand experience, targeting keywords that thrust conversions, and creating contented that radical privation to link to.

This usher should springiness you everything you request to fertile precocious and get much bookings oregon affiliate income for your question website.

Did I miss something? Let maine cognize connected LinkedIn oregon X.