As an attraction, tour, or activity company, you are bound to run into competition. From the flyers you leave in hotel lobbies to the paid ads you use on social media, you need every advantage you can get to secure a wider audience of customers.

This fight for customer attention is where SEO comes into play. As your team prepares for the upcoming busy season, you want to get ahead of the flurry of bookings by preparing your website for future customer web searches.

Here are three straightforward tips for boosting your SEO and bringing home some new traffic as you head into your peak season.

1. Optimize Existing Content That Used to Rank Well

Google keeps its search engine running as smoothly as possible. It updates that algorithm roughly every few days to ensure it is at the top of its game. All that older content on your blog or website that used to bring in thousands of visits is at risk of falling behind if it hasn’t been updated for new systems.

The goal is to refresh this content so it is highly engaging for your target readers, directly markets your tour or activity services, and rises in the ranks on the SERP (search engine results page). 

An excellent place to start is SEMrush. It provides an SEO analyzer that will look at all your web pages and blog posts to determine what is performing well and where you need to do a little more work. Alternatively, you can use similar tools or dig into your Google Analytics data to determine which content should be updated.

Once you have that information, it’s time for some keyword research. Wordstream or the Google Keyword Planner are both free and provide you with decent knowledge of which phrases and words perform the best. Every page that needs work should:

• Be optimized for keywords
• Get updated on current trends, phrases, and references
• Maybe have content additions where applicable
• Reflect your recent deals or promotions and any new information about your business or operations

2. Focus on Content Ranking Outside the Top 5-10

The top 5-10 results you see after plugging in a search like “best food tours in Chicago” or “tour company for Grand Canyon” tend to get the most traffic. 

Now, you won’t be able to get every page on your website into those top spots. So, where should you focus your optimization efforts?

The existing content that’s ranking in positions 5-15 can be considered low hanging fruit, and a few tweaks can bump it a bit closer to the top of the SERP.

First and foremost, you need to optimize everything for keywords. Pay attention to terms with lower keyword difficulty and enough monthly search volume to make it worth your while. 

Also rework the three SEO meta tags tour operators need to know. These are the titles, descriptions, and headings you’ll find in the search results. That is what your audience is reading before they arrive on your website.

3. Add Internal Links

Internal links on your website point readers toward other content. See that phrase “three SEO meta tags tour operators need to know” from early in this article? That is an internal link. It directs you to another article we wrote.

Internal linking to other content keeps your readers on your website. After all, you want them to book your tour or activity. By encouraging them to “hang out” on your website, they find the content useful and are motivated to make a booking.

If you can, try to link back to older pages so they enjoy a bit more relevance, which helps with search results. We have easy-to-follow suggestions about internal links in this Compass guide (see that, we did it again!).

Final Thoughts 

SEO is a critical tool in boosting your success as a tour, activity, or attraction company. You want all the visitors you can get from your target audience. Using the key phrases and words they search for online is a terrific way to ensure you are getting the traffic needed to grow and succeed. 

Remember that SEO is a trial-and-error process. There is no magical button to push to suddenly optimize your website better than everyone else. You’ll need to evaluate different things and see what sticks.

However, these tips should give you a good leg up in 2024! To learn more about tips like these, check out our additional SEO guides and get the competitive advantage you need for your online presence.