Creating Content for the Traveler’s Journey
How to optimize your content to attract first-time visitors
A traveler’s journey begins long before they step foot in your destination.
Google Insights breaks it down into five stages: dreaming, planning, booking, experience, sharing. The first three stages occur before the traveler arrives. That means there are three opportunities to capture new visitors. As a destination marketer, your best chances of winning first-time visitors are in the dreaming and planning phase. At this point, they have not chosen a destination yet. The competition is open to the destination that understands how to place the right content in front of the right people at the right time.
A closer look at the “Dreaming” and “Planning” phases
The “dreaming” phase is when travelers are looking for inspiration. They explore content using social media, search, and recommendations. Besides social media, they will search on YouTube and travel blogs. Once they have narrowed it down to a select few destinations, they move on to the planning phase.
By the time a traveler reaches the “planning” phase, they have narrowed it down to a few destinations from the “dreaming” phase. They are still choosing a destination, but the content they need is different. They may visit up to 40 different websites in this stage looking for things to do, hotels, and flight options. The biggest opportunity here for destination marketers is providing high-quality content on things to do. So let’s take a look at who you should be creating this content for.
Younger generations are more likely first-time visitors
American travelers are more likely to visit places they have already been to. Roughly two-thirds of travelers begin their journey with a destination in mind. If that’s the case, how can your destination capture first-time visitors?
There are still plenty of opportunities. 33% of people are searching for a new destination. In this group, the opportunity lies with Millennial and Gen Z travelers. Younger people have less travel history. So they are more likely to visit new places. If you can capture this demographic, you know they will be more likely to visit again. The younger generations are also more likely to spend on experiences and go in debt for travel.
Let’s take a look at how Millennials and Gen Z are searching for and selecting their destinations. Both generations use mobile devices, desktops, and tablets throughout the travel journey. During the dreaming and planning stages, the mobile experience is critical. Over 70% of travelers research using mobile. Most location discovery happens on mobile. Travelers are more comfortable making decisions on mobile.
Since 88% of travelers will switch to a different site if yours doesn’t meet their needs, you need to make your site mobile-optimized. If you want to be even better, consider the mobile view first when developing content for the dreaming and planning stages.
Getting Your Destination Discovered with Search-friendly Content
When it comes to the online part of the travel experience, content is king. Capturing first-time visitors requires getting their attention and creating content that resonates. The way you organize your content determines how it is discovered. So it’s important to optimize your content to be found during traveler searches. There are some common search habits here that you can take advantage of. During the planning stages, common searches include trip types and seasonal searches. For example, “honeymoon ideas” or “best places to travel in winter”. This demographic wants to know how each trip fits into their personal journey. Destinations need to speak in the language of the traveler. The good news is that this rarely requires creating completely new content. The solution here is to reorganize your content into themes that are commonly searched.
There are also specific subjects that work well with this audience. They include food and Instagrammable activities. 71% of Millennial travelers would choose their destination based on food alone. They want to experience authentic local culture, and food is one of the ways they do this. Highlighting regional flavors is an excellent way to show off your location. Additionally, the “Instagrammability” factor is prevalent during “dreaming” and “planning” but also “experience” and “sharing”. During planning they want to find the best experience, and one they will enjoy sharing. Make it easy for visitors to find the most photogenic points of interest in your destination. Try including itineraries based on “Instagrammability” or “Best Places for Pictures”
Now that you have an idea about the type of content that appears in searches, it’s time to talk about content length. Images are a necessity, but they aren’t everything. It’s not enough to share images with an address and a quick description anymore. To rank highly on Google search, you need to be developing long-form content. Pages that rank in Google’s Top 10 search results all have an average word count above 2,000 words. Creating long-form content will also bring positive effects across social channels. Posts that are over 1,500 words receive 68.1% more tweets and 22.6% more Facebook likes.
All of this comes back down to trends in how people are searching. People are becoming more comfortable with technology. They search the way they talk. Rather than using 2–3-word terms like before, this means that there are more 5+ word searches. All of a sudden “Honeymoon Destinations” becomes “Best places for a honeymoon in July” on Google. So, when considering keywords, start looking for long-tail searches.
Summary: Tips for Searchable Content
- Focus on long-format storytelling
- Use trip types as titles and keywords (honeymoon, summer break, holiday vacation)
- Share your longer blogs/written pieces on social
- Combine shorter blogs into a longer ‘itinerary’ style piece
- Create seasonal itineraries
- When writing long-format content, avoid events, and choose evergreen activities
- Focus content on millennial-specific interests like food and photogenic points of interest
Winning Over First-Time Visitors
If you want to bring new travelers to your destination, you need to show up in the “dreaming” and “planning” stages. This is the place where travelers are still considering locations they have not yet visited. Understand that travelers are looking for experiences that are part of their life journey. Figure out how your experience fits in here and create your content around that.
VAMONDE is a digital content platform for travel discovery. Discover the travel experiences at www.vamonde.com or learn more about creating content for your destination at www.solutions.vamonde.com.
