Every business has a website. But, it isn’t enough to just have a website. Just having a website is like having a car without an engine. It’s getting you nowhere.
Do you ‘just’ have a website or do you have a gleaming Ferrari of a website?
For a travel business in 2020, a website is its biggest sales tool. We don’t know when we’ll next be able to have thousands of people crammed together in an exhibition centre but what we do know is the internet is here to stay and it’s accessible to all.
We want to help travel businesses prosper, and strongly believe that a strong online presence is critical to achieving that goal.
If you think ‘just’ having a website is enough or you’re not 100% sure of the value a good website can bring, read on!
Travel & tourism websites have 3 core purposes:
What do you do? Who do you do it for? How do you do it?
If someone was to ask you these three questions face to face, I have no doubt you would be able to provide a very concise and clear answer. Does your website do that too?
There is often a lot of vague language used on websites which goes no way to expressing expertise. It could be seen on 100s of other websites, copied and pasted from website to website. That isn’t going to convert visitors into clients.
Your website must demonstrate your specialised offering and knowledge. Make sure you answer those three questions: ‘What do you do? Who do you do it for? How do you do it?’ on your website.
Producing top quality and informed content for your website will help build your online reputation. Of course, it isn’t as simple as merely uploading a blog every few weeks, it takes time, effort and consistency. Just as it has to build your brands’ offline reputation.
If you have worked tirelessly to build your brands reputation you don’t want that to be diminished when partners, associates or prospects visit your website. It is important for that offline reputation to transition online.
Let’s say you specialise in luxury travel, you work with the best hotels, your service is second to none – that all may be true but if you have a website which looks like something from the 90s, nobody is going to buy from you. And that reputation will be challenged!
Your website is an extremely valuable tool, use it to enhance your reputation.
The first thing an interested person will want to do is tell you they are interested. Do you have a way for them to do that?
A visitor arrives on your site, let’s say they saw a post you shared on social media and wanted to find out more about your company. They scroll through the site and then become an interested and informed person. Then what? Do you have anything more to offer them? Do you have a way for them to ask for more?
Engaging that interested and informed person on your site requires calls-to-action (CTAs) that clearly and simply address visitors at any stage of the buying cycle.
If they’re interested and engaged, ready for more but not necessarily ready to buy, the kind of CTA they’re looking for is one that invites them to go deeper — to check out related content, to sign up for your newsletter or to attend a webinar.
If they are interested, engaged, and ready to buy, the CTA they’re looking for is the one that puts them in direct touch with you — ‘call now’ or ‘speak to one of our team’.
Calls-to-action are so important. Getting that user information or better yet an enquiry means more business.
The core purposes of a website are in turn benefits. But here are some more…
Visibility and scope: You have the advantage of being able to reach everyone, without limits. In a globalised and connected world, competition is increasing. The first rule for any brand is that it has to be visible, it is the only way to reach potential customers. A well-cared and easily accessible website in which to expose your services is your introduction to the world.
Trust and credibility: The image you project to the world is what makes a user opt for your services or those of another company. A modern and updated website speaks of a serious, and trustworthy business. Sharing reviews from sites such as Trip Advisor, Trust Pilot, Google and Facebook on your website will build even more trust and credibility – providing the reviews are good, of course!
Positioning: Associated with visibility is positioning. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the tool that, with a well-developed strategy places your business in the first results of search engines such as Google. This allows you to get ahead of your competition and attract potentially thousands of people to your website.
SEO is a job that requires time and dedication. Essential to SEO is a well-optimised website.
Always open: With a website, your business can be open and active 24/7, 365 days a year. It hosts all your services and contains all the sales information needed to convert a visitor into a prospect.
Conversion: Depending on your business model/product, a website allows you to accept bookings without having to interact with the prospective client. If you offer day trips or set packages a user can select their chosen package and dates and make the booking directly from your website. Of course, there are many ways to sell without a website but we cannot ignore the booking power of a website.
If there is anything to take from COVID-19, it’s that your business has to be online. Online businesses prospered while those who didn’t have their (virtual) house in order were left behind. Of course, not all businesses lend themselves to an online model. I am not saying a business should be online only but to succeed, to survive, it must have a strong online presence.
During lockdown people were looking for inspiration for their next holiday, they were researching how other countries were dealing with the pandemic if your website had provided the answers to such queries it may have gained new clients. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt.
There are certain things people expect to see/experience when visiting a website.
Here is a list of things that make a website great! You can download our website must-have’s checklist to help make your website rock!
Good content helps your users accomplish their goals and you offer this content at exactly the right moment while keeping the business goals firmly in sight. To be able to do this, you need to know your user inside out. Understand them, understand their behaviour and focus your content on that. The content you offer should be clear and easy to understand. Try to bring something different to the table, do research and present original data.
All the best websites feature images, and whether it’s to showcase products they’re selling, create a certain mood, or illustrate something else, they need to be high quality.
The use of high-quality imagery and video is hugely important for travel & tourism businesses. “A picture is worth a thousand words”. This couldn’t be more true for travel & tourism businesses.
Blurry images, or an overreliance on joyless stock images, will make a website seem amateurish. Instead, you should pick your own images, hire a photographer if necessary. Stick to a style if you can, this will help build your brand.
“85% of adults think that a company’s website, when viewed on a mobile device, should be as good or better than its desktop website.”
More people are using their phones or other devices to browse the web. It is important to consider building your website with a responsive layout where your website can adjust to different screens.
Both search engines and users are looking for signals that signify trust. Search engines like Google want to give searchers the best possible result. They will pick a result that has proven to be a good result. That’s why you need to work on your trustworthiness on all levels, both technical as well as in content.
To make your site as secure as possible use up-to-date software, have your SSL in order, make strong passwords and use tools such as Cloudflare to protect your site from DDoS attacks.
The most important element for a good website is having user-friendly navigation. You may be offering the best services in the industry, yet, they would be of no use if visitors cannot locate them.
So how do you ensure the customers have easy and smooth website navigation? Your website layout needs to be simple and reasonably organised. Additionally, prominent search and navigation tabs should be placed on top of each and every web page. Links to all the main pages of your website should be present on the navigation tabs.
If your site asks nothing of visitors, they will surely do nothing. What is the purpose of your site? Calls to action direct visitors to the conversion you want them to make; be it a newsletter sign up, a guide download, a social follow or an enquiry.
The calls to action need to be relevant, easy to find and inviting. Certain colours are recommended for the call to action buttons but they need to fit the design of your website.
Uncover all the different ways of how people can end up on your pages and tailor these to answer their questions. Map out the user journey from A to Z and place your content in strategic spots.
Not every visitor is going to be looking for the same thing. You want content that provides value to your different type of customer and different times of the sales funnel.
You want the design of your website to be clean and minimal. A noisy website with lots of buttons, lots of offers and countless pop-ups does not create a nice user experience. It is distracting and will turn users off. Resulting in visitors leaving your site.
“39% of people will stop engaging with a website if images won’t load or take too long to load”.
“47% of Users expect a maximum of 2 seconds loading time for an average website”. Source, SWEOR.
Waiting for a website to load will lose visitors. Nearly half of web visitors expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less and they will potentially leave a site that isn’t loaded within 3 seconds. Optimising image sizes will help load your site faster.
Capturing user information is a very important role a website plays. However, there is a fine line between suggestion and obtrusion. You don’t want your opt-in offer to distract the user, it must be subtle and presented in a way that offers value to the user.
There is nothing more frustrating than browsing a website, wanting to get in touch and not being able to locate the contact information.
It is essential that your website displays detailed contact information prominently on your website. This is a good strategy to improve the company’s credibility.
You should now have a good understanding of why it’s necessary to have a great website not ‘just’ a website.
A great website can make the difference between your business succeeding or failing.
If you’re ready to take action, contact us today to schedule a call about what we can do for you.
We hope you found the article helpful. We’d love to hear what you are doing to make your website great.
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