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Air travel SEO specialists have seen their world and work evolve at a far greater pace than any other online industry. Now predominantly based online, the travel industry and companies within it have a huge task on hand – how to raise brand awareness and sales, whilst remaining an attractive option for holiday bookings.
A subset of travel providers, commercial airlines have a much greater task at hand, as simply drawing on the destination and offering a travel guide will have little impact on highlighting the service on offer and the reasons why buyers should opt for them.
Offer Leadership That Can be Shared
Authenticity within the passenger airline industry has been at the core of many successful campaigns in the past, as niche providers pair up with SEO services to produce content marketing campaigns targeting chosen audiences, and to offer unique insights to destinations or tours.
This offers positives on two levels; firstly it offers immediate thought leadership which can be used by a would-be traveller in the research phase. Beyond this the organic search value of shared content in terms of link building and social awareness is high.
Content has been at the forefront of travel SEO for a number of years, as companies have their own blogs and insights on destinations in order to utilise the human element of travel searches within SEO.
However, there is a vast difference between those who create content that is authentic and those just after the sales, and churning out content to put themselves on the right side of Google’s Panda algorithm.
Focusing On Passenger Experience
Within the previous point lies the key ingredient to successful travel content – it has to be authentic and it has to useful. If your brand voice doesn’t connect with your audience and this audience doesn’t buy in to the article, a reader of the opening two paragraphs can quickly become a missed opportunity for a sale as they take their attention elsewhere.
New ideas and content that ‘disrupts’ the industry and says something that has never been said is one way of getting content out there. However, the focus of authenticity within this will be what creates credibility within the industry.
This raises an interesting challenge for commercial airlines: how exactly does a marketing manager create authentic content whilst promoting a service designed in aiding a traveller to a destination?
Essentially, a focus on passenger experience is key – Emirates highlight the high end level of service in all branding and adverts, with the SEO of their website structured in a way that key elements (such as in flight exclusivity) is highlighted within website structure and animations and the coding of these are smooth. What the Emirates website provides is a high end online experience, from meta tags to speed – everything is as you would expect. The use of geotargeting within the website continues to highlight this point.
Digital marketing in cruise travel also set an example for commercial airlines’ SEO, with MSC Cruises’ different approach to authenticity through content. The company’s ‘In Charted Water’s – Mapping a Brave New World´ interactive infographic highlights the history behind the routes of a various cruises, therefore offering an authentic insight to the brand whilst highlighting the importance of each route on a global scale. This trick allows for the company to promote itself and its products in a way that engages would-be buyers.
Benefits On Direct Bookings And Rankings
Authenticity is much more than content however and should run through the entirety of an SEO offering.
The benefits are obvious – direct bookings as well as great rankings for chosen options. Part of the increase in EasyJet sales is born from the ease of use of booking systems – paired with a wonderful utilisation of the mobile market and app store optimisation.
Being authentic within SEO comes from utilising the brand voice and ethics within everything from the way the website is built to the approach taken to link building. Within hard to target travel sectors this approach is particularly important.
Polaris provide SEO services to global clients within multiple sectors, including the travel industry.
