Is your content campaign generating the results you need, or does it seem to be falling flat?
Creating content has become a central component of every business’s online campaign. It’s one of the most important ways to reach your guests, build authority with the search engines, climb the rankings and drive bookings, but on a web full of great content, how do you make sure your resort’s efforts stand out?
Here are 3 tips for creating better content today.
Identify Your Guests’ Needs and Pain Points
Many marketers have a tendency to start at the end, instead of the beginning, when creating new pieces of content. They begin with the idea of what they want the reader to decide or do, and then plan the content around getting the reader to take this step.
It’s true that your content should provide information and assistance to your guests at every stage of the holiday planning process, guiding them gently towards making a booking. But even though you know for certain where you would like your guests to end up, you can’t tailor a path for someone without a clear idea of their starting point.
Before starting work on any new piece of content, start at the beginning and define one or several of your guests’ pain points that you will address. Plan your work around resolving these needs specifically, and do not wander from them.
You probably already have a pretty good idea of what your guests’ main pain points are, but if you’re unsure, there are several useful ways to identify them:
- Create a short online survey and email it to your guests
- Check through LinkedIn Groups specific to your travel niche and see what people are discussing.
- Conduct a Twitter search for keywords that relate to your niche, and jot down some of the most common topics or complaints.
Identify Your Guests’ Online Behaviour
Are your guests mainly retirees seeking information they can consume at a leisurely pace? Or are they corporate travellers that have barely a minute to spare?
Taking time to understand your audience’s online browsing habits will help inform the style of your content. Will they appreciate a more in-depth blog post or should you cut straight to the meat? Having a clear idea of your guest personas will come in very useful here.
Align Your Keywords With User Intent
Google is more determined than ever to understand the intent behind each search enquiry its users make.
This means that creating content from a mindset that seeks to understand your guests’ pain points and habits is also a good SEO strategy. When you line up your content creation campaign with your guests’ journey to booking, you’re also lining it up with Google’s strategy to improve its service for users (and that’s a great side to be on).
Even the most basic understanding of user search intent will transform your keyword strategy, and it isn’t difficult to get started. As a first step, you can conduct a non-personalized search on Google of some of your resort’s main keywords. The results you see served up are the answers; can you work out what questions your guests are asking? Examining the place where keywords and user intent meet will help you create content that better addresses your audience’s specific needs.
Simply creating content for content’s sake will not cut it anymore. You need a strategy, and that means understanding exactly who your guests are and where they’re coming from, so you can guide them to where you want them to be. Happily, working in this way doesn’t just equate to better content, it means better customer service and better SEO too.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comment section below!
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