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Should you start a blog for your business?
Allie Anderson • May 11, 2020
Blogging isn’t a hot, new marketing idea.
Blogging has been around for years and while it has certainly seen some great success, maintaining a quality blog requires time and effort. So how do you know if starting a blog is right for your tours and activities business?
Let’s start with the positives.
A huge incentive for starting a blog is all that original content you create can help bring potential customers to your website (without paying for them!). When you add a blog to your website, search engines “see” all of that fresh content, which can help your organic search ranking
and can help drive organic search traffic.
Blogs also help build your credibility and establish trust with your audience.
Top-quality blogs answer questions your customers are asking. Travelers who read your blog deserve to derive value from your posts. Whether it’s tips, advice, or personal stories — blogs are a great way to connect with your readers and provide them with relevant information.
This, in turn, will also boost your SEO. Having a lot of content is one thing, but your website will boost in the rankings if your content answers relevant questions to your travelers’ questions. Think: a higher rank in search engines and more potential customers viewing your website.
Not a writer?
Like all things, the more you blog the better you’ll be! The best way to tackle blog writing is to write regularly. Schedules work. So set a goal that works for you (publish a new post once a week, twice a week, once every two weeks) and stick to it.
If blogging requires more effort than you can invest — consider a creative alternative.
- Social media provides a fast and simple way to stay in touch with your customers. Think about your audience and what kind of customer you want to attract. Do you operate a food tour? Instagram is a must-have for posting delicious images of food. Facebook is a great place to post updates on new dishes you’ve tried. Updating social media regularly allows you to engage with your customers (and potential customers) in an authentic way but may require less lengthy writing than a blog. Then take your top performing social media posts, and turn them into blog posts.
- Videos are a great way to bring a face to your brand. The video quality on your smartphone is very high, so take advantage of this technology and shoot a quick video (under 2 minutes) to post to your social media channels and website. If posting on your blog, be sure to add a short written description of the video. Or better yet, consider posting the video transcript along with the video, so Google can crawl that content.
- CRM can feel like a daunting undertaking. But communicating with your travelers via email can provide a great way to re-market to your existing travelers. So, consider sending short, thoughtful, authentic, and interesting newsletters to your audience. Using the Bókun Website Builder, you can promote subscribing to your newsletter with a pop-up or other promotional element on your website.
Whatever marketing channels you choose, remember that engaging with your customers and potential customers is a super important part of your business and brand. Creating quality content — whether that be through video, social media, or blogging — enables you to interact with your customers in an authentic way, and is proven to drive more traffic.
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