When you were starting your tourism business, you probably learned about the importance of websites in reeling in potential customers and strengthening your brand identity. Your site is the number one one-stop-shop for anything related to your business, so you probably invested resources in creating one and improving it.
For your tourism business, your website can inform your clients about your offerings, whether you are offering accommodations, transportations, or tour packages. On your website, you can describe the place in great detail complete with photos to entice potential customers to go with your service. This is only of the advantages your site can offer.
Your website can do a whole lot of things for your company, but only if you use it right. If you think it is enough to simply launch your website and make it accessible via a computer browser, then you need to reconsider. The thing is, desktop-accessible websites may be valuable but optimizing your site for mobile devices is the next level.
What is Mobile Optimization?
What is Mobile Optimization?To understand how important mobile optimization is to your tourism business, let us first talk about the difference between mobile compatibility and optimization. One thing you need to know about compatibility and optimization in websites is that in both, the site is accessible via a mobile browser.
The difference is that with compatibility alone, the site may be accessible but not efficient because it is built for computers but only can be loaded on mobile browsers. When you visit an unoptimized site on mobile, you will see only a portion of the page but in order to view the rest, you will need to scroll left and right, as well as up and down.
A mobile-optimized website is one that is built for computers but also created to load efficiently on mobile browsers. When you visit these sites, you only need to scroll up and down to view the contents. Plus, you will notice that they have menus accessible by tapping on the three lines on the side of the page, also known as the Hamburger Menu.
Why Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Given these differences, it is easy to see that mobile compatibility and optimization go hand-in-hand. However, it is clear that a compatible site is accessible via mobile devices. If this is so, why bother optimizing it for mobile browsers? To answer this question, here are some of the most convincing reasons to do so:
-
Mobile is the Future
In the United States, almost everyone has a smartphone or a tablet. In fact, the Pew Research Center revealed that a whopping 96% of Americans have a cellphone with 81% owning a smartphone. This shows a significant increase since 2011 in which only 35% owned such devices. Moreover, around 50% of adult Americans now own tablets.
With these figures, it is clear that the future will be full of mobile devices. Additionally, many tech companies are focusing on their mobile solutions, developing applications, and innovating the device.
Now, you might be wondering if this figure applies to your target market. As a tourism business, your target market covers a whole lot of age groups including young individuals and retired seniors. According to research, Millennials and Baby Boomers are the biggest travelers. Millennials, or people who were born between 1981 and 1996, spend 35 days per year to travel, making them the most frequent travelers.
Given that Millennials are known as digital natives, you can bet that they own a smartphone or a tablet, and use it frequently. Even Baby Boomers have learned to adapt to technology, with many of them owning such devices. Because of this, you should definitely invest in optimizing your website.
-
Digital Marketing Compatibility
Aside from catering to the lifestyles of your potential clients, you also need to remember that your website is not only a catalogue for your potential clients to browse, but it is also a powerful marketing tool. Take search engine optimization for example. This process lets you optimize your site to be efficiently searched by search engines like Google whenever users make queries related to the services you offer.
Tourism SEO can help generate organic traffic to your website, increasing your visitors and chances of converting them to leads. Then, the quality of your contents, offerings, and customer service can work to covert your leads to sales.
SEO is just one of the digital marketing techniques your website allows you to take advantage of. Another is social media, which is considered one of the most utilized digital marketing tool, is known to influence travel plans and booking habits.
Research shows that a lot of Baby Boomers rely on social media for making travel decisions, while Gen Z is 36% most likely to be influenced by socmed when it comes to travel. Millennials are the most likely to be influenced by advertising (72%), while Gen X use online travel agents to book tours (55%)
Say, you make a social media account and post contents on your feed. If these age groups see your content on their feeds and they are interested, what is the next step they will take? They are going to look for your site for more information and reviews. You want to make sure that when they do so, your website is optimized for their devices.
-
Your Users are On-The-Go
Most importantly, you should optimize your website because your users are always on-the-go for two reasons. The first is that we now live in a fast-paced world where one of the few things that can help you stay on top of your personal and work responsibilities is your smartphone. Many people use their devices while commuting, waiting in line, on breaks at work, and in other similar situations. So, the chances of your potential clients coming across your website while on a smartphone are pretty high.
The next reason is that when traveling, all your clients have access to are their smartphones. Travelling requires packing smart, and if there is no need for a laptop, chances are they will opt not to bring it. Plus, you cannot expect your clients to carry around a laptop while visiting destinations or doing activities.
What they are sure to bring is their smartphones, which they will use for all sorts of things such as navigation, research, contacting key persons, and communicating with their group. To ensure that they can conveniently access your site, optimization is the way to go.
How to Take Advantage of the Mobile Platform
Now that you know why you should make your website optimized for mobile browsers, you may be wondering how you can maximize your optimized site. Check out these simple tips:
-
Make it Navigable
Remember that mobile users can access a lot of information in the palm of their hands, so when they could not find the info they are looking for, they tend to simply leave and look for another site. This is why you want to make sure that your website is easy to navigate, organized, and readable. Make sure to make it a convenient experience for them because it will benefit you in the long run.
The littlest thing can make your site difficult to navigate, including extremely small buttons and fonts, confusing layouts, and incompatible color schemes so make sure to take care during the web design process.
-
Improve Loading Speeds
In connection with the short attention span and impatience that comes with the power of the internet, you want to make sure that your website loads fast. As mentioned, users can easily leave your site to look for another if they are unsatisfied because of slow loading speeds.
Moreover, you should also remember that in marketing, you only have a few seconds to capture their interest. You want to make sure that you use these seconds wisely and not waste them on making your potential client wait.
-
Optimize Your Digital Marketing
Lastly, it is important to make sure that you utilize digital marketing tools that fit your needs. Aside from tourism SEO and social media, you can also use your website to attract customers with the help of reviews. Remember that smart customers look for reviews before they transact with any business. They will consider good feedback, as well as bad ones, and how you respond to it.
Your website is the best place to show off how satisfying your services are for your customers. In case you get bad reviews, you should take it as an opportunity to show how gracious you are as a business by recognizing the issue and showing how you want to make it up to the customers. Plus, any review can be used to improve your offerings.
The Bottom Line
Your tourism company’s website may be as effective as it can be without optimization, but considering the advantages offered by a mobile-optimized website, there is no reason for you not to do it. With an optimized site, you can take your business to a whole new level and create an experience that is convenient and fruitful for your customers.