Travel SEO or Travel Search Engine Optimization is SEO as it would pertain to people who have a professional marketing interest in the Travel industry.
Who Needs Travel SEO?
As discussed in the blog post about Niche SEO, I believe one of the best SEO 
niches is travel SEO, because there is such a huge potential for finding clients who could potentially benefit from your SEO services. Potential Travel SEO clients include:
- Travel Agents, especially travel agents that are located in larger towns, such as New York or Los Angeles.
- Casinos – with the deregulation of the gambling industry, Casinos are going to need to compete for all venues for driving potential gamblers. Can you tell me how many Casinos in Las Vegas would like to be on page one of Google for “Las Vegas Casino”?
- Hotels – many top destinations such as New York City, have multiple hotels that again could seriously benefit for being on page one and also for having their local SEO optimized.
- Restaurants- Restaurant SEO is a niche that I think could be focused on entirely or be a subset of travel seo. Restaurants really need to be on top their local seo as well. I know I have gone to places that show up on page one more times than not. Its a shame, but many quality restaurants are just no where to be found in the SERPs.
- Attractions – Many vacation spots have multiple attractions that are competing for tourist dollars.
- Resorts – How many travel destinations have multiple resorts? I know when we were on our Puerto Rico Honeymoon, there were multiple resorts competing for the keyword phrase “Puerto Rico Honeymoon”. How much does an average honeymoon package run?
- Real Estate Rental agents – I know we have used a few of these, and I am sure there were others that we could have used had we found them online.
- Airlines – I actually have worked on several airlines sites..they like to come up before their affiliates.
- Car Rental Agents
Travel SEO, what is involved with Travel SEO?
First, we recommend doing a bit of keyword research. But for each one of the above categories of Travel SEO, there are certain to be many keywords that are the same, but would require location modifiers.For example, restaurants in Sarasota would not want to rank for the keyword “Restaurant”, but would want to rank for “Sarasota restaurant” or “Italian Sarasota Restaurant” .
Now more than ever, with Travel SEO, local seo practices are of the utmost importance. Showing up in the local listings is so important, as more and more people are using their smart phones while traveling instead of using the Yellow Pages. The local listings are often times the results that show up on smart phone screens.
Local SEO is in itself a whole new ball game that I will focus on in another blog post.
In addition to local seo, venues such as restaurants and hotels, will need to monitor and adjust their online reputations..reputation management is a huge field as well.
Natural SEO is so important for travel seo, because a site that uses good seo practices, will show up well in the local serps. Natural SEO has two main components on-page and off-page optimization. Both are very important for the Travel SEO.
Do You Need Travel SEO?
If the above blog post has you dizzy, and you would like an Travel SEO proposal, please feel free to contact us for a free quote and/or website analysis.
About the author
Adam is the Social Media Director at Baldy Dog Search Strategies, and is also the lead on all local SEO at BaldyDog.