Unfortunately, even today, many owners of tourist establishments like hotels, agritourisms, or bed and breakfasts think that once they have commissioned and had a website created by a web design agency, all the web marketing work is done. In fact, this is just the beginning.
The competition in the tourism sector is now fierce, and having a well-made website with all the buttons and pages in place is no longer enough. You need to know how to manage your tourism website and adopt a tourism web marketing strategy to ensure your website delivers the desired results. Otherwise, and I assure you this is better for positioning, you might as well have a static site in simple HTML, without a control panel and the ability to add new content. 
But what does it mean to manage a website for a tourist establishment? Assuming your agency or the professional you chose did a good job, and for example, all the pages of the site have been indexed, all the right and necessary metadata are in place, a good job of registration on search engines from the most famous to the less known has been done, relevant backlinks, activation of social profiles connected to the site, etc., etc., etc., from now on, you owners will be the ones to take care of your site unless you have also entrusted this vital task to the same web designer who created your website. Therefore, it is important to have a basic understanding of how to insert text and photo content on your hotel or agritourism site, know how to link text, what anchor texts are, which important metadata to include on a web page (title, meta tag description, keywords), and how to use photos and videos for SEO purposes. If the dynamic site was created with WordPress or Joomla, there are excellent plugins that make this work easier, and the same platforms, if well configured, are very valid from an SEO perspective. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. To recap: to be competitive in the tourism sector on the internet and appear on search engines in at least the first two pages for keywords relevant to your business, you need at least:
But what does it mean to manage a website for a tourist establishment? Assuming your agency or the professional you chose did a good job, and for example, all the pages of the site have been indexed, all the right and necessary metadata are in place, a good job of registration on search engines from the most famous to the less known has been done, relevant backlinks, activation of social profiles connected to the site, etc., etc., etc., from now on, you owners will be the ones to take care of your site unless you have also entrusted this vital task to the same web designer who created your website. Therefore, it is important to have a basic understanding of how to insert text and photo content on your hotel or agritourism site, know how to link text, what anchor texts are, which important metadata to include on a web page (title, meta tag description, keywords), and how to use photos and videos for SEO purposes. If the dynamic site was created with WordPress or Joomla, there are excellent plugins that make this work easier, and the same platforms, if well configured, are very valid from an SEO perspective. SEO means Search Engine Optimization. To recap: to be competitive in the tourism sector on the internet and appear on search engines in at least the first two pages for keywords relevant to your business, you need at least:
- Write 1 or 2 blog articles a week (original articles that help a potential guest and inform them about the area and tourist news)
- Keep social profiles updated (please do not use your personal page to manage, for example, your agritourism: Facebook and other platforms provide specific tools!!)
- Participate in and register on forums or sites about tourism and on the portals of your city
- Keep your Google My Business listing updated
- Register the site and submit the site’s URL on tourism portals (there are still many that offer this option for free)
- Even if you hate it from the bottom of your heart, do not underestimate Tripadvisor: always respond in a cordial and comprehensive tone, even to negative reviews.
Don’t feel like doing at least this? There are excellent professionals who can do this work for you. It’s better to invest more in your site than to spend thousands of euros on advertising or on hotel booking portals (OTAs), even though one does not exclude the other. In fact, in my opinion, both are essential.
