You may have heard that blogging is important to growing your business, and it is. Here, we are going to cover some of the reasons why it is a useful tool for marketing in the Arctic Tourism sector and give some tips and tricks on how to do it best.
The main thing to remember about blogging is this,
Consistency is key.
Why should I put in the time to blog about arctic tourism?
If you want to see results you’re going to have to commit to regularly providing quality content to people. If you don’t persevere with it, then the work you do put in will be wasted. How will you know if you’ve succeeded? Most people never look beyond the first page of Google with one study finding that only 0.78% of searchers clicked on something on the second page of Google. Clearly then, it is necessary to get on that first page, and ideally at the top of it. But how? In this post, we’re going to cover some of the methods used by our expert marketers to get our clients on the top of the Google search rankings.
Hopefully, we’ve convinced you that getting on the top page of Google is important, but why is it specifically important for arctic tourism? Tourism is one of the few growing industries in Alaska, according to a 2016 report. This is partly the result of a lessening of the severity of the climate (the arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world) and so-called “last chance tourism.” As more people start to look north for their next vacation, it’s time to position your arctic tourism business right in their eye-line, at the top of their search results.
Case Study: The Beacon Blogs
If you’re not yet convinced, let us take some time to show you we know what we’re talking about.
Two years ago we decided we wanted to move into the functional medicine industry, so, we started blogging about it. We wrote blogs about each of our services, heavily targeting the keyword “functional medicine”. Within a few months we had our blog posts ranking at both #1 and #2 on Google for the search “marketing for functional medicine”, and we’re still there. So, how did we do it?
We used a few simple tricks of the trade that you can also use on your own arctic tourism blogs. First, we wrote blogs of the specific length that works best for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which we’ll discuss in more detail in a bit. Next, we had a focused keyword strategy. This involves writing certain keywords that you want to target in your text and headings. For the functional medicine blogs, these included “functional medicine,” “marketing,” “inbound marketing.” Finally, we ensured our posts were technically well optimized, they work on mobile, are fast-loading, and we’ve set the metadata. Metadata just means the information you provide Google about the contents of your blog so they can determine how relevant it is to searchers.
Although we ranked these two blog posts at the top of Google, that was only part of the goal. The main objective of this was to generate leads. By having these blogs at the top of Google, we generate more leads to our website which converts into more sales. These two blogs now constitute a key part of our sales funnel!
Case Study: The Mandanas Dental Blog
These techniques are not something we just keep for ourselves either! We’ve also used these strategies to help our clients find success. One of our longest-standing clients, Dr. Mandanas decided a few years ago that she wanted to start focusing on integrative dentistry. So we started blogging on the subject. Using the same techniques as for Beacon, we managed to rank Dr. Mandanas on the first page of Google. We were very happy to be able to achieve this for a valued client in a short time-frame.
This approach to blog writing uses the inbound marketing philosophy, which we’ll discuss in the next section.
Proven methods of blog marketing
In this section, we’ll discuss some proven methods for writing successful blogs, including the inbound philosophy, question answering, and the waterfall method. These are all techniques you can use in blogging for your arctic tourism business.
Inbound philosophy
The inbound marketing philosophy is a simple concept. People are online all day, every day–this means that putting quality content in front of them is easier than ever. The core tenet of the inbound philosophy is that if you consistently provide useful content to people, they will remember you and seek you out when they need your services. Imagine your customers are a cat. If you chase the cat it will run away from you, but if you have what the cat wants, it will come to you!
So, how do you go about enticing the cat? Begin by researching what your customers are interested in. There are tools available to help you find out what searches people are making on Google, we use one called Keywordtool.io. Once you’ve identified what people want to know, you can write blogs on it. People typically ask questions on Google, so answering these can be an effective way to provide quality content.
Answering Questions
We’ve established that people use Google to ask questions, so it’s super effective to answer them. If you’re the one people can rely on when they want to know something, they’ll remember you when they want to buy something. Here’s a quick rundown of our process for blog writing:
- Keyword planning – We use Google’s own keyword planner to identify how many people are searching for certain things.
- Finding questions – Next, we use Keywordtool.io to identify what questions people are asking about those topics.
- Writing – The next step is the most obvious, write a blog answering that question!
- Setting the metadata – We’ve mentioned this before, it’s basically the process of setting the title, description, and keywords in a format that Google can use to populate your result.
- Schedule – It’s important to be consistent if you want the best results. We recommend to our clients that they blog at least 1-2 times per week, but even with a minimum strategy, you can see results in 6-9 months.
The Waterfall Method
The waterfall method of blogging is a highly successful, and slightly sneaky, trick for getting your posts to rank on Google! Google highly rates backlinks; that is, other credible websites linking to your blog. Links of this king act a bit like a referral, the website is letting Google know your post is reputable by sending people there. But it can be difficult to get links from other websites. So, we do what is called backlinking. This involves using your own website to provide links! A common way of organizing this, which you can use successfully for your arctic tourism business, is called the waterfall method.
Here’s an example of a waterfall we created for our mental health blogs:
- Blog about Digital Marketing for Mental Health
- Blog about Mental Health Brands
- Logo Design
- Graphic Design
- Blog about Website Design for Mental Health
- Landing Pages
- Website Hosting
- Blog about Social Media for Mental Health
- Blog about Google Advertising for Mental Health
- Blog about Blog Marketing for Mental Health
- Blog about Video Production for Mental Health
- Blog about Mental Health Brands
As you can see, this looks a bit like a descending waterfall, with multiple layers all linked to one another (and to this blog too!).
Search Engine Optimization for blog marketing
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can sound intimidating but really it’s a simple concept. SEO refers to the tools used to maximize your chances of getting highly ranked on Google. We make sure to set keywords that we know people are searching for. These are spread throughout the text and headers of the blog, as well as the URL of the page. It also means picking a title that is the perfect length, with certain power words that are shown to gain more clicks.
We hope this blog has given you an insight into how blogging can be a powerful tool for marketing your arctic tourism business. If you feel that you want to make use of our expert marketers for your business, you can schedule a free consultation. If you just want to get some more information, you can get in touch using our contact form. Thanks for reading, we hope to hear from you soon!
