Let’s start with your existing tours. Seems like every destination has a paper brochure for a walking tour or something similar. Here are eight ways to post that same content, reach new potential visitors, and make your site easier to find in searches.
See, different types of people visit different places online. So every different way you can post your information gets you in front of different types of people. And with each of these postings you get another chance to link back to your main site and to include your description, both making the search engine bots happy. Then, you can put links to each one you create on your website’s tour page. That way, people can pick the format that works best for them.
Eight ways to reach more potential visitors with your existing tourism content:
1. Create and post a PDF of your tour brochure.
Example: walking tour of Guysborough, Nova Scotia. I think most places take this step. Although, I’m constantly surprised to find sites that only give one option: “stop in and pick up a copy.”
2. Make a set of photos of the stops on Flickr.
Example: Richland Creek Greenway, by Rex Hammock. Visuals are great to give the impression of a place. Flickr also lets you place your photos on a map, which gives you another way to be found.
3. Create a map of the route and stops on Google Maps.
Examples: Richland Creek Greenway, by Rex Hammock, and walking tour of Guysborough, Nova Scotia. Perfect for those folks who have Google Maps on their phones.
4. Create a tour on Gowalla.
Examples: Austin 360. A fun way to lead your visitors through your tour, and make it a game.
5. Use FourSquare to post Tips on each tour stop.
Examples: Visit PA. By leaving tips on FourSquare, you’re making it easier for visitors to find “the good stuff.”
6. Shoot a video along the tour and post it to YouTube.
Example: What makes Round Rock special? OK, it’s not strictly a tour, but Sheila made it, and I just had to include it.
7. Record some audio of your best guide giving the tour.
Example: Henry Ford Museum audio tour. Possibly the most extensive online audio tour I’ve run in to. I wonder why I couldn’t see an easy way to download the whole thing.
8. Put the content of the tour on Posterous or Tumblr.
Example: I’ll admit, I couldn’t find a good example. Could I be the first person to think this up? The reason it makes sense is that both of these services make it easy to post audio, and both come with an automatic mobile-friendly version. Put one stop on each page, and make it easy to move from one page/stop to another. Soon, you’ll have visitors walking down the street, cell phones in hand, as they page through the tour on the mobile web. Here’s one site that’s close, but it lacks any way to navigate between the stops: Jersey City Art Walking Tour.
The first bonus? You don’t have to create a new tour, or come up with some new set of information. You build off of the information you already have compiled.
The second bonus? No cash outlay. Zero. You don’t need an expert consultant, and you don’t pay anything for any of these services, sites or tools.
The third bonus? You don’t have to do it all yourself. Rex Hammock, who created two of the samples above, is what we call at Tourism Currents an Online Champion. These are enthusiastic locals, visitors, former locals, fans and others who like your destination. It’s in your best interest to find and support your Online Champions. (We spend an entire month on Online Champions in Tourism Currents. We also spend a month on creating different kinds of tours.)
I don’t expect you to do all of these, but I hope it will make you think of some new ways to distribute info about your destination.
What interesting ways have you branched out using your tourism content?
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- About the Author
- Latest by this Author
Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.
You know I like these ideas. (Even the ones I don’t understand!)
Maesz, that is right on point. Different people will understand and use different methods. Why not go to the effort of reaching out to them?
What is great. All of the techniques you mention can be modified and work with any business type blog. Great job!!!
Thanks, Grant.
Two more things:
1. This is most important for small towns, because it lets you make the most of limited attractions.
2. This also expands your accessibility. By making the info available in multiple ways, you enable more people to access it.
“Online Champion”? You can call me anything but “guru.” ; ) Thanks for including my maps and photos. I used that project to teach myself how to create a My Map on Google. I’m happy to report that local volunteer groups that support the greenways, along with the official city service that operates them, were quick to embrace my volunteer “online champion” efforts and use them to help in their efforts to educate people (both residents and tourists alike) of the hidden wonders of Nashville’s Greenway system.
Rex, thank you. That is exactly how we love to see it work!
This is a great collection of innovative ideas. I especially like how the location-based services are being used. I live in a small so we need all the help we can get showing up on the map (especially digital maps). :) ~@JesseLuna
Very interesting post. A couple I’d recommended but there’s enough there for a project we’re working on to give a tourist city the marketing presence it deserves.
Thanks, Jesse and Nic.
Diane Toomey, @d2me, suggested “How bout QR code on a postcard for these?” Posting a QR code at each stop of the tour would let visitors scan the code with their smart phone and go straight to the tour webpage. (Perhaps the Posterous page?)
That also made me think of StickyBits, where you can add content to their stickers, or any bar code or QR code. So you could attach that great audio or video content you created directly to the building on the tour. :)
Thanks for that tip! Going back a couple stages, we’re talking about a city in Latin America that doesn’t have an official tourist website, actually the country doesn’t own its own name online.
There are a couple of tour companies, neither of which have virtual tours although this is something at least one wants to do.
Nic, sounds like a great place for some enthusiastic locals to help out with one or two of the easiest of these ideas.
A few seasons ago, the ski resort I work at created what we call our “Personal Mountain Tours”, a way for our customers to get a recommended route to ski or ride our mountain based upon their preferences. We’re in the process of updating the look and function this summer, but you can still take a look at http://www.mymountainplanner.com. You’ve listed a great batch of other great ideas here that leverage even easier to implement web options – nice post, thanks!
Eric, thanks for bringing that real world example!
Photos and Google map is very important for tourism busines. Photo will attract customers and map will help to them reach easily.