Travel & Tourism Technology Trends

Prerequisites: Photos already posted on the web, preferably on a well ranked photo sharing website or on your own website.

Estimated Time for Completion: Reading time of 20 minutes.

Details: Let’s face it, photos are great, but conversions are better.  So how do you use your photos to increase the likelihood that a viewer is going to visit your site and book your tour.  There are several key factors that will determine how successful your photos will be at inspiring a viewer enough to actually visit your site and book with you.

First of all, your photo, no matter how incredible it is, will not drive traffic on it’s own.  Nor will it actually convert anyone into a customer.  What the photo will do is it will, in combination with your inspirational text and all the other parts of your conversion strategy to provide a compelling package for the customer.  Here are few tips on making sure you make the most of each and every photo you upload to the Web:

1. Format for the Web – Most people are going to be looking at your photo on their monitor.  Although they may print your photo for off-line perusal, the chances of this are pretty low.  Keep your photos in a lower sized jpeg format (i.e. 500 pixels wide).

2. Rename your photo files – Generally speaking, when you upload your photos to a site like Flickr or Facebook, the uploader will use the file name of the photo as the starting title of the photo.  Save yourself the extra step and rename your default digital camera image file name (eg. “DSC00199278.jpg”) to something like “boat-cruise-amsterdam-spring-2009.jpg”. Not only is the auto-title going to make more sense, but your photo will also be much easier to search in Google’s image search.

3. Make your photo titles meaningful – As with the previous recommendation, make sure your photo titles are meaningful and relevant to the photo.  The more descriptive the better, but remember that you may be limited in space, so be concise. “Boat Cruise Amsterdam in Spring” has lots of keywords and is understandable to the person doing the search.

4. Enter rich descriptions – Photos may be worth a thousand words, but until search engines can interpret your photo into text, you’re going to have to come up with the descriptions yourself.  You certainly don’t need to write a story for each photo, but make sure that the description is relevant to the photo and describes the photo well enough that someone searching can anticipate the photo before actually seeing it.  The better the description, the more keywords, the more likely your photo will be indexed well by the search engines.

5. Include your brand whenever possible – In the description or in the photo itself, be sure to include your company name.  If you expect your potential customers to find you, you need to give them an idea of how to find you.  Remember that many photo sharing sites are not meant to be marketing vehicles.  It just happens that they are becoming great ways to increase awareness of a brand or destination.  If you know how to watermark your photos, I recommend that you add a watermark with your brand or url on the actual photo.  This serves as a deterrent to others thinking of using your photos without permission and also helps to spread your brand if they do.

6. Tag your photos with relevant keywords – Most photo sharing sites allow you to add tags to your photos in order to assist with searching.  Make sure you use relevant keywords that are both meaningful for the customer and relevant to the content of the photo.  For example, if the photo is of a customer zip-lining in Whistler, BC, then include:

• The specific location name (i.e. Whistler)
• The region (i.e. B.C. or British Columbia)
• The activity (i.e. Zip-lining)
• Your company name
• The time of year (i.e. summer)
• Other relevant words like adventure, adrenaline, rope crossing, day activity, etc.

7. Link to your photos – Share links to your specific photos on your own website, blog, twitter, or Facebook page.  Chances are that your other sites will also be indexed by Google or the other search engines and the link backs to your photo will help them identify new assets to add to their search index.  Many of the sharing sites also allow you to pull your latest photos via RSS.  This is particularly useful if you want to display your most recent photos on your website without having to double up on data entry.  Remember though, that the descriptions you enter on your photo sharing site will be the ones sent via RSS and displayed on your other sites.  So be descriptive.

Outcome: If you are successful at completing this daily action, you will have a better understanding of how to optimize your photos to increase traffic and conversions on your website.