Picking keywords is one of the most important parts of SEO. You want the best keywords with the highest value so you can make the most money. People spend hours looking through analytics tools for the juiciest keywords. This is especially true in travel. After pornography, travel is the second thing people spend money on on the Internet. They buy expensive plane tickets, cruises, hotels, vacation packages, and travel insurance. Everyone wants a peice of that pie and there is good reason why companies spend millions on their SEO efforts for these keywords

Everyone goes after these "good" keywords but you shouldn’t. We are all “taught” to go after these high value, high paying keywords, such as cheap flights, travel insurance, cruises, vacations, tropical vacations, and the like. Afterall, we want to make lots of money and these keywords are worth a lot in clicks and revenue. While hidden, high value keywords exist in other fields, they don’t usually exist in travel so we end up competing with lots of people for the same keywords. Large travel companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars going after keywords that pay off right away. They dominate the field and with Google’s preference to brands, you just won’t get anywhere in the search results unless you are lucky or have lots of money to devote.

A perfect example of my theory can be seen when you search for the keyword “cheap flights:"

Do any small fish pop up in your results? Nope. They are all big companies and established brands. That is never going to change. A single person with limited time and money just can't compete. That doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t money to be made in travel.  In fact, I think what people deem as “bad keywords” are really the best ones in travel.  Bad keywords are keywords people use to search for information such as “backpacking europe” or “things to do in Iceland." These may not be money keywords in the sense people use them to buy a product right away but keywords like this are good for two reasons:

Time vs. Effort

If you do decide to go after “good” keywords, you are going to be competing with large companies with large budgets and established brands. It’s going to take a long, long time and will probably cost you a lot of money to rank as high as them. Trying to rank for phrases like “backpacking Europe” or “tropical islands” or “Seychelles tropical vacations” will take much less time and a lot less effort. Big companies don't go after these keywords because they don't lead to sales right away. This gives you an edge because you face less competition and thus can rank higher in the search results. Moreover, those keywords get a lot of traffic. Backpacking Europe gets over 33,000 searches per month. Tropical island gets 368,000 and things to do in Iceland gets 2,900.  (Based on the Google Adwords Keyword tool.)

All in all, for less work, you can rank higher and get more traffic than you can with those "good" keywords. These other keywords are much easier to break into as most don’t have huge SEO budgets (or any) to really compete with someone heavily doing SEO. Simply put, you get more bang for your buck. 

But isn’t it all about the money? It is, and we can turn all that seemingly worthless traffic into money. That is where my second point comes in.

Higher Pageviews and Conversion

People who end up searching for these keywords want information and when they find the right site, they stay there gobbling it up. They look at more pages and stay on your site longer. For example, people who come to my website and look for Australia travel tips tend to look at 3.4 pages per visit. Those that come for Europe travel information end up reading 4.6 pages per visit. (Google Analytics numbers.)  They stick around and read my site.

The higher page view and lower bounce rate gives me more chances to turn visitors into subscribers, readers, or buyers. Instead of reading and leaving, I now have more times to win them over.  For example, if someone searches for the keyword “backpacking Southeast Asia,” they are probably not looking to buy something, they are looking for information for their trip. They are doing research. These people come to your site and they look at pages upon pages. They research and read and keep on going. Five pages in, they might find a compelling argument for a product they need, such as travel insurance. In all probability, they will most likely purchase it from you. You've become an expert in their mind, they see you have good information, and you page a compelling case for the product. In the end, you’ve still made a sale, but you didn’t have to do all the work of trying to rank for “travel insurance.”  Additionally, they may sign up for your newsletter, bookmark your site, or subscribe to your RSS.  You have taken a Google visitor and turned him into a long term reader. I get many emails from people who find my site via Google, tell me what a great reference it is, and say how they will be reading more.  Lifetime readers are more likely to come back over and over again, giving you many chances to deliver a product to them and make a sale.

How to Pick Travel Keywords

One of the hardest parts of SEO is picking keywords. If we are going to rule out the obvious keywords like cheap flights, what should we pick? For one, we can look at the Google Keyword Tool and type in “Europe” and get a list that goes on for miles. We can then wade through that list and and spend hours looking for good and bad keywords. On the other hand, we can think like a vacationer. It may not always need to be an exotic local but we all take a vacation somewhere at some point. The easiest way to pick good travel keywords that can generate pageviews and keep visitors on your site is to think about what you search for when you travel! This is an important part of SEO. If you can understand what people are searching for, you’ll be able to comeup with some excellent keywords for your site. Think about it. If you are going to New York City, what would you type in?  Off the top of my head, I would think of these terms:

Visiting New York City

New York City Travel

New York City Tips

Things to do in New York City

Things to see in NYC

What is there to do in NYC

None of these are “buy keywords” but they are a lot easier to rank for because of less competition. I like informational keywords because they keep people on my sites longer. I can easily upsell a product with informational keywords than spending my time trying to rank for keywords like “flights to New York City.”

At the end of the day, the only time people consume travel information is when they are going on a trip. We read SEOmoz everyday to stay informed just like people read Techcrunch or the Huffington Post, but how many of us read the Lonely Planet website when we aren’t planning a trip? Not many.  If someone is consistently reading a travel blog or website, it is because they are trying to follow the personality or, like me, they are just travel obessesed. However, this is not true for the majority of people. So SEO becomes more important because we only have a small window in which to work with. We may be getting visitors who visit our sites on low value keywords, but we can then funnel them towards a high value keyword that makes us money!