Jamie Biesiada
Creating a blog offers agents a chance to not only highlight their expertise as travel professionals, but also increase their website's search engine optimization (SEO) and, hopefully, increase traffic.
"I don't think a lot of people understand the full value of it," said Catherine Heeg, founder of Customized Management Solutions. Heeg is also a frequent industry speaker and trainer who focuses on social media marketing and communication.
She said blogs give agents an effective marketing platform.
"It gives them a chance to showcase their expertise, and gives their clients a way to get to know them a little bit better," Heeg said.
Blogs should be located on an agent's website for SEO purposes. Heeg said she links to her blog on her homepage, but also has ways to access it from the other pages of her website.
Content can span a variety of topics. Heeg recommended agents post about recent FAM trips, ship inspections or even webinars they've recently listened to.
Catherine Heeg
"Clients are going to love it because it's unique content," she said.
And agents will love that it improves their SEO.
"Agents are always looking for ways to be found and ways to increase their SEO. Blogging is the key thing to do for that," she said.
To avoid any instances of writer's block, Heeg suggested keeping a list of questions clients have asked that can be tackled in a post.
"If one client is asking it, other clients have the exact same question," she said.
Other good posts could be about interesting travel books agents have read, or even a top 10 list of things like destination wedding spots, yoga retreats or culinary adventures. Top 10 lists tend to attract clicks, Heeg said.
Posts should also include photos and videos whenever available. Photos, especially, are key, as they are often the first thing that attract attention on a website. All photos should include captions. Heeg said the photos themselves should be clear and made as large as possible within the blog page.
"It's perfect in your blog because then you might not have to write as much, because a picture speaks a thousand words," she said.
In addition to photos and videos, blog posts are effectively broken up by subheadings within the post, Heeg said. Subheadings also help with SEO.
One of the most frequent questions Heeg gets about blogging is how long a post should be. In her mind, posts of about 400-500 words each, peppered with captioned photos and videos, are ideal. Series of blog posts that link to one another are also good options.
Heeg is also often asked how often posts should be published.
"The answer really is as frequently as you can, so typically for an agent, that's about once a week," she said. "That's still enough content out there to get your SEO working in your favor, and to give your clients some relevant information to read without overloading them."
Once a post is complete, marketing it is key. Heeg recommended using social media channels to bring attention to blog posts.
She also suggested agents make an infographic where appropriate, like for a top 10 post, to share on social media sites and link back to the post. There are multiple free sites that will enable agents to make attractive infographics with little effort, like Canva, Infogr.am, Easel.ly, Piktochart and Visual.ly.
Heeg regularly offers video marketing tips on her Facebook page.