Key Takeaways from Destinations International April 24th Update on Structured for Success: Content Publishing Best Practices

May 3, 2024

The following provides the key takeaways from the April 24th Structured for Success: Content Publishing Best Practices webinar presented by Destinations International. 

The presentation covered website structure, content opportunities and best practices. 

The key takeaways are as follows:

  1. Website Structure
    • Website structure is how all the pages of your website are organized
    • It is important to organize content for user experience and search engine crawl
  2. Identify Content Topics
    • What are visitors looking for?
      • Places to stay, Things to do & Top attraction, Restaurant's & Bars, Events & Festivals, Destination Drivers
    • Page Titles
      • Think of what the user will be typing in to the search engine
      • Keep it Simple!
      • Give destination drivers their own page
    • A Page vs. A Blog
      • Pages: a high level overview of a specific experience that acts as a gateways to a collection of related topics (A hub of information)
      • Blogs: are more editorial in nature, focus on themed content and include roundups and listicles (Content that supports your page)
  3. Best Practices
    • How Google Rates your content
      • E-E-A-T
        • Experience
        • Expertise
        • Authoritativeness
        • Trustworthiness
    • How Users Rate Your Content
      • S-U-C-C-E-S-S
        • Simple
        • Unexpected
        • Concrete
        • Credible
        • Emotional
        • Stories
        • Shareable
  4. Content
    • Destination drivers
      • Top attractions, culinary experience, marquee events, intangible things
      • Discover your destination drivers
        • In Google, type your destination and then type "a" then "b" and so on
        • Ask locals
      • Keywords
        • Conduct keyword research and find what questions/words come up when searching for your topic
    • SEO
      • Search Engine Optimization
        • Backend Updates
          • Mega title, mega description, image alt text, and links
        • Frontend Updates
          • Update blogs regularly, use heading tags, organize your content with number/bullet lists, add/change images to break up content
    • Formatting
      • Formatting your content
        • Easy to read, use listicles, include images, word count (at least 300 words of introducing your content)
  5. Your website is never done!
    • There is always something new to add! Refresh your key pages every 6-12 months

 

Thank you to Destinations International for publishing this presentation and making it available for us to share. View the full presentation here (Destinations International Members Only). 

Sarah Walters

NYSTIA Associate