You get the emails. “I noticed your website is not ranking for boat tours in [town].” Three a week, probably, mostly from people who have never been on a boat. SEO is its own trade, and the mistakes tour operators make with it are the same ones over and over. Here are the six, then the questions to ask before you pay anyone.
Mistake 1: Letting the marketplace be your website
The book-now button goes to a marketplace. The marketplace ranks for your tour and your name. You pay a cut on travelers your own site found. The marketplace guide is the fix.
Mistake 2: One page for every tour
Six tours in a grid on one page. It cannot rank for any of them. The pages guide covers one page per tour, and it is the first thing to build.
Mistake 3: Writing for the walk-up only
Price, time, button, done. The traveler planning three weeks out needs more, and she is the one booking the whole calendar before the season starts. The booking window guide is about her.
Mistake 4: A sleeping Google listing
Wrong hours for the season, four photos, reviews from two summers ago, and no booking link. The person on the pier picks the listing that looks awake. The listing guide and the reviews guide fix this, and they cost nothing.
Mistake 5: No page for the big bookings
“Ask us about private charters” in one line at the bottom of the tours page. The bachelorette group and the corporate outing searched for a page and found a sentence. The private and group guide covers it.
Mistake 6: Buying the package
An SEO company sells you “ten keywords, four blog posts a month, a monthly report.” The keywords are generic. The posts are about the history of the lighthouse. The report shows rankings for words nobody types. A year later you have paid a lot, and the marketplace still sells most of your seats. The package was built for every business, so it fits none.
What to ask before you hire anyone
- “Show me one site you rank in a local service trade.” Not a logo. A site, a search you can type right now, and a result you can see.
- “What do travelers search before they book a tour?” If they cannot say “things to do in,” the tour plus the town, and “private,” without looking it up, they have not done this trade.
- “What would you build first?” The right answer is one page per tour, the Google listing and a direct booking link. Not a blog, not backlinks.
- “What is the contract?” Be careful with a twelve-month lock-in. Good work shows within a season. Month-to-month means they have to keep earning it.
- “Who writes the tour pages?” If it is a pool of writers who have never been on your boat, the pages will read like the marketplace's, and Google already has that one.
- “How will I know it is working?” The answer should be direct bookings going up and marketplace bookings going down as a share, not a ranking chart.
What you can do yourself first
Before you hire anyone, build one real page for your best tour, finish your Google listing, put a QR code on the dock, and move your book-now button to your own booking. Those four things are free or close to it, and they are most of the early result. Then an SEO company has something to build on instead of starting from zero.
What good looks like after one season
Not a report. Things you can see. Your listing shows on the map for your main tour, searched from the pier on your phone. Your tour page shows on the first page next to the marketplace for “[tour] [town].” Your reviews are newer and more of them. And more guests say “we found you on Google” than “we booked on the app.” If none of that is happening after a season, ask why, and listen closely to the answer.
Want this done for you?
I run a tour lead site in Tampa Bay myself, so you can type the search and see it. If you want me to look at your site before you hire anyone, including me, the audit is free and it will tell you which of the six mistakes you have.