With summer winding down and fall right around the corner, it’s a good time for tourism sites to re-examine their paid search campaigns. One frequent challenge for tourist attractions is that their websites can be large and unwieldy, offering a lot of information across a lot of pages, without really guiding visitors to take the next step.

Instead of pushing these visitors to your website’s home page, you should direct them to well-built, stand-alone, paid search landing pages. It can make a world of difference in turning those searching for fun into your newest customers. And it allows you to measure which search campaigns are most effective.

Here Are Some Tips on How to Create High-Performing Paid Search Landing Pages.

• Make Them Action Focused.
  A paid search landing page has one specific goal: to get the searcher to take an action that leads them towards becoming a customer. That might be entering their email address to join a mailing list or purchasing tickets to your attraction. Either way, the focus of the page should be on getting the visitor to convert. This means you need to keep the landing page simple. Layouts should be designed around a strong call-to-action and a prominent form field or shopping cart. You don’t want your landing page to be a blank white background with “BUY NOW” in giant text above a neon form. However, focusing the visitor’s attention on where you want them to go is a must. Try placing an eye-catching call-to-action and (if appropriate) a form field at the top-right of your landing page. This way, visitors can see them without scrolling. It’s a tried-and-true approach for tourist attractions of all sizes.
• Think Like Your Customers.
  While a landing page should be simple and focused on leading the visitor to take action, you’ll also have to provide them with the information that they are looking for before they can take that next step. But which information should you include? Put yourself in the visitor’s shoes and ask: what info would I need in order to know this attraction is right for me? Create a well-thought-out persona of your ideal visitor to help you craft the language and layout of your landing page. Things like location, hours of operation, featured attractions, special offers, and ticket prices, for example, are likely the first things a visitor is looking for. So make sure each one is listed and described in ways that appeal to your visitor persona. Does your ideal customer have children? Then be sure to mention discounted prices for kids 10 and under. Are they typically coming in from out of the area? List directions and show an image of a map to help them easily find their way.
• Highlight Your Point of Difference.
  Use your landing pages to draw attention to anything that makes you stand out from your competitors. Essentially, you want to distill the most important information from your website down to easy-to-read, simple, attractive language that can fit on one page. This way, you can provide answers to your visitors’ questions while still encouraging them to take action. And let them know why they should visit your attraction instead of the one down the road.
• Use Images and Video.
  They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. And that’s just as true for a paid search landing page as anywhere else. Sometimes using a carefully selected image can accomplish the same task of many lines of text. An image of a family enjoying a sunny day at your attraction can quickly connect with your core audience in ways that text may not be able to. And a video can work even harder. In fact, including a video on your landing page can increase conversions by 80%. Videos and images should never be distractions, but complements to your landing page’s copy. As with everything else, use images and videos to nudge your visitor towards completing a form or buying a ticket.

There are tons of other ways to optimize your landing pages beyond the basics. Most of all, you want to make sure your landing pages are properly formatted for mobile usability. And consider advanced techniques, like variation A/B testing and search keyword/page copy matching. These will take your paid search efforts to the next level. Before you get that far, however, simply follow the tips outlined above. When you do, you’ll be well on your way to improving the performance of your paid search campaigns and gaining new customers. And hopefully, you can extend your season well into the fall.