Why you should care deeply about SEO.

April 17, 2023

A black business suit and black bowler hat indicates where an invisible man stands, with the letters SEO where the face should be, as a reflection of why you should care deeply about SEO.

 

It may be less sexy than its flashier marketing cousins, but here’s why you should care deeply about SEO:  it’s hands-down the unsung, invisible hero of digital marketing.  If you’re not doing it consistently, you’re putting your business at risk.

This blog post is for all y’all who aren’t digital geeks and would love to understand – in plain ol’ English – what SEO is and why it’s important.  So while the post looks long and scary, it’s actually a brisk read that paints a clear picture without using mind-numbing technical jargon.

SEO’s entire job is to lead buyers interested in what you offer (be it product, service, or just content) directly to your website.  And when done effectively, your website will be found more frequently by these potential buyers…without you having to pay for ads to make it happen.

So what is SEO anyway?  The formal and somewhat unhelpful definition by Oxford Dictionary defines Search Engine Optimization as “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.”

OK, that sounded jargon-y.  A simpler way to think about it is this:  SEO is a process you use to remove technical roadblocks between your target audience’s questions and your answers.  Or…in even simpler terms than that:  It’s creating content that’s interesting or helpful to humans, while making sure it’s able to be navigated and processed equally well by a machine like Google’s search engine.  Note the difference in wording here, because humans and machines don’t necessarily “think” the same way.  Humans want things to be “interesting and helpful” and machines want things they can “navigate and process.”  Your website has to successfully satisfy the needs of both.

So why don’t all businesses – even ones with massive marketing departments – care deeply about SEO?  Indeed they don’t, and that’s not an exaggeration on my part.  During planning meetings with DIY and small in-house marketing departments, no one EVER asks us about SEO except when they’re building a new website… and even then it’s just a one-time item on the checklist (“make sure it has good SEO”).

And with the larger marketing departments, who have more resources to devote to such things, SEO gets a much lower emphasis (if any) than it deserves.  In fact, most of the SEO specialists I’ve met share a common grievance:  the discipline of SEO has so much marketing power, and yet it’s deeply neglected and undervalued in terms of what it can bring to the marketing table.

So why don’t people care as much as they should about SEO?

First of all, it’s a scary mouthful.  Search Engine Optimization sounds like something you need a PhD to decipher.  Search engines are mysterious enough…add in the word “optimization” and that’s just an extra layer of intimidation.  Its cousin, Pay-Per-Click marketing (PPC), is so much easier for everyone to understand (you pay for every click you get, precisely as it says).

But marketers and other executives often overlook the power of SEO for other reasons, including:

  • It’s misunderstood.  SEO has multiple aspects to it (see below) and most folks are unfamiliar with all the facets involved.  So often they think of it as one-dimensional and dismiss the bigger picture of its usefulness.
  • It’s not a quick fix.  SEO is a program, not a one-time task.  And the results come as a groundswell over time, not usually as instant pops of excitement the way it would happen with PPC ads (you place the ad and boom… clicks start rolling in).  You can see some quick pops of results if you’ve made some dramatic changes that impact SEO, but mostly, it’s slow and steady improvement over time.
  • It’s invisible.  Didn’t I just say earlier it’s less sexy than other marketing disciplines?  SEO works behind the scenes, with multiple small, strategic changes that are largely unseen by the website user.  Together, those often-invisible changes lead to a payoff, but it requires you to have faith in things you can’t see and can’t always directly track.
  • It feels “harder.”  So…it requires faith, patience, and a long-term effort with a delayed payoff?  It’s no wonder so many marketing programs and budgets neglect SEO in favor of initiatives that deliver more instant gratification…even if those cost more.

But why should people care more deeply about SEO?

SEO is the practice of keeping your website healthy and attractive to search engines, like Google.  And shouldn’t that practice be one of the top goals for any marketer?  (Note, there are several search engines for use out there, but for brevity’s sake in this article, I’ll just say “Google” to represent them all.)

In more concrete terms, here’s why you should care:

  • Healthy website = better results.  Think of it like you would a health regimen for your body.  Diet, exercise, sleep, and other maintenance actions keep your body healthy, and the payoff is that you can live a longer life with fewer restrictions and medical issues.  SEO is like the diet/sleep/exercise health regimen for your website, but the payoff includes things like higher visibility in search engine results and more visitors to your website (without advertising payments for either of them).
  • The results compound over time.  If you keep up the regimen, you may not feel/see the results at first (ahem, just like dieting), but once your efforts start to make a difference, the groundswell begins.  The more attractive your website becomes to Google for certain searches and keywords, the more Google offers it to people searching for those things.  And the more people start to satisfactorily visit your website for those things, the more Google considers you attractive for them.  This cycle keeps strengthening itself over time.  It may take a little while to catch fire, but once it does…the results feel magical.
  • It protects your overall marketing program.  In the long run, the most successful marketing programs are ones with balance.  It’s risky to put all your eggs in one basket – say, going “all in” on social media to the exclusion of email marketing – and this is particularly true when it comes to balancing your paid vs. unpaid marketing initiatives.  If your website isn’t healthy enough to attract its own attention from Google without you paying for ads, then what happens when your budget needs to be cut?  Bye bye clicks.  You need that steady, solid foundation of organically-driven clicks to weather such budget fluctuations.
  • It increases the ROI of your paid marketing.  Without an effective SEO program, your website is bound to have many unhealthy aspects to it, from a user perspective.  And yet, you’re spending the rest of your marketing budget to pay to draw people there.  Every dollar you spend paying to send people to a less-than-healthy website risks sabotaging your overall marketing ROI.  The discipline of SEO forces you to think about your website’s effectiveness and how it’s organized, and that helps improve its quality score for Google Ads by strengthening keyword themes.  And SEO also forces you to focus on improving your website’s load time and page speed metrics (literally, the amount of time it takes for pages, images, etc. to load when someone tries to visit it), and this can help improve conversion rates no matter how a customer enters your website.

At Redpoint, we got a painful lesson in the extraordinary power of SEO when one of our blog posts became insanely attractive to Google for a particular (and apparently popular) set of keywords.  As the post wasn’t related to our core business, that level of attention for the “wrong topic” was killing our marketing goals.  In fact, we had to take the post down.  See why we were sorry we wrote this blog post.

So what are the key aspects of “doing SEO?”

There’s a lot to unpack within a proper SEO strategy, but here’s a high-level summary of three key elements you’ll need to consider if you want to start making SEO a marketing priority.

  1. The quality of your website’s mechanics.  Google cares (a lot) if your site is working smoothly.  Because Google’s entire mission is essentially to provide users/searchers with the best possible results, that means it wants to deliver results that feature credible, effective, and appropriate websites.  If your site is slow, takes too long to load for users, has broken links, has outdated and useless pages, and/or a host of other mechanical issues, then users don’t have a good experience when they land on it…and likely leave quickly.  The more that happens, the more Google notices and says “hey… this website isn’t satisfying people who are searching for (these keywords), so let’s stop suggesting it as a relevant option when people search for that.”  How does this hurt you?  Imagine you’re a family friendly resort in California.  And Google has been trained over time to learn that people searching for “family friendly resort in California” don’t have a good experience on your website…and so it stops suggesting you as a good result for that search.  That would be bad for you.
  2. The relevance of your content.  You’ve got to think of SEO like it’s a matching game.  If you want people searching for “family friendly resort in California” to see your website high up in the search results, you’ve got to have specific and relevant content on your site that satisfies those keywords.  Let’s say that phrase is just mentioned in passing on your home page, and there’s not a lot of rich content on your website that describes all the family friendly activities/amenities at your resort.  Over time, Google will see that folks searching with those keywords who went to your site didn’t really find you to be all that “family friendly.”  And so, over time, it stops suggesting you as a “good match” for those keywords.  Yes, you might be IN the search results, but perhaps below 40 other family friendly resorts in California who have way more relevant content on their websites than you do.
  3. How good your website is at engaging visitors.  Picture a brick-and-mortar retail clothing store, and you walk in to browse.  If you walk in, look at the first display, and then leave… you’re not an “engaged customer.”  But if you walk in and like what you see on that first display, you’ll move in further to explore the store.  Maybe even try on some items.  That definitely makes you an engaged customer, and them an engaging store.  You need to think of your website in those terms.  People will come into your website through a single page – whether the home page or an interior page.  Once they land there…what makes them stick around and explore your site?  Internal links to other pages, prominent and clear navigation, appealing imagery, pop-up windows, “you may also like…” content suggestions, and more… all are engagement tactics used by effective SEO programs to keep people on your website longer.  And when Google sees that people who visit your website stay there for a while, that tells it that you’re satisfying your visitors with good, relevant content.  It’s a mark in your favor with Google.

Each one of those three aspects requires strategy and constant maintenance.  And those aren’t even ALL the aspects of SEO.  There are so many different things you can do to make your website “more attractive to” (or, in geek-speak, “better optimized for”) Google, and a comprehensive SEO program should address multiple facets.  Yes, it takes a while and it feels harder to do than just paying for clicks…but the payoff is worth it.  Google will – without you paying for ads – suggest your website in the higher up in the search results to people who want to buy what you’re selling.  And THAT is why you should care deeply about SEO.

And a final reminder tip:  Don’t think of SEO as a one-time initiative.  You are never “done” with SEO because everything is constantly evolving:  your business, your competition, and Google’s algorithm (the mysterious formula it uses to decide what order to rank websites in search results).  So – just like dieting – forget the quick fix in favor of a slow-and-steady program and you’ll see a more effective (and lasting) payoff.

ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

February 13, 2023

Here’s why tourism marketers need tips for using ChatGPT, an online program that engages in human-like dialogue based on a prompt:  because we’re all too damn busy to waste time.  And messing around with a new tool we’re not sure we’d even use feels a lot like wasting time.  Is it worth it?  Should you invest the time to get familiar with ChatGPT because that investment of time will pay off?

Short answer:  yes.  You need to know what this tool can REALLY do before you decide to embrace or reject it.  It has some uses that may surprise you.

So let’s jumpstart your learning curve with some practical tips for how tourism marketers can explore the benefits of using ChatGPT.

First, let’s get one thing straight.  ChatGPT is just a resource and a tool.  You’ve got a lot of tools to help you do your job.  Google is a tool.  Adobe Illustrator is a tool.  Semrush is a tool.  But the relentless media frenzy around ChatGPT has given it near-mystical properties that make it seem more potent than that.  Chill out, y’all.  It’s just a tool.  It’s one more resource in your toolbox to potentially help you do your job better, smarter, and faster.

And like all tools [she says sheepishly, aware that she barely knows how to use 5% of the available apps on her iPhone], its usefulness is only as powerful as your knowledge of how to harness it.  I’ll never forget years ago when an accounting mentor said to me, “If you’re doing any manual calculations whatsoever or taking a long time to manipulate data in an Excel spreadsheet, then there’s a shortcut, command, or function you just don’t know about. Excel is designed to make life easier.  If it’s making it harder, go learn more about Excel.”

ChatGPT is the same.  When you first try it out, you won’t be savvy at knowing how to coax the most effective results from it.  So you’ll plug in a few basic things and the outcomes will be unimpressive.  And then, because you’re super busy and there’s no mandate that says you need to use ChatGPT, you’ll dismiss it as unhelpful and go back to the familiar tools in your toolbox.

But what if I told you that…

  • You could paste a particularly legalese-sounding section of a vendor contract into ChatGPT and say “explain this to me like I’m an 8th grader”…and it does?
  • It could produce a style guide for all your team members to follow, after you feed it several samples of a brand’s voice to analyze?
  • It could take your 400-word bio and make it fit that directory listing’s 100-word requirement in just one click?
  • It could give you a substantive list of story ideas for your content calendar…and then organize them into a seasonal schedule…and then create first drafts of each piece of content, in different formats for social channels, blog posts, email newsletters…and even website copy that’s optimized for the keywords you require?

It can indeed do all those things and more…if you know how to prompt it effectively.

Janette Roush is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital, for NYC & Company, which is the official DMO/CVB for New York City.  And she’s one of ChatGPT’s early adopters and passionate champions who is learning to master the “art of the prompt.”

“If you want to get ChatGPT to give you useful answers, the key is in how you formulate your prompt,” Roush told me.  “I was once advised to think of it like an omniscient three-year-old.  It knows everything under the sun, but it doesn’t know who YOU are, WHY you need to know, and WHO you’re trying to talk to.  You need to prompt it with details like that for it to return a result that’s written in the context you need.  Otherwise the result will be very generic and way less useful to your purpose.”

Roush has honed her prompting skills through persistent trial and error.  In fact, she even documents her journey with ChatGPT on LinkedIn, making regular posts about prompts she’s tried for a wide variety of uses and the results they’ve produced.  (Pro tip:  Connect with or follow her there.  You won’t regret it.)

Inspired by Roush, I took ChatGPT for a three-hour test drive one morning, just giving it prompts for various tourism-marketing-related things.  One thing I quickly learned is that a generic prompt yields a generic answer and specific prompt yields a specific answer.  Case in point:  Look at how it adjusted its responses for social media captions based upon my specificity:

A screen shot of a ChatGPT dialogue about Lucy the Lobster in Nova Scotia Canada, as one example of ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

 

A screen shot of a ChatGPT dialogue that shows how it creates a caption to describe cider donuts, as an example of ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

 

And it did the same thing as I sought its help to generate story ideas for Northern California:

 

A screen shot of a ChatGPT dialogue that gives five general story ideas for travel to the region, as an example of ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

 

A screen shot of a ChatGPT dialogue that shows how specific prompts can yield more effective results, as part of ChatGPT tips for tourism marketers.

 

Are those story ideas all perfect with no need for tweaking?  Perhaps not.  But did it give me threads to follow where before I had none?  Absolutely.  And some good ones too.

So, in addition to writing copy, one use of ChatGPT is to think of it like you would a sounding board.  Or a brainstorming partner.  It can’t ideate on its own (it’s not designed to innovate) but it can work with the prompts you give it to hit you back with starter threads.

Roush shared some spectacular direction on how to prompt ChatGPT as a sounding board in one of her recent LinkedIn posts:

 

A screen shot of a LinkedIn post by Janette Roush that instructs how to prompt ChatGPT for the most effective results.

 

You may be thinking “well, why can’t I just Google stuff like that instead of using ChatGPT?”  And you can.  But Google (“regular” Google, not the emerging Google Bard version that’s trying to infuse AI into its experience but not quite succeeding as of this writing) will give you a slew of different links for you to go explore and assimilate all the information on your own. And ChatGPT will just…answer you.  Not with “here are ten sources you can read to find story ideas” or “here are ten sources to see how other destinations are making themselves an attractive esports destination.”  It delivers YOUR story ideas, and tells you how YOUR destination can achieve an attractive esports destination profile.

And then – mind blown – you can direct it to actually WRITE that story about ice skating in Northern California or OUTLINE that strategic plan to develop esports tourism in NYC.

Again…will they be final drafts that need no tweaking?  Absolutely not.  They will be FIRST drafts, but if you’ve prompted with care, they’ll be pretty damn good first drafts.

And THAT saves you time, which is the whole point of using ChatGPT for marketing assistance.

But wait, you say.  When I use Google as a resource tool, I can handpick from among sources on the results pages that I feel are legitimate and credible.  Without such references, how do I know the information I’m getting from ChatGPT is accurate?

Folks, I remind you again that ChatGPT is not supposed to be a mystical tool that sees all and knows all.  You’ll need to check your facts, just like you would using any other source.  Do you really think that something is accurate just because you got it from a source on Google that you consider “credible?”  News outlets get details wrong, websites have outdated information, and inaccurate stuff has a way of floating around and perpetuating online.  So, ChatGPT is no more nor less credible than any other source you use.  And you should do your due diligence on its output when necessary.

And while we’re at it, I should also remind you that most of the output you get from ChatGPT will need tweaking and polish.  Even with the absolute best of prompting, there will still be nuances and phrasing you’ll need to infuse.  So it can’t hurt to brush up on your writing skills, and these tips will help.

If you want to explore how ChatGPT can potentially help you with your tourism marketing needs but you’re not sure how to begin, Roush offers these four tips to get started:

  1. Commit to a finite time period for practice.  You won’t learn how to use any new tool unless you devote time to using it.  Roush recommends setting a challenge to yourself, with some kind of accountability built into the period.  Take two weeks or a month or whatever, during which you commit to prompting ChatGPT on at least one topic every day.  “I challenged myself to post a new ChatGPT insight on LinkedIn every day for a month, and it forced me to think of that tool daily,” she says.  “It didn’t come naturally to me at first, but after a while, as various needs arose throughout the day at work, I’d automatically say to myself ‘let me see how ChatGPT would handle that.’ And then I’d dive into prompting.”
  2. Don’t think of it just for help with writing.  With accurate prompting, ChatGPT is an excellent resource for organization, explanations, curation, and more.  Roush says it’s helped her structure her lesson approach for her work as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College, and it’s helped flesh out her vacation itinerary in Montreal by finding cool things to do nearby to her already-planned stops.  “I’ve also used it to help it explain things I don’t fully understand,” she says, “like when I understand 80% of a technical proposal and I want to understand 100% of it.  I can ask ChatGPT to explain it to me in layman’s terms.”
  3. Learn to become specific in how you prompt.  You won’t be good at this right out of the gate.  It takes time and practice to master the art of prompting.  When Roush first dabbled in using ChatGPT, she – like most folks – prompted it with “silly things,” just trying out generic questions and commands, and receiving lackluster responses.  “It wasn’t until I stumbled upon how to start being more specific that I began to see the possible uses of ChatGPT,” she says.  “I had asked it to create an itinerary for my vacation in Montreal and it was pretty vanilla, just hitting all the major tourist sites.  But when I fed it my existing itinerary and asked it to suggest enhancement additions using the right prompts for specificity, it really impressed me.”
  4. Let ChatGPT create a style guide for you, so it learns to deliver responses in your own voice.  Roush fed it around 40 of her previous LinkedIn posts and asked it to create a writing style guide for her… which it did shockingly well.  Now she can instruct ChatGPT to use that guide when asking it to write stuff on her behalf.  “It was surprising how well the style guide captured my voice,” she said.  “If I had tried to analyze my own work and write up my own style guide, it would have taken forever and probably been less accurate.”

The bottom line is that the more you use it, the more uses you’ll discover for it.  And with practice at the art of prompting, you can make ChatGPT something akin to a full-service virtual assistant who brainstorms, writes, organizes, and educates.

Or… not.  You may end up hating it, but until you REALLY take it for a lengthy and diverse test drive, how will you ever know?

Related reading: Issac Asimov’s I, Robot.  It was written in 1950 and well…here we are, folks.

20 Tips for Tourism PR and Marketing Agency Clients

March 22, 2022

a red colored lightbulb with illumination marks signifying 20 tips to help tourism PR and marketing clients get the most out of their agency.

We’ve been serving PR and marketing clients in the tourism industry for 20 years.  Big global brands.  Tiny obscure companies.  Obscenely huge budgets.  Shoestring budgets.  Individuals with personalities that range from Type A to Zen.  Doers.  Procrastinators.  Screamers.  Huggers.  Savvy marketers.  Marketing agnostics.  Marketing skeptics.  No two clients are the same…and there have been thousands of them in our history.

So, we’ve learned a LOT about what it takes for a client to get the most out of both marketing and its agency.  Here, drawn from our extensive experience, are 20 tips to help tourism clients succeed in public relations and marketing:

  1. Changing marketing goals too frequently, or lacking them completely, can only achieve short term results for your efforts. Either be ok with that or make a solid plan and stick to it.
  2. If you water down a BIG BOLD idea, adjust your expectations down from BIG BOLD results. All too often, circumstances cause a client to dilute an idea’s execution…but then expect the same powerful results associated with the original concept.  That just ain’t how it works.
  3. If you feel you have to micromanage your agency, they’re not the right match for you. Let ‘em go, even if it’s us.
  4. Positivity works magic in PR. If you have faith it will produce…it will.  If you don’t…it won’t.
  5. It helps results tremendously if your entire organization is aware of your marketing plans. Devote resources to educating and engaging them, and you’ll see a greater ROI in marketing.
  6. Make the time to collaborate with your agency. If you skip meetings, miss deadlines, and sit indefinitely on things awaiting approval, you’re only tapping around 50% of their potential.
  7. If your boss doesn’t understand marketing, won’t leave, and remains skeptical about every campaign… dude, find a new job. We’ve seen it.  It never ends well.
  8. Tourists want visuals. Invest continually in photos and videos…every itinerary, every package, every story angle.  Without them, you’re losing marketing opportunities…which means you’re losing money.
  9. If you have “marketing envy” and always wish your organization could do things as cool as your competitors (or your agency’s other clients), learn what it takes operationally to execute such things. Then decide if your organization can make it happen.  You may not be nimble enough, your pockets may not be deep enough, or the concepts may be the complete wrong match for your brand.  If your organization is not equipped for it, stop being wistful.  Invest your energy in what will work best for YOU.
  10. It’s totally OK to put some marketing initiatives on a steady low flame temporarily (or even permanently) while you focus your resources elsewhere. Just make peace with it and don’t expect them to yield big results.
  11. It is totally NOT OK to turn PR on and off completely. It’s the one marketing medium that doesn’t respond well to fits and starts.  Either do it consistently (at any flame level) or just don’t do it.
  12. Use tailored landing pages for your digital campaigns. Without them, you’re losing a ton of business.  For some organizations, this is a no brainer. For others, it’s like pulling teeth.  Every. Single. Time.
  13. If your guest service and/or guest experience is inconsistent or subpar in any way, marketing will not help change that. In fact, the more guests we drive to your door, the more money you’re going to waste.  The damage those guests will do through social media, review sites, and lack of referrals/return quietly sabotages the positive benefits that marketing brings.  And a business can’t survive on new guests alone, who are more costly to acquire than referrals/repeats.  Fix the foundation, and you’ll see marketing pay off in spades.
  14. You can’t find love on a spreadsheet.
  15. A website should be both beautiful and functional, but if you had to choose where to put more resources…choose functionality every time.
  16. Forget what we said in #15 entirely.  Stop thinking of “beauty” and “functionality” as two different things.  Together they comprise “user experience,” and if your website doesn’t deliver equally in both areas, you’re losing money.  Period.
  17. Social media is more demanding than any other marketing medium. If you want to deeply succeed here, be prepared to staff it fully and keep up with the breakneck pace of ever-evolving rules, features, and channels.  Doing set-and-forget style marketing only taps around 20% of social media’s potential.  It’s fine if you choose to do it that way in the context of your overall marketing plan.  Just expect your notable results to come from other sources.
  18. If your risk tolerance is low, then PR is not for you. Often in PR, the greatest risks yield the highest rewards, but there are no guarantees.  That’s what makes it so exciting!
  19. There’s a reason creative, clever tourism packages and programs get a ton of press and social media love. Boring things just don’t command attention.
  20. Consistent indecision will tank your marketing ROI more than making a definitive poor choice ever will. That sounds dramatic, but history generally proves it to be true.

And here’s a bonus item, since we kinda negated #15.  Be candid with your agency at all times. Issues and concerns can be overcome easily with open communication. A good partner – as all agencies should be – will welcome the candor.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed the client experiences we’ve had, and every relationship has helped us grow. And it’s enabled us to help brands of all sizes achieve their marketing and business objectives.  Big shout-out to all our clients for putting their trust in us, and here’s to the next 20 years!

The secret to a great tourism photo.

October 26, 2021

Tourism is a highly visual industry.  Photos are a key tool used to tell tourism stories, but there’s a secret behind the great ones that make the biggest impact.  Someone took the time (and often, money) to get it right.

More dramatically put:  someone resisted the temptation to use photos that were easy to get but kind of “meh” in terms of quality.  “Meh” photos serve the functional purpose of photography, but they are completely uninspiring and make no impactful impression on the viewer.  So, yeah…you have photos to put on your website.  Check that box.  But are they seducing site visitors into considering a trip?  That box stays unchecked.

Fear not, there are a whole bunch of “great” and “meh” photo examples down below.  But first…

Sucky (and Silent) Consequences of Using “Meh” Photography

When tourism businesses choose to settle for “meh” photography, it causes much heartbreak.  Throughout my career as a tourism publicist and marketer, I’ve seen:

  • A hotel client who lost a highly-desired Architectural Digest story about their opening launch because their photography wasn’t good enough. (AD wasn’t being snooty…their photography was NOT good enough.)
  • Another hotel client whose online booking conversion rate absolutely sucked…and a website audit revealed that people were leaving the site after looking at the photo gallery. (Tragic, as a photo gallery should inspire people to hit the “book now” button.)
  • A destination client who was included in a syndicated news editorial round-up…and the only one of the eight destinations included without a photo accompanying their blurb because their photo wasn’t “quite right.” (Seven destinations with glorious vibrant photos and only one with just text… which one do you think got overlooked by readers?)

But those are examples where the consequences were traceable and known.  Far more dangerous are the silent consequences of “meh” photography.  No one ever leaves your website unimpressed and without booking…and then calls you up to say, “hey, I was considering a stay at your hotel, but just wanted to let you know that the photos didn’t really sell me on the place so I just left the website without booking.”

So, the bottom line is…you don’t even know how many sales you’re NOT making because your photos are just “meh.”

But trust me.  If they’re “meh,” it’s happening.

Why Is This So Hard?

Why do so many tourism businesses settle for less-than-great photos to use in marketing?  Three common reasons.

  1. They feel it takes too much time and they don’t have the bandwidth to organize/oversee it.
  2. They don’t want to spend the money for a photographer and/or stylist.
  3. They don’t understand the difference in impact between a “good enough” photo and a “great” photo.

It’s a real head-scratcher to me, but I’ve seen clients spend $20-$30 million building a gorgeous hotel, and then fight with me about spending $20,000 on photography for the website, brochures, and socials.

In other scenarios, I get the… “My sister-in-law takes great photos as a hobby – you should see her Instagram.  So I’m just going to have her do all our photography.”

Or the… “I don’t have photos of THAT specific program even though that’s what we’re promoting, so can we just use a general photo instead?”

Or the… “These brochures are really old and our hotel rooms don’t look like that anymore, but that’s all we have so just use those at the trade show.”

To spend all that money building your business and brand, and then NOT spend the money on a professional photographer to produce photos that help you sell it?  That’s fumbling at the goal line.  And it’s sabotaging the ROI of all the money you spent on building the business itself.

What Should a Great Photo Do?

A great photo is like an assist in sports:  it should assist you to close a sale.  That assist might come in the form of (for example)…

  • An Instagram photo that stops thumbs while someone is scrolling and makes them want to explore your entire Instagram profile…and ultimately your website.
  • Photos on your website that evoke emotion, inspire a desire to visit, make them want to check pricing and logistics for a trip.
  • Photos in a magazine that arrest people’s attention as they’re flipping through the pages and make them want to read the accompanying editorial story…which hopefully makes them want to visit your website.

Here’s a great case-in-point.  Years ago, I was in Armenia with a photographer getting shots of a collection of new boutique hotels launching that year.  We had no staff with us (literally no staff – the hotels weren’t even open yet) and no stylist.  It was just her and me trudging around the countryside with tons of photography equipment.  And FYI – while I’m eager and helpful, I know zip all about being a photographer’s assistant.

Here’s what one of the hotels looked like, with a simple “point and shoot” approach.

 

A castle-like building sits beside a rushing river and in front of green mountains.

 

It DOES look like a historic castle, and you DO see it’s right next to a rushing river and nestled in the mountains.  So, it definitely gives a sense of place and is “ok.”

Here’s what it looked like when the photographer got done with it.

A nighttime view of a castle-like building with dramatic lighting, which sits beside a rushing river and in front of a backdrop of mountains. This is the secret to a great tourism photo.

 

Listen, folks.  This was NOT a simple point and shoot.  We had no cell service and no radios to communicate with each from opposite sides of the river, and crossing that river was no picnic either.  Her trying to signal to me which lights to turn on or off, which umbrellas to move slightly left or right, and could I tilt that ONE light on the side to angle more toward the patio?  No, not THAT one.  THAT one.

Getting this shot took HOURS.  Actually days, because we had weather issues intervene.

But look at those two photos.  Which one stops your thumbs while scrolling and which one makes you say “OMG that place looks breathtaking and I want to go there?”

Great photographers do more than just click a button on a camera.  They harness the power of lighting, tone, context, perspective, props, spatial relations, and emotion.  In this case, the photographer studied the situation and said, “what photo…what angle…what perspective…what styling is going to show this building in the best, most seductive, most appealing way?”  And after taking a lot of test shots from various positions at various times of day, this nighttime photo won the honor.  (Should I mention how many design and travel magazines made this photo their centerfold?)

I mean…if your sister-in-law can do all that, then by all means lets hire her.

What’s My Point?

Getting great photography isn’t easy.  It takes time, planning, and commitment.  You may need to invest in props and other items to achieve the objective… flowers, food, drinks, people, and more.  You may need to reschedule (and spend money on a wasted day) because of weather.  If you’re already open, you may need to clear entire public spaces for several hours or a day – losing revenue from paying guests who don’t have access during that time.  You may need to take a shot over and over and over and over again to get it just right.  And damn it, you definitely need a professional photographer and/or stylist to do it justice.

Yes, all that costs time and money.  But the difference between “meh” photos and “great” photos is entirely about MAKING MONEY.  Skimp elsewhere if you must.  But do not skimp on great photography.

To further illustrate the difference, here are a few examples of photos I’ve come across in my tourism work.  Some of these businesses know the secret to a great tourism photo, and some clearly don’t understand what makes an impact.

By the way, there are deliberately no business names here.  This isn’t a commentary on who’s doing it right and who’s doing it wrong.  It’s an objective look at how photos do or don’t make a worthy impact.

Everything about this charcuterie board screams “dig in.”  Lighting, color, texture, positioning.  This delicious photo was no happy accident.

A charcuterie board of food including apples, cheeses, veggies, crackers, nuts and more. This colorful, vibrant, well-light view is the secret to a great tourism photo.

 

This cocktail gets completely lost in this photo.  It’s a gorgeous color, but sitting on that similar colored surface, the vibrancy doesn’t pop as it should.  Plus the background is super distracting.  If you’re a DIY Instagrammer for your business, and just taking quick snaps like this “on the fly” for posting, at least do this:  take that glass and snap pics of it in in a few different settings, and from several angles – high, low, above, side, etc.  If you take a dozen photos of this cocktail – which can be done in just a few moments – you’ll immediately be able to spot the one that shows the cocktail off to its best advantage.

An orange colored cocktail sits on an orange colored surface.

 

Let’s talk about dramatic architectural features, such as floating pools.  We once had a client that was debuting a floating pool and they fought us like the very devil about getting overhead drone shots of it.  They didn’t have easy access to a drone and didn’t want to pay for it.  But honestly, a straight-ahead shot of a floating pool just sucks all the drama out of that super-cool architectural feature.

To illustrate, here’s a picture at another hotel of their floating pool taken from different angles.  You can see how one showcases the floating pool and in the other, it gets lost.

Left side shows photo of a large, many-windowed hotel, with a floating pool sitting in front of it. Right side shows that same floating pool at night, from an elevated perspective so the light blue of the pool glows brightly sitting inside the dark blue lake.

 

And these folks REALLY did their floating pool villas justice, ensuring their website gallery shows them from multiple angles and various times of day:

This captures the secret of a great tourism photo. A floating pool sitting on the edge of the ocean, with an attached deck that shows two lounge charis.

 

From the perspective standing on a deck looking out at the edge of a floating pool and the Indian Ocean just after sunset.

Standing on the edge of a floating pool at sunset, showing the perspective of multiple villas with their own floating pools stretching out before you. Sunset of bright orange, yellow, and purple.

From the perspective of laying in bed, looking out terrace doors to a deck with table and chairs, aqua colored floating pool, and the deep blue ocean.

 

Food shots need special attention because visuals aren’t necessarily the main sensory trigger for humans when it comes to food.  Taste, sound (sizzling, pouring, sauteing, etc.), scent, and texture all play a role in our emotional connection to food.  And that’s hard to communicate in a flat photo.

Here, capturing sugar in mid-shake on this cannoli gives more energy, life, and interest to the photo than just a static pic of a cannoli.

A person shaking powdered sugar onto a cannoli that's covered with chocolate chips.

 

But these pancakes are nearly unidentifiable in this photo.  In the quest for a close-up to show the dripping, oozing goodness, perspective gets lost here.  If you’re scrolling quickly, you can’t even tell what it is, and that super-crisp piece of bacon on the side doesn’t help… it almost looks like the pancakes are sitting on a wood shelf.  Perhaps backing up the camera to show the whole plate, and catching the moment when the chocolate syrup is being poured onto the pancakes might achieve the objective better.  But – you know what I’m going to say – try it a dozen different ways before deciding which one makes the right impact.

A close up photo of pancakes with bananas and chocolate syrup on them and a crispy piece of bacon on the side.

 

Oh, you’re taking pictures of animals?  NEVER just snap one-and-done.  You take tons of photos from multiple angles in order to get one that will stop people in their tracks.  Like this:

Picture of a baby lamb facing front and smiling.

 

And finally, these folks are rebuilding a really important and historic wall.  But this photo will stop no thumbs.  I’m sure the dude on the right won’t be pleased that his behind is on Instagram, and everyone milling around looking down at rocks doesn’t do the story justice.  A close-up of a volunteer holding up a piece of rock with a huge smile on his/her face… or better yet, faux-kissing it?… could better tell the story of the passionate volunteers involved.  Or have him/her sitting on the wall and get enough context in the shot to see “kissing the rock” and the wall itself.  Or… hey, I’ve got an idea… take a dozen different shots and see what works best.  😊

Five people standing around piles of rocks, some of which are half-formed into a stone fence.

 

So, in conclusion, please do what it takes to get great tourism photos.  There’s really no secret to capturing ones that make an impact… just spend the time and/or money to do it right.

And let me just clarify:  by “great,” I mean photos that achieve your objective of inspiring people to emotion and action.  “Great” is one of those vague words that always need clarification and shame on me for using it so liberally in this post.  See why you should be careful using that word here.

 

Is being the Google Featured Snippet always a good thing?

August 16, 2021

Spoiler alert:  no.  That may surprise you, because you’d think that being a Google Featured Snippet – which scores the top spot in search results – would ALWAYS be a good thing.  Alas, this is only true if it’s for the right topic, which brings qualified and relevant traffic to your site. And if it’s not…you’ve got a problem.

We learned this the hard way.  How hard?  Like…we had to “break up” with Google in order to fix the situation.  Here’s the story.

First, let’s be clear on what a Google Featured Snippet is and why it’s so coveted. When you search for something on Google, very often a meaty search result appears at the top of the page.  This is the result that Google feels best answers your query, and it’s presented differently than the other results.  In a featured snippet, the descriptive text (pulled from the website listed) is shown first, and then the website is displayed underneath.  Like so…

A screen shot of the search results for "what is a google featured snippet."

 

Here are the rest of the first page search results for that query.  See the difference?  The descriptive text is more like a short teaser, and it comes after the website link.

 

A screen shot of the bottom of the first page of the search results for "what is a google featured snippet?"

 

You can see why being the Google Featured Snippet is attractive.  You’re at the tippy top of the very first page of search results and therefore, likely to get the most traffic for that particular query.

And while there are things you can do to increase your chances of scoring the featured snippet spot, it’s basically up to Google’s algorithm to bestow the honor.  It uses historical data and patterns to determine which website page gives the best quality answer that most thoroughly satisfies user intent for that particular query.  This means that Google pays incredibly close attention to what people are searching for and which websites are delivering the most effective answers.

As it turns out, there are a helluva lotta sorry people in this world.  And they’re all searching for the best way to apologize for their actions.

In 2011, we wrote a blog post entitled “Eight Ways to Apologize Without Saying I’m Sorry.”  It was meant to help tourism and hospitality folks respond gracefully to situations that required an apology.  Unhappy guests, frustrated tourists, disappointed meeting planners…all are potential apology candidates in the world of hotels, tourism, and hospitality.  The blog post gave clear, practical phrasing and positioning to apologize without using those two little words:  I*m s***y.  (Yes, we’re wary of even spelling them out here for fear of Google finding us again for this topic.)

The advice shared in the post was apparently REALLY effective, but not just for tourism professionals.  Adulterers who got caught, best friends who had a fight, teens trying to avoid parental punishment… all found their way to our informative blog post.

Shockingly fast after the post went live, this happened:

A screen shot of the google search results for "how to say sorry without saying it" from 2011.

 

It was exciting at first because traffic to our site started to steadily increase.  Actually, we’re not exaggerating if we use the term “skyrocket” here.  We were the featured snippet for many different iterations of that query and our little ol’ company beat out some heavy media hitters.  Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., Reader’s Digest, even Oprah… over time, all had articles on the exact same topic.  All were relegated to the space beneath Redpoint on the search results pages.

And that’s where the problem started.

In time, our website’s bounce rate ALSO started to steadily increase.  Bounce rate measures the number of visitors who leave after viewing just one page on your site.  That makes it a critical metric for your website’s overall health.  (FYI, you can learn more about it here.)

Soon, the overwhelming volume of traffic drove our bounce rate into the high 90’s.  This basically meant that – say – 98% of the people who came to our site left after just looking at that one page.

This doesn’t mean a lot of other relevant tourism industry professionals weren’t visiting our site.  It just meant that there were SO many people wanting to apologize for things like cheating on their spouse that they dominated the percentage of total site visits.  And there was no reason for those folks to visit other pages of our site after getting their apology lesson.  Let’s be real:  the dude who searched for “how to say I’m sorry without saying sorry to my wife for sleeping with her best friend” has no need for a tourism PR and marketing agency.  A crisis publicist, maybe.  But certainly not Redpoint.

So what happened?  In time, Google’s algorithms were trained to see our site as a place people go for a lesson in apologies… NOT as the website of a tourism PR and marketing agency.  This meant we ranked way lower in search results for topics we WANTED to rank for, which are topics relevant to the tourism industry and the services we provide.  And there was absolutely nothing we could do to rebalance the organic search scales.  The power of that post – and our lack of control in being Google’s Featured Snippet – was just too damn strong.

So, we steeled our spines and cut the cord.  The day we took down that blog post was a giant leap toward nursing our inadvertently-bruised website back to health.  But I’m not gonna lie…I indulged in lots of comfort food that day.  I knew it was going to be bittersweet looking at our Google Analytics reports from that day forward.  Bitter, because the traffic numbers would be a tiny sliver of what they had been, which is depressing.  But sweet, because the visitors would likely all be relevant, which is immensely satisfying.

I’m happy to report that our bounce rate is healthy these days and I’m no longer aware of what outrageous evils people are searching for on Google that require an apology.

However, in a hilarious side note, we didn’t delete the post entirely.  We simply moved the content to a new domain we purchased just for the occasion.  And guess what happened within two months?

 

A screen shot of the first page of search results showing the google featured snippet for "how to say sorry without saying it."

 

For goodness sake…we didn’t even make the website pretty!  Just slapped the content up there to sit on a shelf until we could decide what to do with it someday.  And it’s still dominating over all the big media outlets as the Google Featured Snippet.

Hmmmm.  Do I see a new stream of ad revenue in our future?  Your move, 1-800-FLOWERS.

Moral of the story?  If you’re a tourism business and you decide to blog about a common human problem – say, a hotel instructs on how to fold a fitted sheet? – don’t break out the champagne (yet) if you become the Google Featured Snippet for the topic.  And start watching your bounce rate like a hawk!

Three major changes coming to digital marketing.

April 20, 2021

There are three major changes coming to digital marketing in the next nine months and marketers are rightfully wary.  Actually…scratch that.  Most digital marketers are actually freaking out and scrambling for solutions, and it turns out there’s no easy fix.  All three changes will in some way dramatically upheave habits and strategies that digital marketers have relied on for ages.  And more importantly, they will negatively impact marketing results…from conversion data and targeting options to website speed and search engine results page ranking.

Did I just make you freak out too?  Sorry.  But ignoring these three major changes and/or hoping they don’t apply to you is not a smart move.  Ignorance may be bliss, but when your sales tank…believe me, you’ll be feeling anything but blissful.

Here’s a clear overview of what’s coming.  It’s not EVERYTHING, but it covers the critical highlights and offers links to more in-depth information about each one.  It should be enough for you to check in with your webmasters and marketing folks to be sure you’ve got a plan to address them.

iOS 14 Update – Coming Spring 2021

Biggest headline:  At some point soon (likely with the iOS 14.5 update, and likely the week of April 26), iOS will require all third-party apps to offer an opt-in prompt (see above image) that allows users to choose whether or not they agree to being tracked.  Also, the conversion tracking window is dropping from 28-days to 7-days, which will make your conversion metrics grossly inaccurate.  Hotel decision-to-book processes are not often contained within seven days.

Impact on your marketing:  This impacts Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and more.  Facebook is the biggest worry, especially if you’re using the Facebook pixel or doing any type of targeting or retargeting that relies on tracking in some way.  The wide swath of iOS (iPhone) users who opt out of tracking will now be an unreachable audience for tailored marketing.  This will reduce your advanced targeting options, as hyper-personalization and targeting lookalike audiences won’t be possible.

The iOS update will also result in inaccurate conversion data.  A large portion of your audience will now be untrackable, both because of the opt-out AND reduced conversion tracking window.  Note:  you likely won’t see the impact as instantly as flipping a light switch.  People update their settings on their own time – many take months before doing it – so expect this to feel like a quick slap and then a slow burn of increasing opt-outs over time.

Learn more here:

 

Google Page Experience Update/Core Web Vitals – coming Summer 2021

Biggest headline:  Page speed, which measures how fast your website loads and is ready for interaction when a user first tries to access it, will play an even greater role in a website’s Google search engine ranking.  A new suite of metrics called Core Web Vitals (CWV) will measure the elements of your site that are impacting its speed (see the three CWVs in the image above).  If things are out of whack, the report on your Google Search Console (also available at PageSpeed Insights) will tell you precisely what needs to be fixed in order to pass the CWV assessment.

Impact on your marketing:  Google plans a staggered rollout of this update starting mid-June 2021, with full completion by the end of August.  This is important, and you absolutely should correct any issues that are causing your site to fail a CWV assessment.

However, if you don’t have this done by June 15, the world won’t end.  Page speed is definitely a prominent factor in how Google ranks your website (because page speed impacts user experience, which is of top concern to Google), but it’s still just ONE of many factors used to determine that ranking.  Your site won’t get buried instantly because of a CWV fail.  In fact, Google has made it clear that relevant content still beats page speed in terms of ranking.  So even if your CWV are subpar, if you have excellent, interesting, unique, and effective content for searchers, your website can still rank high in search results.

However… do pay attention to your CWV because Google makes it crystal clear what you need to fix if you don’t pass.  Why allow fixable items to drag your page speed down?  Pro tip ->  check your CWV after you do any major content update to be sure nothing uploaded knocked your CWV out of whack.

Learn more here:

 

Cookies Changing to FLoC on Google Chrome – coming 2022

Biggest headline:  In 2022, Google Chrome will no longer allow websites to use third-party cookies, and it intends to replace them with a new approach called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC).  This means you’ll be able to track individuals ONLY while they’re on your own website.  When they leave and go elsewhere, you can’t follow them around and lure them back with retargeting ads.  Instead, you’ll be able to target “cohorts,” which are interest-based groups (sorted as such by Chrome) sufficiently large enough to maintain individual anonymity.

Impact on your marketing:  If you’re doing any sort of tracking and retargeting on Google, this will impact you greatly.  Google hasn’t released any information yet on how FLoC will work.  We don’t know what advertising tools will be available, nor or any specific details that would help you gear up for the tactical change.  But at the very least, this is going to force you to learn new methods/tools, upheave your conversion patterns, and disrupt formerly reliable marketing channels.

Google says its preliminary trial data shows that using cohorts leads to similar results and advertisers can expect to see at least 95% of the conversions per dollar spent when compared to cookie-based advertising.  But so far, they’ve shown no proof and leading digital marketing authorities are rightfully skeptical.  So basically…we don’t know much but we know it’s coming.

Learn more here:

There’s only one article here because concrete info isn’t available yet, but here’s the most up-to-date overview (at the time of this posting) of what’s going on with FLoC.

 

OK, that’s a lot to absorb. These three major changes coming to digital marketing are a BIG deal and can be daunting to consider.  So if you need a quick palate cleanser for your brain, check out our past blog posts about the marketing power of biscuits and bunnies.

Why you should care about your website’s bounce rate.

April 7, 2021

Your website’s bounce rate is something you should care deeply about, and here at Redpoint we call it “the sneaky little stat” for two reasons:

  1. It’s one single metric that gives clues to a ton of things that could be out of whack on your website.
  2. Google doesn’t actually LOOK at your bounce rate, yet it’s a supremely important factor in your search ranking potential.  (note: for brevity, I’m just saying “Google” instead of “Google and other search engines,” but this blog post applies to all of them.)

First, what’s a bounce rate?  It’s the percentage of visitors who come to your site and leave after visiting just one page with no interactions.  So, if your bounce rate is 87%, that means 87% of the people who came to your site basically opened the door, peeked their head inside, and then turned around and left <sound of door slamming>.  This ain’t good, folks.  In this example, 87% of the people you lured to your door (and you probably spent some marketing dollars to get them there) weren’t interested enough to come inside your house and get to know you better.

Acceptable bounce rates can vary by industry, type of business, and purpose of website, but here are some general benchmarks to help measure yours:

  • 26-40%:  Excellent
  • 41-55%:  Average, with potential
  • 56-70%:  Definitely room to improve
  • 71%+:  Something’s wrong, fix it pronto

But why should you care about your website’s bounce rate if Google doesn’t actually look at it?  Because your bounce rate is influenced by many critical factors, and those factors are things Google DOES care about…a LOT.  Here are a few important things that can negatively impact your bounce rate:

  • How fast the pages of your website load.  We’ve all been peeved by websites that take sooooo long to load that we leave before the first page even finishes loading.  Google uses site speed among its ranking factors…it likes websites to be fast.
  • The amount of time people spend on your site.  There’s no magic number (i.e. 5 minutes) that Google wants you to hit.  But in the simplest of terms, Google sees people staying on your site longer as an indication that your website delivers a satisfactory experience for users.  And Google’s entire goal is to return relevant and satisfactory results when people are searching.  So let’s say a lot of people searching for “charming country inns that allow pets” spend a lot of time on your site after they click through on the search engine results page.  Ultimately Google will say “hey, this website is a really good match for people searching for that topic, so we’re going to keep showing it higher in the search results.”  So on the flip side, if people searching for that topic get to your site and leave after just one page…Google will see that as a sign your website is NOT a satisfactory match for that topic and will NOT rank you higher (or ultimately, at all) in those search results.  And if you’re a charming country inn that allows pets, this is a bummer.
  • Content irrelevant to your main purpose.  Let’s say you’re a hotel that does a blog post with advice from your housekeeper about how to properly fold a fitted sheet.  It’s a common task that stumps many folks, so it’s likely people will search for it and find your post.  But if all those folks want is folding instructions, and you don’t put anything in the post to seduce them to click through to other areas of your site, they’ll probably leave after just looking at that post.

And of course, broken links, pages with missing data or incomplete text, or anything else that’s frustrating or annoying to users will negatively impact your bounce rate.  Nothing makes a visitor want to leave faster than trying to click (repeatedly, and with great irrational force) on broken links.

Here’s a handy visual that shows the whole “circle of life” for the website experience, with “they stay & engage” as the part where bounce rate would enter the equation.  If they do indeed stay and engage, it keeps the circle of life intact.  But if they leave at that juncture, it breaks the circle.

diagram showing the path visitors take from search engine result through to your website, and how the "stay and engage" moment determines bounce rate

Your bounce rate is easily found in Google Analytics, and if you discover it’s too high, here’s a practical guide for ways to reduce it.

And now that you know bounce rate is so important to your Google ranking… wait ‘til you see how alt text impacts it.

Your new year’s resolution? Better alt text.

January 13, 2021

OK, so this may not be the sexiest or most popular new year’s resolution, but here’s why it should make your list.

First, let’s be sure you understand what it is.  We’ve found through our consulting and digital marketing work that very few people DO understand it, even those that are responsible for writing the alt text on their own brand’s website.

Alt text – short for alternative text – is the text description applied to images on websites (and social media, but that explanation is for another day).  This isn’t the same as a caption, which can appear on your website with the image so that anyone can instantly see the words.  The alt text is hidden from the front-facing website and doesn’t appear unless it’s needed.  Think of it like writing a description on the back of a real-life photo that’s sitting in a frame.  When you look at the photo you can’t see the description, but if those details are needed, you can get them.

Now… when would such additional hidden details be needed?  Because if you’re looking at the photo on a website, you can clearly see what that photo is about… right?  Nope.  Not always.

The hidden text is vital in these three ways (all equally important):

  1. It gives search engines a full description of the photo, which makes it easier for search engine algorithms to see and understand images.  Using alt text on your website images means that a search engine can more easily find your photos and then show your website and/or images to people searching for relevant things you offer.
  2. When images on websites don’t load properly – when there are connectivity and/or internet strength issues, for example – the alt text will appear instead, so at least visitors know what you were trying to show.
  3. For those with vision impairment issues, or those who use screen readers for any other reason, the alt text is essential because it describes photos that the user physically CANNOT see.  A screen reader, if you didn’t know, is a program that reads content on a webpage aloud, and the alt text allows the screen reader to give information about the visual aspects of the page.  And by the way, ADA Compliance actually requires this of websites, so you might as well do it right.

Now, why won’t a caption suffice for all this?  Technical aspects aside (and there are some), the biggest reason is because a caption isn’t necessarily a proper description of a photo.  For example, here’s me trying to decide between my top two vices (since we’re talking about resolutions and all):

Chris Miranda holds prosecco bottle and coffee cup while deciding which to drink while giving a webinar.

The caption for this photo might be:  Chris decides between two vices.  But the alt text would be something like:  Chris Miranda holds prosecco bottle and coffee cup while trying to decide which one to drink while hosting a webinar.

So that takes us back to your new year’s resolution about committing to better alt text.  When you’re ready to dive in, here are nine brief but helpful tips for writing effective alt text.

And you can drink prosecco OR coffee while you read that article… no judgement here.

Looking for other ways to make your website easier to read and more accessible?  Choose your font and typeface wisely.