What is domain authority, and why does it matter to Luxury Latin American tour operators who want more tour clients and visibility?
It can be easy to think of digital marketing as a “one size fits all” approach, where everything is of equal importance and all fits together nicely for everyone. However, while there are many important parts of staying competitive and visible online, a company’s domain authority has always been a very important factor for ranking and getting tour sales – and will continue to be so as we move further into the new AI era.
In this case study success story, we’ll take a look at how I helped a Mexican Boat Charter Operator – BoatsBaja, who are based in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico – double their double authority in just 6 months of working together, and how this helped improve online visibility and overall tour sales.
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Below you can watch me explain directly how we achieved such impressive results within such a short time frame:
Case Study Success Overview
*If you’re still unsure what domain authority is, then don’t worry – we’ll cover this shortly in the next section.
After 6 months of working together with BoatsBaja, we have seen many successes for both their online visibility, as well as their creation of an AI-resistant digital marketing strategy.
- Grew Domain Authority from 12 to 25, which meant important keywords were getting more visibility in Google (more tourists could see their brand).
- New Landing Pages we created – such as a Fly Fishing page to promote a new tour – which were already ranking quickly after publishing.
- Google was taking us more seriously, and our SEO strategy was helping us achieve higher rankings.
- Most importantly, these increases in Domain Authority were done by creating guest posts and backlinks with high quality and trustable partners – meaning that our DA was solid and would also be credible for AI results.
Firstly: What Is Domain Authority? And Why Should Latin American Tour Companies Care?
If you’re new to digital marketing or don’t bother with the super technical stuff, then I completely understand. There’s so many concepts and new ideas nowadays that it can be a headache – and most of these aren’t important for what tour operators really want: more tour sales and optimised business growth.
However, Domain Authority is important, regardless if you’re a boutique operator looking to grow quickly or a seasoned larger company that wants to keep leading as we move into the AI era. Simply put – Domain Authority is how authoritative and trustworthy Google views your website and brand to be, and is marked on a scale between 1 and 100.
So why is this important? The higher your company ranks on this scale for your website, the more Google trusts you and sees you as a credible source to show to its users. This means that by growing this number, every landing page that sells tours, as well as content articles to find new customers, will rank higher automatically.
And whilst this helps get you onto the first page of Google for SEO results, the biggest benefit of having a higher domain authority is that AI will see your brand as a reputable one to recommend when users ask for travel advice (the future of how tourists will look for tours).
The Situation Before We Started Working Together
Before we began working together, BoatsBaja was a mid-sized charter company and were mostly relying on Paid Ads and Word-of-mouth Referrals for their sales.
They had been enjoying success with their tours and had grown steadily within the Cabo area, expanding into offering new charters and specialised trips. However increasing competition in the Baja area, as well as the complexity of SEO and AI search, were beginning to dilute their results.
Overall their goals were clear and simple:
- They wanted to create a multi-channel sales strategy to increase bookings, which were safe from future AI changes.
- They wanted to increase their DA and become a more powerful and respected tourism brand online, and have a better ROI with their current digital marketing results.
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The Roadmap For Success: What We Did To Achieve Our Goals
The most important first step for success with any client is to get a thorough picture of their current and past results, as well as their efforts. So we began with delivering a fully tailored audit to see exactly where they were, and their current online presence.
We quickly decided that DA was a priority to focus on, as they were struggling with maintaining a strong authority as Google and AI’s algorithms kept expanding and changing. SEO and online visibility was also a key focus, as they were only relying on Paid Ads for the majority of their booking enquiries and sales.
From here we then broke our goals down into a monthly plan, with a focus on big growth within the first 6 months. As part of our success-ready AI-resistant digital marketing strategy, we began by creating high-quality guest posts and authoritative backlinks with existing select partners that I have – who have a high DA and would allow us to grow quickly within a short space of time. We also launched a SEO strategy, where we began creating articles to provide more online traffic and visibility for their brand.
Success, Results And Future Opportunities
Within the first couple of months we began to see our visibility and impressions grow rapidly – and that was despite us beginning with such a low DA. This proved that creating consistent and high quality content was seen as a positive by both Google and AI, where many of our articles were landing on the first page.
Although we were creating and posting guest posts with important high-value backlinks, patience was needed to see results as a website’s DA can take time to update. Within just four months this has already jumped up from 12 to 20 – which is a very respectable number to have as a mid-sized competitive tour operator – and later grew to a healthy 25 by the time we reached Month 6.
Both of these improved metrics were having a big impact on the visibility and rankings for BoatsBaja. Firstly the main keywords they were already ranking for saw improvements, and new keywords that we had been targeting with our SEO strategy were bringing in more potential customers (similar to the results that this leading Peru tour operator achieved). This ultimately gave my client peace of mind – as now they had a reliable multi-channel digital marketing approach which would continue bringing in sales despite future Google and AI changes, and also not be depending as heavily on Paid Ads as they once were.
Want To Rapidly Improve Your Domain Authority And Create An Effective Online Sales Strategy?
Domain Authority has always been an important component for a tour operator’s online success – and many believe that it’s no longer important in this new AI era.
However as AI now looks to recommend only the most reputable and unique tour brands, DA has become more important than ever. This is why it’s vital to implement a consistent digital marketing strategy where you are receiving high quality backlinks on a regular monthly basis, which help to solidify your position as a leader as competition and AI complexity both continue to grow.
When working with GeorgeIntoTheJungle, you will get a fast ticket to high Domain Authority quickly by working with our select premium partners. This, along with a multi-channel marketing approach, will guarantee you more tour sales and online visibility as we move further into the online AI revolution.