Last month’s column focused on some concrete reasons as to why you as a travel professional should have a website. Simply put — statistics show that having a website not only boosts your sales but can also save you valuable time. It gives your customers a place to connect and engage with you and, when done correctly, your website should also reinforce your expertise as a travel professional.

So, now that we’ve established the fact that an online presence is needed — what kind of presence should you have? Will any website suffice? Let us now examine two key areas that will help you establish a professional web presence. This will surely increase retention of your current clients, as well as help you grow your business by attracting new ones.

Professional Look and Content
Having a professional and information-rich website that best represents your agency’s look and feel can actually help you to stay connected with your customers and increase your bookings. Agent Studio’s travel agent website platform features integrated social media, so you have the ability to share content straight from your website.

That being said, the best way to keep your customers engaged is to build and maintain good relationships with them. Although having a professional website can help, it cannot do everything for you. It’s still important to pick up the phone now and then to personally reach out to your clients. With the myriad of travel buying options out there, they are no doubt buying more than just the products you sell. The relationship and rapport you establish as a professional has much to do with your customers buying decisions. But, it is important that you have a website that can help them make those buying decisions. Your website should complement your business and give you the tools you need to help it grow while giving your clients the information they need to book with you!

Easy to Navigate
It may sound like a simple truth, but, a website is only useful to your customers if they can find what they are looking for on it! Make sure your website is easy to navigate. Avoid having an overly cluttered homepage that has a plethora of offers with little to no information. This lack of information and content could cause your customers to simply click away from your site instead of actually clicking into an offer or picking up the phone to call you.

Make sure that your contact information is clearly displayed on the homepage in addition to any contact or about pages within your site. It’s important to make contacting you as easy as possible for your customers. Reinforce why they book with you, their personal travel professional, vs. the massive .com internet travel aggregate sites out there by making it easy for them to navigate your website and contact you.

Ensuring that your website not only looks professional but is easy to navigate and has content that your customers want to make informed buying decisions will help you establish a professional web presence. Agent Studio, the travel industry’s fastest-growing website solution, has helped thousands of agents do just that. This is just one of the reasons why thousands of agents and host agencies are turning to Agent Studio.

See what an Agent Studio-powered website can do for your agency. Use promo-code: AugustVA to try it out for free! Contact azito@agentstudio.com.