If you are on here, reading this website, presumably you already have the basics – that is, you have a tour idea that resonates with your target audience and you have a website for your tour business. Have these? Good. You’re further along than you think you are. But having a tour and a website is far from the end all be all when it comes to generating sales. You need to put in a little heavy lifting to get the attention of all of those savvy tourists you are trying to target. Good news though – these proven steps will help you come out ahead and generate more of those highly sought after online tour sales.#1 Take a look at your traffic sourcesIf you have a website for your tourism business, you need to make sure that people can actually find it. But unless you are in the SEO copywriting wall of fame, you probably aren’t getting traffic solely from appearing on search engines. You need to make sure that your tourism business has a presence on the internet – meaning that you need to list your business in places where your target audience will find you. And you need to make sure that those channels are actually bringing traffic to your website.Pro tip: In need of some inspiration? Check out this list of 92 places to list your tours on. You’ll learn which channels are relevant for your tours and how you can sign up with the companies. What’s even better – most of them require no sign up fee and Rezdy integrates with many of the online tour agencies and marketplaces listed.#2 And then check out your siteEvery single digital footprint you leave on the internet helps shape the perception of your overall company. So that means, whatever you put out should optimally represent your company. And having a poorly constructed website would actually cause you more harm than good. Walia Adventures, for example, was leaking thousands of dollars due to having an inferior site. After they got their new website (shown on the right), they achieved their best month ever.Pro tip: A poorly constructed website does not necessarily mean a bad looking website. Your site might look great, but there’s a good chance it’s not built in an optimal manner to sell tours.#3 Create content for your audience, not yourselfPeople want to know the nuts and bolts about what your tourism business entails; that’s why they are on your website afterall. They don’t want flowery writing that is full of metaphors they can’t understand. They want to know what they can expect when they are on your tour and what they need to do to take your tour – that’s it. So if you want to address their needs rather than your own, make sure that you write with your target audience in mind.Escape Goat’s initial tour page attempted to do this; however, they still didn’t address every obvious question that might have, such as exact departure and arrival times; what (if anything) to bring on the tour and what the ambiguous ‘flexible final destination’ options might entail.In the new tour descriptions, they’ve included:A clean and organized structure: The word count on the reformatted tour description is actually higher than the original, but – and this is a kicker – the text is structured in a manner that is scannable and can be read in detail. They start with a short introduction and got down to all the brass tacks (the most important parts) in short and bulleted points. They have also included a more comprehensive overview about the tour for viewers that are interested in the finer details.Testimonials: They included testimonials throughout the tour page – this simple change has noticeably increased their sales by adding credibility to the tour. They were able to highlight the fact that others went on the tour, and they had a great time while doing so. And what’s more important – the reviews come directly from TripAdvisor, adding a further boost of credibility to the tour.An obnoxiously visible booking button: EscapeGoat initially had a booking button on their site – which was a good start, but it blended in with the background and was nowhere to be seen towards the bottom of the page. Their new site has a booking button that is impossible to miss.#4 Keep ‘em coming backI’m willing to bet that you’ve done some browsing around yourself. Whether you’re looking for new shoes or recruiting a new guide for your team, you probably don’t commit the first time, every time. You have a look, think about it, look elsewhere, and only then do you decide on the right option. And chances are – your prospective customers are exactly the same. If you get someone on your site, they are often times far from being convinced that they should actually purchase your tours. So you need to make sure that you are as front of mind as possible by getting them on your email list and using retargeting advertising.What is retargeting you ask? It requires a little bit of code that you put on your website (i.e., a pixel) that tracks any visitor that enters your site. For example, I found myself perusing around the internet, checked out a few websites, and lo and behold – they have relentlessly followed me around the internet months after my first click onto their website.Pro-tip: Still lost when it comes to retargeting? You aren’t alone. But, if this is something you are interested in using – and I highly recommend that you do – this guide will give you a comprehensive overview about exactly what retargeting is, how to use it and how to set it up.Want to generate even more online sales?6 Tips on how get high quality traffic to your website.This blog was written by Matthew Newton, Founder of Tourism Tiger.