How to Make Your Outdoor Recreation Page Stand-Out

The importance of outdoor activities has greatly increased as a result of the recent pandemic. As a result, Outdoor Recreation is the perfect way to unplug from the world and practice social distance — making activities like hiking, biking, and kayaking more popular. Ideally, these outdoor activities are being promoted on a single, dedicated page – a one-stop-shop for outdoor activities for your visitors. For most though, your outdoor recreation page may not be actively portraying all the outdoor activities that your destination offers. If you want to get a leg up on the competition and make sure you site checks all the best practices boxes, here’s how to make your outdoor recreation page stand out.

Create a Catchy Header and Introduction

To start your Outdoor Recreation page, begin with a snappy tag or head line – or both! This should give your readers a small glimpse into the unique activities that your destination uses. For example,  Visit Aspen’s Outdoor Recreation page starts with the header;  “Ordinary Sits This One Out.” This helps make your outdoor recreation page stand out.

Next, your page should offer an introduction of your destination. More than likely, readers are coming to your site to learn what your destination offers. The intro paragraph should only be able 2-3 sentences and give a tease into what types of outdoor recreation visitors can enjoy. You can also include major must-travel to places (with links to designated pages). Highlight the most outstanding features that await protentional explorers and why they should go to your destination.

This is the perfect section within your outdoor recreation page to feature what visitors are saying about your destination. These testimonials and reviews can give protentional visitors a feel for what others have experienced.  TripAdvisor is a resource you can use to find testimonials.

Organize Activities by Utilizing Tiles

The single, easiest way to highlight (and organize) each of your many activities is through the use of “tiles”. Notice how in the example above, Laguna Beach uses pictures to create a visual-driven, easy system of navigation.

Think of all the outdoor activities that you offer. Each individual activity should have its own designated tile with a related picture. List your titles by having either a text overly or text underneath the listing. Be sure to stay away from listing your activities – tiles are a clean way or organize things and translate well on mobile devices. There are many ways to utilizing tiles; Laguna Beach, CA and Gaylord County, MI are two great examples of how to use them.

Highlight your Must-See Attractions Related to Activities

Now that you have your tiles set, you want to ensure each of these tiles have a designated page! These story extending web pages should include a short introduction paragraph (That is SEO optimized with strategically placed keywords) that highlights why the activity is a must-do within your destination. Your intro should convince readers why your destination is the perfect place to experience this activity – again, this is fantastic for SEO. It may help to discuss why this specific activity is special to your destination or why it is so important that you’re promoting it!

These pages are the perfect place to promote related attractions to the activities. Try listing places of interest where visitors can enjoy that activity. For example, Hamilton County, IN highlights popular trails on their Hiking Activity Page.

Filter Tiles with Qualifiers or By Quantity

One of the easiest ways to organize or categorize your tiles is by qualifiers or quantity. Think about how you would go about researching trails if you were doing so for your own leisure. You would want to be able to quickly find the trail that fits your style.

These are two of the ways that travelers are able to plan activities for their next big adventure, so work them in! Qualifiers will range from place to place and will directly relate with the type of activity. If your organization represents more than just a single city, it may be helpful to add a region or city filter, too. Here are a few examples of how to categorize by qualifiers and quantity.

  • Qualifiers
    – Social-Distance Approved
    – Family-Friendly
    – Dog-Friendly
    – Most Popular
    – Romantic
    – Best for Beginners, Intermediate, Experienced
  • Quantity
    – 10 Miles or more
    – 10 Miles or less
    – “Only 10 miles from Downtown!”

As a result, using these qualifiers or quantities — your visitors can use this feature to better gage what fits their needs best, quickly.

Promote Seasonal Activities

Regardless of your destination, each season offers unique experiences. You should consider making an outdoor recreation page for each season, as each offers its own variety of activities, scenic views, and standout ways to explore your destination. Having designated seasonal pages is beneficial since you can use them for promotional campaigns throughout the year.

As travel typically starts to decline during the fall season and continues into winter – having a fall and winter outdoor recreation page is crucial. You can then use these pages to leverage past audiences in your seasonal promotional campaigns!

Make Your Page Search Optimized

You’ll want to make sure that in order to make your page search optimized, you use a high-value keyword strategy. Keywords are a crucial part in making your page search optimized. This helps position your page higher on major search engines prompting higher website traffic. for organic search shouldn’t be taken likely. Doing this well will feed traffic to your site for years to come.

In our previous blog post, “How to Spark New Blog Ideas”, we showed you how to find keywords related to your destination. Apply this same method to your pages! Instead of blog topics, the ones you find will be great for your intro paragraphs and page names.

As of now, your outdoor recreation page may be holding a large amount of information but may get lost in the shuffle. Its important to use this page as a easy-to-use resource for readers to get a glimpse of your destination. Utilize this page to showcase all your destination has to offer and why visitors should travel there. Since your destination offers much of what other places do as well, be sure to use these tips to make your outdoor recreation page stand out.

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