How to generate highly-targeted, free traffic and convert more virtual visitors into retreat participants.
Does this scenario sound familiar?
You set the date for your upcoming retreat, plan out the event schedule, and prepare the space for incoming participants. After writing up a description of your retreat and publishing it onto your website … crickets, nobody seems to notice.
How can you drive traffic to your website and generate interest for your retreats?
Search Engine Optimization
The purpose of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is to allow popular search engines, like Google, to rank a specific search term found on the first 1-2 pages of a web page.
This helps you generate highly-targeted, free traffic - people who are searching specifically for something you offer. Because of higher intent, they’re more likely to convert from visitors into retreat participants than traffic from many other sources, like social media. But optimizing your retreat listings to rank highly in Google isn’t always intuitive or easy.
Search engine optimization is a massive body of knowledge that you could study forever and still have more to learn. And, search engines are constantly changing and updating their algorithms - it’s easy to be lost with what to do.
If you’re just starting out with SEO, you can use the basic on-page optimization techniques presented in this article to get more traffic to your upcoming retreats.
This guide is organized into two sections. The first section is about choosing your target keyword or search term through keyword research. The second section walks you through the basics of on-page SEO. We recommend completing the first section before moving on to Step 2: Optimize Your Retreat for Search Engines.
Step 1: Choose Your Target Keyword
Before you spend time trying to optimize your retreat listings for search engines, you need to be clear on what specific search term or keyword you are optimizing for.
A keyword is anything (a phrase or word) that people search in a search engine (ie Google). To set a keyword for your retreat, think of what you’d type into Google if you were to search for what you’re offering.
For example, if you run a vipassana retreat center, and offer a 7-day Vipassana Retreat, your target keyword may be vipassana meditation retreat.
You want to find a keyword that:
- Has a high search volume. Search volume is simply how many people are searching for the specific keyword or search term per period (usually a month). For example, the keyword meditation sees over 136,000 searches per month.
- Has lower competition. It’s really difficult to rank on the first page (or even within the first 5 pages) of any popular search engine like Google for very popular search terms. Many websites that are well established and are trusted by search engines related to that keyword are already ranking for the search term, and it’s tough to compete with these types of sites.
- Is highly relevant to your retreat. There are many search terms with low competition and high search volume, but you want to only rank for those terms that are relevant to your retreat. Avoid choosing a target keyword because of the volume and competition alone.
- To do this research, start a free trial with a popular SEO tool like Ahrefs.
You can also use Google’s free Keyword Planner. It isn’t as savvy as Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush, but it will at least get you the basic information.
In our example above, using Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer to plug in the keyword vipassana meditation retreat yields the following results:
In the US, there are 1400 monthly searches for the search term, and the competition (keyword difficulty in Ahrefs) is easy.
You can add a location or another relevant keyword to your target search term and get even more specific.
If you’d rather just set the keyword-based on your gut, brainstorm what people are most likely to search when they’re looking for a result like yours.
This can be relatively intuitive. You may not know the search volume if you don’t use any keyword research tools, but the idea is to ensure that you’re using the phrases and words that would identify what you're offering to the largest group of people possible.
Once you have your target keyword or search term in mind, you can move onto optimizing your retreat listing for search engines.
Step 2: Optimize Your Retreat for Search Engines
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a full body of digital marketing knowledge and expertise that requires hundreds of hours of study to develop proficiency. But as unrealistic as it is to cover the entire topic of SEO in one guide, there are some low-hanging fruits that you can harvest to get started optimizing your retreats.
By applying even the basics, more potential participants will likely find your retreats. The strategies outlined below cover the basic elements of on-page SEO.
#1: Optimize Your Retreat Title
Your event title matters for both conversions (ie how many visitors go through with booking), and search engine optimization (SEO, ie whether your event shows up in search results).
Both your conversion rate and your search visibility benefit from a straightforward, descriptive event title that follows the following formula:
[Length of retreat] [Type of Retreat]in [City/State/Province], [Country]
Example: 7-Day Vipassana Meditation Retreat in British Columbia, Canada
This formula is beneficial for conversion rate optimization and search engine optimization, and it’s also beneficial for your potential participants and website visitors.
Vague titles that don’t hit on the key points in the formula leave the visitor confused, and give them more to do - if they are still interested in finding out exactly what your event is, they have to read deep into the description. Most visitors will not do this and instead leave your event in search of one that isn’t as confusing.
If you want to add a descriptive word to the event title to differentiate it from others, do so before the type of retreat:
[Length of Retreat] [Descriptive Word] [Type of Retreat]
in [City/State/Province], [Country]
Example: 7-Day Awakening Vipassana Meditation Retreat in British Columbia, Canada
Retreat Title Best Practices
- Write your title in title case rather than sentence case to appear more trustworthy and professional.
- Your location is a keyword, so use your best judgment as to which location identifier your participants are most likely to type into a search engine.
- For example, if your retreat center is in a little-known remote location (like Nelson, BC Canada!) avoid using the town/city name and instead just use the state/province and country. If your retreat is in the USA, omit the country in favor of the city/region and state.
How to Set a Custom Retreat Title
You can set the title of your retreat in Retreat Guru (ie your program name) where you set your page title: at the top of the page.
However, if you want your page title to differ from your program name that shows up in search results (for example, maybe on your website you want it to leave your retreat location out of the title), you can set a custom SEO title by scrolling down to the bottom of your new event to the section entitled SEO.
#2: Customize Your Retreat URL
Also called the slug or permalink, the URL of your retreat page communicates to search engines, the searcher, and your sitemap what the page is about.
This is the page link you see in your browser for any given page.
The default URL pulls from the name of the page if you don’t set a custom URL. For example, if your retreat title is 7-Day Vipassana Meditation Retreat in British Columbia, Canada, then your URL would show up as:
http://yourcentername.com/program/7-Day-vipassana-meditation-retreat-in-British-Columbia-Canada
However, SEO best practice is to ensure your URLs are short and include the main keyword you’re trying to target. Set a custom URL and shorten it to include only your keyword:
http://yourcentername.com/program/vipassana-meditation-retreat
You can only use a URL once (URLs must be unique for each program), so if you’ll be running similar retreats in the future, feel free to customize your URL with the date or another identifier.
http://yourcentername.com/program/vipassana-meditation-retreat-July-2021
How to Set a Custom URL for Your Retreat
In Retreat Guru’s booking software, you can set your custom URL where you set your page title: at the top of the page.
Click on Edit permalink + and enter your desired URL.
#3: Set an Engaging Custom Meta Description
A meta description is an important but often overlooked feature for improving your search engine optimization.
The meta description is the information that search engines pull from your page to display as a preview in the search results for any given keyword.
If you do not set a custom meta description, search engines will pull an auto-generated description usually from the first 155–160 characters of the page.
This is not ideal as usually, the first words on a page do not include the appropriate target keywords or their synonyms, which communicate to the search engine what the page is about.
Another reason to set a custom meta description is to hook the participant’s attention. Besides your retreat title, URL, and brand name, this snippet is one of the first things points of contact with your target audience, and you are competing against the other listings on the first page.
To stand out, increase your clickthrough rate (the % of people who click your result) and optimize your listing for search, set a specific, keyword-rich meta description that draws the searcher into your specific listing.
Example: Gain insight by joining this 7-day all-inclusive special-seeing Buddhist vipassana meditation retreat at Wisdom Mountain Retreat Center in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada.
Meta Description Best Practices
- Keep your meta description under 160 characters, or if that’s not possible, ensuring the main keywords are within the first 160 characters.
- Use your target keyword and any additional keywords and synonyms that you might want to target.
- Write naturally. This needs to make sense, so don’t just write for machines -- write for your target audience.
You’ll see a section entitled SEO, where you can set your custom meta description.
#4: Retreat Page Content
The content, including the retreat description, and amenities that you include on your page must be comprehensive, valuable, and keyword-rich.
Aside from communicating to search engines what your retreats are all about, this information also provides valuable context for the reader that will help them make the decision about whether to book with you or choose another retreat center.
A compelling, well-written description is powerful!
Listing Content Best Practices
- Use your target keyword in the first 100 words. Many search engines give more weight to search terms that show up earlier on the page. Only do so if this feels natural.
- Include your keyword and target search terms as well as synonyms and contextual terms. Ensure that the description is written naturally, and is easily digestible.
- Avoid keyword stuffing. You don’t need to include your keyword 20 times for the page to rank in search. Search engines are savvy (as are humans!) and can pick keyword stuffing up quite easily. Aim for a handful of uses of your target keyword and synonymous search terms, ensuring that they’re natural inclusions. If you wouldn't say it in conversation, it doesn’t belong in your page content.
- Make it shine. This is your place to really hook the visitor and show them what you’re made of. What makes your retreat center and your program different and special? What will your event help them achieve in their lives?
- Create a positive user experience (UX) on the page. Is your content easily scannable? Do you break up large blocks of text with bulleted lists, relevant images (no stock photography), quotes, and line breaks? Is the content visually appealing, even if it’s mostly text? Well-formatted content keeps the user on the page for longer and decreases bounce rate, which communicates to search engines that your content is the result they were looking for.
- Use your keyword at least a few times. Ensure it is used naturally in the regular flow of your content.
How to Set Listing Content
In Retreat Guru’s booking software, there is one main area for listing content. It’s found in the Information tab under the Retreat Title field.
You can use the Visual editor to style and format your content directly in the field or use the Text tab to include HTML or CSS.
Use the Add Media button to add videos, audio, or images to your listing content.
#5: Link to Your New Retreat Page
When you’ve created your new, optimized retreat listing, it can take Google some time to crawl your website and index the new page.
You can speed that up and also further optimize your new retreat page for search by linking to your new page from other pages on your website. Links from your own website are called internal links because they’re coming from within your site.
For example, if you had a page on your website featuring upcoming retreats, you would link to your new retreat page from this feature.
Ideally, you can link to each new retreat page from a few different pages on your website.
Internal Linking Best Practices
- Use your keyword in the link anchor text. The anchor text is the text in a hyperlink that you click on. For example, the anchor text in the example sentence below is vipassana meditation retreat.
- For example, Join us for 7-days in August in this top vipassana meditation retreat for beginners.
- Link to your new pages from 2-4 main pages on your website. This will help search engines index your new page, visitors find your new page, and pass over some SEO juice to your new retreat listing.
- Ensure your links open in a new tab. This avoids pulling users off the page and distracting them from what they were originally doing on your website.
How to Set Internal Links
In Retreat Guru’s booking software, you can link to any page on your website from any content section. Just highlight the anchor text you want to link to, and click the chain-link button.
To ensure your link is opening in another tab or window, click the gear icon and select Open link in a new tab.
You can use a service like Ahrefs to find the pages on your website that have the most authority and therefore will pass the most amount of link benefit to your new page.
In the Site Explorer window of Ahrefs, type your URL into the address bar, and then click the Top Pages tab. Only place your links into relevant pages.
Are you now optimized for success?
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