Common Mistakes We See On DMO Websites (And How to Fix Them)
Consider this a guide to a healthier, more efficient website, and if you see your own mistakes here (you’re definitely not the only one). We’re here to hold your hand and walk you through the easy changes that can make your website a whole lot better!
Our team has crawled a lot of sites. Audited a lot of pages. Opened a lot of CMS backends and quietly said “uh oh” out loud. After doing that enough, patterns start to show up. The same handful of mistakes tend to come up again and again, and most of them are fixable in an afternoon once you know how and where to look for them.
Mistake #1: Changing the URL every time you update a seasonal page or blog
Mother’s Day rolls around, someone updates the blog post, and the URL goes from /blog/mothers-day/ to /blog/mothers-day-2026/. A year of link equity and search history, gone and now Google has to learn the new URL from scratch.
FIX IT: Always keep the URL evergreen (/ blog/mothers-day/) and just refresh the content and dates each year. Save the year for the title and body copy, NOT the slug.
Mistake #2: Disabling entries once they’re no longer seasonally relevant
Turning off a page after the season or event has passed feels like you’re tidying up, but it usually does more harm than good for your SEO and for those long-lead travelers planning ahead. We’ve got a whole blog that covers why: Should I Disable This Blog?
Long story short: search demand for seasonal content usually peaks around the time of event, yes, but search engines reward consistency and visitors planning their trip may want to know what to expect months before they visit. Even older posts can help boost your website’s authority and organic traffic.
FIX IT: Leave it live and update it next year instead of toggling it off and on. Better yet, add a note that says something along the lines of: “202X Details Coming Soon.”
Mistake #3: Adding new pages in the wrong section of the CMS
Blog, page, or landing page? They’re not interchangeable, and picking the wrong one can impact how the content performs, how it’s meant to be found, and clutter the back end of your CMS. Organization is key and we know it can get confusing sometimes, so here’s our breakdown: Blog vs. Page vs. Landing Page.
FIX IT: Match the content type to its purpose before you hit publish, not after. Much like the sections of bookstore, make sure your content is organized in a way that's easy to find right when you enter.
Mistake #4: Adding new pages outside the established information architecture
A one-off page gets created because someone needed something live fast, and it never gets folded into the actual sitemap, nav, or an established section in the backend. Now it’s an orphan, isolated from the pages you actually built your strategy around, disconnected from the internal linking and content grouping that help both visitors and search engines understand where it fits.
FIX IT: Any new page should live inside an existing topic cluster or CMS section before it goes live. If it doesn’t fit anywhere, that's a sign that the information architecture (IA) needs a real conversation, not just a workaround.
Mistake #5: Using clever titles when you need clear ones
“Paw-some Bites in [Destination]” sounds nice on a t-shirt or in a marketing brochure. It does nothing for someone searching “dog friendly restaurants in [destination],” which is what your actual visitor is typing into Google and AI tools. The further your titles stray from what visitors are looking for, the harder it is to bring traffic to your website.
FIX IT: Match the page or blog title (also known as the H1 heading) to search intent first. Save the personality and quirky colloquial taglines for the intro and body copy, where it actually gets to shine.
Mistake #6: Letting easy-to-update details go stale
Old event dates, outdated hours, last year’s admission prices, or menu items. We get it — it can be hard to keep up with content sometimes, but these take just 5 minutes to fix, and they’re often the first thing that makes a visitor (or an AI tool) lose confidence in the page.
FIX IT: Build a strategy into a recurring content calendar and make a plan to implement updates regularly instead of waiting for someone to notice.
Need help keeping up with all of your content? Our Growth Marketing team excels at keeping your website up to date when search demand is at its peak.
Mistake #7: Publishing pages with no actual content, just listings
A page titled "Things to Do" or "Where to Eat" sounds like it's covering the topic, but if all that's actually on the page is an embedded listing or directory feed, there's no real story being told. A listing tells a visitor what exists. It doesn't tell them why it matters, who it's for, or what makes it worth their time, and it doesn't give a search engine any words or context to pull from either. No copy means nothing for Google or AI Overviews to actually surface in search results, so the page can rank for the topic in name only.
FIX IT: Every listing page needs real supporting copy woven around it, with context, guidance, and a point of view — elevating it beyond just a digital “Yellow Pages” for your destination. Don’t be afraid to introduce some introductory storytelling, which is something a listing widget alone can't provide, and something search engines actually have language to pull from.
Mistake #8: Disabling a parent page without rehoming its child pages
The parent gets turned off, and every page beneath it just…floats. No navigational path, no breadcrumb, nothing pointing a visitor or a crawler toward them anymore.
FIX IT: Before disabling a parent page, map out where each child page should go. Should they be disabled too? Do they need a new permanent place to live? Reassign them in the nav so nothing gets left behind.
Mistake #9: Letting duplicate content compete with each other
Two blogs covering nearly the same trip idea. Two “tips for X” with heavy overlap. Instead of one strong page or blog, you end up with multiple mediocre pages or blog posts fighting for the same keywords and traffic, knocking down each other’s rankings (known as “keyword cannibalization”).
FIX IT: When you find competing content, choose the stronger performer, consolidate by folding the other into it, and apply a 301 redirect from the old page/blog to the new, stronger piece.
Mistake #10: Cramming too many topics into one page instead of using the hub-and-spoke structure
A single page trying to cover several distinct subtopics, with no real subpages to break it apart, resulting in a single, copy-rich page that may not be the best for user engagement. These segments deserve attention and real estate, and cramming them into a single flat page leaves valuable content opportunities on the table.
FIX IT: Break the single page into a hub-and-spoke structure. The hub is the core topic page (Outdoors, for example), and each spoke is its own dedicated page for a specific audience or subtopic underneath it (Biking, Hiking, Watersports). The hub links to each spoke, and each spoke links back, so visitors and search engines both get a clear map of how the topic breaks down, rather than one page trying to speak to everyone at once.
Most of these mistakes stem from the same root cause: a website that grows without anyone stepping back to monitor its progress. None of these mistakes are hard to fix once you spot them. The hard part is remembering to look. We recommend that every destination team designate at least one website lead to keep new content organized and updates on schedule, or let our Growth Marketing team handle it for you.
A website needs the same kind of upkeep as a house. Every so often it deserves a good spring cleaning, a chance to clear out the clutter and patch up what's been neglected. Set aside the time to make a plan and work through a few of these fixes. Take your site from a fixer-upper to a home worth the visit, one that keeps users coming back again and again.
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