By Brianna Vetrano, Digital Place Marketing Consultant, Vetrano Digital Marketing

Every week I speak with place marketing leaders across tourism, investment promotion, economic development, and talent attraction about their digital strategies. They all have different audiences, different goals, but often the same underlying challenge: the digital landscape has shifted in a major way, and many organisations are still trying to adjust.

Over the last year, I’ve heard a lot of the same questions coming up:

Q1. Do people still use Google to research places?

Yes, but the behaviour has shifted. People still use Google in the traditional sense, but they’re increasingly starting somewhere else. Social media and AI tools are where much of the early exploratory research begins. From “best U.S. states for advanced manufacturing” to “underrated cities to visit in Europe,” the shortlisting is happening across multiple channels. Google is where they go to verify.

The practical consequence is that zero-click searches are rising. Answers appear directly on the results page, in AI Overviews and featured snippets, without anyone ever landing on your site. Ranking still matters but being the source those answers draw from matters just as much.

Q2. Does SEO matter anymore?

More than ever, though what it requires has changed.

Organic search still drives some of the highest-quality traffic in place marketing. What’s shifted is where “showing up” happens. AI Overviews, featured snippets, and tools like ChatGPT are answering questions before anyone reaches your site.

SEO now has two jobs: ranking on Google and being structured clearly enough that AI tools can cite you (known as GEO or generative engine optimisation). The fundamentals are the same: expertise, specificity, authority. Done well, your content can support both traditional search and AI-driven discovery.

Q3. What channels should I be advertising on?

It depends on your audience, your goals, and your budget. But here are some foundations:

• Tourism: Start with Meta and Google Search. Meta drives inspiration and reach. Google captures active trip planners. TikTok can support awareness, but targeting is limited and click volume is inconsistent. Display works for retargeting and low-cost traffic, but only when tightly targeted.
• Investment promotion: Focus on Google Search and LinkedIn. LinkedIn is expensive, but it’s the only platform that allows targeting by job title, seniority, and industry at the same time. Geotargeting trade shows with Meta or Display can also reinforce awareness, especially when your team is on the ground.

Q4. What metrics should we be reporting to leadership & stakeholders?

Stop leading with pageviews, impressions, and social media followers. They’re easy to report and usually trending up, but they say very little about performance.

Replace them with metrics tied to outcomes, aligned to your goals:

• For DMOs: Out-of-market visitor rate, referral clicks to booking partners and attractions, itinerary and guide downloads, event calendar engagement.
• For EDOs and IPAs: Qualified traffic by audience segment, resource downloads by sector, contact actions, and content-assisted conversions showing which pages contribute to key actions.
• Across all focus areas: Key event rate, geographic reach from target markets, and returning visitor engagement rates. Returning users consistently convert at higher rates than new ones.

The goal is a dashboard a non-marketer can understand. If someone has to ask what it means, it’s not working.

Q5. How do we rank higher for the searches that actually matter to us?

Start with how your audience actually searches, then build content around that.

But ambition has to meet reality. “Best places for business” gets searched, but you won’t rank for it. Those terms are dominated by major publications. The opportunity sits in the middle. Specific enough to win, searched enough to matter.

• Tourism: “best things to do in [destination] in winter,” “hidden gems in [region],” “top cities for [niche activity]”
• Investment: “available industrial sites in [state],” “corporate tax rates in [region],” “top industries in [city]”

These are also stronger-intent queries. The traffic is smaller, but the value is higher.

Content gets most of the attention, but technical health determines whether it performs. Slow load times, broken links, weak domain authority, duplicate pages, poor structure. These issues quietly suppress rankings. Most place marketing websites have them. Most teams don’t realise it until they audit.

Q6. Our analytics shows a drop in traffic, should we be worried?

Not necessarily. Traffic drops are one of the most misread signals in digital marketing.

Before reacting, check the cause:

Common false alarms:

• Cookie consent issues: With the tightening of cookie tracking policies and the rise of ad blockers, many websites are losing 30-50% of their reported traffic, especially in Europe.
• Seasonality: Traffic naturally fluctuates across cycles. Often, comparing data year-over-year can give a better picture than comparing to the previous month or quarter.
• Channel shifts: Turning off or changing strategy around paid campaigns can cause major changes in your traffic.

Actual concerns:

• Organic declines over time
• Lower engagement alongside traffic loss
• Conversion drops without traffic changes

Always segment before drawing conclusions. A drop in one channel is a different issue than a broad decline.

The Bottom Line

The digital landscape isn’t getting simpler. And across place marketing, the same shifts are affecting everyone at the same time, regardless of focus area. As an industry, we’re all figuring this out together, in real time. And asking the right questions is the best place to start.

Helping place teams strengthen digital strategies

Brianna Vetrano is a digital place marketing consultant helping global place brands strengthen their visibility across search and AI through SEO, GEO, digital advertising, and analytics. She works across investment promotion, tourism, economic development, and talent attraction to help place teams show up across the decision-making process and drive digital results that are both meaningful and measurable. Learn more at vetranodigital.com.