Horse Tours of Gettysburg Case Study
Horse Tours of Gettysburg needed a new website and a stronger search advertising strategy to support online visibility, help visitors understand available tour options, and create a clearer path to booking.
Horse Tours of Gettysburg offers guided horseback tours, carriage tours, scenic rides, seasonal experiences, and Gettysburg-area tour options. As a tourism business, the website needed to do more than provide basic information. It needed to clearly present available tours, support travelers researching on mobile devices, and make the booking process easier to follow.
SG Media Partners built a new website for Horse Tours of Gettysburg and supported the business with SEM strategy to help reach people actively searching for Gettysburg tours, horseback riding experiences, carriage rides, battlefield tours, and local things to do.
Case Study Summary
A New Website Built to Support Tour Discovery and Booking
SG Media Partners helped Horse Tours of Gettysburg create a stronger digital foundation with a new website and SEM support. The project focused on organizing tour information, improving the user experience, supporting mobile visitors, and helping paid search traffic reach relevant tour pages.
The new website gave the business a more professional, organized, and campaign-ready online presence, while SEM helped support visibility for high-intent searches related to Gettysburg tours and experiences. The new website gave the business a more professional, organized, and campaign-ready online presence, while SEM helped support visibility for high-intent searches related to Gettysburg tours and experiences. Website analytics also showed strong activity in early 2026, including increased sessions, stronger engagement, and more key events compared to the prior year.
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About Horse Tours of Gettysburg
Horse Tours of Gettysburg provides memorable tour experiences for visitors exploring Gettysburg and the surrounding area. Their offerings include horseback tours, carriage tours, scenic rides, seasonal tour options, and specialty experiences designed for visitors who want a unique way to experience Gettysburg.
Because many customers are travelers planning a trip, the website needed to make a strong first impression, explain the available experiences clearly, answer common questions, and make it easy for visitors to move from interest to booking.
The Challenge
Horse Tours of Gettysburg needed a more modern and organized online presence that could support both organic visitors and paid search traffic. The business offered multiple tour experiences, but visitors needed a clearer way to understand their options and take action.
The project needed to support:
- A completely new website experience
- Clearer presentation of tour options
- A stronger mobile experience for travelers
- Improved calls-to-action for bookings
- SEM traffic from high-intent tourism searches
- More relevant landing pages for paid search campaigns
- Seasonal and specialty tour promotion
- Better support for booking-focused customer journeys
The goal was to create a website that looked professional, supported the customer journey, and gave SEM campaigns a stronger place to send interested visitors.
New Website Build
SG Media Partners built a new website for Horse Tours of Gettysburg with a focus on clarity, usability, and conversion. The site needed to support different visitor needs, including people looking for horseback tours, carriage rides, scenic experiences, seasonal activities, and Gettysburg-area attractions.
The website structure was built to make tour options easier to browse and understand. Clear calls-to-action helped visitors move from researching tours to booking, while the overall design created a stronger and more professional online presence.
The homepage and key tour pages were especially important because they helped visitors quickly understand the experience, explore available tour options, and continue into the booking path.
SEM Strategy & Support
SEM was an important part of the project because many potential customers search online while planning their visit to Gettysburg. Search campaigns can help reach people who are actively looking for battlefield tours, horseback riding experiences, carriage rides, and things to do in the area.
SG Media Partners supported SEM with a focus on search intent, campaign relevance, and landing page alignment. Instead of simply driving traffic to the website, the goal was to connect searchers with the tour information most relevant to what they were looking for.
SEM support included:
- Google Ads / SEM strategy
- Performance Max campaign planning
- Supporting Search campaign strategy
- Keyword and search intent considerations
- Ad messaging support
- Landing page alignment
- Seasonal campaign considerations
- Budget and performance monitoring
- Ongoing optimization recommendations
Spring Campaign Strategy
For the Spring 2026 campaign, SG Media Partners recommended Performance Max as the primary channel with a supporting Search campaign. The strategy was designed to capture demand across the full customer journey while prioritizing conversions.
Performance Max was planned to reach users across multiple Google networks, capture discovery and high-intent behavior, and optimize toward conversions. Search was used as a supporting layer to capture explicit high-intent searches, maintain visibility on branded and core keywords, and support conversion efficiency.
Campaign messaging focused on:
- Seasonal planning and anticipation
- Spring and warmer-weather trip planning
- Gettysburg travel and experience-based searches
- Horseback battlefield tours
- Historic carriage rides
- Booking-focused calls-to-action
- High-intent search terms and local modifiers
- Clear ad-to-landing-page alignment
Performance Highlights
Google Ads consistently helped put Horse Tours of Gettysburg in front of people actively researching Gettysburg experiences and drove meaningful website traffic.
From June through December 2025, SEM generated 729K impressions, 25.8K clicks, and a $0.24 average CPC. The campaign also produced 3.89K “Book Now” clicks, with about 15% of ad visitors clicking into the booking step.
Analytics also showed strong website activity in early 2026. From January 1 through June 28, 2026, the website recorded 33,874 sessions, 22,906 engaged sessions, 312,564 events, and 675 key events.
Improving the Path From Search to Booking
For a tourism business, visibility is only part of the goal. Once someone clicks an ad or visits the website, they need to quickly understand the experience, feel confident in the business, and know how to book.
The new website helped create a clearer path from discovery to action by organizing tour information, supporting mobile users, and making booking calls-to-action easier to find throughout the site.
The website and SEM strategy worked together to support:
- Tour discovery
- Mobile research
- Clearer tour comparisons
- Seasonal promotion
- Paid search landing pages
- Booking-focused calls-to-action
Results & Impact
The new website gave Horse Tours of Gettysburg a stronger digital foundation and a more organized way to present its tour experiences. SEM support helped connect the business with people searching for relevant Gettysburg activities and tour options.
- Website: New website built to support tour discovery, mobile users, and booking-focused customer journeys.
- Tour Pages: Improved presentation of horseback tours, carriage tours, scenic experiences, seasonal tours, and specialty offerings.
- SEM Visibility: Google Ads generated 729K impressions and 25.8K clicks from June through December 2025.
- Booking Intent: SEM drove 3.89K “Book Now” clicks, with about 15% of ad visitors clicking into the booking step.
- Cost Efficiency: SEM maintained a $0.24 average CPC during the June through December 2025 review period.
- 2026 Website Activity: January through June 2026 analytics showed 33,874 sessions, 22,906 engaged sessions, 312,564 events, and 675 key events.
- Campaign Strategy: Spring 2026 planning used Performance Max as the primary channel with Search as a supporting high-intent capture layer.
Key Takeaway
For tourism businesses, the website and advertising strategy need to work together. SEM can help bring interested visitors to the website, but the website needs to clearly explain the experience, build confidence, and make the next step easy.
By building a new website and supporting SEM strategy, SG Media Partners helped Horse Tours of Gettysburg create a stronger path from online search to tour booking.
Need a Website and Advertising Strategy That Work Together?
SG Media Partners helps businesses build campaign-ready websites and advertising strategies that connect visibility, user experience, search intent, and clear next steps.
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