Owning a Tourism Business is awesome

26 Oct 2010

8 Ways to Promote Your Travel Blog | The Planet D: Around the World Adventure Couple

travel-Blogs-tips-promotion

So you’ve written something amazing and you want people to read it. It is funny, profound and filled with great information. But nobody is coming over to your blog for a visit.

Let’s face it, most of us aren’t writing a blog for ourselves. We would appreciate an audience. But how does one get an audience, especially when they are first starting out?

You have to network. If people don’t know you are out there, they will never find you.

There are many technical things that can help a person to place higher in the search engines. If you show up on the first page of Google, you will definitely find an audience of people looking for advice and information. But that doesn’t happen overnight.

Read full article here: 8 Ways to Promote Your Travel Blog | The Planet D: Around the World Adventure Couple

Google Instant 101




Still wondering how Google Instant—the new enhancement that shows results as you type—changes search marketing? Well, Google promises to shave 2.5 seconds off each user's search, with the end result of 10-percent faster searches.
In a recent post at the Daily Fix blog, David Felfoldi cites the benefits of this change, according to Google:
  • Predictive Typing. As you type, a prediction is made of what you are seeking.
  • Instant Results. As you type, the results appear. Every typed character updates the search results instantly.
How will it affect your efforts? Here are four ways Felfoldi says Google Instant has already changed the search landscape:

  • Short attention spans will grow even shorter. An entire new search results page of options is now just a keystroke away. "Keep your copy brief, to the point, and able to grab attention," Felfoldi advises.
  • Impression counts may increase. When a searcher stops typing and the results are displayed for three seconds or more, Google counts the pause as an impression. To see the impact of this change, Felfoldi suggests monitoring AdWords accounts closely for a while.
  • There will be greater competition for shorter phrases. "No longer is your competition the other websites that rank for your target or niche keyphrase term like 'tankless water heater,' " Felfoldi notes. "Rather, it is also the shorter phrases, like 'tankless' and 'tankless water' that now also appear as the user types in their full search phrase. Each phrase presents a new layer of competition for you to now consider."
  • Predictive search = keyword research. You can look to predictive search to help choose your hottest keywords. "The term that appears first is probably the most common search result, and the one you should consider targeting," Felfoldi advises.
  • The Po!nt: Success is rarely instant. Make sure your search strategy addresses Google's latest enhancement—and the changing user behaviors likely to result.

Source: Daily Fix.

13 Oct 2010

Are you getting the right guest feedback?

Internet forums, online reviews, customer polls – sometimes there's so much information out there it can be difficult to know which source to trust. Can you rely purely on online information or is there still a role for traditional customer research?
Jonathan Barsky and Robert Honeycutt from research specialists Market Metrix, argue that while social media has an important role to play, the hospitality industry shouldn't give up on traditional customer research.
Read the full article here button

3 Oct 2010

TripAdvisor's new Reviews at a Glance

Reviews at a Glance
Launched in September, TripAdvisor's new Reviews at a Glance feature summarizes the most frequent review phrases for hotels with over 50 reviews. With it, travelers can quickly browse the pros and cons of booking at a particular property, and click on various quoted phrases to quickly read the full text of relevant reviews; they no longer need to dig for the details they're most interested in.
For example, take Hotel Giraffe in New York City. While reading all of the hotel's more than 650 reviews could take some time, Reviews at a Glance summarizes the most common review phrases, such as "Very Nice, "Great Location," and "Free Internet," in a box above the most recent reviews. This allows consumers to get a quick snapshot of the overall traveler sentiment on a property without having to read through dozens of reviews at a time.
Click here to see Reviews at a Glance in action button