SEO Hints, What's happening in your district,

When planning your website or looking at updating it, think carefully about who your target market is, what does your area have to offer them, think about what they might like to do, and what might encourage them to stay a day or two extra or just enjoy their stay more.

Then add a page to your website, or ask your web designer to incorporate information about these activities or local attractions into your website design.

You may think, oh I'm not paying for another page on my website, what am I made of money? But think about it a bit from your website visitors point of view. Ok, they may have decided to stay in your area for some specific reason, but chances are they won't know places to eat, or know what else is available in your area apart from the reason they are visiting.
So looking at a what's nearby type page, may make them think hey, I would love to go horseriding, or fishing, kayaking, take that nature walk, visit Stills Valley Skifield whatever it maybe. And they may decide to stay at your place for another night becuase of it.

That isn't the only reason to have this information on your website though. Again think of it from your customers point of view.
Say they already know a bit about Stills Valley Skifield, and want to find a place to stay so they could go sking for the weekend, so they go to a search engine, if your website is optimised correctly, a search for say "Luxury Accommodation near Stills Valley Skifield" will find your website ranking highly. If your website doesn't mention Stills Valley Skifield, there is no way that a search like that would find your website at all.

So giving a push to the local activities can have many benefits, and is well worth doing.

Lynny
SEO Hints and Tips

Consistency on your website, make sure your webpages agree with each other

Consistency on a website is vital, it's a well documented fact that visitors will develop a mistrust of a business if information on a website has different information about the same topic on different pages.

I recently added a new accommodation website to Rainbow Tourism, the site offered luxury accommodation, and was and had real problems finding information about the types of accommodation available at that hotel.

On one page the room types had names like blue room, green room, pink room, each with unique features and you read about what each room had to offer, you had to click to another page for the rates for each room, and there the rooms were named something quite different eg. 1bedroom unit, 2 bedroom unit, hotel unit, yet on the first page there were 3 or 4 coloured rooms that all had 2 bedrooms. But ok, I could guess that all 2 bedroom units cost the same, fair enough.
When it came to booking and paying for a room, the rooms were described as different again. There was no way to book the room that looked out over the pond, and had a spa on the terrace, as compared to the room that had a spa bath inside, and looked out over the garden, again you had 1 or 2 bedroom options, but the features of each room was different.

If I had of been a potential customer, quite frankly I would have looked for somewhere else to stay, I don't have time to write emails back and forth trying to work out which room with which features I wanted.

Looking at photos of this resort on the website it looked like there might have been at least 20 rooms or units to rent, yet nowhere on the site did it say how many there actually were.

As a web designer, it's obvious to me that the site has had additional pages added over time, and that's probably where the inconstancy's have happened, and possibly the booking system they use costs a lot per room so they didn't want to list too many rooms.

Most visitors to the site wouldn't understand or care how this happens, all a visitor wants is to find out what you offer, how much it costs, and if it available when they want it. So that's what your website should offer.

We offer a several services where we contract people to visit a site as a potential customer and get them to report any problems, or suggestions for changes, services of fixing the problems, and doing ongoing site updates and SEO tweaking for a set month fee. This works really well as there isn't a big investment in a website at once, and with continual small changes, a website will continual to do well in search engines.

Also do remember to contact Rainbow Tourism, if you are looking for a great little booking System that takes online secure payments, for as little as $20 a month your online customers can book their rooms right there and then.

Regards Lynny
Hotel/Motel SEO & Webdesign Services

17 great marketing articles

I recently added Conversation Marketing to my Google reader (thanks to Google's recommendations built into Google reader).

I was really excited to see this article:

17 Conversation Marketing Articles You May Have Missed

One of the best articles was 3 Ways to Kill SEO Suicide.

All 17 have some excellent ideas. For tourism operators I would add the following additional items in relation to your booking system.

• Is it easy and simple to use.
  
• Ask a friend to test it out
• Check the email responses are ok.
  
• Can you to track bookings from all your agents, websites and other marketing sources
  
• Does it display the correct rates to the general public but provide the ability to display agent rated as appropriate
  
• Is it hosted on a secure, backed up server.
• Are credit card details stored securely.
  
• Will the system update other booking systems
• Is their a simple calendar to display availability
• Does the system allow you to enter a start date and then a choice of departure day or number of nights.
• Do you control the booking and payment terms?

These are just some of the items to consider and is why I recommend Seekom as the booking system of choice for accommodation and rental car operators.

If you are interested in discussing further feel free to contact me.

Internet Marketing Strategy

The following two interesting posts today turned up in my newsreader:

10 Steps to a Sound Internet Marketing Strategy with some great ideas

and more for amusement

11 Internet Marketing Trends to Ignore for 2008

The key point of the blogs is to not have a Marketing strategy - rather have a business goal.

So you then build your marketing to meet you business goal.

I particularly like item 6:

Write down the clinching questions. These should be 3-5 questions that, when answered, virtually guarantee your customer will buy.

For tourism operators this is important with so many options available the question is why would a consumer choice your business over others.

So you internet marketing strategy should answer that question and then you can work with a good SEO company to ensure your internet presence achieves this.

If you would like assistance in developing an effective presence you should feel free to contact me.

Customer Service - Answer the question

Below is an email response to an inquiry I made on 20th December with Virgin Broadband. A week later the following response was received:

Hey Mark

Thanks for getting in touch with us.

I would ask that you reply to telesales@virginmobile.com.au and we will be more than happy to help you and advise you of the options available and answer your questions.

Please leave your contact number, time and date so we can get back to you.

We are available from Monday to Friday 8.30am - 8pm and the weekend from 10am – 6pm. You can also call the Sales Team on 133323.

Looking forward to your reply.

Regards,

XXXXX

Virgin Mobile Team

So my response was duh is this company stupid or something!

Can't they forward my email to telesales@virginmobile.com.au to answer my questions directly.

The impression that I am left with is one of a company which is not customer focussed.

I probably wouldn't have minded if they had responded promptly with the email but taking over a week to send a non response is just poor customer relations.

So the end result is that I have added Virgin broadband to the Telstra (in Australia) and Telecom (in New Zealand) list of companies to avoid dealing with if at all possible.

So what lessons can we take from this:

• Respond to emails promptly
• If you can't answer the question immediately send an interim email indicating when they can expect a reply
• Don't send an email to a customer telling them to send an email to another address within the same company.
• Ideally answer the question fully via the communication method chosen by the customer.

Online 2008 must do list

A couple of interesting blogs from the Travel and Tourism Technology blog.

Must do travel marketing investments - Investment #1: Your Website

Make sure you have an online presence:

• Invest in your own domain name and website.
• If it is looking tired give it a spring clean or redesign it completely.
  
• Make sure you have an online booking engine such as Seekom.
• Look at your online presence - search for yourself in Google
• Invest in SEO to ensure you can be found and to increase visitors to your website.
• Identify the markets you are targeting and make sure all your messages are consistent.

The next blog continues the above theme but focuses on five things you can do to increase your online presence and talks about sharing your experience:

1. Blogger - tell the world about your experiences. You only have to post once a week and by the end of the year you have 52 pages of content!
2. Flickr - show the world your pictures.
   
3. Youtube - make a video and tell the world about your place
4. Podomatic and Big Contact - make a podcast and tell your story, interview some of your guests (but get there permission to use online), to tell about their experiences
5. Blog Catalog - Tell the world about your blog.

I would suggest that you go and read the blogs and feel free to leave a comment of what your thoughts are on the above suggestions.

If you need some assistance then feel free to contact via RainbowTourism.com, Tourism Distribution Systems or Canz Design

Badly worded scam

Despite email filtering the odd scam stills comes through.

This one is particularly bad and is so obviously a scam it almost doesn't seem worth to copy here

But still since it is the first tourism one this year it has the privilege of been added to our scam posting. .

Searching on google shows nothing on these people so looks like they have started the new year with a new identity.

So what are the clear giveaways that this is a scam:

• The to address is their address which means this has probably gone to a large number of people via BBC.
  
• They have sent the email in both English and French. If they are really booking with you they will know the main language you speak
• Payment in advance requested.
  
• A large number of rooms (six)
• The bad grammar
• The mention of West Africa
• NTIC doesn't seem to exist
• Use of a gmail address

This is a sure indication of a scam. Of course scammers will get better as people get smarter which is why one should look at a number of means to stop this type of behaviour.

Here are some simple things which will help.

• Run a secure booking system such as Seekom
• Insist all bookings are made via this means.
  
• If people want to pay in advance insist on getting a faxed copy of both sides of the credit card.
• If they want a refund only refund via the card they booked on. If they want a refund any other way then you will need to wait till the credit card charge has been finalised which is at least six months.
• While bookings for a large number of people may be legitimate do some quick research - a simple visit to google will help identify inconsistencies.
  
• Remember to google the phone number - you might even find the real owner of the phone number.
• Finally listen to your gut reaction. If you have doubts then contact you bank with the credit card details and your suspicions. All banks now have excellent credit card fraud units who can assist you to make sure you don't become a victim.

So here is the lastest accommodation scam in both English and French.

Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 11:21:13 +0000
From: "PEROUSSE OLIVIER"
To: olivier.perousse@gmail.com
Subject: BOOKING

GOOD DAY

Mister and Madam, My name is OLIVIER PEROUSSE, person in charge for one limps of NTIC (new communication and information technologies) based in WEST AFRICA mainly in Ivory Coast partnership with several structures of NTIC of Europe and Asia. We will accomplish a stay in your country, and would like resider in your hotel with an aim of taking part in a seminar with partners and economic operators of your country during five (5) days. I would like to pass a reservation in your establishment. I would wish for this purpose to make you share of our needs.

Please take note below: Date of arrival JANUARY 10, 2008

Starting date JANUARY 15 2008

Numbers people: 06 We would like on the whole six (6) simple rooms with the complete menu. Following that, we would like that defect of the 6 simple rooms has you find us 3 double rooms. I would like to know if I could pay all the expenses by international Credit card ( Card. Visa, Master Card.) remotely. NB Forward a proforma invoice of the rooms and menu to us. In waiting of a favorable continuation, please receive our greetings.

THANK YOU AND I AWAIT YOUR ANSWER. OLIVIER PEROUSSE

Bonjour Monsieur et Madame,

Je me nomme Mr OLIVIER PEROUSSE, responsable d'une boite de NTIC (nouvelles technologies de l'information et de communication ) basée en AFRIQUE de l'ouest principalement en COTE D'IVOIRE ;en partenariat avec plusieurs structures de NTIC d'europe et d'asie.

Nous effectuerons un sejour dans votre pays,et aimerions resider dans votre hotel dans le but de participer à un seminaire avec des partenaires et des operateurs economiques de votre pays durant cinq ( 5) jours .

je voudrais passer une réservation dans votre etablissement.

Je souhaiterais à cet effet vous faire part de nos besoins.

Veuillez prendre connaissance ci-dessous:

Date d'arrivée 10 JANVIER 2008

Date de départ 15 JANVIER 2008

Nombre de personnes : 06

Nous voudrions au total six ( 6 ) chambres simples avec le menu complet. .

Suite à cela , nous aimerions qu'a defaut des 6 chambres simples vous nous trouvez 3 chambres doubles.

je voudrais savoir si je pourrais payer tous les frais par Carte de Crédit internationale

(Visa Card., Master Card.) à distance.

NB/ Faites nous parvenir une facture proforma des chambres et du menu.

Dans l'attente d'une suite favorable ,

veuillez recevoir nos salutations.

MERCI ET J'ATTENDS VOTRE REPONSE.

OLIVIER PEROUSSE.