Good ideas from Google and Webmaster Tools

The following post from Google is an example of some quick tips for to check how to make your website work better in google and other search engines.

Quick and easy tips for the holiday rush

There is some great tips in there in particular the tip to check how your website looks in other browsers is important. You can check what browser your visitors are using in your website statistics.

Here are some other thoughts if you are using google analytics then you can create a segment view for each browser type. This is very helpful as it can alert you to potential problems with browsers.

One simple things you could do is to sign up and review your site in the key web search engines - these provide tools for problem urls and give you clues to fix up problems and put in appropriate redirects.

• Google webmaster 
• Live Search Webmaster 
• Yahoo Site Explorer

The above three are the key search engines - you may want to also identify other specifically targeted sites of interest to your business.

This is something that a good SEO specialist will do but once set up is something you should be able to manage simply and easily - contact us for more help.

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.

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

Money For Nothing - Content is King

An interesting post on the Saausu blog about Seth Goddin new ebook Money for Nothing.

The key point in the ebook is that to obtain web traffic you have...

"to create content that is updated, unique and useful"

So is SEO dead. The short answer is NO. But it if you want people to link and refer traffic to your website make sure it has good relevant content otherwise your investment in SEO is a waste of money.

So what do you do.

You focus on what you do best. So in the case of RainbowTourism.com we have focused on getting content and great tourism operators online.

We had to then find a strategy on how to manage this. This is where Canz design came in and helped us get our new website up. We have also employed them to help with our back end maintenance.

Now we have the site online we will also have them undertake SEO work.

This takes time and money but if you are serious about developing your online presence it is an investment will worth your while.

This investment means we can focus on getting new content on the site so that we generate more bookings.

So what is your strategy? Feel free to leave comments below.

Way's to get Links to your Website.

In the last post, I explained in detail, how important links to your website are in building your page rank, and then ultimately building your ranking in Search Engines for relevant searches.

You maybe wondering how you could be proactive in building more links to your website. I have a really good idea, that you could take advantage of right now.

In most blog's just like this, you have the chance to comment on the post, and many blog owner's will allow your comments to have a link back to your website.

You may think, wow, this is cool, I can go make a heap of no brain comments and get heaps of links, unfortunately, that has already been done, and most blog owners will edit out these waste of time comments.

But if you read this blog, or any other blog, and have an intelligent question, or want to give constructive criticism, or just have a well thought out comment, or want to ask for clarifaction on any subject, as long as the comment is worthwhile, the blog owner will often allow it to show, along with a link to your website.

As I have mentioned before in this post making a comment on a blog just for the sake of a link to your site has been done to death, so many blog owners, will put no follow attributes on comment links, but still, it's worth making a good comment on a blog, cause other people reading the blog will read your comment, and often have a look at your website.

In general any link you have to your website, from a blog, or forum, (which are both free links) are worth having, and even if they don't build your page rank, people do click on them, and do visit your website.

With the way of the internet, even though the person that clicked on the link say from this blog, may never become a client or customer, you just never know who their friends are, and who they may send to your site or they may even one day become a customer.

The owner of this blog, and the whole Rainbow Tourism International Corporation, is a prime example of this. I first wrote to Mark almost 7 years ago, I think telling him about a broken link, we exchanged a few emails, and then every year or so, I would write and ask how things were going, then out of the blue just over 2 months ago, Mark contacted us about rebuilding his website. (I hope you don't mind me telling that story Mark)

If hints like this interest you, you might like to take a look at a part of our main website called Hobit's Hints, where hobit the hedgehog and I explain a lot of things about SEO, computer and websites in general. There are some really good articles there, most of them, I will write about here in a shorten form.

Cheers Lynny
NZ's Best SEO

Why do yellow pages and other big sites always rank well?

SEO Tip.
Ever noticed that when doing a search for your own website or business name, that if you spend money on advertising in the yellow pages, or in any online business directory's, that the listing to your business name always shows up on their website before your website in a search.

You would think that if it's your business, you would rank the best... unfortunately this is not so.

I'll always talk about Google, since thats the grand-daddy of all searches.

Google has a way of ranking a web page it sees as more important than another page on the same subject, it's called PR or Page Rank, and although the exact way it is worked out is top secret, it is obvious, that the more links you have to your website, from other website that have this PR, the better your PR will be, and the better your PR is, the higher you rank.

Why doesn't your website rank First
Places like yellow pages, will often say, that if they link to your website, you must put a link button on the front page of your website,(the best page for a link to another website) to verify you are listed in their directory.

Sounds fair enough huh, the thing is, is that many directory's like yellow pages, have special code written into the links from their website out to your site, so Google doesn't see it as a link it's called a no-follow link.
People can still click on it, and it will take them to your site, the link just means nothing in search engines, as showing your site as popular.

Now consider that these big directory's have thousands even 10 of thousands of places listed, just like yours, and each place is sending a link to that directory site, and the directory site aren't returning the favor with a link back, so Google sees this directory site as being very popular, and give it a higher PR. And in turn your site will drop lower in the search engines, so you are paying them to make your ranking worse.

What can be done
As an SEO I find the oddest thing of all, is many businesses pay a lot of money to be listed in the yellow pages, or udb or other directory's, right along with all their competitors, yet when i suggest a link campaign, finding and swapping links with other people in the same line of business, my clients often get all defensive, and say they don't want to link to their competitors.

Think about it though, you have a lovely restored villa, and your rental villa and you rent out the rooms for $750 a night, and again you live in Timbuktu, you pay to be in the yellow pages say $2500 to be in the printed book and online with other accommodation places right in your own town for 1 year.
And your website will rank lower in search engines because of that ad you paid for.

Yet a good SEO, will organize to set up link exchanges with other places just like your's, that are situated worldwide, no completion there. If someone wants a villa in Timbuktu, they are hardly going to decide they like the look of the of this villa in New Zealand better. If someone is looking for a villa in Timbuktu, then they want to visit Timbuktu, Not New Zealand.

If the SEO does their job well, your website will start to ranking highly in say google.
for things like luxury villa in Timbuktu, villa near Timbuktu, and many many other relevant search phrases.

The other website you have swapped links with in other parts of the world will be doing well for searches with luxury accommodation, luxury villa, in searches that are local to their area, so it's a win win situation. Sounds so easy huh.

Well unfortunately not everyone has seen this blog, and few understand this concept, and in the past links have always looked so ugly on a website, that this very simple idea doesn't work.
Things are changing, and I intend to lead the way. No ugly banners, know wordy ad's, just a nice neat, well positioned links page, to the accommodations like yours.

Solutions we'll be offering.
Once we have finished building the main part of the New Rainbow Tourism website, website (around the end of Oct 07) and after seeing so many badly built and sadly optimized accommodation website, we(Canz Design Ltd) have decided to get together with Mark, and offer his members and interested people from the tourist accommodation sector various package deals, which will include a professionally designed website, that will have all the important information where it should be, basic, intermediate or advanced SEO package, with a secure payment booking system already integrated. And a few other goodies.

You or someone you know will get complete accommodation website package.

These packages will have a written guarantee's by me, Lynny, the head of SEO, that if your site isn't ranking on the 1st page of Google, within a year, that you will receive free SEO worth double the value of your initial SEO package within the next year.

There will be heaps of other features and benefits, so Rainbow Tourism, who already offer their a unique service of a secure booking service, to members in their directory, and have a listing directory that does have proper links back to sites that want their website listed, will soon be offering their members yet more services of a professional looking, well SEO'ed, website as well.

No other directory to my knowledge has ever offered such a service, it truly is unique.

Cheers Lynny
NZ's best SEO