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
Showing posts with label search engines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label search engines. Show all posts
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Why should you visit
Even if you are in a major tourist region you should put on your website some suggested activities for visitors to your region.
Most places have a great rack of brochures in their reception area but this isn't any good when people are planning their holiday.
You need to get this information on your website for the following reasons:
a) It gives visitors some ideas of what they can do and it might make the difference between staying overnight to staying all week.
b) Helps with search ranking and building links
Even the most basic site can have this on one page even if it is a list of activities something like this:
Golf course open to the public
Horse riding for all ages along the beach
And don't forget to put the name of the Golf course and location.
e.g. Moore Park golf course in the heart of Centennial Park, Sydney is open to the public.
Of course if you have more time you can actually write a story about each type of activity.
This is something we are doing on RainbowTourism.com. An example is our recent new article on Phillip Island just out of Melbourne. This article also mentions Daylesford which is a better known gay destination in Victoria. This means potentially someone looking for Daylesford might actually pick up this article and decide to visit Phillip Island as well as Daylesford.
So think about what is unique about your location. Is it comparable to another destination but offers something different. Use that as the basis to build some more content to help promote your business.
The other good source for content is to ask your guests for feedback about the region, why they visited and what they like to do.
Of course the best way to do this is with Search Engine Friendly CMS from CANZ Design. For a small investment you can then build your site as you find time.
Most places have a great rack of brochures in their reception area but this isn't any good when people are planning their holiday.
You need to get this information on your website for the following reasons:
a) It gives visitors some ideas of what they can do and it might make the difference between staying overnight to staying all week.
b) Helps with search ranking and building links
Even the most basic site can have this on one page even if it is a list of activities something like this:
Golf course open to the public
Horse riding for all ages along the beach
And don't forget to put the name of the Golf course and location.
e.g. Moore Park golf course in the heart of Centennial Park, Sydney is open to the public.
Of course if you have more time you can actually write a story about each type of activity.
This is something we are doing on RainbowTourism.com. An example is our recent new article on Phillip Island just out of Melbourne. This article also mentions Daylesford which is a better known gay destination in Victoria. This means potentially someone looking for Daylesford might actually pick up this article and decide to visit Phillip Island as well as Daylesford.
So think about what is unique about your location. Is it comparable to another destination but offers something different. Use that as the basis to build some more content to help promote your business.
The other good source for content is to ask your guests for feedback about the region, why they visited and what they like to do.
Of course the best way to do this is with Search Engine Friendly CMS from CANZ Design. For a small investment you can then build your site as you find time.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Interesting Facts about Backpackers - Americans
I was just doing some reasearch for SEO for Rainbow Tourism website, and found out some interesting facts about Americans and how they are searching for Backpackers.
When speaking about Backpackers to a couple of Amercians that have been in NZ and Aussy for a while, they said Amercians don't have a similar thing in the States and the closest thing to it were hostels.
However when doing some research just now I see that Backpackers started being searched for by Americans in about July of 2004, then again in high numbers in about march 2005, still hostels are searched for mostly by Americans looking for cheap accommodation, but they are becoming aware of backpackers, bad news is that the number of searches for backpackers has remained the same since the early 2005 fluatation; while searches for hostels rises in the middle months of the year, which makes sence since it's their summertime.
Doing a few searches for backpackers in the US I find that many hostels are now calling themselves backpacker hostels, so the Americans must like the idea of backpackers, as I believe hostel's don't have such a good name, probably like they were here in NZ a few years ago, places that people especially young ones, or people that were down on their luck, stayed at longterm rather than just a night or two.
Looking at searches for
backpackers australia or hostels australia to see which one search for most, Americans just scrap in at 10th place for doing the search at all.
If you are interested the search I mentioned these are the top 10 countries in the world that do that search are....
1. Australia
2. New Zealand
3. Ireland
4. United Kingdom
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. Germany
9. France
10. United States
Then from that search, the cities the searchers came from...
Cities
1. Perth, Australia
2. Brisbane, Australia
3. Adelaide, Australia
4. Sydney, Australia
5. Auckland, New Zealand
6. Melbourne, Australia
7. North Shore, New Zealand
8. Canberra, Australia
9. Dublin, Ireland
10. Birmingham, United Kingdom
So knowing that Americans do know about backpackers, if you own one, and belong to the BBH I'd suggest you start getting together and encouraging the BBH to do an advertising campaign in Amercia educating them about what a backpackers is and why they are great places to stay!!!!
Amercians especially young ones or ones with families apparently love to get a campervan and travel around staying at tralior parks, so they are used to sharing facilities, so all they need is the education that high quality cheap accommodation is avaialable here in New Zealand and Australia.
Cheers Lynny
New Zealands Best SEO
When speaking about Backpackers to a couple of Amercians that have been in NZ and Aussy for a while, they said Amercians don't have a similar thing in the States and the closest thing to it were hostels.
However when doing some research just now I see that Backpackers started being searched for by Americans in about July of 2004, then again in high numbers in about march 2005, still hostels are searched for mostly by Americans looking for cheap accommodation, but they are becoming aware of backpackers, bad news is that the number of searches for backpackers has remained the same since the early 2005 fluatation; while searches for hostels rises in the middle months of the year, which makes sence since it's their summertime.
Doing a few searches for backpackers in the US I find that many hostels are now calling themselves backpacker hostels, so the Americans must like the idea of backpackers, as I believe hostel's don't have such a good name, probably like they were here in NZ a few years ago, places that people especially young ones, or people that were down on their luck, stayed at longterm rather than just a night or two.
Looking at searches for
backpackers australia or hostels australia to see which one search for most, Americans just scrap in at 10th place for doing the search at all.
If you are interested the search I mentioned these are the top 10 countries in the world that do that search are....
1. Australia
2. New Zealand
3. Ireland
4. United Kingdom
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. Germany
9. France
10. United States
Then from that search, the cities the searchers came from...
Cities
1. Perth, Australia
2. Brisbane, Australia
3. Adelaide, Australia
4. Sydney, Australia
5. Auckland, New Zealand
6. Melbourne, Australia
7. North Shore, New Zealand
8. Canberra, Australia
9. Dublin, Ireland
10. Birmingham, United Kingdom
So knowing that Americans do know about backpackers, if you own one, and belong to the BBH I'd suggest you start getting together and encouraging the BBH to do an advertising campaign in Amercia educating them about what a backpackers is and why they are great places to stay!!!!
Amercians especially young ones or ones with families apparently love to get a campervan and travel around staying at tralior parks, so they are used to sharing facilities, so all they need is the education that high quality cheap accommodation is avaialable here in New Zealand and Australia.
Cheers Lynny
New Zealands Best SEO
Saturday, October 6, 2007
SEO KnowAll Lynny from Canz Design.
My name is Lynny, I’ve been employed by DownUnder Mark recently, to among other things, manage the new Rainbow Tourism website, that my business Canz Design Ltd, is building for him.
I’m taking care of entering new properties into both the directory site, and the booking system, that everyone listed on his site is invited to try out free.
I will also manage the whole back end of the website, leaving Mark free to market the Accommodation/Tourism directory site.
Once the new site is up and running, in about a week from now, I will also be doing the SEO of his sites.
I specialise in SEO (search engine optimisation) which very basically means making specific changes to a website, to make that website, rank well in search engines like Google, for keyphrases or search strings that are the sort of things people looking for your business would search for.
I will talk about SEO extensively in my posts, since it is of little use having a website, advertising your motel or B and B, if that website cannot be found, by someone looking for a place to stay, in your area.
Combining these two jobs is extremely interesting, since over the past month, I have visited just over 200 accommodation websites. I have seen some very nice looking websites, that when I did a search in Google, for the name of the business, which is a very specific search, that website did not appear in the first 2 pages of the search results.
I have definitely seen the good, the bad and the ugly accommodation websites, and will discuss with you some of the issues faced by the owners of the sites.
I’ll take a look at several ways of advertising an accommodation business, and show you how SEO can fit into your marketing budget.
Lynny
I’m taking care of entering new properties into both the directory site, and the booking system, that everyone listed on his site is invited to try out free.
I will also manage the whole back end of the website, leaving Mark free to market the Accommodation/Tourism directory site.
Once the new site is up and running, in about a week from now, I will also be doing the SEO of his sites.
I specialise in SEO (search engine optimisation) which very basically means making specific changes to a website, to make that website, rank well in search engines like Google, for keyphrases or search strings that are the sort of things people looking for your business would search for.
I will talk about SEO extensively in my posts, since it is of little use having a website, advertising your motel or B and B, if that website cannot be found, by someone looking for a place to stay, in your area.
Combining these two jobs is extremely interesting, since over the past month, I have visited just over 200 accommodation websites. I have seen some very nice looking websites, that when I did a search in Google, for the name of the business, which is a very specific search, that website did not appear in the first 2 pages of the search results.
I have definitely seen the good, the bad and the ugly accommodation websites, and will discuss with you some of the issues faced by the owners of the sites.
I’ll take a look at several ways of advertising an accommodation business, and show you how SEO can fit into your marketing budget.
Lynny
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