Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blog. Show all posts

Sunday, January 6, 2008

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

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Why Blog

Many tourism operators think they are too busy to blog or think they have nothing to say.

The reality is operators have a lot to say. Here are some ideas:

  • New services that you have in your business.
  • Specials and deals
  • A new tour that is now available in the location
  • A local event
  • A new show at the local Art Gallery
  • An interesting comment from a guest of some things they did.
A blog doesn't have to be word perfect and each post can be quiet short.

If you think you don't have time or don't have ideas have a scrap of paper and stick any idea you think of to blog on the fridge then when you need a break grab them and pick the one that inspires you today.

Blogging is easy and with blogger.com from google you can be blogging in minutes.

If you are describing places or events you can quickly add photos.

How do people find your blog:
  • Add a link from your website.
  • Comment on other peoples blog.
  • Signup for technorati.com
  • Use feedburner.com to distribute your blog via an RSS Feed and email.
  • Display your blog headlines on your website like we have done on RainbowTourism.com
If you still not sure then contact me and we can work with you to develop a strategy for your blog.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

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

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

A blog for tourism operators

Why a blog for tourism operators you may ask?

Well as part of building rainbowtourism.com it is always interesting to see how some operators miss some simple basics on their own website.

Simple things like
  • No rates
  • No room pictures
  • No location
  • No activities
  • No booking system - or a really bad booking system
  • Their website is not on page 1 in google when searching their name.
  • And the list goes on
The intention is to give you the good the bad and the ugly. Suggestions are more than welcome.