Internet Marketing for Tourism

Of the 4 major engines: Google, MSN, and the up-and-coming Ask.com, all but Yahoo use "hybrid auction" bidding. Hybrid auction bidding means ad position is primarily determined by how much money the search engine can make from your ads.  This is determined by how much you'll pay per click, blended with your click-through rate. In other words, while a high CPC boosts your ad position, you pay less for a position as you get more clicks.

Because getting click-throughs is largely a function of your ad copy, your copy quality and your bid price are tightly connected. Which is to say that your copywriting and your ability to create ads which inspire clicks leads to a lower cost per click, higher ad positioning and more sales leads.

Take the time to write compelling ads.  Track what type of content produces the most click throughs.  Adjust your bid price down and keep an eye on your overall cost and the number of click throughs you are getting.

By the way, Yahoo will be moving to a hybrid system shortly, so across the board, ad placements will not simply go to the highest bidder.

Optimization is usually the "after thought" of website development. This was all well and good in the late 90's as SEO was just beginning to come onto the scene, or even in the early 2000's when SEO was moving into it's prime. Back then websites were always developed first and then considerations for online marketing came later.
All that needs to change. After all, what good is a great Web site if no one sees it?

Tourism businesses need to think of each page of their Web site as the answer to a question. To the extent that we can do that well, with appropriate search engine optimization strategies, the more often we can be found by search engines.

Consider these two first steps to any Web site redesign:
What questions is my Ideal Guest typing into a search engine?
What relevance do my Web pages have to the questions that are being asked?
How can I provide extra value to the potential traveller who is searching online?

Design or redesign your tourism Web site around the answers to these questions.

The Questions your Ideal Guest is asking can drive the development of a site that is search engine optimized while at the same time meeting their travel needs.

See this excellent article on value added content to help create a great Tourism Web site.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Google is testing a search result display that allows the searcher to
expand the search results showing image and text pulled from search
result sites in line with other search results. The net effect is
that lower results are pushed down the page when the expanded search
information is opened by the searcher.

This has a number of issues for Web page designers.

1. The consumer gets all the information needed within the expanded
result and takes no further action. Google is the main beneficiary
here, while the result that was expanded may get a minor branding
boost. This reinforces teh importance of placing your phone number
and email address high in the page.
2. The top of the page content needs to be great to motivate click
throughs to your site.
3. Consumers won't like what's in the expanded result and will look
around for something else. While no other natural results will be
visible, sponsored links will be. Here the advertisers win.
6. The information overload leads the consumer to flee to another
search engine, and, at a later date, try out the Amish thing for a
while.

According to MarketingVox.com E-mail Newsletter Open rates seem to have stabilized at about 25%. Open rates are still a bit higher over the weekend.
Click through rates across all commercial sectors (including tourism) is running about 5%.
That means that roughly one in five (5% of the 25% who open your email newsletter) are clicking through on the links you provide.
To ensure you get the clicks you deserve be sure to provide relevent content that is perceived as value added, and not just a sales pitch. Remember, email newsletters are an important part of a full customer relationship management approach to sales.
Making your email newsletter an overt sales tool will have your subscribers abandoning their subscription and targetting your messages for the recycle bin!

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

User Generated content refers to on-line content which is produced by users of websites as opposed to the company posting the Web site. User generated content reflects the democratisation of the Internet through new technologies which gives travellers the opportunity to post content which influences travel decisions.

Consider how your Ideal Guests can create User Generated Content:

• Some tourism businesses provide opportunities for their guests to post user generated content on the tourism business site using discussion forums or image galleries, but the use of unbiased tools on other peoples' Web sites may be more valuable in the long run.
• Many people blog (http://www.blogger.com) and share images (http://www.fickr.com) and give advice to others about travel (http://www.tripadvisor.com).

When your ideal guests return home, what can you do to encourage your visitor to help share good word of mouth with others py posting user generated content about your business on the Internet. Consider a followup email that invites your guests to share their experiences with others online.

Many people will be fearful that unhappy guests may post something unflattering online. Indeed, this user generated content strategy of inviting your guests to drop cookie crumbs around the Internet only works positively if you are reasonably certain you are doing everything you can to satisfy your guests. If you aren't, consider asking why you are in the tourism business in the first place. And rest assured, your disgruntled guests will be creating unflattering Web content regardless of whether you invite them to or not!

http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1442/1/Tying-It-Together%3A-SEO-For-The-Big-Three

An excellent article on Search Engine Optimization.

Two years ago, the advice for home page width was keep it looking good on an 800 px wide screen. Today unveiled a new home page, so I thought it was time for a quick little tour to see what the screen widths of some more popular Web sites are:
Minimum widths of screens (px: pixels):
: 950 px
Theweatherchannel.com: 944 px
Sportsline.com : 940 px

There are many high level Web sites that are reaching out beyond the edges of those 800 px wide screens. While most users have Web screen widths of at least 1024 px, most web sites are allowing room for sidebars and desktop icons. Indeed, most people who browse the Web now have large enough screens that that they do not need to open their browser to full width.

So, if it is time to redesign your Web site, consider getting fat with a screen width of at least 940 px.

Ever visited a place you wanted to tell others about?
How would you like it if your ideal guests returned home and helped direct other travellers along the information highway to your Web site.

Delicious is an online bookmarking site for users who wish to tag sites for their own use as well as to provide advice to others.  Using Delicious as a search engine provides results that have been tagged by others.  The premise is that people who tag sites are more accurate at identifying the most valuable Web resources, better than say, a search engine.

My guess, is in the very near future, these user generated tags will be important markers of relevancy for all kinds of search engines promoting those sites that are tagged to the top of the search results in other search engines as well.

Has anyone tagged your site recently?  What can you do to ensure that your ideal guests take steps to tag your site and point others to your site?


Google opens it's notebook to indexing your favs online too with . This is not a social networking tool, but it is a useful tool for online bookmarking and collecting travel information. Too early to tell if notebook will have any impact on search results.

Pay per Click Advertising Success is no accident.  Print this list of 10 Pay per Click Advertising Tips to have at your side as you prepare your first Pay per Click Campaign for your tourism business.

• Identify keyword combinations using Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? questions to understand all the possible ways your ideal guests may be looking for you.
• Use keyword identifying tools like: http://www.submitexpress/analyzer and http://inventory.overture.com to determine keywords that people are using.
  
• Create each pay per click advertisement using a short list of targeted keywords.
• identify the unique aspects of your tourism product or service in your pay per click advertising.
• Use the Keywords in your Ad.
• Direct keyword advertising to targetted tourism package pages that are keyword oriented.
• Create multiple Ad Groups for serving unique ads and use multiple campaigns to sell different packages
• optimize Ad Serving for your ads so they are regionally targetted
• Track results.... the most important tracking you can do is with pencil and paper when the phone rings.
• Modify bid prices  on your Pay Per Click Advertising campaign and assess the impact on click throughs and phone calls to your tourism business.
  

You heard it here first. Google has an interesting new tool called Google Trends at
See what the world is searching for on a timeline that shows when people search as well as occassionally showing important media stories associated with the keyword search. Two prominent line graphs show the relative strength of the search term season to season as well as highlighting the volume of news assocatiated with search terms.

The Google Trends tool (still in beta) allows users to compare search terms to provide insights into broad search trends over time:
Where in the world people are searching from? By region as well as city and even what languages they are using!

For tourism businesses, the Google Trends tool could help users plan more targetted keyword advertising strategies and understand a bit more about their keyword target markets.

Time lines can be sliced and diced to compare different countries and time frames.

Give it a try, if you find something interesting, drop a note to the blog.

Currently MSN commands only 11% of Web Search Traffic. Look for that number to spike sharply upward as the search engine becomes embedded in the newest version of Internet Explorer browser (still in beta). Users of Firefox are already aware of the useful in-browser search window - with it's default search engine set to "Google".

Explorer, the de facto broswer of most computer users, will of course, default to the MSN search engine in this tool. Most users will fiegn changing this setting and give Microsoft a large volume of search in coming years.

At the same time, Microsoft unviels it's own paid search solution dubbed AdCenter. To run ppc advertising on Microsoft MSN.com, users will need to set up an account using of course - Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Of course I've removed Explorer from my operating system instead opting for Firefox and other solutions, so I'll have to relent and have explorer on standby to create and edit my ads.

Looking for Pay Per Click Advertising at the Big three?
Adcenter - MSN
Yahoo Search Marketing

At one of the Tourism Keys workshops that both Todd and I have delivered to over 500 tourism businesses and stakeholders, one of the questions I got was "who is reading blogs"? Good question, as operators and destinations consider this tool to build a relationship with their customer. What we do know is that blogs help in getting found by search engines, particularly if you use your keywords and hyperlinks effectively.

Here is what some of the research says on who is reading blogs....

• The American Life Project Tracking surveys conducted by Pew Internet from March 2000 to September 2005 looked at Internet activities. In that 'reading someone else's blog' was noted by 27%, long down the list with send e-mail #1 at 91% and use a search engine to find information, #2 at 90%. But I'm guessing that as people use the Internet to 'answer a specific question' or to 'research a product or service before buying' that they may indeed end up reading a blog.
• comScore Networks conducted research in the U.S. in 2005 and found that blog readers are disproportionally likely to be affluent, young and broad band enabled. They spend more time on line and spend more on line. So, those reading blogs are an attractive market for many tourism businesses.

Blogging continues to capture the imagination of readers. If you are going to blog, it is best to keep at it on a regular basis to keep your readers coming back. Refer to our section on blogs for more tips on this Internet tool.

The Big Three Online Travel Sites are losing market share to direct
online booking. Much like the shift from travel agents to the online
environment, as travellers get more savvy, perhaps they are realizing
that the best rates are to be found with direct booking with airlines
and hotels. Over the past 6 months my personal travel planning has
saved me as much as 30% over advertised rates at Expedia, Orbitz,
and/or Travelocity.

Online traffic at "the big 3" was down 14% year-over-year in February.
Traffic to Expedia decreased by 21%, Orbitz was down 17%
year-over-year and traffic for Travelocity declined 7%.

All the while, total online bookings is up, up, up.

Traffic growth to supplier sites was up 3% year-over- year in
February, with leading hotel sites like Marriott International, Hilton
Hotels and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide up roughly 13%, and
leading air supplier sites such as Southwest Airlines, Delta, American
and United up 4%, slightly outpacing the industry.

Online booking tools that are easy for individual operators to
impliment are the current hot item for growing your business online.