Internet Marketing for Tourism

is a site that quickly alerts tourism Web site authors to how many pages on the site are indexed by Yahoo's search engine.
If you blog, you may find hundreds of your pages are indexed by the search engine. If you don't see all your pages listed, you can teach Yahoo about your blog and tell it where your pages are so that they do get indexed by the search engine.

Remember, well over 50% of your Web visitation should be generated by search engines. If the search engines don't know your site exists, you need to tell them about it! Yahoo Site Explorer is one valuable tool for your tourism Web site.

Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, including those of your competitors. Dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to any site or any page within it.

Remember, links matter too!

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Identify all of the possible keyword phrases that your tourism business could benefit from then follow a 5 phase keyword research and selection process to mine your Keyword Gold.

1. First identify core terms or keyword themes. These are unique two or three word combinations, not actual search phrases. For example "niagara wedding" might be the core term which will cover numerous phrases including "niagara falls wedding". Go through your site, scanning title tags, keyword tags, description tags, text, navigation links, tour packages, etc. and identify all of the main site core terms which have already been established. Looking through packages and package descriptions will produce a gold mine of core terms. Look for unique two or three word phrases. During the course of your in-depth research finding actual searched phrases, some keywords will overlap across multiple core terms. Record them all.

2. Once you've worked through your site, do the same with a competitor's website. Perhaps they have used a unique word combination you hadn't thought of.

3. Make a list of keyword combinations that make sense as core terms or keyword themes from these five categories:

• relevant place names/tourism icons
  
• self identifiers for your ideal guests - how do they refer to themselves
• activities you offer or that your guests partake in nearby
• travel themes - wedding, fall colours
• type of accommodation, amenities and services you offer

4. Use tools to dig up even more core terms. Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, especially their new Keyword Researcher tool.

With the Wordtracker related keywords search tool, type anything and the results produced below are other phrases that may (or may not) be relevant. Pick through those results and document any new core terms found that are not already on your list. Google and Yahoo both have tools which will provide similar information allowing you to find such core terms, Also consider L3xicon.com .

Running a keyword search through L3xicon provides results showing related words, definitions and even related web pages.

Running a search for "niagara wedding" L3xicon produces some results that allow us to find some additional core terms that may not have already been added to our list:

• wedding chapel,
  
• wedding package,
  
• wedding planner,
  
• wedding ceremony,
  
• wedding service,
  
• wedding planner/planning

These may have already been discovered when pouring through the site and through competitor's sites, but perhaps not. Next we're going to try 'outdoor wedding', a phrase that probably came up in our WordTracker search. Here a few more relevant core terms pulled from the results:

• garden wedding,
  
• wedding location

Now let's click on the 'garden wedding' link provided and see the results. Look! Another core term we can use:

• beach wedding

Let's try going back and searching for 'wedding location'. From this list of results we are able to pull:

• unique wedding,
  
• romantic wedding,
  
• exotic wedding,
  
• destination wedding,

Continue searching until you have finally found what you believe to be a complete list.

4b.. Ensure that you have not included core terms that are not relevant. For example without a beach, beach wedding is not relevant, remove it from your keyword optimization list.

5. After that you can begin the more in-depth research of finding all the related and actively searched phrases for each of these core terms, another time-consuming but rewarding task in the long-run. Determine which phrases are worth your time and energy and make changes to your site to take advantage of the new opportunities you have discovered.

Before rewriting your Web site for search engines, spend as much time as possible mining your keyword gold. You will design a Web site that is search engine optimized for search terms that matter. Your Tourism Business will be ready to mine a gold of a different kind.

good luck!
toddles

You may have heard of the new video revolution online. Music videos, tv shows and even movies are available online as well as a host of home made videos.
The truth is, tourism businesses with little or no technical know-how can create and store videos online to make connections with their ideal guests.

Visit this link to see what is possible, then read below to see what you need to do it yourself.

http://www.algonquincanada.com/2006/08/video-recipe-blog-fritatta-with-greg.html

What you need:
1A. Setup a blogging account at www.blogger.com or any other free blogging site. Link it to your Web site. (If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already have a Blog, if you don't you know why you should)
1. Setup an account at
2. Purchase or borrow a digital camera with video and sound capability. (Most mid range digital cameras will do fine for your tourism business).
3. Plan a story you want to tell your ideal guests. Consider the location, props and people that you want to include (get their permission - staff and guests make ideal candidates), then catch them in action at your tourism business!
4. Simple video editing software that comes with your computer (Mac or Windows) allows you to download your video to your computer, and add titles or edit if desired. Save the file.
5. Upload the video to Youtube.com
6. Follow instructions from Youtube.com to get the video into your blog in 30 seconds .... and presto, you've got video on your Web site.


Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Just a quick reminder that your relevance to search engines and hence your appearance or disappearance to top placement positions for your tourism Web site is driven by links, particularly on Google.com .

Foster revelant links with photo libraries you post online and cluster Web sites like Fall Colours getaways at 400Eleven.com

Paid and unpaid linking with relevant Web sites is key to generate visits to your tourism Web site.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Looking to Create Wow Impact from your tourism company's Email Campaign?

Measure your own e-mail program against these five attributes of habit-forming e-mail to ensure more people read your tourism businesses email more regularly.

1. The message design is consistent, no matter who sends it. All the elements--title, logo or brand, contents, forward-to-a-friend link, administrative links including unsubscribe,
tourism Web site and contact information all show up in roughly the same place each time, creating a familiar experience the reader can learn to anticipate each time. You have only a couple of seconds to make an impact, so don't force readers to search around for what they want.

2. Your tourism businesses messages should appear at the same time every time. There is much research on the best time to send your newsletter, however it's most important to send your messages at the same time, no matter what time of day or day of week you pick, so that you can build anticipation and a reputation for dependability.

3. The sender line is always the same. The sender line is one of the factors e-mail readers use to decide whether to open or delete an e-mail in the inbox. Make yours the same each time you send, and use a name the reader would recognize, such as your company name, product or brand, or mailing title. Never use a person's name unless it's part of your tourism business' identity.

4. The subject line includes the e-mail program's name, and the name indicates how often it comes. An e-mail that tells the recipient when to expect it--"Monthly Algonquin Park Insider News," starts creating the habit right in the inbox. Keep it short--no more than 30-40 characters, including spaces--so that it doesn't get cut off.

5. The content is highly relevant or personalized and becomes a "familiar experience." These are messages that speak to you and only you, or so it seems. The more you let your readers customize their e-mail messages (content, frequency, text vs. HTML) the more valuable
you are, and the more habit-forming you become. Also, you test subject lines, offers and other variables to figure out which ones work, and allow those results to inform your message creation.

Next Step: Take up the challenge, because habit-forming e-mail translates into better open rates and higher ideal guest engagement, which then translates into more conversions, whether it's sales, or requests for more information about your tourism packages.

Learn more about our trips just for women here.


Posting images on a Blog is a quick and easy way to connect your visitors to their experience very quickly after their visit. Web editing skills are not required. (Remember to use alt tags, title tags and where possible link to the experience on your Web site.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Sixty-six percent of consumers distrust paid search ads; Up to 85% of searchers say they tend to ignore the paid listings, while 87% of commercial clicks take place on the natural (not sponsored) search results.

However, the caveat is that your "share of voice" and the non-clicked on ads work well at generating inquiries for Tourism Businesses who pay for search engine placement because the repeated impact of seeing your domain name helps raise awareness of your Web site, contributing to the generation of non-paid clicks.

According to recent research, the impact of both paid and organic search in optimizing tourism
business share of voice can not be overlooked. Most purchasers after visiting search engines either click on paid listings or click on organic results, but don't switch from one to the other, according to a new report by search engine marketing firm 360i.

And . . . the small proportion that click on both paid and organic results before making a purchase tend to start out at paid listings and then refine their search and complete their search on links that appear in the organic listings. This can result in tourism businesses crediting organic search results for more share of business than they actually generate. Share of Voice matters.... and paid advertising increases tourism business share of voice.

David Berkowitz, the director of strategic planning for 360i says, "There is a real process going on, and what this means if you're only crediting the last click rather than just the assist--you may well not be giving proper credit to the clicks that are taking part in the consumer's buying process."

Tourism businesses benefit from paid search advertising can be enhanced by partnering with others in a strategic way to create shared Web content - even if it is just one page, and then directing search keyword advertisting to this shared page and sharing the cost.

Consider the value of clustering!