Internet Marketing for Tourism

Have a gander at this video produced by Scott Adams of Core Consultants, highlighting what people seek in Northern Ontario.

Can you copy and paste? If so, you can add thousands of free tools to your Web site. hosts over 21 000 FREE Widgets that can run on your Web site or blog. Here is one idea.

Please send me a short video at using the widget below.




How could you use a tool like this on your Web site? or a currency converter, or a photo slide show, calendar creator, puzzles and games . . .

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: google, widgets

According to a recent rumor on Google.... the benefit of Links will be replaced.
Over the past week, many web sites have been shuffled in search results as a result of Google changing it's search rank algorhythm, perhaps as seed of the future of search relevance measurement - the Wisdom of the Crowds.

Google has already announced that paid links are being discarded in the ranking of search engines.

By mid November it is anticipated that Google's new Toolbar version 4.2 which will be used to roll out a "VR" (visitor rating) System. Google VR™ will collect visitor ratings of Web pages. The VR value will be based on a number of factors like the ratio between visitors and votes and where your visitors come from (i.e referred from a site or a search engine), It will also take in to account how many people return to your site over time.

A few smaller search engines already use such a ranking system.

How will you encourage your tourism guests to help google rank your Web site positively?

Trellian/KeywordDiscovery.com - Provides keyword ideas and aids in brainstorming, a standard for directional keyword search frequency.

WordTracker - Click the Free Trial to research new keyword ideas; helpful for brainstorming and discovering new keyword ideas.

WatchFire WebXact - Site diagnostics tool. Assesses broken links, checks meta tags, code validation, etc.

We Build Pages' Toolset - Free SEO Tools, including back link and anchor text checker, keyword density (frequency) analysis tool, spider viewer and more.

Web Position Gold - $$ Checks natural search engines rankings.

Certainly there are many more truly great search tools out there, but add these to your "Try it out" list.


Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: seo

Tips for Writing with Google's Dynamic Keyword Insertion tool:

This dynamic keyword insertion tool automatically places the terms of a search into your keyword ad. With careful testing of your campaign, you may see this tool providing significant lift to your click throughs. However, monitor off-line results like phone calls to get a true picture of the tools effectiveness.

Test the use of dynamic keywords in the title and/or body of your ad.

To use DKI, use the syntax: {keyword:_______}

If you want to write using the DKI option, consider these tips:

1. Use a descriptive word along with your keyphrase. Instead of just inserting the phrase “bed and breakfast,” place the word “discount” or “special” before your keyphrase to help it stand out.

2. For keyphrases that will take the entire 25-character limit of a headline, consider using one word of the keyphrase in the headline, instead of the entire phrase. Rather than “huntsville accommodations,” try inserting just “huntsville” or “accommodations” along with other text you write yourself with the google keyword insertion tool.

Give it a try.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: dynamic keyword insertion tool, google

Bringing culture and nature together in perfect harmony, the magnificent 400–seat timber-frame barn is set in the rolling hills of Northumberland County. The stage hosts an incredible array of renowned Canadian and international artists, from full symphony orchestras & choruses to chamber music and soloists.

Purchase Tickets Online

This page was sent to the blog by email in less than a minute in a demonstration of blogging in Northumberland County at a Tourism Keys event.

It's free and easy to add kid friendly elements to your Blog or Web page.... Remember Asteroids?

Labels: games for kids

Looking for free legal music or images to use on your Web site?  The link below provides access to thousands of free images, video, audio files that you can use on your Web site.

http://mashable.com/2007/10/27/creative-commons/

default search assistant automatically adds keyword combinations to the end of words and phrases helping Web designers gauge and learn about new keyword opportunities they might not have thought about.  Spend a minute before uploading your next video to to determine keywords your ideal video viewer might use.

There are a number of benefits to creating staff bios with video.  The principal one is:

• site visitors will engage with your staff, eye to eye, which is a bit more trustworthy than text and image.

Of course many people are shy, but this can be overcome, by conducting an informal conversation, keeping the video camera off to one side so that the interviewed staff focus on the conversation, instead of the camera.
Be sure to post the video on your site, but also consider putting them on your YouTube Channel.

http://www.webuildpages.com/tools/default.htm

What's hotel customer's biggest complaint? Poor staff attitude, says
J.D. Power and Associates.
and where is the next stop for those unhappy travelers: TripAdvisor.com

Shirley Montague entertained us with her music and stories of the Norris Point Trails and Tails Festival. The ability to post information as soon as it happens, makes Blogging a very important aspect of marketing tourism experiences. Click here to buy the Gros Morne Musical Journey album featuring Shirley Montague.

Today we enjoyed a few tourism experiences in Gros Morne National Park. I edited together a few bits of video and posted it to Youtube so that I could demonstrate how quickly video can be posted to the site and integrated into a blog or Web page.




Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.comI

Labels: bonne bay, gros morne

Software as Service can be a very efficient way to grow your capacity and help you get work done efficiently for your tourism business.
At the Edge, our nature retreat, Northern Edge Algonquin , we use a number of online services:

• Campaigner - for sending email newsletters
  
• WebEx - for managing calendar, schedules, sharing files
• AdventureEngine - Online Reservation & Distribution System to Travel Trade for Adventure Travel
• Docs - for online collaboration (free)
  
• Blogger - for Weblog publishing (free)
  

A new service: Rezgo, matches Adventure Engine in providing online booking.  The service is free for thirty days, but a user may quickly become addicted to the online reservation service and opt for an ongoing subscription.

Look for even more software services becoming available in a web browser near you soon.

Stands for "Short Messaging Service" but is generally known as texting.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Ok, Google Maps was important before, now it's a MUST Have element of
your online tourism marketing plan. Create a profile and add your content. Invite your ideal guests to do the same.
Check out the power of this tool by watching Google's Video.

Labels: google maps

With Keywords in Hand, it's time to start working on the on-page content. Choose to design some pages for your site directly around the keywords you have identified.  Then work in keywords to the page naturally. This will take a number of reviews to ensure all potential keyword leaks are plugged, but be sure usability is top of mind as well:

• Keyword usage: Let copy flow while maintaining
  keyword balance
• Headings: compelling and informative and keywords near front. (H1 tag most important)
  
• Title tag: This is the most important header tag.  Create a compelling, keyword rich title for the page - this appears on many search engines as the bold title of your page, so get it right.
  
• Description tag: Each page gets its own description.  Take time to write it well.  It also often appears in Search Results.  It must inspire a click and be a description that is both compelling and reinforces the keyword relevance of the page
• Voice: The site should use a consistent voice from page to page
• Calls to Action: Use words that do more than inform but compel action.  What do you want your page visitor to do next?  Tell them to do it!  Make sure they stand out and don't let your Web page content get in the way of helping your Ideal Guest take your Ideal next step. 
  
• Benefits: Focus on benefits over features.... why does this guest want to choose you as their service provider.
  
• Skimming & Scanning: White space rules.  Make the document easy to skim and scan while giving the reader the important information as they do so. 
  
• Great Images: Think about your ideal image: model (age, sex, groups), location (great location), activity (or cues of activity - ie. skis over shoulder), emotion (focus on the face).  Tag them and post them to and picasa, etc.
  
• Media links and Credibility: Let your ideal guest tell why they chose you and why they are happy they came.  Video reviews are awesome, posted reviews on third party sites like TripAdvisor.com have reportedly boosted revenue by 20%.  Put keyword tags whereever possible.
  

Page usability review

Test your content with people you trust that are outside your business.  Be prepared to make changes.

Keyword Selection is perhaps the most important step in Web site and Web page design.

The goal in keyword selection simply put is: Get as many of YOUR IDEAL GUESTS to YOUR IDEAL OFFER for them.
In essence I like to think about this: If search is a question asked by a specific person . . . what questions does your Web site provide the answers to?  Who asks?

Keyword Selection needs to be guided by these core principles:

• relevance - are they words used by YOUR IDEAL GUESTS to find YOUR IDEAL OFFER
• importance - are they the best words for your tourism business?
• traffic volume - are they going to deliver enough traffic, best to choose terms that you can compete on and climb to the front page for.  Hint: think keyword phrases vs. keywords to narrow your filter.

Think it through when it's time for a web site redesign.  Think of the questions your guest is looking to have answered and keyword selection should come easily.

Categories of great travel keywords:

• place names and destination icons
• types of accommodation or services (restaurant, bistro, inn, hotel)
• how the traveler identifies themselves (girlfriends, gay, family)
• activities (fishing, golfing)
• travel themes (honeymoon, retirement, fall colours)

Combine words from one or more of these categories into keyword phrases and you'll be far along in your keyword selection process.
Take these words to keyword idenfication sites identified throughout this blog.

cheers,
t.
http://www.tourismclicks.com

Here are a few links for Real Estate brokers looking to make a good impression with Blogging.

• http://realestatetomato.typepad.com/
• http://blog.carimcgee.com/

One of the most valuable lead generators for your tourism Web site is your email newsletter.
Are you effective at getting people to sign up for your e-newsletter?

Your opt in needs to be compelling, simple, and ubiquitous.

According to Jeff Mills, eROI, Inc. Web sites that establish B2C relationships are healthy when email list size is 15-25% of annual Web visitation.

For instance if your Web site recieves 50 visits/day (365 days): ie: about 16500 Web visits annually your email list potential size is somewhere between 2500-4000.

If you are not there, consider revising your Web site design to create a more compelling, simple, ubiquitous Opt-in offer.

Alaska Airlines offers wireless networking for computers and handhelds!
When this trend spreads to all airlines - as it surely must, how will
such in flight travel planning impact your bookings?

How would you change your offering if your hotel catered to
motorcyclists and business travelers?

Iron Horse Hotel in Milwaukee is a boutique hotel, slated to open next
summer - geared toward both motorcycle enthusiasts and business
travelers.

The 102-room hotel will be about three blocks south of the future
Harley-Davidson Museum, which is also scheduled to open next summer.

He said the idea is to draw both affluent bikers and business
travelers who want to stay at a cool, edgy - yet luxurious - hotel.
The Iron Horse will be a place where guests can feel comfortable
walking through the lobby decked in business suits and wing tips, or
leather jackets, jeans and boots, Mr Dixon said.

Amenities will be somewhat unusual as well. Guest rooms will include
shelves for helmets and strong hooks that can handle the weight of
leather jackets, he said. There will be benches on which to sit while
removing boots. And the bathroom showers will be oversize.

"The typical rider is larger than the average bear," said Brigette
Breitenbach, who operates Breitenbach Weiss Inc., a marketing
communications firm working for Mr Dixon.

The Iron Horse will include an on-site bike wash and covered
motorcycle parking. A hotel shop will sell rider accessories, and
motorcycle maintenance kits will be available to guests.

The loft-style rooms will be large, around 450 square feet, Ms
Breitenbach said. The average daily room rate will be $139, which is
expected to rise after the first year of operation, according to Mr
Dixon.

How do you make your Ideal Guest feel special?
~ Info from: Travel Mole

Reuters is reporting that YouTube users can now peg videos set in specific locations to maps in Google Earth. So, if you go to a golf course and scroll over the links, a video overlay would pop up containing information about the course, scenic fly-bys, guided course management strategies, golf tips, you name it. The feature could be a real boon for tourism, enabling would-be travelers to surf the digital globe for information about potential vacation spots. Head to Niagara Falls and you might find helicopter tours, Maid of the Mist or information about local natural phenomena as well as a virtual tour of the hotel closest to the falls. Producers of Video content will enable the feature by adding geo-tags to their YouTube videos as they are uploaded;

As I have mentioned numerous times on this blog.... we're facing a content crisis in tourism. We need to create content all the time! Just one more example of why video producers are the current must have staff in your tourism department.
Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: google earth, youtube

Warning - HIGH Geek Content follows:
The following information on how to setup a subdomain for mobile content can be set up with your Web service provider or if you host your own domains, it is relatively easy to do using your ftp connection.

Mobile content is still relatively new, however many Web sites are creating content that looks right on mobile phones. Such content is low bandwidth - small images, and limited text. For phone users, content is much more efficiently managed in smaller chunks. Think about what a phone user wants and deliver restricted content. For your tourism business, think of these people as travelers on the road, looking for your phone number, hours of operation, travel directions.

A while back, the higher level domain suffix .mobi was introduced just for this market. However many companies with high end portals for mobile devices have eschewed this convention, instead opting for the m. subdomain.
It looks something like: m.mywebsite.com instead of purchasing a new domain at http://mywebsite.mobi to host the content.

m.subdomains are very cool and trendy. See for example.

How to Create an m. subdomain:

Everyone has a "www" subdomain (In "www.yourdomain.com", the "www" part is the subdomain). The www subdomain is created by your /htdocs/www directory on the filesystem.

To add a subdomains, just create new subdirectories in the /htdocs directory on the server.

For instance, if you had the domain name www.myhotel.com and wanted a subdomain for m, then you would just create the directory /htdocs/m and upload the files in there that you wanted to see at http://m.myhotel.com

You too can be just like Amazon.... too cool for school.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: mobile subdomain

Download this pdf document featuring 150 Free Tourism Internet Marketing Resources
(and a few things worth paying for). Do yourself and your tourism business a favour. Post this one page of free Internet Marketing Resources near your computer and start promoting your competitive advantage by visiting one site a day for the next six months.

Your web site will thank you for it. So will your ideal guests.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: free internet marketing resources

, recently aquired by Google, is a good place to visit once your blog has hit the Web.
The site transforms the feed from your site into a traffic generator and statistic reference.
By burning your feed here, your blog will benefit from:

• blog aggregator pinging - these are the sites that report to blog search engines that your blog exists - hence growing traffic.
• feed stats - learn how many subscribers and readers you blog has.
• easy subscription - makes it easy for your blog visitors (or Web site visitors) to subscribe to your blog
• put all your blogs or rss feeds in one place.  If you post images online at or picasa or anywhere else for that matter, or video to , these libraries feature RSS feeds too.  You can collect all your feeds in one place and make it easy for your ideal guest to see more of you online.
  
• other tools let you collect all your feeds and put them into one, or post the live headlines from your feeds directly on your web site using chicklets.  You've seen this type of thing in action on most News Web sites.

There are many other tools for the passionate blogger interested in expanding the visits to their Web site, but this is an excellent first step.

. . . in the U.S. anyway.
Using Branded Keywords in Canada for Search Engine Marketing - ie: keyword advertising and Search Engine Optimization has yet to reach Canadian courts.
As reported on Eric Goldman's blog, a recent judgment in the U.S. paves the way for search marketers to freely use their competitor's brand names in search advertising campaigns.

Sometimes Google can't deliver the range of content that other "vertical" search engines can.  These search sites are generally ideal starting points for planning travel particularly for large cities and gateway cities:

• Sidestep.com,
• Hotelscombined.com
• Nextag.com
• Kayak.com
  

RSS (really simple syndication) sounds really SUPER SCARY to most tourism businesses.
What you really need to know is that RSS is a file associated with your Web site or blog that updates all the RSS feed readers on the Internet, letting everyone know that you have posted new content! This is only possible when you know how to publish your own RSS Feed.

Blogs, by their nature, automatically create these RSS feed files and update them each time you post a new item. Easy. Until recently, publishing RSS feeds was a process requiring great technical geekiness. Now, even Web novices can master the art of the RSS feed.

Why are RSS Feeds are Important? Most people do not have the time to visit your web site or your blog to find out what is new. By providing a feed to your site, your ideal guest can stay informed about what's new when they check they visit sites they frequent every day at sites like: or stay abreast of what's going on with their friends at their preferred social networking site like In essence, your feed is a like an electronic bulletin board item that gets tacked onto the bulletin boards of people all over the world for consumption whenever they want it!

Feeds are 100% Opt-in and allow you to distribute your content to people wherever they track their feeds.

Each time you post to your feed, you are opening a new doorway into your Web site.

What kind of things do you want to include in an RSS Feed besides your Blog?
Sometimes, you may make changes to your web site that you will want to incorporate into your rss feed.
For example you may change your site by:

• publishing a new newsletter as a new page on your site
  
• add a video or audio
• add a podcast
  
• link to articles or media stories featuring your tourism business
  
• add new web pages or make significant changes to existing pages
• making a last minute special offer
• sending a press release
  

A tool such as: http://www.webrss.com is your best best for simple RSS publishing. Second Best Bet for free RSS publishing, particularly press releases is
We're searching for an ideal tool to feature at this year's Tourism Keys Internet Marketing workshops. I think I've found it at:


This type of tool makes it easy to create and publish your own feed. When you add new content to your site, simply sign in to your account and fill in a short form with the details. WebRSS.com is a feed generator that will inform all the feed readers that you have posted new content.

On the site, you will get links to your feed url which are easy to add to any of your Web pages by choosing the Publish Feed link, allowing visitors to subscribe to your feed in their favourite RSS Reader, like: or social networking site.

Ping your new RSS feed to inform the aggregators / newsreaders that your RSS Feed is active. These services will track your feed and update your subscribers on new posts as they are available. Each search engine uses a distinct aggregator to update their content, so no harm in pinging as many services as possible.

The simple three step process to creating your first feed:

1. sign up for a free account (username / password)
2. add a new feed - Give your feed a title and description that includes your keywords! This is like the title page for the new rss feed you are publishing. Link to the new content url (your home page) and and optional image url.
   
3. Then click Add Item / Add Podcast button. Each time you make changes to your site, enter the new content that describe the changes (with keywords). Link to the page url and an associated image url (optional) and give a Title and Description for your new page. Note, the text in your title and description can differ from what appears on your new page, but should be similar and include your keywords. You may choose to allow comments on your new post or allow those who subscribe to your feed to email the link to a friend. No need to complete the advanced section.
   
   

Ta Daaaa ! You've just created a free RSS feed for your Web site.
Now, each time you create new content, let your subscribers know all about it without having to visit your web site. Publish to your own RSS Feed by logging in and entering the new content.

Once you are set up, it should only take a minute or two to update each new item.

Todd Lucier - TourismClicks.com

Labels: feed, publish, rss

When posting video online at sites like and Travelistic be sure to use your keywords in the title and description tags for your video to optimize your video for search.
If you really want to optimize your video, consider indexing each section of your video with thus optimizing your video for search even further.

http://www.blinkx.com/
Visit and type in keywords that you want your videos to be found under.
If you search here for Gros Morne, you can join us on a helicopter ride over Gros Morne National Park.  This video has been watched over 1500 times on YouTube alone in less than a year.  It's also posted at other locations across the Internet....

Imagine if 1500 people searching for something you offer, found your video?  What story would you tell?

Providing engaging ways for your email reader to interact with you should be a core goal of your newsletter campaign; helping your reader get to know you better.
Here are some link ideas to include with your next send:

• Unsubscribe link - a necessity
  
• Link to email preferences/update profile page 
  
• Ask about an offer or provide feedback (click here to email) 
• Link to back issues or more details on featured content, as appropriate    
• Link to Web version   
  
• Phone and email contact information for newsletter staff or front desk   
• Privacy policy    
• Forward to a friend instructions    
• Link to related information or offers at your Web site    
• Link to cancellation or rebooking policies