The Snowmass Club, a Blizzard Internet Marketing client since 2003, was referenced recently in a letter to the editor in the Aspen Daily News.

The letter’s author, Emzy Veazy III, Esq., writes about web site optimization of Aspen area web sites. According to his research, "Aspen area lodging Web site optimization superstar by light years is the Snowmass Club. It out races the Hotel Colorado, Molly Gibson Lodge, St. Moritz Lodge & Condominiums, Hotel Lenado and Mountain Chalet-Aspen."

Read the entire letter at www.aspendailynews.com/archive_12301.  (Registration required)

Lou White – Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. 

Still not comfortable offering your inventory online? You might wish to reconsider.

According to Forrester Research, Inc., online travel revenues are expected to double between 2005 and 2010. Read more about this in an article at www.cio.com.

Elizabeth Malloy – Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. 

We’ve all had a customer who calls up in mid-January and wants to rank well for Valentine’s Day terms – or one who e-mails us at Thanksgiving with their Christmas and New Year’s Specials and wants to make certain they will come up high in the listings for “holiday packages”. At such short notice, the only strategy that is certain to produce results within the given time frame is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

PPC ads are a great way to get seasonal messages out onto the web very quickly. One can easily manipulate an ads’ positioning, change pricing according to demand and availability, and turn the ads off when rooms are full. If you also want to rank well in the organic listings, however, you’ll need to factor in more time.

(more…)

According to a report by Parks Associates, spending for online advertising will double by 2010 to account for more than 10% of advertising expenditures. Furthermore, it found that close to 21% of Internet users believe Internet advertising to be the most relevant publicity format.

Mary Bowling – Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. 

As we’ve written about, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques are constantly being refined, with changes at Google leading the way. What’s the most frequent recurring theme? Honest, or "white-hat", SEO techniques will get you far, while dishonest , or "black-hat", ones won’t.

For more on this, read the recent article by Jim Hedger, a senior editor for ISEDB.com, by clicking here.

Elizabeth Malloy – Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. 

Recently many internet users have made the switch from the Internet Explorer browser included on many PC’s to an open source browser called Firefox. The latest figures show that Internet Explorer has gone from a 95% market share to about 80%. This is occuring while firefox has increased its share to between 11% and 20%. This increase in market share for firefox means that the browser is becoming more and more targeted by hackers. One hacker named Aviv Raff has posted a hack on one of the older versions of Firefox.

This hack only applies to Firefox browser versions 1.0.4 and ealier. Firefox fixed the problem back in May but many users may still be vunerable. If Firefox is the browser that you use for the majority of web surfing than you should check to make sure your version is later than this. To check you version go to the "Help" then choose "About Mozilla Firefox" from the drop down list. In the box that pops up you should be able to clearly see what version you have. If the version is 1.0.4 or lower than you need to upgrade.

 There are two option available to upgrade you browser. Either go to the Mozilla website and download version 1.5 or search the internet for one of the later versions. Version 1.5 is a great upgrade but you should be aware that many of the extension you may have installed to personalize you browser may not work yet. These extensions need to be upgraded by the individuals who wrote them. Either way you may need to upgrade now or be open for a hack.

 Joshua Green Blizzard Internet Marketing

UPCOMING TRADE SHOWS AND EVENTS

Louisiana Travel Promotion Association Summit
January 17, 2005
Lake Charles, LA
Trent Blizzard – Featured Speaker

InnSpire 2006 – Annual Conference and Trade Show
January 22 – 24, 2006
Santa Rosa, CA
Russ Cabe – Featured Speaker

Go West Summit
February 1 – 4, 2006
St. George, UT
Trent Blizzard – Featured Speaker

REQUEST A PRESENTER FOR YOUR EVENT