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Lee Odden is one of Search Engine Marketing’s major players. He has put together a list of Search Marketing Blogs that it never hurts to have around. Lee recently made headlines with his posts about being “banned” from Digg (through no fault of his own) and the process (or lack thereof) for re-inclusion.

The hardest thing about learning how and what to market is finding resources to read and learn from. The SEO team at Blizzard reads Lee’s “Online Marketing Blog” at least once a week – plus any of his articles we come across in other resources.

Check out his list as you may find some you didn’t know about. You can never have too much information.

Carrie Hill - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

How to cultivate the results you need - Exactly where you need them!

Part of ensuring that you have an online presence is making sure you’re asking the right questions. In fact, one of the simplest but most effective tools for cultivating reviews is the question. This can be done using various methods, or coming up with some new innovation that encourages participation in a forum or blog.

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Any online promotional technique that provides valuable information to interested consumers, boosts rankings in major search engines, and serves as a convenient source for print journalists is a technique that should become “modus operandi” for all corporate websites. Online media rooms meet all three of these criteria. Businesses within the travel and lodging industry can particularly benefit, as an ongoing record of community events and local attractions can be a very valuable resource for potential visitors. Blizzard Internet Marketing highly encourages the use of blogs/media rooms on our clients’ websites, as evidenced by two recent Blizzard blog articles; Create a Media Room on Your Website, by Mary Bowling and The World of Blogs, by Stephanie Hedberg.

Imagine an internet user typing in the search phrase “Denver International Wine Festival”. Let’s say the typist is from Wyoming, and although he has not yet made plans for accommodations, in this particular search he is merely seeking information regarding the festival itself. How valuable would it be if your hotel or inn’s website media room appeared on the first page of the results in Google, with information about the festival? If “Mr. Wyoming” clicks on your media room article about the event, he will see not only that the page is part of a lodging website, but he will immediately associate your property with the attraction that he’s interested in. Will he click to your homepage, rooms and rates page, or book online? Maybe, maybe not - but you’ve introduced him to a valuable resource, and the fact that he can also book a room without performing another search is a convenience that a lot of people will appreciate. Ever hear of the expression, “Kill two birds with one stone”? This example was taken directly from the media room of The Oxford Hotel in Denver; the article on the wine festival did put them in the top 10 search results in Google for that keyword phrase.

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The term “blog” is short for “weblog”, which is an online content management system where posts appear in reverse chronological order - the newest posts are first. Blogs originated as single-column journals characterized by a personality. They’re often frequently updated and include a section for reader comments after each post. They’ve matured and are used for a huge variety of purposes. They often take on the look of a traditional website or are incorporated into a website.

Here are a few of the terms you should be aware of that have sprung up around blogs and blogging:

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Blogging is the name of the game in today’s internet world. In general, the hospitality industry has been found guilty of allotting their forces to this new niche. Why? Because blogs are quickly gaining significance in the eyes of the search engines and they are making it easier for prospective clients to express thoughts, opinions, share feedback, and for owners to promote services.

Recently, there has been talk of a more “company” type blog. These types of blogs have been functioning for some of our very own clients. Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc. has found the results of our “blogging” clients to be quite outstanding. So you may be asking yourself, “Does my property need a blog?” Below are a few questions to help you determine this:

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A recent article from Wired Hotelier further explains goLists, a new feature offered by Trip Advisor, also recently highlighted in the Blizzard Newsletter. Trip Advisor is currently the largest source of unbiased travel information on the web, with more than 20 million monthly visitors. This is an invaluable resource to innkeepers and hoteliers, providing free publicity generated by the people who know your property best - your guests.

In a June USA Today article, Blizzard CEO Trent Blizzard is quoted on recent work for the Durango Area Chamber of Commerce. In the article, Mr. Blizzard discusses how he created a top five list of things to do in the Durango area based on personal experiences. He submitted these to WikiTravel in order to give the Durango area more of a presence on the Internet. He later used this information to crate a goList on Trip Advisor, making this list available to travelers all over the world.

To create your own goList, check out our recent TripAdvisor goList article for instructions, or contact your Promotion Account Manager to have this set up. We encourage you to comment using the form below to share any experiences you have had with goLists.

Erin Blank - Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc.

In this last of our three part series, we want to share the results of our research. Our goal was to find the few best photosharing sites for your hotel or travel destination website that are worth the time, and eliminate those that are less advantageous. Our six winners were: Flickr, Picturetrail, Buzznet, Dotphoto, Fotki and Faces. As we discover new photosharing sites, we will upate this page. If you have one to recommend, please comment.

Our six winners each met our photosharing goals and had the following characteristics:

• Easy to use to upload images and organize into albums
• Ability to Create titles and Descriptions for Images
• Ability to link our photos to websites for more information
• Ability to place the images onto our blog or website
• A community which would be able to view our images, providing some PR advantages
• Offered a free account, with no need to upgrade/pay unless we chose to in order to unleash more storage space and bandwidth.

How We Tested: We created an account in each of the websites and uploaded about eight photos from vacations that I have taken during 2006. We organized the photos into a vacation album and tried to add title, descriptions and links to the photos.

The Winners Circle, in no particular order:

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