This is a recording of one of our more popular webinars.
Online Marketing in 2012: Learn about future trends that will change online marketing in the next five years. Focused on the hotel, resort and vacation rental market. Topics include: email marketing, link building, the future of SEO, reputation management, web 2.0 and segmentation.
Many searchers have seen and used Google’s newest search features - Search Options and The Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel is hidden in the “Search Options” link that now shows up at the top of every search:
Click on the show options and you will be offered several choices to refine or restrict your search results. My two favorites are the time based results (so I can find NEW content when I search) and the Wonder Wheel:
If you click on the Wonder Wheel, you will find a tool that recommends related searches. Notice you can click several levels deep and as you click the results change in the right column. Also notice how you can move backwards and forward through the wonder wheel. It really is quite… wonderful.
Check out this video from Google Search Engineer Adam Stepinski talks about everything you can do with Google’s Wonder Wheel, a tool in the Search Options Panel:
Also, you may want to look at the new search engine from Microsoft, Bing, which adds suggested related searches directly into the left column:
Clearly, the search engines are making it easier and easier for consumers to refine their searches. Although, Bing is showing a lot different recommendations than Google.
In the long run, this is another part of the trend that is diluting the power of the traditional top placement in organic search (by encourage consumers to refine their search)
We just completed our Page Rank Webinar. Here is the Powerpoint Presentation if you want to see it…
OK, I admit it. I am color challenged. I know great color when I see it, but am not confident in my own abilities to pick colors. Recently I have been using online color tools to find new and better color schemes.
Kuler by Adobe is a handy tool that lets you choose different colors to base your palettes on:
to create color palettes like these:
Another similar program that I like even better is Color Scheme Designer. It has a slick color selector and shows off the colors intuitively:
You can take your palette and see what it would look like on a website too:
Here is a list of webinars we are planning for Spring 2009. Each of these webinars are targeted at hotels, vacation rental managers, and resorts. The are free, just follow the links to sign up.
Measuring What Matters I: How Do you Stack up Against your Online Competitors?
While monitoring a few top keywords phrases is a tempting yardstick, it doesn’t accurately measure your effectiveness against your competitors. Learn about a set of metrics that offers a more sophisticated and accurate comparison.
April 8th, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
Measuring What Matters II: Tracking Your Website’s Critical Drivers
While monitoring a few top keywords phrases is a tempting yardstick, it doesn’t accurately measure your websites effectiveness. Learn about a new set of metrics that will predict the future success of your website.
April 14th, 2009 11:00 AM -12:00 PM MDT
Recession Buster Marketing for Lodging Properties
Tips, trips and strategies to help fill rooms during tough economic times.
April 22, 2009 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM MDT
Link Popularity and Page Rank - How they Work
The single greatest factor in your website’s overall presence in search engines is arguably links — the quantity, quality and context of your links can make or break your Google rankings. (and Yahoo and MSN if anyone cares). Learn more about how link popularity, page rank and anchor text work.
May 6th, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT
Online Reputation Management for Vacation Rentals
New opportunities and risks abound as reviews grow more ubiquitous in the Vacation rental world. Learn how to start managing this area of growing importance
May 13th, 2009 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM MDT
TripAdvisor has launched a new owners’ center to help hotel owners manage and optimize their information on Tripadvisor. Each hotel (or restaurant, attraction, etc) will have access to tools and will receive email alerts of new reviews.
The first step is for owners register at TripAdvisor’s Owners area.
Once registered, owners and management can sign up for emails of new reviews, update their property listings, respond to reviews through management response tools and upload both videos and photos.
Tripadvisor Button
Some quick highlights are buttons you can put on your website that link back to your Tripadvisor page (which many hotels would object to).
There are also widgets that stream your reviews from Tripadvisor to your website. Apparently, the widget can be customized to include snippets of the most recent guest reviews, ratings and photos of the property or destination from TripAdvisor. (more…)
Wordpress Blogs Whitepaper
Blizzard Internet Marketing, Inc., a search engine marketing company out of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, has released a new whitepaper: SEO for Wordpress Blogs - A Non-Techie’s Guide. The whitepaper instructs readers on the finer points of using Wordpress to futher the success of their weblogs in Organic Search Results.
Blogs, by their very nature, are search engine friendly and provide natural advantages in optimizing for the Search Engines. More and more, SEOs agree that among blogging platforms, WordPress provides superior flexibility and more advanced options that enable administrators to customize their designs with specific components. By following simple tips and using recommended plug-ins, even those with limited technical skills can have an easy-to-use content management system that ranks well in the Search Engines.
SEO for Wordpress Blogs is authored by Carrie Hill and Mary Bowling. The 15 page whitepaper is available for download at http://www.blizzardinternet.com/whitepapers/ (more…)
