Blizzard has lined up 12 webinars designed to improve your overall marketing strategy.

Each webinar is free and will run for about an hour. Sign up today, webinars fill up fast.

Join us for:

Diagnosing Page Speed Issues on Your Travel, Tourism or Hospitality Site
Thursday, May 6th, 11 AM MDT
With Google’s recent announcement that Page Speed is a ranking factor, find out how to determine how your site measures up!

Google Analytics 101 for Hotels, Resorts, Inns and Rental Managers
Tuesday, May 18th, 11 AM MDT
Learn the basics of Google Analytics setup, how to monitor, interpret and track your online ROI.

Google Analytics Advanced for Hotels, Resorts, Inns and Rental Managers
Thursday, May 27th, 11 AM MDT
You will learn how to use goals, funnel tools and advanced reports for tracking actions that improve ROI. (more…)

There are a few iPads floating around the Blizzard office this week and the impact is noteworthy.  It is like having a newborn in the office.  Lots of oohs and aahs and looks of envy.  I haven’t heard any cooing yet, but, nearly everyone asks if they can hold it and play with it.

We think lodging providers should consider getting an iPad (or 6) at their front desk.  While  modern labor laws frown on keeping a newborn handy at your front desk, an iPad can provide the warm and fuzzies like an infant AND improve the service levels you guests enjoy.

Use the iPad to solve these 5 guests problems:

1) What to see and where to eat:

Guests frequently want information on what to do and where to eat.  Use the iPad as your concierge.  Hopefully you already have an an online concierge (that would be your blog which features top attractions and restaurants) or a local website which you can refer people to.

2) How to get to a specific place: (more…)

I wanted to share this awesome resource with our readers because it really sheds light on the analytical process we follow when determining how hard it will be to rank for a particular term.

In some cases just putting the keywords on a page and building a few links is all you need to hit the top 10.  More cases than not – the keywords that will bring the most traffic are MUCH harder to rank for – hence the concept of Keyword Difficulty.

If you’re looking for insight – check out The Ultimate Guide to Keyword Competition: Tips from 35 Experts on Analyzing Competitive Keywords.

This comprehensive article gives a snapshot of the ideas surrounding Keyword Difficulty from 35 SEM industry leaders.  There’s some great insight here to put your quest for that number one ranking into perspective.  There are so many factors to consider, beyond the metatag and the link.

Some of my favorite points are highlighted below:

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Let’s face it, small businesses rarely get calls from media outlets looking for interesting topics to cover or who want to randomly give you press coverage; so sometimes you just have to put on your big boy pants and do it yourself.

Do you have a sweet lodging special that is worth promoting? Do a press release. Is your company holding a fund raiser? Do a release. Are you opening up after a remodel? Release the hounds!

Let the people know why you are unique and why they should give your business a try!

Writing a press release isn’t easy and it’s not cheap. Even if you find someone to write about your company it takes time and effort to craft the message that you want to get out. And if someone writes for you there is good chance that that you will make more than a few revisions.

To be a press release hero you are going to need a little bit of help to get moving. After all, you spend so much time and money writing that you want to get the most exposure for your buck, right?

You will need:

• Access to a wide range of media outlets and organization to maximize your efforts
• A platform that will target and distribute to local resources (more…)

The worst way to get inspiration for your own web design is your competitors!

Here are some great websites to turn to for inspiration:

24 Beautiful Hotel Website Designs to Get Inspired

Checking in Hotel Web Design: 50 Cosy Hotel Websites and Trends

90+ Remarkable Examples Of Bold Colors In Web Design

50 Excellent Corporate Website Designs

35 Beautiful Water-themed Web Designs for Inspiration

30 Beautifully Textured Web Designs

Web Design Trends: Testimonials Design

20 Super Creative Website Menus

Web Design – Pricing Tables (more…)

Blizzard Internet Marketing Inc. announces new consultation services for hotels, resorts, vacation rental managers and hospitality businesses seeking to boost earnings from online marketing in 2010.

Blizzard Internet Marketing Inc. is now offering consultation time with their award-winning, industry leading team to companies seeking advice or guidance to accelerate their internet success.

Trent Blizzard, President and Co-Founder notes that “companies often come to us and are missing pieces of their internet marketing puzzle; they have spent thousands on a website that is not attracting the traffic expected, it’s not ranking well against their competitors, it’s not converting as hoped, etc., and they need a little bit of guidance. We are excited to offer this plan that will provide a few hours of help to get hospitality websites going in the right direction.”

Get expert advice on the powerful disciplines of search engine marketing including: (more…)

Worried that your new website is missing a few important details? Learn about 5 “invisible” best practices that will help your new website.

Before you roll out your new website design, talk to your website designer about each of these.  Make sure you have implemented the following 5 best practices:

404 Page Setup – A 404 error page is a “whoops” page that your website visitors see when they go to a malformed or non-existent web-page.  Make sure you have 404 page that fits the character of your website and shepherds all those lost visitors back into your website.  With a new website, you are bound to get a few “whoops” visitors.

• Tip: consider monitoring this page to see if there are any major sources of traffic that need accounted for.
• Benefit: it is easier to keep a visitor than get a new one!
• Learn More about 404 pages

301 Redirects - When you build your new website, your page names change (ie from www.yourdomain.com/oldpage.htm to www.yourdomain.com/newpage.php).

This confuses the heck out of search engines and can cause lower rankings and lost visitors.  Make sure you set up a 301 redirect for each old page of your website to a new page. (more…)