iPads usage in hotels and resorts is starting to take off.

As a followup to our April 13th, 5 Ways to Use an iPad at Your Hotel’s Front Desk, here is some good reading about iPads in hotels:

• Will Hotels Begin Offering the Apple iPad in Rooms? (We Can Only Hope) (written in January by Hotel Chatter)
• iPad: Hotel hype or help?
• Best iPad Apps for Hoteliers by Josiah Mackenzie
• 10 Innovative Uses of the iPad By the Hospitality Industry
• InterContinental Hotels & Resorts first to equip concierge teams with Apple iPads
• The Plaza Hotel Launches First Virtual Concierge App on iPads
• iPad Replaces Menu in Hotel Restaurant
• Top 10 Green iPad Hotels
• London Hotel Gives Guests an iPad for the Duration of their Stay
• Pavilion Hotel Offering Complimentary iPad Use to Guests
• Posh Hotels offer iPad Newspapers While Publishers Demand in-App Subscriptions…
• Six Hotels With iPads You Can Touch
• Where to Find Hotels With iPads

Lodging managers and owners usually provide their own public relations in the middle of frenzy. Whether in good times when you are turning over 95% guest occupancy or in more challenging times of natural disasters or uncontrolled events, the Public Relations hat must be worn along with all of your other hats.

Sometimes it’s hard to see through it all. Turn to your marketing experts for another point of view, a second opinion or to brainstorm ideas.  

At Blizzard we have the advantage of working with clients all over the world.  We have helped our clients fight through a wide variety of situations; flooding, snowstorms, avalanches, tornadoes, hurricanes, and even the results of man-made events. Counteracting the situation with a flurry of online activity works.

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Every business comes to a point when they have to decide whether to keep their search marketing in-house or hire an outside firm; a decision not to be taken lightly.

Blizzard Internet’s Director of Search Strategies, Carrie Hill, contributes a featured article to Search Engine Watch, a top search marketing online publication.

This month Carrie focuses this topic in her article “When and How to Outsource Your Small Business Search Marketing.”

If you are seriously considering expanding your online presence and increasing your ROI, this is a must read.

Tripadvisor has neat tool worth checking out on their vacation homes page: A Hotel Vs Vacation Home cost comparison calculator.

Simply type in the destination for your trip:

And find out how much you will save, based on your destination, # adults, # children, # nights and how much you eat out:

It would be nice if they would make this available as a “widget.”

Check out this short clip of me (Trent) speaking in Pittsburgh at the National Tour Association (NTA):

View the Video at HowCast

The Semmys are an annual awards event honoring some of the best articles and blog posts from the search marketing industry, as voted by the industry. Over 200 authors from over 150 blogs are nominated. blogs/sites.

• Our own Carrie Hill had five articles nominated from her SearchEngineWatch Column.

If you’re into analytics and using your tracker data to increase your return on investment, come hear Carrie Hill speak at the inaugural SMX Search Analytics Conference in Tornoto, Ontario March 31 through April 1st. Carrie will be talking about traffic segmentation and why it matters to your bottom line.

Carrie will also do a bit of liveblogging from the event – so if you cant be there, grab our RSS feed to stay updated.

If you’re interested in attending – Carrie would love to meet some travel & tourism folks while she’s in Toronto and she has a discount code good for 15% off your pass. Send an email to chill (at) blizzardinternet.com to learn more!

Keyword Greed is trying to target a bunch of keywords on one page… typically a homepage.  It makes for an unappealing page. Instead, try targeting specific pages on your site, like a laser.

The Small Business Guide to Choosing Keyword Phrases by Carrie Hill

When we look at keyword research, our first goal is to find the keyword that is most relevant to each page we’re optimizing. We don’t need to look too closely at the search volume unless we’re working on a home page or other very important Web page. Powerful pages can support competitive phrases if the site, links, and content support the keywords. (more…)