Google and Compete hosted a webinar on May 19th titled: Travel Shopping Summer 2009 that was chock-full of timely data about the state of summer travel online.

Notabably:

• Online Traveling is stabilizing and even rebounding from Q4
• Consumers, no surprise, are seaking deals, staying closer to home  and more likely to revisit a destination.
• Traveler spends 2.6 weeks researching and the booking window is 15.5 weeks.  Compared to last year, the research phase is a day longer and the booking window is two days shorter… not a big difference!
• 30% of travel buyers spend less than a week researching, 20% take two weeks, 50% three weeks and above.

Bad news for print and traditional advertising:

Slide 25 was interesting… it broke down the travel consumer into a 7 phase decision making process:

• Thinking about taking a trip
• Thinking about type of trip to take
• Choosing a Destination
• Looking for Activities ideas for destination
• Deciding on accommodations& transport for destination
• Shopping for promos or discounts
• Booking a trip

And then asked which phase would the consumer use search for:

These are only a few pieces of information from a pretty informative set of slides and narritive: Listen to the whole webinar to learn more about this topic.

Check out Blizzard Internet Marketing out on the web.  The following channels offer you ways to see what we are up to and to communicate with us directly:

We have been updating our Blizzard Internet Facebook page. Mostly with stuff going on around the office, especially the people at blizzard.  Facebook is where we want to post more casually about what we are up to.

You can find Blizzard on twitter at #blizzInternet.  We have a few folks here at Blizzard twittering and haven’t really been making the most of our corporate twitter

Blizzard is a Linkedin fan… it is the best professional networking site and useful tool for stayingin touch with professional contacts.

We use flickr for screenshots of our customers and a way to share images we use. We also upload some company pics there.

Communitywalk is a map to our office.  In July we are moving offices to our new building!

Curiously, except for Twitter, all of these show up in the top 20 when you search for “Blizzard Internet” in Google.  Setting up accounts in places like these have many benefits (and costs in human resources)… and certainly one benefit is a deeper presence in searches, especially for your business name.

This is guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design service provider based in UK.  It is timely for us here at Blizzard because we have been actively working to redesign our logo:

Clicking on this link is an indication that you are doubtful of your logo. Don’t fret! Time and again, many organizations have realized that their logos have become stale and out dated.  They realize that a logo is the foundation for any business and if there is something wrong with the foundation, disastrous could be the consequences. We all have different tastes and preferences for designs, colors, flavors and so forth. So, naturally when it comes to selecting a logo, business owners would choose the ones which suit their personal tastes. I see nothing wrong with that, in fact, to an extent I believe that following this route results in logo designs, which are truly a representation of their moods, people, and culture of their company.

Hmm! Now that’s quite understandable, however there are still, certain guidelines and criteria that every logo design should comply to. What are those guidelines, we’ll tell you because we don’t want your logo to fall into the category of logos that suck! If your logo already does not comply with these guidelines, you can consider a redesign. Your logo:

1. Should be describable
2. Should be memorable
3. Should be scalable
4. Should depict your company
5. Should be unique

Your Logo sucks if:

Business owners can analyze if their logos fall under the category of bad logos.

It is not describable

You need to ask yourself whether your logo is describable or is it ambiguous. Is it communicating any tangible brand attribute or not? Many companies struggle in describing their logos and their connection with the company’s goals and objectives due to a weak or vague logo that portrays a different image than what the company is actually about. In this case, no slogan line, any suggestive image, or color element help much.

It is not logo memorable Read the rest of this entry »

We are please to announce a 4 - session All About Google Webinar Series.  This is a free webinar…but you have to attend it to see it.  Copies will only be made available to people who sign up.  Here is the schedule

All About Google: Google and its Many Algorithms

Spend an hour learning how Google works.  The focus of this session is Vertical Search… or how Google delivers results from several important algorithms: Organic, PPC, Local, Video, News, etc..

June 10th, 2009 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM MDT

All About Google II: Local Search

A webinar designed for hospitality marketers with a beginner to intermediate  knowledge of online marketing.  Focus on this session is Local search. Local search is an important part of Google that can have a significant impact on your search traffic.

June 17th, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT

All About Google III: Keyword Research

Learn how to research keywords for Google.  Several top tools will be demonstrated.  Strategies will be shared for finding the best keywords and organizing them for easy implementation.

June 25, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT

All About Google IV: How to Track your Search Engine Rankings

Tracking your results in Google is a tricky thing. There are many tools to help make it easier to do.  But, beware, there are many caveats as well. Learn how to track your search results (and your competitors) more effectively.

July 8, 2009 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM MDT

There are several niche keyword research tools of interest to the tourism marketing strategist. These keyword research tools focus on finding demographics like age, gender, location of searches.

At our recent Blizzard University: All About Google, there were several tourism attendees from Denver and Aspen.  One of the topics was focusing your design on your demographic.  A good tool to see what your demographics might be is the the MSN Adcenter Labs Keyword Forecast Tool. It shows age and gender demographic trends.

Enter your keywords:

See how they distribute by Age:

See how they distribute by Gender:

Another question revolved around determining international and Geographic based search terms.  Two tools to consider are:

Google Insights To Search lets you strain your data with several parameters:

• The Location of the Searcher
• The Keyword Phrase used
• The Timeframe
• By Category

Brian Lence from Vacationsinc.com in Winter Park suggested  the Google Global Firefox Extension which lets you simulate searches in contry specific versions of Google.  This tool is worth exploring if you are targeting international visitors.

Other Keyword Research Posts:

Keyword Research: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Keyword Research Tool: SEMRush

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian

Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a favorite tool for sure — it is free and powerful enough for many purposes.  It is the first (and only) keyword research tool that many people use who don’t want to pony up and pay for an even more powerful tool.

It is easy and fast. Here is an example I performed for Catalina Vacations which offers vacation rentals on Catalina Island:

Check out the SEMRush tool for awesome keyword insights based on phrases your competitors are using succesfully.

Keyword Research Tool: Demographic Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian

After doing the “obvious” keyword research using a tool like KeywordDiscovery, I like to get some out of the box ideas using SEMRush.  SEMRush will show you the keyword phrases your competitors are ranking for, and, undoubtedly will reveal some phrases that you hadn’t even though of.

As an example, Hilton Head Vacations and Golf Rentals has several formidable competitors.  I use SEMRush to see who their competitors are.  I enter their domain name:

Then, I look down to their organic competitors:

Then, I select a competitor and look for some good keywords I didn’t consider in my previous search… here is an example:

SEMRush costs $99 for six months… the free version only gives the top 10 results, which probably won’t be enough for the purposes of finding some new and good keywod phrases.

Read an earlier article about using SEMRush to track your search engine rankings.

Other Articles about keyword research:

Keyword Research: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

Keyword Research Tool: Demographic Research Tools

Keyword Research Tools: KeywordDiscovery by Trellian