Effective Internet Marketing

We’ve been speaking for some time in this newsletter about various aspects of travel and tourism internet marketing – from design practices that keep content fresh, to marketing concepts and strategies that bring traffic to a destination website. Something we haven’t really done yet is tie all of these internet marketing strategies and tools together!

WHY is it important to look at all aspects of your website setup and maintenance as marketing tools?

While marketing alone can bring visitors to your website, if the aesthetics, layout and ease of use are lacking, your traffic won’t generate revenue for your hotel, motel, or travel destination. If your hosting company isn’t conscious of load times and server issues, the website won’t load properly and the visitor will leave. If you are using a black-listed hosting provider, the search engines will penalize you. Is your traffic is converting and do any pages need work? Tracking software is critical to analyzing every aspect of promotion.

There really are four main factors to consider in a comprehensive online marketing plan:

• Promotion

A potential visitor types in a search term, like “Napa bed and breakfast.” This is where the journey begins. Your promotion account manager has optimized your site to make sure it performs for the search term. The searcher sees your results in the SERPs, or as a PPC ad, and clicks on it . The searcher may also find information about your property or hospitality business and a link to your website elsewhere on the internet, such as in a lodging directory, on a travel or tourism website, or in the news. Your SEM professional knows how to make sure that people who are looking to buy what you have to sell can find you quickly and easily.

• Hosting

Here that same customer is - on their way to your travel website. Is your hosting company making it available? Are their servers working efficiently? How fast will it load? Are your redirects and 404 pages working properly? Any additional URLs you have must redirect properly, and your code must direct the search engine robots to crawl the site the way you want them to. These are all steps in getting the visitor to your travel website. If they can’t get there quickly and efficiently – and see every page – they’re going to visit your competitor’s lodging website and try again. Once visitors arrive at your website, do the special features, such as a database or blog, work properly, or will they cause visitors to leave in frustration?

Another aspect of effective website hosting is making sure your e-mail is working efficiently and that your domain name stays registered. Additionally, in-house hosting allows designers and SEMs to make changes quickly and correctly. These are just a small part of the services offered by the Blizzard Internet Marketing Hosting Department.

• Design

Let’s say that our same “Napa bed and breakfast” searcher has made it to your site. Is the information they see what they need in order to make an informed decision? Room availability at your hotel should be easily found and understood, and the homepage must draw visitors further into the lodging website. Rooms pages should sell your offerings with great professional photographs and descriptions of each room-type. Prominent specials are critical to making bookings at your travel destination – the impression that a deal is offered is the first step to bringing happy guests to your lodging property. Make sure the visitor can get to that page, and then directly into your booking engine. A booking engine is critical to realizing the full return on your marketing, design & hosting dollar investment. Make sure you choose one that will facilitate revenue tracking

• Tracking

Now that the sale is done, how efficiently it was completed and the analysis of the path the visitor took is critical to making your marketing, hosting, and design work together proficiently. Did the marketing involved in making that sale cost more or less than the sale itself? Overall, what was your return on investment for marketing? Without website tracking software, targeting your marketing and measuring your return on investment is next to impossible. This can leave doubt as to the effectiveness of your overall website revenue. Eliminate that potential for doubt and go for the ROI Tracker.

It’s a lot of work to give all of these four factors all of the attention they need. By bringing every aspect of a professional and converting website under one roof, you can be assured that every department is working together to ensure that your business’ best interests are met. When new programs are conceptualized, each step is researched and coordinated to ensure smooth inception and execution.

For more information about Blizzard Internet Marketing’s services, visit www.blizzardinternet.com, send an e-mail to info@blizzardinternet.com, or call us at 888-840-5893.

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Categories: Featured Articles, SEM, SEO.
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