LATEST
- Backlinks – again
- Stealing photographs – not only uncool, illegal
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- You think it won’t happen to you?
- Unbelievable – typo extraordinaire
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- Relax You’re Here – Lauderdale-By-The-Sea
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- You trust your mechanic, don’t you?
- Do PR and social media overlap?
- Do you have online advertorials?
- Your social media calendar
- Why is maintenance such a problem for you?
- What are you curating and why?
- Launching your new website
- If you’re going to write online, it’s a good idea to be an online writer
- Yes, search engines do care about spelling and grammar
- ‘Excuse the spelling and grammar….’
- Content marketing is more than just ‘writing stuff’
- Are backlinks now illegal?
- Content marketing isn’t for my company
- Making the most of the news
- Then listen to Google
- Do you study Google trends?
- A simple editorial calendar – so easy
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- Protecting your online writing
- Write for your audience
- Internet transparency
- Matt Cutts talks about social media & design
- The day a PR company ruined a company’s internet presence
- Anatomy of an article
- Why you shouldn’t need the disavow tool
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- Portrait of the Boulevard 1
- What is Tastes Magazine?
- From the Beach to the Boulevard – brand new book
- What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas
- Oh, so it’s the fault of mobile photography
- Even a cellphone camera…
Your hotel or destination website
Recently a survey was done to determine what vacation destinations and topics people were searching for using search engines. Guess what was the top search? Disney. Yep. Second was Las Vegas. The third result was ‘other Florida locations’ which I assume meant that Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers and everywhere else was lumped in together.
As the second highest result had 6.3% of the total searches, that probably means that the ‘other Florida locations’ had well under 1%.
The good news is that the researchers studied searches made in the first two months of the year and found that 2.4 billion travel-related searches were made suring that period. That’s a lot of search requests. It’s also interesting to note that 14.6% of searches were for destinations overseas. (Literally – this figure includes Hawaii, Alaska, Mexico and the Caribbean). What’s more 13.3% of searches contained a word that suggested that the searcher was looking for deals – words such as ‘bargain’, ‘coupon’ or ‘discount’. The researches only studied results from Google.
Apart from the destinations, what were searchers actively looking for? Transportation – flights, car rentals and so on – was the most popular. Then came lodgings, followed by the specific destinations mentioned about. Does this suggest that people already knew where they wanted to go but had to search for how to get there? Next came cruises, attractions and travel packages. Interestingly,the least popular click-through rate was to bookings sites such as Expedia.
Why am I boring you with this information?
Because that information gives you some valuable clues about the information you should have on your website. I often say that search engine optimization is a bit like baking a cake. Every little ingredient has a purpose. Check that your site has:
Do you know how long it would take to effect those changes on your site? Under an hour, I would think. If you have a website you can edit yourself, so much the better. If not, your webmaster will be experienced in writing keyword-rich copy. If it brings you just a little added business annually, it’s an hour well spent.