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PROFESSIONAL
SEO fOr TravEl & HOSpiTaliTy induSTry
Search Engine Optimisation or
SEO is essential for the market-
ing of one’s travel business or
destination. learn some smart
tips how to attract the search-
ers to your website.
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
seo Is a JouRney, Over the years, I've worked with many clients
of all sizes and shapes. Many have been busi-
nesses that need help with their internet pres-
ence and ongoing internet strategy.
noT a desTInaTIon when the discussion turns to SEO, one of the
most common misperceptions many clients
have is that SEO is a destination; that you can
do a few things and you'll reach the pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow.
This is embodied in questions that might be
familiar to you:
"How long will it take to optimize my site?"
"How much would you charge to get me a
top 10 ranking on google?"
"can you help me revise my copy with key-
words for SEO?"
Inevitably, I have to break the bad news to
the client: SEO isn't that simple.
Sure there are SEO-related tasks that, for
smaller clients, are usually one-off projects,
from creating a good information architecture
to developing optimal link structures to mak-
ing sure that page markup is search engine
friendly. But this is the easy stuff and it's just
the beginning.
unfortunately, I've come face to face the
reality that there are a lot of people out there
who don't know this. And frankly, that's often
because the people they hire to help them
with SEO aren't telling them.
I've worked on a number of consulting proj-
ects so far this year in which the client has
retained the services of an 'SEO person'. Even
though I don't provide SEO services to clients
these days, I like talking SEO because I have
been doing it for years with my own websites.
Here are just a few of the things that some
of my recent clients have been led to believe:
March, 2012 — 16 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
“copy should be written specifically for SEO.” Invariably, few of the clients I've dealt with
“Including a list of keywords in page footer lately who have retained the services of SEO
text is very important.” consultants had been told that SEO was an
“Building a network of sites that all link to ongoing process and that, outside of the struc-
each other can help boost your SERPs.” tural components of SEO a good content man-
agement system and webmaster can easily
“Adding a blog to your site will boost your take care of, there really is no 'destination'.
ranking.”
Instead, it's the journey – producing valuable,
“Splogging is a great way to create up lots of authoritative information and getting other sites
pages for google to index.” with authority to link to it – that makes all the
Most of this is hogwash. copy should be writ- difference when it comes to SEO. unfortunately,
ten for humans. Adding a list of keywords in if what I've seen lately is any indication, there
the footer of each page is not going to work are still a lot of hit-and-run, self-proclaimed SEO
SEO wonders. Setting up a network of sites consultants out there selling a one-way trip to a
solely for SEO purposes is a waste of time and place called SEO disappointment.
money. while google loves blogs, it's about the
content, not the mere presence of a blog. And By Patricio Robles (Patricio Robles is a tech reporter
splogging is far more likely to get you removed at Econsultancy)
from google's index than it is to get you worth- Source:
while SERPs.
March, 2012 — 17 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
TIps foR suCCessful VIdeo seo
In TRaVel and TouRIsM IndusTRy
In search engine marketing, travel business is SEO strategy for travel and hospitality busi- broadcast on the webpage with the video.
a well known category which is vast and highly nesses.
lengTh
diversified. There is also enormous competi- In case you decide to promote your travel
tion in online marketing ranging from bookings or destination services by yourself, Tourism video clips should be 3-5 min. long. One of
of flights to hotel reservations. It is estimated Review video SEO experts prepared a number the worst things that you could do is to cre-
that over 70% of all flights are booked online. of useful tips to be successful in using video ate a long video as the majority of users watch
As a result, to be successful in promoting spot(s) for your travel services or destination videos about 3 minutes or less. If you do have a
travel, tourism, and hospitality websites online promotion. spot that is longer than 5 min- utes
marketers should be increasingly inventive and in length, try to split it up
creative. It is quite surprising though that such ConTenT into shorter videos and
well know online marketing tools as video SEO Build relevant, unique, informative video make sure to tag those
are greatly overlooked. clips – video clips are remarkable when they correspondingly. This will
Online video should be the top marketing present step by step information and express help increase the proba-
priority for travel and tourism industry in 2012. features about subjects that are practical and bility of viewers watching
video SEO enables you to take advantage of important. Do not make video clips that are your video without get-
the incredible opportunities that online video irrelevant or offer little to do with your service, ting bored. In addition, it
content can deliver to your brand and busi- product, or brand. These will just cause disori- will encourage the poten-
ness. video SEO enables you to take advantage entation with your potential customers. tial customers to
of the unbelievable opportunities that internet look for more
suRRoundIngs content by
video content can bring to your travel brand To achieve good rank-
and services. your com-
ings of your video, you evi- pany.
SEO experts agree that visual presentations dently will need to provide
such as movies or videos are more efficient for the search engines with writ-
memory retention than the written content. ten content that is highly rel-
This means that video can help people bear evant for them to index and rank
in mind your brand and unique travel services your website for. consequently, it
much more effectively than traditional written is advantageous to surround your
word. video content with highly relevant
Tourism Review video SEO team can give you textual content (on-page) as well as
a decisive edge over your competitors. Much related hyper links, related informa-
higher exposure, better website ranking, addi- tion, etc… One remarkable approach
tional targeted traffic and superior ROI could to accomplish this is to insert a text tran-
be approached by correct application of video script or external captions as text that you
March, 2012 — 18 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
ThuMBnaIls Also try using a catchy or distinctive title that
A video thumbnail is what users notice first will not only provide attention to your video
when they make their choice as to whether or clip but convey your theme, product, or brand.
not to view your video. video search engines Tags – tag your videos with key phrases that
and video sharing websites use different tech- are reflective of the content.
niques to grab and show the thumb- sITeMaps
nail for your video. A number of
engines use the first frame of Sitemaps – for video clip
the video clip whilst others, that is hosted on your own
like youTube, will often internet site use a video
take the thumbnail from sitemap. It will help
the middle part of your to filter page rank as
video. Experiment well as direct search
with both of these engines where to
websites to make sure index your video con-
that the thumbnail tent. use appropriate
that they show is the key phrases within
best one that you want the anchor text of all
the users to notice and links to the video clips
that will get users atten- that are featured in your
tion, thus encouraging video sitemap.
them to view your video Rss oR MRss
clip. create and submit your video
MeTa daTa RSS or MRSS. Also upload your
Descriptive Meta Data – use relevant key video to video Sharing Sites. for example,
phrases in your metadata to optimize your upload a couple of videos to portals like you-
video clip. Title – make sure that you utilize Tube and provide hyper links back to related
the relevant key phrases in your title as this is content and other video clips on your web site.
likely the first thing that the search engines will
use to classify your video. Make sure that you Source:
insert the search term “video” to your title, www.tourism-review.com
description, meta data, etc. office@tourism-review.com
March, 2012 — 19 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
seo foR TRaVel weBsITes –
undeRsTandIng aCRonyMs
Understand SERP’s, SEO, PR and all the rest of seRp – seaRCh engIne ResulTs page oR
the acronyms that drive you crazy as you try to seaRCh engIne ResulTs posITIon
reach the top of the search engine results. The position in which a webpage is displayed
I know you are still busy with the task of writ- in search engine results, excluding any paid
ing a new website article, so today is a small listings. your goal is a high SERP or a 1st page
lesson on all the crazy acronyms that show SERP.
up when you start to learn about getting high pfI – pay foR InClusIon
rankings.
PfI is a listing within a Search Engine or Direc-
se – seaRCh engIne tory that must be paid for. The yahoo! directory
A program that retrieves documents based is one of the most prominent PfI directories.
on the criteria you request. for my blog, that ffa – fRee foR all
generally refers to the big 3 – google, yahoo!
and bing. google is the heavyweight, and Add your site for free to a directory. Almost
depending where you are in the world, yahoo! always automated and anyone can link. unless
and bing are a distant 2nd or 3rd with less than you are targeting a specific niche directory it is
20% saturation combined. a waste of time.
seM – seaRCh engIne MaRkeTIng Of course, this really is just the tip of the ice-
seo – seaRCh engIne opTIMIsaTIon oR berg, but these are the most popular of the
The act of promoting or marketing a website
seaRCh engIne opTIMIzaTIon to achieve organic 1st page results in response SE acronyms. now, get back to writing that
The art and science of creating and marketing to a searches query. article.
a website to achieve organic 1st page results in
response to a searches query. An example of pR – page Rank
this is using Keywords in visible Text for Higher google’s link popularity algorithm used to Source:
Rankings. rank the popularity of any given webpage.
March, 2012 — 20 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
TRaVel seo – how To TaRgeT
seaRCheRs aT The RIghT sTage
of The BuyIng CyCle
Having been involved in a wide range of travel
SEO projects during the last 12 months, I
thought it would be a good time to write about
the buying cycle of searches when purchasing
a holiday online.
I recently took a look at the most important
aspects of travel PPc and below I have listed
how we interpret the typical search behavior
of online travel customers when looking to
purchase a holiday online:
Get Holiday Ideas – At the initial stage the
travel consumer has a reasonable idea about
the type of holiday they are looking to go on,
but will still be looking for inspiration. They will
go straight to a search engine to find further
information about the destinations they can
visit to meet this requirement. They will try
to identify the holiday via a series of searches
such as “summer holiday 2012”, “beach
holiday”, narrowing down towards the loca-
tion with searches such as “beach holiday in
Europe” etc.
Destination Research – The type of results
users will be looking for at these stage are
generally travel guides; they have a budget in
mind but the most important goal is to identify
the location. users will continue by perform-
ing informational searches such as “climate in
greece”, “hurricane season in the caribbean”,
March, 2012 — 21 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
“best Mediterranean beach holidays in Sep- Eventually browsing to the correct listings and
tember”. hopefully finding the price hasn’t shot up con-
Confirm Location – In order to find a suitable siderably!
destination which meets the user’s needs they Purchase – They’ve reassured themselves
will perform queries such as “summer holiday (several times) this is the holiday package they
in Italy”, “weekend in South of france”, “self- want to purchase and they proceed to com-
catering holiday in Tenerife” or “all-inclusive plete the transaction either online or over the
honeymoon to the Maldives”. Once compar- phone.
ing multiple destinations a decision is made to After Sales – The buying cycle will continue
confirm the destination. next they are likely to following the sale with customer service and
research deeper into the more specific loca- support involved, hopefully with the oppor-
tions via various research and long-tail queries tunity for repeat business in the future. This
such as “beach holidays in the South of france”, means it’s important to ensure you dominate
“best location in the french Riviera”, “hotels in all brand queries, both paid and organic. Mak-
nice”, “where to stay in Monaco” etc. ing sure that when potential customers are
Compare Packages & Transport Options – searching for your brand they only find you and
The next stage is to identify the preferred the glowing reviews and PR you want them to,
mode of transport, this will include various without a competitor in sight!
comparisons for flights, trains or driving. users How does this affect your SEO strategy? By
will look for a range of travel related queries now you should have a clearer understanding
such as “cheap flights to nice” and “Eurostar to add this to a shopping basket and order like
you would with any other e-commerce web- of searcher’s needs and have a good idea of
nice” as well as considering holiday packages which stage of the buying cycle they are at for
which include transport. These are still mainly site? no, probably not. Some travel websites
you may have to enquire to confirm pricing each specific search. But which type of users
research based queries, but the user now has do you want to capture and at what stage?
a clear idea about where, when and how they details and then book over the phone, others
want to go on holiday. you can check for availability and book there Identify Your Audience and Goals – frstly
and then. But instead they’ll probably think it you must consider the market and type of users
Select Hotel – Ok, they’ve found a cheap over one last time, just to make sure.
flight to nice, which is the best travel option you are looking to attract to the site, google
Revisit Website to Book – Ok, they’ve thought provides the following travel search marketing
so far, now time to find a hotel which matches it through, decided it’s time to get away from
up with this or perhaps a holiday package tips to consider:
the uK’s glorious grey summer skies, booked what is the end objective for your business –
which combines both at a cheaper rate. Back the dates off work and got their credit card
off to google searching for “hotels in nice” transactions, branding, lead generation? your
ready, great! So back to find the holiday pre- approach may differ based on the decided out-
this time. They will scan for the best option to viously selected. If they’re clever this would
find the most suitable hotel features/location come.
be saved as a bookmark, the problem is many
and at the most reasonable price. Again more people won’t have remembered to have done Determine the success metric in advance.
research, checking out the hotel review web- this and even if they did there’s a good chance what cost per transaction is acceptable? what
sites. it’s a dynamic uRl which may no longer work. is your target gross/net ROI?
Decision Time – Once they’ve read the So instead you perform a brand query “Expe- Have a clearly defined target market or user
reviews and found the perfect holiday, will they dia” or “Expedia holidays to nice”, for example. in mind. Are you primarily interested in attract-
March, 2012 — 22 —
PROFESSIONAL s eo f or Tr a v e l & h os pi t a l i t y Indus t r y
ing leisure or business travelers and/or dis- recommend targeting more specific queries in many cases for an online holiday sale to be
count, mid-scale, or luxury travelers? as this is more likely to generate targeted vis- completed and users will revisit the website by
Research Your Keywords – google’s research its from users who have a clearer idea about multiple channels and keyword searches, this
showed that catching the user at an early stage what they are looking for. for example, some- means you need to test and track user activ-
of a buying cycle can still result in a sale 40% one searching for a “long-weekend city break ity over a longer period of time to ensure that
of the time. This is very interesting and creates in new york” is more likely to complete a sale you value the importance of a traffic source or
a strong argument for capturing users early than a user performing an informational query keyword leading to a sale.
into their search for a holiday. However the such as “places to visit in new york”. At this Now You Are Ready to Begin Your SEO Cam-
main difference between targeting keywords stage the user is also likely to be narrowing paign… In summary, to find the best keywords
for paid, as opposed to organic search, is the down the number of websites they are looking you need to consider both the conversion
volume of keywords you can target. PPc allows to shortlist for completing a sale, so the com- rates and search volumes in order to estimate
you to have flexibility over the keywords which petition should be fewer than a more generic the overall value of referred converted sales.
generate traffic and is very much about refin- search. Search engine optimisation is a long-term pro-
ing keyword selection and continually chang- However, if you have a strong website which cess, so the effort put into evaluating the qual-
ing key targets based upon performance and can rank highly for more competitive and pop- ity and cost-effectiveness of keywords via paid
seasonality. ular search queries it may be worth targeting search is incredibly important to ensure you’re
with SEO you’re unlikely to get that luxury and information keyword phrases, a lower conver- targeting the most valuable traffic sources as a
have little margin for error when selecting key- sion rate is likely but this may be outweighed business.
words with high-conversion potential. I would by the increased search volume. you should Once the top-keywords have been identified,
highly recommend using the pay-per-click data also consider the search volumes and conver- then it’s time to optimise and push towards
you have collected to help identify the top con- sion rates of plural and singular versions of achieving the high search rankings. Then you
verting keywords. After all if six months after keywords before selecting which to target. can take a holiday of your own to sit back and
optimising for “when to go on holiday to can- you must also remember all travel websites relax, whilst enjoying the 56% clickthrough
cun” you finally generate enough clickthrough are different and will not have the same con- rates which are only possible via the top
data to realise this has a 0.1% conversion rate, version rates, for example, “all-inclusive honey- organic listings!
it’s then very difficult to re-adjust and target moons” may be a high-converting keyword for
“luxury holidays in cancun Mexico” instead. a honeymoon specialist but not so successful By Kevin Gibbons (Kevin Gibbons is Founder/Director
Test, Test and Test Again – Despite targeting for a general website offering the same pack- of Strategy at SEOptimise)
the early stages of the buying cycle proving to age. while an average e-commerce transac- Source:
be more successful than expected, I would still tion will take a few days, it can take 2-3 months
March, 2012 — 23 —
