Category Archives: Website SEO

GDPR. No, it’s not just another buzzword that’s afloat on the internet. Everyone with a website needs to pay attention!

What is GDPR?

GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and it goes into effect internationally on the 25th of May 2018. GDPR is an updated version of the Data Protection Directive that has been in effect since 1995. In the simplest terms, it boils down to protecting the rights of people who give you their personal data.

What personal data you may be collecting?

If you have Google Analytics, videos played on your site from YouTube, an e-commerce function that collects billing information and other features that load automatically on your site via “cookies” then you are collecting personal data.

GDPR does not only affect your business...

In tourism, we have the luxury of selling “fun.” Total piece of cake, right? No need for super detailed marketing, because who in the world doesn’t like fun?!

While it seems simple in theory, tour and hospitality marketing takes a great deal of planning and strategy. There’s a lot of competition, a ton of noise in targeted publications, and countless visitor profile types to keep track of.

So where does one start? 

Begin with Data

To break through and create an action (i.e. sales), you’ll need to set goals for messaging. The types of goals depend largely on what you already have going for your brand…. But more importantly, where you can improve.

Ask yourself, what is your biggest traveler market segment? Where do they come from? Do they book on mobile or desktop? How...

Eye-Tracking Study Confirms Importance of PPC and SEO Combination

Over the last few years, Google’s search display has evolved substantially – and user behavior is following suit. In 2005, Meditative researchers said that heat map studies indicate user interest is all about the the “Golden Triangle”. By 2014, the model has shifted to the “elongated F”. 

The “Golden Triangle” from Meditative’s Eye-tracking study                        The “Elongated F” became the new norm for 2014

Only three years after the release of the latest heat map, we now face another great change. Google evolved the search results yet again by adding the business listing to brand name hotel searches. Underneath that are results from a meta search tool to show prices, reviews and other relevant...

Google has officially announced that they’ve rolled out the penalty that affects pages where content is not easily accessible to the user on mobile. The heads up on this has been on the webmaster blog since August 23, 2016.

The penalty only impacts intrusive interstitial that appear right after tapping the mobile search result. It does not impact pages that come up later. The search engine giant also stresses on the fact that this new signal is just one of hundreds that are used in ranking.

Understanding What Intrusive Interstitials Are

In the blog post, the search engine giant has given three good examples of interstitials that they consider intrusive. The following techniques make the content less accessible to mobile users and will therefore be affected:

• A popup...

6 Key Steps to Mastering Mobile Phone Video

Incorporating video into your digital marketing is a powerful way to increase bookings. While we strongly recommend hiring a professional to craft your main website/brand video, you can easily produce ongoing content for your tourism business with your mobile phone camera in 6 steps.

•    According to Google, 45% of leisure travelers booked instantly after watching a video of the travel activity. 
•    72% of business travelers and 74% of affluent travelers booked upon watching a video (Google)
•    62% of travelers want to watch tourism videos, including tours, sightseeing, cruises, hotel rooms, properties and airlines. (Google)

Holding the cell phone

•    Put the cell phone on a flat surface if possible
•    OR brace your...

Can you believe that more than half the year has already gone by? With only 5 months left in 2016, it’s time to ask yourself if you’ve done everything you can to market your travel website to the right audience. If not, now is the time to try these 5 sure fire strategies to boost your website performance:

Optimize your images

The number one selling feature of any travel-related website is photos. Some may say an image-heavy website is bad for SEO. We beg to differ. Images can be optimized with keywords using the alt tags and with proper naming conventions. These are also crawled by Google Bots and are displayed in both the Image Search results and the Universal results page. As a pro tip: submit an image sitemap in your Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) to get...