7 Search Engine Marketing Best Practices for

7 Search Engine Marketing Best
Practices for Travel Sites
Cindy Turrietta
Search Marketing Specialist
cturrietta@sdcvb.org
What is SEM?
Wikipedia
Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet
marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing
their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs)
through the use of search engine optimization, paid
placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
Percent of Traffic by Google Position
Resource: Numbers are based on a sample of 8,253,240 impressions across the Chitika advertising network in May, 2010
http://chitika.com/research/2010/the-value-of-google-result-positioning/
7 Best Practices
1.  Understand the search engines
2.  Do your keyword research
3.  Create a search engine friendly website
4.  Utilize paid advertising
5.  Engage in social media
6.  Build and encourage linking
7.  Claim your local listings
Bonus: Understand your analytics!
Understand the Search Engines
Search Engine’s Guidelines
•  http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769
•  http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html
•  http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=wl_webmasters
(requires Live account)
Do Your Keyword Research
Understand Your Audience & Your Goals
Audiences:
Goals:
•  Local
•  Region awareness
•  Outside of your market
•  Increase visitors to website
•  International
•  Increase hotel bookings
•  Meeting planners
•  Increase ticket sales
•  Travel agents
•  Brand protection
•  Travel writers
•  Connect with consumers
•  ??
•  ??
Keyword Tools
•  Google Keyword Tool (FREE!)
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
•  Wordtracker (free trial)
http://www.wordtracker.com/
•  Keyword Discovery (free trial)
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
•  Wordstream (free)
http://www.wordstream.com/free-keyword-tools
•  Ubersuggest (free)
http://ubersuggest.org/
Create a Search Engine Friendly Website
What does Search Engine Friendly mean?
BuddyDesigns.com
This relates to how well a site has been put together. A
search engine friendly website is one that search engines
can easily read and find all the links on.
•  Technical optimization
•  On-page optimization
•  Links to the site
Technical Considerations
•  Server Status Codes
•  Website Architecture
•  ADA Requirements
•  Images
https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
http://developer.yahoo.com/yslow/
What is SEO?
Wikipedia
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving
the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via
the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search
results.
EnhanceMyMarketing.com
Part art, part science, SEO involves a combination of creating
valuable content, producing well-developed Web pages, and
marketing them in a way that results in a high ranking for each
page within your Website.
On-Page SEO = Keyword Conscious
Quality Content
Microsoft adCenter Labs
Call to Action Research
http://advertising.microsoft.com/WWDocs/User/en-us/ResearchLibrary/ResearchReport/TravelCategoryBPII.pdf
Utilize Paid Search Advertising
What is PPC?
Pay only when your ad is clicked.
•  Paid advertising on search engines results pages (SERPs)
•  Advertising on social networks
•  Rich media banner advertising
•  Behavioral retargeting
•  Contextual advertising
PPC Ads in Google
Paid Inclusion
With paid inclusion, companies used to pay to be indexed.
Today, it’s more like paid advertising with sponsored
listings.
•  Google Hotel Finder
http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/
•  Google Flight Search
http://www.google.com/flights/
Google’s Hotel Finder
Google’s Flight Search
What is Contextual Advertising?
SearchEngineWatch.com
Advertising that is targeted to a Web page based on the
page's content, keywords, or category. Ads in most content
networks are targeted contextually.
Contextual Advertising example
Other Paid Advertising
Engage in Social Media
Social Network Use Comparison of B2Cs,
Large B2Bs and SM B2Bs
Source left chart: MarketingProfs Fall 2009 Survey Methodology: Online survey of 5,140 MarketingProfs members Chart Base: 681 B2Cs;
805 SMBs; 482 large businesses; no overlap among groups
Source right chart: http://www.lithium.com/pdfs/whitepapers/MarketingProfs-2012-State-of-Social-Media-Marketing-v5OS6ShA.pdf
Build and Encourage Links
Internal and External Links
•  Internally link pages on your site to other relevant pages
•  Externally encourage others to link to your site
Quality Outweighs Quantity
•  Immediate effect on traffic, trust & rankings
•  Long-term approach does not put you at risk
•  It’s does not take too many Quality links to make a big
impact
Claim Your Local Listings
Local Listings example
Tool: Yext.com
See who’s saying what about your locations & where you
need to develop profiles
Review & Understand Analytics/Stats
Google Analytics Dashboard
Attribution
A channel can play three roles in a conversion path:
•  Last Interaction is the referral that immediately precedes the
conversion.
•  Assist Interaction is any referral that is on the conversion
path, but is not the last interaction.
•  First Interaction is the first referral on the conversion path; it’s
a kind of assist interaction.
Bottom Line
•  Keyphrases are the Foundation and
keyword selection is more important than
ever with a need for long-tail keywords
•  Content is King and will help attract links
•  Links are the King’s Ransom
•  Internal Links help tie it all together
•  External Links help establish expertness
& authority
Trusted Resources
Search Day
http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday
Search Engine Land
http://searchengineland.com/
Bruce Clay, Inc.
http://www.bruceclay.com/web_newsletter.htm
ClickZ Newsletters
http://www.clickz.com/subscribe
Marketing Experiments
http://www.marketingexperiments.com/create-your-marketingexperiments-account.html
Marketing Sherpa
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/newsletters.html
7 Search Engine Marketing Best
Practices for Travel Sites
Cindy Turrietta
Search Marketing Specialist
cturrietta@sdcvb.org