SEO Secrets for Travel, Tourism & Hospitality » Travel SEO http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog Travel SEO as hospitality internet marketing for hotels & tourism Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:32:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 This Blog Launches: SEOReview http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/30/this-blog-launches-seoreview/ http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/30/this-blog-launches-seoreview/#comments Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:43:39 +0000 M. Brand http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/?p=250 Who is ready for a free review on the SEO you have been doing (or need to be doing) for your website?

I will personally check your website on a few points to make sure you are on the right way to achieving high rankings on important keywords.

I will be reviewing the following factors:

  • Is your website indexed well by search engines?
  • Is your website optimized for keywords?
  • Does your website have enough quality content?
  • Is your website popular enough in the eyes of a search engine?
  • More!

Note: Only websites/blogs related to Travel, Tourism or Hospitality will be reviewed.

I will review 1 website per week and report about it in my blog. Getting a review also means getting a link to your website from this high quality blog ;-)

Send an e-mail to: SEOsecretsTravel@gmail.com with as subject: SEOReview. Send me your name, website URL and please tell me if there’s something particular you want to know more about (Link building, optimizing for keywords, creating content, etc.). If not, that’s fine too.

Get your chance for a free review! Act now. E-mail me!

For now I will only write blogs and record audio for each review. Later on I will be recording video and posting it on the famous video sites as well.

]]> http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/30/this-blog-launches-seoreview/feed/ 2 Audio Interview IconTourism: 5 SEO Tips http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/20/interview-icontourism-5-seo-tips-tourism-companies/ http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/20/interview-icontourism-5-seo-tips-tourism-companies/#comments Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:20:08 +0000 M. Brand http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/?p=214 Manny Papadoulis of IconTourism (Perth, Australia) invited me to do an interview with him for one of his live audio sessions (which afterwards are saved as podcasts).

Of course I took on this amazing opportunity to speak to many tourism companies. After making an introduction to what SEO really is, I gave away 5 free of my most important tips for anybody to use.

Tune in here to listen to “5 SEO Tips for Tourism Companies”:

Author insert a music with WS Audio Player
(Download) this music.

Source: http://instantteleseminar.com/?eventid=7939983

]]> http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/20/interview-icontourism-5-seo-tips-tourism-companies/feed/ 3 The SEO Basics of Hotel Marketing http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/06/the-seo-basics-of-hotel-marketing/ http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/06/the-seo-basics-of-hotel-marketing/#comments Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:21:01 +0000 M. Brand http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/?p=147 Do you work for a hotel or resort and want to set the best foundation for your SEO efforts? Follow these steps!

In each hotel marketing plan there is a chapter for SEO nowadays. Which is good news. But do hotels know how to set the right foundation for SEO? Only then can amazing results be achieved.

Let’s walk through this step-by-step summary of everything you can do to make sure your SEO efforts can take off.

#1 Creative Keyword Research

Doing high-quality keyword research is the first part of successful SEO. We all know this. But how do you really spot opportunities? Here are some tips:

  • Use the Google Keyword Tool.
  • Do not focus a lot on competitive keywords with high search volume. Everybody is already optimizing for this.
  • Search for keywords that have decent search volume (more than 500 per month) and where the Google AdWords competition bar (green) is not so full. Low competition in AdWords usually means low competition for SEO too.
  • Try to find keywords such as “best time to visit X”, “things to do in X”, where “X” is a city or country.

#2 Have a SEO-Friendly Website

How can some webdesigners still build websites in frames, javascript/AJAX or flash (without HTML version added)? You might not have a clue what this is about, as it is very technical and/or geeky. I was discussing some website techniques that work against you. Your webdesigner knows about this!

Have a look at the following:

  • A SEO-friendly website consists out of plain and clean HTML. Discuss it with your webdesigner.
  • Build your website in Wordpress or add Wordpress for a blog. Best thing you can do!
  • Add a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. If you use Wordpress install the plugin “XML-Sitemap” so it will be updated automatically for each new page you add in Wordpress. Otherwise, use www.xml-sitemaps.com to create static sitemaps.

#3 Use Keywords in Informative Articles & Webpages

After you have done in-depth research on your keywords, create pages around them. For example, for me an important keyword to get high rankings on is “hotel marketing” and “travel seo”. Look at this website and see where these words appear.

I know this is very basic SEO, but I also want this post to be valuable for beginners.

Add your keywords to:

  • <title>
  • <meta name=description>
  • <h1>
  • body text

If you use Wordpress this will happen automatically. Download and install Wordpress! It’s free. Also install the plugins “All in One SEO”, “SEO Smart Links” and “Link Juice Keeper”.

#4 Quality Link Building

If you write quality content and promote it you will get linked automatically. Promote your blog and informative articles by using Facebook, Twitter, guestblogging, forums, social networks (ning.com) and blog commenting (not just for link building but for talking to people who can start linking to you if you build a relationship with them).

Before you automatically get linked you need to start with some basic link building methods. Use my methods in the following posts to do quality link building:

Go! Go! Go!

Have questions? Ask for free and fast advice in the comments!

]]> http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/06/06/the-seo-basics-of-hotel-marketing/feed/ 30 Quick Start Guide for Travel Linkbuilding http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/05/19/quick-start-guide-for-travel-linkbuilding/ http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/05/19/quick-start-guide-for-travel-linkbuilding/#comments Tue, 19 May 2009 21:04:03 +0000 M. Brand http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/?p=114 Getting started with linkbuilding for travel websites can be tough. Many people’s  first thoughts are “Where do I start and how should I do it?”. Let me answer that question for you.

#1 Submit your website to travel directories

Go to the following websites and submit your travel site:

#2 Submit your website to forums

Visite these forums and post some threads and replies related to your keywords. Use your keywords to link to your website. These forums hand you the ability to link your text in the textbox.

#3 Submit your website to social networks

Ning.com makes it possible for you to submit your own content and create your own profile with links to your website. Just like with forums, you can decide which text will actually link to your website.

#4 Submit your website to blogs in the comments

You can comment on travel blogs related to your keywords. I will not list any websites here, but I will tell you how to find them. We are going to use Google for this.

Use the search query in Google and change YOUR_KEYWORD to your city or country. Open the search query in Google. Then comment at the bottom of the pages. Comment on at least 5-10 related blogs.

#5 Answer related questions on Q&A sites

Go to the following websites, search for people asking questions related to your city or country and answer them with good information.

Want to find more of these websites? Read the previous post Travel Linkbuilding with Google Search.

]]> http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/05/19/quick-start-guide-for-travel-linkbuilding/feed/ 31 Travel Linkbuilding with Google Search http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/05/16/travel-linkbuilding-with-google-search/ http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/2009/05/16/travel-linkbuilding-with-google-search/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 13:41:08 +0000 M. Brand http://www.seosecretstravel.com/blog/?p=81 Are you up for finding some great tips that will get you started with quality linkbuilding? Let’s get started!

If you follow my tips on Twitter regularly, you might have seen some of my Google search queries. They give you access to websites that are related to your keywords. And of course, they are all dofollow (meaning: search engines will “see” the links and are thus not blocked by webmasters).

Here are my most powerful search queries to find websites to post your links to, related to your keywords.

After clicking the links, make sure you change “YOUR_KEYWORD” in the Google search bar! Change it to your destination or country.

Find dofollow blogs

Average impact
Fast turnaround time

KeywordLuv enabled blogs
HTML allowed in comments (not always dofollow)

Find dofollow classifieds

Small impact
Average turnaround time

Using Noah classifieds software

Find dofollow forums

Average impact
Average turnaround time

PHP BB powered forums

Find link directories (not always dofollow)

Average impact
Fast turnaround time

Add URL + Your Keyword

Find dofollow social networks

High impact
Average turnaround time

Ning.com social networks

Dofollow?

Want to find out if websites enable dofollow? Install SeoQuake for Mozilla Firefox. Edit the settings to set a strikethrough on nofollow.

Do you know some more interesting search queries?

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