Imagine your hotel, tourism or service business being featured on Travel Weekly, Forbes Magazine, Huffington Post, CNN and INC. Would that make a difference? You bet it would! These sites get huge amounts of traffic and are high authority. Travelers will be impressed that your brand is there. And being featured in an article is far more influential than an advertisement. You can be there with a well-crafted Press Release or a Guest Post with strategic content that is valuable and unique.
Content is King
Content is King – that’s more true today than ever before, and it is particularly true today for the hotel, hospitality and tourism destination. But it has to be top quality content published on relevant quality sites. Quality content will include much more than stories about your brand. You will need to reach out and expand your horizons to include valuable content on your destination, your guests and your people.
In Chapter 3, we talk about how you can do that and I share some of the resources I use for content writing, publishing and syndication. I share details about what, when and where and, in particular, how to get the best results from your press releases. This section of the book also reviews the key press release services that I have used. I also share the content and merits of each.
Bonus Tips on Spreading the Word
Chapter 4 is an important extension to this as it looks at article syndication and spreading the wordwith what – when – where. There is also a Bonus offer 7 vital tips for Instagram. Instagram has become an effect channel for travel brands
Video is Fastest Growing Digital Content
Video is now the fastest growing format for content. In Chapter 4, I discuss how you can capitalize on this trend to drive more traffic and convert more bookings with video.
Here are the facts on video marketing, according to news shared by HubSpot:
A successful content strategy is all about building your network with content. It gets right down to the core of story telling with articles and blogs and it reveals the mistakes many people make. It talks about the pitfalls of using the existing Private Blog networks and what sort of Guest Post to use. Content marketing has a huge impact on theDigital Footprintyou leave on the Internet. How you link back to your website is vital and many marketers get this all wrong. Typically they use their main keyword as the text in the link, Anchore-text, and this can be fatal.
In Digital Media, I even discussed topics like building Silos that concentrate the power of your content and your links by layering blogs and articles and guest posts with a strategic linking structure that multiplies every piece of content that you create.
It deals with technical issues without getting bogged down in jargon. It will give you a good understanding on what to look for in consultants, marketers and employees you might need to help you build an effective Digital Media Strategy.
See also Content Optimisation
– Tactical detail created as a bonus for book buyers
Google News Approved – Update on Guest Post Blogging
Its not enough to write blogs on you own website. That is vital and it will certainly help create authority, relevance and currency for your site.
However, to promote your brand you need to have other site write about you.
You need season authors who under stand marketing and you have to reach out to sites that are high quality and relevant.
Getting your content and blogs about you Google News Approved is vital to getting featured and seen.
Two sites I like are ThriveGlobal and TheFritz. Of Course Forbes and Inc will do but they are rather expensive.
Here is recent article we published on thrive and got it approved for listing on Google news – Its #1
The Book Digital Media reviews video and content marketing strategies that are tried, tested and proven. As a bonus, book buyers will also get access to proprietary techniques and the services of the Power Marketing Consultants Network, the largest international association of independent consultants. Book buyers don’t forget to Get Your Bonus at http://bonus.digitalmediaebook.com
Over 30% hotel website revenue is generated directly from listings on organic search engine results. That is, by being listed on search results when travel search for keywords is very good for business. Of course it is an average and is only effective for hotels that do have organic listings.
That is no small task as Google’s algorithm changes more than 500 times every year. This past Google took issue with mobile search and with their “Mobile-Friendly Algorithm Update” of April 2015. that change caused 21% fall-of for those sites that were not mobile-friendly. That is 21% of sites fell of the first page of google search results because of the change (BrightEdge).
The blog offers a 10 point checklist of things that hotels can do to increase or maintain their search listings.
The Report is a Bit Short on Specific Examples
The points are pretty basic like write engaging content, but without any tips on what that means it is not going to be very helpful to hoteliers and marketer>
For example – Videos are a engaging and High impact images and Visual systems do increase engagement.
The AllCast visual first video offers some examples of this (see video at end)
It really depends on how much one already know and for beginners it is a good place to start!
Best Advice
I have select 4 items which i consider are the best advice. That not to undermine the 10 points, just trying to offer value here by dramatic summary. It really depends on one level of knowledge – The language is complex but the issues are basic, so I cut out a lot.
1. Tools Worth Looking at
BrightEdge – monitoring of keyword ranking visibility
Industry-leading analytics platform like Adobe Analytics.
Google Search Console and Webmaster tools as well as Bing Webmaster Tools. Moz Open Site Explorer to check performance
Ensure content is Mobile-Friendly – See mobile checklist
2. Get Listed on Authority Sites & Avoid Low Quality Links
If your page is linked for an authority site it will boost your ranking – Site that are authority are Wikipedia and other trustworthy, high-value sources – such as .edu, .gov, or popular editorial sites.
Burt beware, search engines consider links from non-trustworthy, spammy, or low-quality sources a negative ranking factor. Don’t allow low quality sites that are not relevant to rank to you.
3. Consider Paid Advertising
Hotels should boost paid search spend along with SEO efforts. Example “a hotel took its paid search campaigns from dormant to 40,000 impressions over the course of six months and saw its organic search traffic ride a similar trajectory. In that case, the hotel’s organic traffic grew by 116% over the course of nine months, growing organic bookings initiated by 161%.”
4. Build Local Content
“Content should go beyond hotels own information and entice the visitor with insightful information on the local area and activities.” Actually we have taken this a further step by often comparing the property with other properties and offering advice for those who would be better off somewhere else.. See http://poinsettiavillas.com/st-lucia-villas/#whynotus
Good common sense and inspiration in the article By Jeff Bullas. He has so much knowledge and experience to share. I thought i would add some of our experience but there really is not much to add. Its a pretty complete summary.
As they say “the devil is in the details” and implementing all the campaigns and setting up measurement systems can be daunting.
Related Issues & Usefull Tools
I think, a good complement to Jeffs article would be to look at these issues re: systems and process, especial the tools you need to to measure success and how to get the most out of them. Perhaps Jeff has already done that. If not I’ll see what is available and lend a hand at crafting something useful.
Google Analytics
There are great analytic tools coming onto he market but Google Analytics is still a top contender simply because they have the best grasp on what is actually happening.
Tracking Mobile Metrics
Of course it gets more complicated when you have to consider both mobile and desktop and that is where some of the most vital discoveries can be made. Using analytics you can see what is working on mobile vs desktop and use those metric to tweak and optimize your Responsive Web Design (RWD) and/or apps.
We have a webinar on using analytics for monitoring mobile and doing just that. It is part of our mobile-checklist. You can see the video below. Hope it helps.
To your Success!
PS>> The video on analytics starts at 3.10, I suggest you skip my intro and dive right in with Kathy as she shows what insights, tracking and measurements she sets up.
Difference Between Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing and SEO.
Its seems unnecessary, I thought when i read this, then i talked a hotelier friend and it was clear that they were not at all clear on what was what in SEO, Content and Social. This article gives a good overview of the separate activities but in fact the lines are very blurred as more SEO activities move to social and content is always being indexed on social. Check out the SocialIndexEngine Case study on a tourism promo that cuts across all lines.
the difference between SEO, content and social marketing
The article by Jonathan Gebauer looks at each of these activities separately and defines how they differ. Well more or less, for SEO he asks “What The Heck Is SEO?” and then adds “SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and describes the process of optimizing a website and it’s content in a way so that it hopefully will receive more website traffic from search engine result pages. Here is how that works (in theory at least):
He clarifies it with an Example An Example, to Make Things Clearer – Hopefully he says:
I paraphrase- Imagine you want to get more traffic to your website, or to build its authority. You start with a blog, which will provide helpful articles to your guests. The blog adds content to the site and the aim is to generate more traffic and as a result more leads. That is an SEO initiative using content marketing – right?
To generate more backlinks it needs to be read.
“So you start sharing your content around on Social Media platforms – you probably start a fanpage on Facebook, and a Twitter profile. Maybe even something slightly more exotic like a Pinterest account. And you start growing those accounts.”
So now you are already engaged in all three strategies/activities while all you wanted to do in the beginning was a little bit of SEO…..
My Buddy Errol Griffith will soon publish his new book on “Our Power of Choice”. He asked me for advise on what he should do. “Build your social network now” – I told him, then start to post notes and announcements to the network. To start you don’t need a website that can come later, just use your Facebook page with linked from the url we set up at http://OurPowerOfChoice.com.Later we can build blogs, videos, websites, magazines and lastly your book.
And that is exactly what is prescribed here by Panwan Deshpande CCO of the Content Marketing Institute. Simple put start of with easy and frequent content and move up the later to more detailed information and presentations.
Content needs to be Refined
Content has become the foundation of all marketing, and travel is no exception. Content now needs to be re-shaped and reinvented so that it is tailored exactly to your clients needs, that is your many clients’ needs.
The need for tailor made content has become paramount now as we are bombarded by message and don’t have time to wade through generalization and the traditional one size fits all. Understanding the pyramid can help is targeting your content, and that is nicely described in the article by Panwan – read it here >>>
More on the Power of Choice, coming soon!.
Errol has pioneered this idea into a reality with his courses and teaching to people of all standing from prisoners to pensioners. The idea is now moving into the classrooms to empower children to understand the world beyond the traditions of our educational systems. It is an exciting project which we will share with you on many platforms.
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Chapter 3 and 4 of the Book Digital explains how content marketing is one of the most power marketing strategies in marketing hotels and tourism.
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