Natural Search &
Online Tourism Consultant

Google today added  TV and Radio campaign tracking to its UK Analytics accounts meaning a UK switch on of this service pretty imminently IMO. The configuration of the ads seems almost too easy and not what you would expect from TV and Radio campaign setup. I’m looking forward to see how they configure this to take to the UK market.

Google TV Ads Tracking

Google TV Ads is a flexible, all-digital system for buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. Using the familiar AdWords interface, you can launch a TV advertising campaign in minutes.

Google Audio Ads Tracking

Nearly a quarter (22%) of Internet users make purchases after searching for something they learned about on the radio, so you can easily increase the overall impact of your online ad campaigns by running Audio Ads at the same time.

Learn more »

With Google AdWords, you can launch radio ad campaigns and track the resulting traffic and conversions — all from within your AdWords account.”

As of today Nominet have introduced online transfers so all the registrant of a domain needs to do is to access their online services and they can transfer the domain name to you/the buyer directly.

The old system relied on the completion of transfer forms and copies of suitable identification. The new system is based entirely online and can generally be completed in a matter of minutes.

Registrant transfer will be available in the online services account associated with the domain name. Where multiple domain names have been merged into a single account, you can choose options to allow individual or bulk transfers.

This will save a huge ammount of time in the business of domain transfer. Well done Nominet!

Traditional marketing streams like TV and print is one of the most difficult elements of a business to measure, in the online world this is one of the easiest, we show you how to get the most out of your online marketing spend!

If you have recently acquired a new business whether thats in the online tourism sector or any other there’s always going to be some surprise invoices coming through the door for services and business listings that you may never of heard of let alone know how well they are performing.

So how do you measure these different sources of marketing spend?

If it’s offline it’s notoriously difficult to measure how effective one stream of spend has been over another. Maybe you took out a full page spread with a local magazine or have invested heavily in a TV advertising campaign, both are nearly impossible to measure. Unless you ask each person who walks into your hotel or buys your latest music CD where they heard of you, you’re not going to be able to offset that person against your marketing spend.

In the online world we have the ability to trace that individual user to see where exactly they came from and we can attribute a value to that sources overall cost. Tools such as Google Analytics or Omniture can accomplish this task well. If you’re able to get a trial period with a particular advertiser you’ll be able to see very quickly through your stats how well an advert is performing by looking in the referral sources.

Its all well and good driving traffic to your site but you then need to look deeper and see how those users behave and how well they convert whether thats page views per visit (usually for display advertising) or the value of their transaction (shopping cart).

Being able to effectively measure your online marketing spend will save you money and free tools like Google analytics make sure you only target those businesses that will work hard for you and the ones that don’t…well you’ll be able to see that far sooner rather than later.

Having read the Lyndon Antcliff creation about the two US kids who hired the hookers on Money.co.uk it confirmed for me the power of the generic domain name and the benefits that come with it. There’s little debate that your choice of domain name doesn’t play some part in your hunt for good SERP listings for your chosen keywords…but that’s not what confirmed it for me; it was the speed and uptake of the story by some of the major news corporations around the world and I think a big factor in their running of the story was their belief in the domain name.

Here is an Alexa report for the traffic spike as a result of his story:

Owning a few generic domains in the online tourism sector, I’m always looking for domains that I know visitors will have confidence in, city names are a firm favourite of mine; the instant connection you get with visitors is priceless, provide a good service to your city and you’ll often become the first port of call for other services whether hotel web design or SEO services.

I remember cold calling a potential client back in 2004 to try and sell them a hotel subscription and she said “Why would someone choose Mumbles.co.uk over my own web site. I said “There’s possibly a trust issue…” that was my first and last mistake. She responded by saying she had been in business for 30 years and how dare i make such a statement. What I actually wanted to say was that being a city guide we are often preferred to over individual accommodation websites as the user thinks we offer an impartial service on their accommodation decision.

The benefits

• Instant brand awareness
• Better click through rates (CTR) in the SERPS for competitive terms
• Customer retention
• More effective PPC campaigns if required (Getting the search term in the display URL if you’re fortunate to have it, it will increase CTR and improve quality score thus lowering costs in the short and long term)

The downsides

• They’re notoriously expensive but that cost might be offset by your savings in marketing costs and customer loyalty down the line.
• Domain owners often become personally attached even if they’re not doing anything with name. It’s like their sending off their pet dog to a new home and want it to be loved, which at the price you’re paying your new dog will be in bed with the other half and you’ll be the one in the kennel.
• They are few and far between. On any given keyword/phrase there are 2/3 domain names which have what it takes.

If you’re looking for a “brand out of the box solution” and you’re confident in your copy maybe the generic domain is for you…but it’ll cost you in the short term.

Being a tourist information webmaster I’ve visited hundreds of hotel and guest house websites, seeing everything from professionally designed sites right through to Microsoft Word creations. Considering the levels of revenue achievable through their websites I wonder how many accommodation providers could improve their results by looking at their sites from the users perspective to help their hotel internet marketing perform better. I’ve come up with 11 steps that you can do to improve your conversion rates you get through your site.

• Good quality high resolution photos are my number one, not only will other tourist portal sites use them to showcase your property, but users will enjoy browsing through to see what you have to offer. Don’t be afraid to pay for a good photographer you’ll reap the rewards very quickly.

• Stick with a simple email address for booking enquiries like book@yourhotel.com or stay@yourhotel.com using an email address like enquiries@ or reservations@ is asking for trouble, the frequency with which these two terms are misspelt is very high.

• During the users enquiry process around 5% will enter their own email address wrongly so you won’t be able to respond by email. An easy solution to this problem is to ask for the users email address twice similar to a password validation. If you do manage to contact them by phone or fax ask them again for their email address so you can add them to your mailing list for future offers and events, you’ll be impressed at the levels of repeat visitors this can generate.

• Don’t try and rank for terms that are very generic to your city like “hotel accommodation in Swansea” your very unlikely to achieve it, better still look at your unique selling point as a hotel. Maybe you are located on the sea front, next to a museum or a sporting venue. Go with those terms instead and you’re far more likely to be successful.

• Make sure you’re listed in the Google Local Business directory, it offers an excellent way for you to be found when people use it to browse results. If you’re fortunate to be located in or in close proximity to a city centre your listing will appear at the top as a natural listing. This position is absolutely priceless! So with zero marketing spend you could be ranking for the keyword “hotels in {your city}”. Ive seen this feature work with 2 of my hotels and its incredible the amount of traffic that it drives to their websites.

• In your copy talk about the things that are in close proximity to the hotel but be wary of linking out to other sites at this stage, this is after all a site that you want to result in conversions so keep it simple with the end goal always to try and sell. Once you have your conversion why not generate an email to the user with a local guide attached or on a subsequent thank you page once you have a confirmed booking.

• Try and embed a Google map of where your property is located and a text box so users can enter their postcode and get directions. All this can be embedded in your website free with Google Maps

• Keep a call to action in plain site all the time like Book or an Enquire button on every page of your website.

• When your asking for the users details keep the enquiry form short, you don want to overwhelm the user at this stage, let’s keep pushing hard for the conversion.

• If you have a restaurant provide a menu, this saves them phoning you and asking you to send one. It also saves you postage costs.

• Find free tourism portals to list your site; you’d be amazed how many free high quality ones are out there.

• Have a late deals section where you can showcase offers that you might have and keep it updated. One of the most proactive hotels I have come across is Fairyhill in South Wales. They stay in tune with all the local tourism sites and always have their late deals updated. In a future article i’d like to talk about how you can maximise the return from your reception/front of house staff.

This isn’t a definitive list and i’d love to hear what experiences you have had with achieving those high conversion rates.