Looking for a great way to drive traffic to your tourism business?

The latest monthly report on travel from Hitwise gives a clear reminder of the importance in providing accurate map listings and “driving directions” for tourism folk.

4 of Top 11 Most Visited Travel related Web sites are Maps

The important take away: Be sure your listing on these sites is correct!

Another important finding of the Hitwise report is the listing of most popular keywords used in travel.   The keyword phrase “Driving Directions” is a top search.

Take advantage of this keyword phrase by ensuring you have a Search Engine Optimized page designed for Travel Directions to the iconic place names associated with your business (ie: cities, parks, attractions).

Links:

Get Greater impact from Twitter on your Website Search Ranking:

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the recently announced Google / Twitter deal is that Google can now see all those links that are tweeted.

Links have always been the secret sauce for getting your Website to rise above others to the first page – or even the top of the first page of the search results. The image above says it all.

Turn your Website into a Blog to get the most of Twitter

GET BLOGGING! No matter what business you are in. Produce real time content that your community will love. The more you do it, the more you will benefit.

Here’s Why:

• Each Tweet is a Web page on a Website with high authority granted by Google – Twitter.com
• Using Twitter, people are helping Google rank Webpages in real time by linking to them.
• If your content is good, Retweeted links will produce more incoming links to your content.
• Links in Tweets can point to Webpages of all kinds but most tweeted links go to Blog posts.
• Tweets are generally about real time, current news and content. What is more tweet-worthy (if it’s not a word it should be – get with it spell checker): a Website that is updated seasonally or a Blog that is updated daily?
• Tweeted links may have higher time-sensitive value that degrades over time.
• Your Website is not likely to generate much interest if you tweet about it constantly.
• Blogs are platforms for producing link-worthy content frequently.

Conclusions: How Twitter can improve your Website Search Ranking

Blog posts that provide value to your twitter community by featuring news, podcasts, video, photos, stories can earn you considerably more link juice and lead to increased position in the Google Search results.

Links:

• Twitter and Google Partnership
• Using Social Media is a lot like flossing
• How to get any kind of media into your WordPress Blog
• Does your Website still look like it did in December 2008?

Time to review a little Search Engine Optimization, now that Google Shows Twitter Tweets in Search Results:

Twitter Status in Search Results

Just googled “Twitter Lists Embed” and to my surprise found Pete Cashmore’s Twitter Status in the search results. It looks just like all the other search results and shows up high in the list of first page results.

Google has adjusted their algorithm to drop in Tweets among other standard fare like videos, pdfs, blog posts, etc. in the first page of search results.

How is Google is figuring out which tweets to feature?
The same as all the other good content the search engine displays: a mix of keyword relevance and links.

But how to do you get links to your twitter status?

• Earn more followers in your community. Each follower is a link. Consider the keywords in your followers’ one line bio as a key to relevance.
• Get tagged in lists with relevant keyword attribution. Again, it’s not the number of lists you are in, but the company you keep that matters. There is likely some seo value in being tagged in small lists along with Twitter All Stars who have millions of followers, but it is likely more important to be linked among people with whom you share a keyword association.
• Have your tweets retweeted by others.

Knowing what to do to get your tweets into search results is easy, but like everything in Search Engine Optimization it’s doing the work in earning the links that mattters.

How to get links for Twitter SEO?

Produce relevant, great content for your community and/or find, curate and tweet about the good stuff that matters for your community. (Have you heard this before from me?)

Learn more:

• Twitter indexes people
• Twitter Lists: Don’t be greedy, be picky

Twitter Lists = People Tags

This week Twitter Lists spread across the Web and early adopters have created lists of the people on Twitter that matter most to them.

It’s very early in the people tagging game with Twitter Lists. But, link this new tool with last weeks news of partnership deals between Google, Bing and Twitter and the new Google Social Search tool and look out on the horizon and you can see where we are going.

Why being tagged in a Twitter list matters?

Twitters deal with major search engines Google and Bing allow the search engines to crawl the content produced on Twitter. The most important element for Google to define the relevance of Content has always been links. Twitter lists will be search engine link gold.

Interestingly, Twitter lists get urls that include the list makers name as well as the name of the list chosen.
ie: http://twitter.com/#/list/toddlucier/travel-canada is a list of Canadian Travel-related Twitter users I created.

A design element that clearly signals a nod to the SEO implications of the designated list pages is that Twitter is automagically puts hyphens into the list names.

Your Followers are Tagging YOU

Interestingly, much like saving Web pages on Delicious.com where the user defines the keyword relevance of the content (not the producer of the content), it is your followers who have the power to define the most relevant tags for you, by putting you and your Twitter identity onto a list.

Get your name on the List

If you want to be recognized as a top member of your tribe on Twitter Lists and benefit from the keyword value that goes along with it, there are a few things you should and shouldn’t do:

1. Focus on producing relevant quality content for your preferred audience.
2. Make lists that feature to top members of your tribe. By curating a great list of the top Twitters in your tribe you will be creating a page that is bound to get some SEO attention to your Twitter account in Twitter-related search.
3. Use keyword tags in your list names. ie: Don’t name a list – “My Twitter Buddies”. Using keywords will get your list more followers and your page more SEO attention.
4. Follow lists of people that are important in your tribe. This will link your Twitter identity to lists of relevant Twitter users. An important side benefit will be the stream of valuable incoming Twitter content.
5. Don’t ask to be included in a list – this doesn’t demonstrate your credibility (just your neediness to be recognized). When the urge strikes to ask to be included, refer to #1 above.
6. Refer others for lists. Check out the new Twitter list curation tool at Listorious makes it easy to suggest top Twitter folk. If the urge strikes to recommend yourself refer to #5 above.
7. Review your Twitter Profile and edit your one line bio to include a better description of the things you tweet about and the tribe/community you serve. Use keywords.

Links:

• Be Picky about Twitter Lists
• How to create a Twitter List (Mashable)

According to a report on search engine results from Forrester Research: “on the keywords for which Google offers video results, any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.”

Not only is video invaluable to getting your web presence better exposure in search engines, but video is the most compelling way to tell your story and inspire potential visitors.

Considerations in managing your online video presence

1. Capture the video you need: There are a variety of choices to make in determining the best tools to capture video. Some important considerations:
   • use a high definition camera: most video services already encourage uploading of high definition content.
   • In the future, more people will want to view your high definition online content on big screen high definition screens.
2. Edit and Distribute your content - Windows Movie Maker or iMovie for Mac are easy to use. Tubemogul is the ideal place to upload your video content. The site permits uploading video content across a variety of online Video distribution sites including . . . . Take the time to set up accounts on all of them.
   • Take the time to come up with a great title, description and keyword tags for each video you post. These are what the search engines will display when showing your video as a search result. Good titles and descriptions and tags feature keyword phrases so that the video is deemed relevant for search.
3. Your videos are a podcast. Video hosting sites have feeds. Use the feed from your favourite site and tell the iTunes Podcast store about it and your fans can subscribe to your videos. Register the feed at Podpusher.com and make your video podcast available across a variety of feed services.
4. Post your videos to dedicated travel video Web sites: There are a number of Travel Web sites that host video including Travelistic.com, TripFilms.com, Zoom and Go. These sites usually organize video based on destination. Travelers more than ever are going to Web sites and searching for video from the destination and host location they hope to travel to.
5. Embed the content from your preferred video hosting site into your blogsite. We’ve been recommending you ditch your Website and focus on a WordPress Blogsite in 2009. One of the reasons to do this is a WordPress Blog makes it easy to embed your video into your blogsite. If you can send and receive email, you can embed video on your blogsite. The best tools for this are Blip.tv and Youtube.
6. Video is Social. Most video hosting sites encourage viewers to post comments about the video they watch. Fans of your region or business can be encouraged to watch your video on these sites and post comments about the value of your offerings.
7. Think Local. In the near future, visitors to your region will want location-specific multimedia. What stories need to be told in your community, where do they need to be told? How can you use video to give your visitor a richer local experience.
8. Think Current. What stories are relevant at different times of the year? What’s story would be interesting to your Website visitor right now.
9. Just do it. Get out and start recording. Like most things, your video production will get better the more you do it. Remember, any time your video gets viewed in a location away from your website or blogsite, it could drive traffic back to your main site or even inspire an inquiry about travel to your location.

Links:

• Ditch your Website and focus on your Blogsite
• 400 Plus online media websites and tools

In Canada, we celebrated Thanksgiving a few weeks back but our U.S. neighbours will soon be embarking on their traditional Turkey Day.

Every get tired after finishing your turkey dinner?

Internet Marketers and those marketing tourism often talk about SEO. Search Engine Optimization might be easiest to understand if you think about answering questions people are looking for answers to. Today, I was asking Kate if she was feeling a bit tired or sluggish this afternoon. (We each had pot pies – I had the turkey pot pie!)

“Gobble, Gobble…”

Upon reflecting of course we agreed that there was something in turkey that was making me tired, but we couldn’t recall the protein found in turkey that was responsible for the fatigue.

Google to the Rescue to this tired turkey eater in Canada!

After keying in her two word question, Tired Turkey? Google responded with the answer in the first search result…. it’s the amino acid – l-tryptophan that makes you sleepy when you eat turkey!

The lesson for getting your business to the top of the search results in Google? Discover your inner tired turkey!

Google will come to the rescue of your ideal client as they search for answers to their questions. By thinking about the questions your ideal client is typing into google, you can create a blog post or Web page that answers that question. There must be dozens of questions your ideal guest asks that you have answers for. Spend a bit of time answering these questions. You’ll naturally use relevant words in your answer.

For each question you’ll identify a keyword phrase. Use the keyword phrase in the title, a subheading and in the body text of your post. Then, put a link in your post to other information that connects or links to this subject. Below I’ll link to a few of the search results for Tired Turkey on Google just in case this post finds its way up the search results page!

• A chemistry site has the number one link for Tired Turkey search results.
• How stuff works answers – “Is there something in Turkey that makes you sleepy?
• Profile of the Canadian Turkey Industry.

The Myth of SEO says it’s the words that matter most.

But like some research into the turkey question which actually attributes the fatigue factor to heavy meals (which restrict blood flow and oxygenation to the brain) or by too much wine consumed with the holiday meal, SEO is more about the links than the page content!

Take the time to link to content that is most relevant to each keyword question you answer.

What are the chances of this post making it into the search results? With over 2 Million relevant pages for “tired turkey canada” it’s not at all likely. Or is it?

The power of the address bar in the evolution of the web browser makes page titles in meta tags ever more important. The new browsers like Firefox, and that old standby Internet Explorer (Microsoft) both support address bar searching.

When a user types search terms into the address bar, these web browsers offer suggestions of Web sites as you type.

Each browser offers suggestions a bit differently.

Some, like Firefox (shown above) offers suggestions based on your search history, using Web page titles to determine which pages to suggest.

Others, like Google Chrome will likely make suggestions from their database of matching properties in the future based on – you guessed it, the words in the web page title tags.

Homework: Take a few minutes right now, while you are at your computer and check the title tags of your Web pages. Each page should have a unique title, based on the content on the page and your ideal keyword phrases. No need to look at your html code, just load your pages into your favourite browser and look at the page title as it appears in the ribbon at the top of the browser.

If your pages don’t have keywords in the title tags, Congratulations, you’ve just identified the fastest way to get your Web page a better ranking, enhance your title tags!

Study results on the indexing of hyperlinks on web pages by Seo-Scientist.com confirms the advice we’ve offered to attendees at Tourism Keys workshops.  The value of links nearer the top of the page matter more to google than the links located further down the page.

Two considerations for your web presence in regard to SEO.

• When posting content and linking back to your site from blogs or external sites, press releases, social marketing sites, focus your efforts on the first link on any page of content.
• When seeking links from other sites, try to earn a link as high on the page as possible.

Where does your web site end?  Not just with the pages listed on your dotcom.  The words and phrases that are associated with your dotcom, away from your web site, have a big influence on where your web site shows up in search results.  This 30 minute  activity will help you get a grasp of how others, outside your Web site, see you and your business and help you get better search engine listings for your business.

1. 5 Minutes: Make a list of the keyword combinations, words and phrases that accurately describe your tourism business. Think about the questions a searcher might use to look for your service.  For  keyword combination ideas, view the tutorial on keywords for tourism/travel web sites.
2. 10 Minutes: Use your favourite search engines and search for your business name – in Quotation Marks like this: Google: “your business name”. Record the number of Web pages that include this text. Visit the first 10 links that are not on your dotcom. Make a list of these web sites and record the keywords or phrases that are most prominent in connection with your business.
3. 10 Minutes: Next do a search for all the businesses that link to your web site. Use a tool like http://www.linkpopularity.com to get started. Again, list the top 10 results and the keywords that are connected with the hyperlink.
4. 5 Minutes: Think about these results. How well does your expanded web presence match the words and phrases that you want people to associate with your business?

Improve your search engine positioning.

• Use your preferred keyword combinations and see what can be done to include these words and phrases in the listings and hyperlinks from other web sites to yours.
• Next, do some searches for your preferred keyword combinations.   Make note of where your Web site shows up in the search results.  Record the top search result web sites that are not on your dotcom.  Ask these web sites for hyperlinks to your dotcom.
• Over the next few weeks and months, you should see some improvements in the visibility of your dotcom within the search results pages

This post was inspired by a recent corporate retreat we hosted for Doctors without Borders, a not-for-profit organization that transports medical doctors around the world to locations experiencing social/environmental crises where medical intervention is an important tool in alleviating human suffering.