Search Engine Optimization Tips for Travel Websites

Do you own a travel company website? Are you getting frustrated because trying to rank your site highly on Google is very difficult? There is already too much competition from mega companies like world-class hotels, global airliners, and rental companies. To overcome these hurdles, and move your website to the top, you need to implement the widely used online strategy of search engine optimization (SEO). This refers to the practice of adding or modifying content on your site to make your web pages more inviting to Google and other search engines. SEO for travel websites is a particularly competitive field, and therefore, requires unique solutions that are not commonly found in normal search engine optimization plans. So, just what exactly are these unique search engine optimization strategies for travel websites? Let's find out.

One of the most effective tips for improving any travel website's ranking on search engines is by narrowing down the focus of any particular webpage to a specific geographical area or city. This is important because Google and other search companies deliver search results that are tailor made to the particular location that the search starts in. For example, a search for the word "car rental" that starts in New York is likely to return search results that reflect the car rental market for New York. It is highly unlikely that a similar search for "car rental" that is performed by a user in London will bring up the same results in Google.

What the above situation means for your business is that your site needs to target specific geographical areas and cities in order to bring in more visitors. This is actually good for you because when one particular city or area is too competitive for your site to rank highly on a search engine, you can always concentrate on another location. As there are so many potential sources of tourists in the world, you have a wide open field where you can compete that your competition simply isn't even trying to establish itself into.

Another very important tip regarding SEO for travel websites is to make sure that your site can be accessed by users who do not use English as their primary language. Help these visitors out by translating your site into a variety of languages. So, just what languages should you consider translating your website into? Your best bet is to start by translating the site into the primary language spoken by people of the region or city that you are trying to attract. Another great way to discover what language translation is in demand on your site is by checking the visitor log of the server which hosts your website. You can gleam a variety of information about your site's visitors, including their country of origin, and the language set on their computer. Also, don't forget to check out the competition to see what language translations they offer their visitors.

Once these important tips are successfully implemented, expect to see a large boost in the number of visitors your site sees on a daily basis!

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5 Tips For Better Search Engine Results

If you're new to the world of New Zealand business or you're looking at starting up a company sometime in the near future, you had better start thinking about your web presence and how you want to interact with the Internet. Establishing yourself online is an important part of communicating with your audience and being accessible in the modern world. Only a third of all Kiwi businesses currently market themselves through the world wide web, but studies show that nearly 10% more businesses grow with a website in New Zealand than those without.

SEO, key phrases and page rankings might sound foreign to you now, but you're going to need to know what each one means and how it works if you want to successfully broadcast your message to the largest market in the world. While it is a fantastic advertising tool, you're always in competition with somebody else online. Search engine marketing in NZ will help you stay on top and drive more traffic to your page. Be more visible online by following these five tips that will help you stay at the top of Google and Yahoo searches.

1. Work With a Quality Web Design Team

Anybody can build a website, but it takes experience and understanding of search engine optimisation techniques and web marketing to build one that is effective. Working with a quality web designer from the get go who can help you incorporate effective keywords and optimise your page from the very beginning, will help make you more visible online.

2. Start a Blog

Giving you the opportunity to have your content shared and re-blogged with links back to your homepage and keywords scattered throughout, blogging can increase your page ranking and drive traffic to your site. Keep your blog relevant and update it regularly to see the best results.

3. Do Extensive Keyword Research

Use Google's Keyword Tool and other key phrase research software to figure out the most popular search terms that are relevant to you. The better the keywords you can incorporate into your site the more likely you are to rank at the top of searches.

4. Work Hard on Relevant Content

The better your content, the more people who are going to link, share and talk about your site. Google picks up on the number of incoming links that your page boasts from different websites and these links have a huge effect on your page ranking.

5. Update Your Website Regularly

Pick an update schedule to stick to and follow it religiously. Make updates once a week, every fortnight or once a month - just make sure you do so to keep content fresh and have something new for visitors each time they return. Regular updates will also force you to think about keywords and make minor improvements each time you do them, gradually improving your site until it couldn't be any more perfect.

Some people think that there is some kind of 'trick' to good SEO, but in reality, it's just hard work, good content and proper research that lands your page at the top of a Google search. Talk to a qualified web development team about creating an effective website that adequately represents your New Zealand business and get started online the right way.

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Search Engine Marketing: Once You Have A High Ranking, Can You Get Them To Your Website?

Yippee! Your search engine marketing efforts have paid off and you are now on the first page of Google for a particular keyword phrase.

At this point I want to ask you a question, "Do you think people will click on the link to your website and visit?"

To understand this, let's compare an article to a webpage returned in a search result. This can be the results from a search engine or an article directory or any other type of search on any website.

In article marketing it is said that 20% of your effort should be focused on your headline. This is where you have to 'hook' the person, that is get their attention, so they will be interested enough to click and read your article.

When you created your webpage, for example I'll use a blog post, did you put any real time and effort into the headline?

You need to.

However, there is another important aspect to getting someone to read your article, and that is the summary.

In search results this is known as the 'Description' and I don't know about you, but when I am searching for information, I read the descriptions as part of my decision process on whether or not I want to click and visit a particular web page.

Therefore I always make a conscious effort to make my description informative and tantalizing.

I make it informative because I want them to understand what they could learn from visiting my web page. I make it enticing to peak their curiosity so there is a better chance that they will choose to visit my site which is normally competing with 9 other web pages and also videos that are displayed as well.

A good summary, or description, should give a person a logical reason to click but more important and emotional reason to click!

It is generally considered that the majority of purchases people make are based on an emotional response. They then use logic to justify the purchase.

The same rules apply here. Appeal to their emotions, tease them if you can, and give a little bit of information so they will feel you actually have something of value to offer them and they are not wasting their time by checking out your web page.

This means I consider it as being almost important as the headline and think about putting 20% of my effort into coming up with what I feel is a good one.

Search Engine Marketing: A Few More Tips

Include your keyword phrase in your description. Why? Because Google, Yahoo, Bing and also EzineArticles, to use as an example of a website other than a major search engine, will 'bold' the keywords that appear in your description and this helps to catch the eye of the person searching.

How long should your description be? Google and the now combined Yahoo and Bing are all right around 159 characters. Once the description goes past 159 characters they just add '... '

You can use Microsoft Word to get a character count or use this free site here: http://allworldphone.com/count-words-characters.htm, which I use that is not only free, but free of pop ups and annoying 'subscribe to my list' fly-ins and those irritating Vegas style flashing ads as well

Capitalize the first letter of each word in your description. How much does this help? I am not sure but I feel it is worth the few seconds to do this. It is quick and easy using this site here: http://www.convertcase.net which will allow you to paste in your description, click a button, and it will 'Capitalize Case' your description and a whole 5 seconds later you're done.

One more thing to mention is if you do not have a description for your webpage a search engine will normally just pull the first 159 characters it finds on the page.

Search Engine Marketing: The Bottom Line:

Once you appear in any search results you still have to get the person who did the search to click and go to your webpage.

No one seems to want and come out and say it but getting on the first page of Google is actually one part of a three part process; rank, get them to notice you on the page of search results returned, then get them to click and visit your webpage.

Keep this in mind because, in my opinion, if you are going to do a lot of work in your search engine marketing efforts to get ranked on the first page of any search result, you should want to put in that small amount of extra time and effort so you can really take advantage of your position on that first page and actually get some traffic from it.

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