If you have a lot of links from unrelated web pages then your website becomes less relevant to the original topic of your site.

What does this mean for your website?

Links that are useful to web surfers are links that search engines deem relevant. Do now waste your time with shady link farm systems that promise hundreds of links in a short time. This won't help your website much.

Better focus on high quality links that will bring your website targeted visitors while increasing your search engine rankings at the same time.

Google Page One

Your web site marketing must be tailored to Google's requirements to succeed as a booking tool. If you implement Google's prescription and are able to place your web site on PAGE ONE of Google's search results, your site wins over your competition.

Google explains what must be done to achieve PAGE ONE ranking for your web pages at www.google.com/technology/, but few leisure travel operators visit the page, few ask their web masters to follow Google's prescription, and fewer still understand what to do, even if they do visit the page and try to implement Google's enigmatic explanations. You may need a pro to help you.

Many, if not most, leisure travel domains and web site pages are not visible on Google for any keyword used. These sites languish in obscurity and must rely on word of mouth to book their accommodations. Unless your web pages meet Google's requirements for content development and PageRank, your domain and your pages will forever be invisible to patrons of Google's search engine. Sites with high levels of search engine visibility rely, almost 100% on search engines to bring them new business!

Page '1' Listings On Google

Do you need or want Google PAGE ONE listings? Here's what you need to know:

1. Google wants web pages that offer their clients the best content available for any and every subject or keyword.
2. Google uses algorithms (programs) evaluate the content of your web pages.
3. Google measures how many outsider web sites link to your domain.
4. Google scores every site and every page with a PageRank on a scale of 1 to 10.
5. Follow Google's prescription and your pages will appear on page one of Google's search results. You win!

Your pages should be optimized for high traffic keywords and phrases and the content of each page should reflect the subject of the keywords in your <title> tag.  (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167931).

For each keyword, there is a tool you can use to measure the number of searches made on the search engines. The Yahoo keyword suggestion tool tells you the number of searches made in the preceding month on Yahoo. Multiply that number by two to estimate Google searches for the same keyword. Multiply the Yahoo number by five times to estimate the number of searches on the five largest search engines. The Yahoo keyword tool also provides you with ideas for alternative keywords to consider. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/.

If you follow Google's prescriptions and cause your web pages to be listed on page one of Google's search results, your traffic could increase by thousands of visitors every day.

Simply put, Google wants two things. For each keyword or phrase Google wants to place the best web pages at the top of their search result lists. They measure the value of the content of your pages by counting the number of your peers that link to your pages from outside web sites!

Google assigns your home page and interior pages with a  PageRank score on a scale of 1 to 10.  4/10 is good, 5/10 is really good and a Google PageRank of 6/10 is as much as any small to medium leisure travel operator can achieve.

Google isn't as interested in what you have to sell as much as they are interested in finding content that helps their search engine users evaluate your services or products.

Most leisure travel web sites explain what is on offer but seldom explain why the offer is better compared to something else. Web sites offer American Plan rates and Housekeeping Rates but do little to explain why their rates are more inclusive or of better value than competitors. Many web sites offer Wilderness Experiences but do little to explain the quality of the wilderness or how to learn about and enjoy it. Many sites offer the prospect of Great Fishing but don't explain why the fishing is so good. If your web site does a better job of explaining how to evaluate its offerings, Google can measure it by studying the language you use.

Google is the largest media company in the world; they can afford the best programmers. Google measures the content of your web site using many rules. They can measure the presence of language that is instructive! They also measure the number of links to your web site. However, links from sites that already have a high PageRank and share your keywords, are valued many times greater than links from sites that have low PageRank and do not share your keywords. Such links are worthless or even damaging. A dozen links from sites with a PageRank of 5/10 that share you keywords is worth 200 links from low value sites.

You and your web master must work in tandem to produce the best content and negotiate the most links from high-ranking (PageRank) web sites that share your keywords. If you do the best job, your pages will soon be listed on Page One of Google Search Results.

Direct Email Marketing Campaign:

On the dark side, E-mail marketing is problematic, if not dangerous. Make errors in management of your email campaign and you will alienate your past and future clients. You could also cause your ISP to demand that you cease and desist sending Spam and even loose your internet connection. Basically, you can’t send email to persons who did not request the service and even then, there can be problems created by persons who forgot they did ask to be included on your list.

On the bright side, an experienced e-mail marketing expert can make your phone ring with new business that otherwise would not have arrived. Employing a sophisticated interactive e-mail marketing database and software system designed to manage your e-mail marketing campaign, is a must.

You must provide e-mail recipients a way to ‘Opt-in’ and Opt-out of your lists using automated systems. Interested parties need a way to add their names to your list. The operator must be able to send an automated a conformation to the submitted ‘Opt-in’ e-mail address submitted to verify it and request a second confirmation from the person making the ‘Opt-In’ request. The list operator needs to know what email addresses are not deliverable and they should be deleted from the list automatically. The operator needs to know that e-mail recipients that have elected to ‘Opt-out ‘can never be added back to the list inadvertently! The operator needs to know who opened their email and who just deleted it. One needs to know who opened the message and clicked on links within the message indicating interest in ‘Offer A’ and which clicked on ‘Offer B’ so that separate follow-up prospect sub lists can be created for parties interested specifically in ‘Offer A’ and specifically in ‘Offer B’.

A good email marketing campaign should include regular monthly or bi-monthly mailings. The database that controls the mailings needs to provide one with meaningful reports that identify offers that are working and ones that are not and identify prospects. A good email marketing system must insure that no person receives the same message twice, that opt-out emails are never reused and that hot prospects get a follow-up phone call to close a sale! One needs the support of someone who can help you prepare an effective e-mail campaign insuring the your e-mail messages utilize HTML formats, salesmanship, video clips, audio presentations and arresting graphics!

Above all, you need someone who understands how to market your newsletter service to make your lists grow and grow. Every time you are able to double the size of your list, your sales from e-mail marketing could grow by 50 to 100%.

E-mail marketing has become a database driven art and a science and the databases are online and interactive. NordicWeb offers such an email marketing database service that can be custom tailored to your needs and become a true marketing asset for your operation.

Free Tools And Checks

Here are some tools you need to employ in the marketing of your site and in the evaluation of your strategies.

 

Google Tool Bar: Google produces a tool bar that can be added to your Internet Explorer browser. Go to http://toolbar.google.com/T4/ and down load the Google Tool Bar. The Google Tool Bar includes a PageRank meter that will show you the PageRank of every web site you visit, including yours and your competitors. 6/10 is very rare. 5/10 is perfect. 4/10 is good.  The highest PageRank a small to medium leisure travel site can accomplish is a value of 6/10. The time, effort or money you must invest to grow a site from 4/10 to 5/10 is considerable.

Google Analytics: Sign up for Google Analytics. http://www.google.com/analytics/ It's free. Add Google Analytics code to your web pages to uses their world-class traffic analysis system. Measure the success of your marketing.

Google Ad Words: Purchase keywords from Google to boost your traffic while  you are rebuilding your web pages.  http://www.google.com/ads/

Measure Incoming Links: To find out how many web sites already link to our site, go to www.google.com and search for your domain. If your domain is tourworld.com, Enter just that into the search box and search. The search results will show you something like this on the first page of search results.  Results 1 - 10 of about 575 for tourworld.com. This means that 575 other web pages link to my marketing site, www.tourworld.com. Unfortunately, it does not tell you which one of these linking sites has a high Google PageRank.

Google Webmaster Guidelines: Understand Google's requirements and guidelines. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769

Google Webmaster Central: http://www.google.com/webmasters/

 

Google Site Map: Set up a system to submit all your pages to Google through Google's back door. https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html

 

Check Google Site Status:  Find out whether your site is currently being indexed by Google.  https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitestatus

 

Find Highly Ranked Sites: www.searchaid.com provides a search engine that finds sites by keyword, like any search engine, but orders the search results in  PageRank order. You can use this tool to find sites with high PageRanks to approach to trade links with your site. You often have to pay a fee to have a link from highly ranked sites. A common fee paid is $25.00 per month.

Keyword Search Tool: Yahoo offers a tool that measures the number of searches in the preceding month for any keyword or keyword phrase.  You can use this tool to measure the importance of the keywords you place on your pages. http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Video Clips: Google prefers sites that offer video clips and will often rank them more highly. Place video clips on your web site or upload them freely to www.utube.com for free and link to them from your web site. Google owns Utube.com!

Interactivity: Google recognizes sites that offer user activity tools that add involvement in your site. Add a fishing report, a vacation report, a wildlife report and photo forum to your sites. Example: www.tourworld.com/forum or www.tourworld.com/photopost/. Allow your clients to publish their testimonial letters, vacation stories and photos on your site.

Submit Your Site To All Web Directories: Axandra IBP submission software and intelligent link sharing software system.

http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/searchaid/http://www.Axandra.com/ibp.php

A Free Link Popularity Tool: Use this free tool to measure and track the traffic and popularity of your site and your competitors' sites. http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/searchaid/http://www.Axandra.com/free-link-popularity-check.htm

Updating Your Site: Your site needs to be updated monthly to satisfy Google that your content is current. Google tracks the file dates on your pages on your web server. Fail to do this and Google will ignore your site. Adding new photos and video clips with explanations will satisfy this requirement. Seasonal operators should take enough photos during their active season to update their site regularly in the off-season. Plan for weekly updates, not monthly updates, and maintain the regularity of your updating strategies.

E-mail To Database: Your E-mail link should be a form that captures inquiries in a database, storing contact information that you can use in future E-mail marketing newsletters. Most E-mail forms will send you the content of the inquiry via E-mail to database form does that as well, but captures the user contact data in a marketing database. You don't have to take the time to create your own list manually. You never lose a prospect.

HTML E-Mail Marketing:  The E-mail message you send to answer inquires should be and HTML type E-mail using photos, graphics and Flash presentations. You can even attach an audio message. It beats using plain, old, black and white print: Example: www.tourworld.com/test1.html

News Letter Marketing: A monthly news letter to your accumulated client E-mail address list should be sent out using a proper E-mail marketing system that allows users to Opt in and Opt out of your list. The software system tracks who opened their E-mail and which links where opened within the E-mail: Example: http://killarney.com/Newsletter/index.html. A regular newsletter, using an HTML format, should be sent to your past client marketing list on a regular basis. News, fishing reports, photos and descriptions of different guest activities can form the basis of letters. Using a proper E-mail marketing system, your guests can choose to opt out of receiving your news letters and can do it automatically, online. No worries.

Flash Streaming Video: Today, Flash Graphics allow us to add streaming video to your site. This means that even dial up clients can view small video clips or Flash slide shows. Here is an example: http://www.cariboufalls.com/slide-show.html

News Letter Marketing:  A regular newsletter, using an HTML format, should be sent to your past client marketing list on a regular basis. News, fishing reports, photos and descriptions of different guest activities can form the basis of letters. Using a proper E-mail marketing system, your guests can choose to opt out of receiving your news letters and can do it automatically, online. No worries.

 

Camera: You need a proper digital camera that will also take 640 pixel wide video clips with sound. The best of class is the 10 mega pixel Canon A640 that costs about $300.00. Also purchase a 2 gig storage card or two. Here is a review:

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_a630_a640-review/

There is a sample of the video the camera can take near the bottom of the review. Watch it. You should take about 500 pictures of your operations and your guest activities this season. Without this, your web master cannot properly manage your site.  You need a good quality tripod! Traditionally, managing a resort includes daily maintenance and servicing of equipment and accommodation. One modern resort management practice requires that you carry a camera with you at all times and use it. The consequence of failing to observe this modern rule is failure.

Card Readers: Your guests are taking pictures by the dozens every day. Install a universal card reader that will allow you to download your guest pictures and video clips to your computer. A card reader should support the new card SDHC format. In addition the reader supports a variety of flash card formats, such as SD Memory Card, Type I/II CompactFlash, Multimedia, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, and IBM Microdrive. A built-in USB cable allows for quick and easy use. Search on Google for universal camera card reader. With such a device, you will be able to download pictures and video clips from any guest camera.

 

Computers:  You need a modern computer with lots of memory and a large external hard drive. When your internal hard drive fails, a feeling terror and despair will immediately descend upon you. With an external hard drive you can store you photos on the internal hard drive as well as on the external drive. Use it like a backup.  If you loose your photos and video, you loose your ability to complete. An external hard drive connects to your computer through a USB port. http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,4642,00.asp. The cost of an external hard drive case is about $60.00 and the hard drive should cost less than $100.00. More expensive set-ups exist that offer automatic backup software systems and insure that you actually make the required backups.

High Speed Internet: Anyone can have high speed in remote locations for about $75.00 per month. You need high speed to upload and download pictures and check out your competitions web sites.

E-mail backup: As you store more and more E-mail in client folders, your Outlook Express or Outlook will get slower and slower and finally cause you problems. You need a way to easily backup your E-mail to an external hard drive. The backup should convert your E-mail from the native format used by Outlook and Outlook Express, to a simple text file formats. The backup you make should replicate the exact structure of your E-mail system. A program exists that does all of this in just one click.  http://www.aid4mail.com/. You should also use Outlooks own backup system too, and store the backup files on a backup system. When you hard drive fails, you need to know that you are safe.

Automate Link Sharing: You can automate link sharing on your site. Visitors can add their link to your site and the software checks every week to make sure their link to you is posted on their site. Its all automatic. This is very powerful reciprocal linking and link marketing software. Example: http://www.tourworld.com/vacation/destinations.php (Feel Free To Add Your Site to TourWorld click the Add Your Site button).

Flash Graphics: Flash graphics capture site visitors attention long enough to deliver your message.  Flash graphics now stream their files. Large graphic files start to play even before the graphic files have loaded. One can host whole video presentations using this technology! Example: www.exc-adventures.com. More examples on site listed on the home page of www.tourworld.com. The old rule of keeping your site pictures small is long dead.

Optimize Your Site For 1024 Pixels.  Stats prove that over 50 % of visitors have monitors optimized for 1024 pixels wide. Keeping your site limited to the old standard of 800 pixels dates you site and wastes sales space on your pages. http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp or http://www.onevision.co.uk/xq/ASP/id.789/qx/default.htm?CT=LeftNav

Hosting Company: Many of the tools and services mentioned here require special software and database set-ups on your web-hosting server. Your web site hosting company may not be able to offer you all the specialized marketing tools you need to compete in the leisure travel industry. Even if they are willing, you may end up wasting time and money on custom software installations on their servers every time you need a new service. TourWorld Marketing offers world class, Tier One servers that already provide the software systems, databases and services mentioned here that are of interest to leisure travel operators. As new technologies and software packages come along, we add them and offer the service to all of our clients. Our hosting partner is owned by NTT Communications, the largest commercial hosting company in the world and offers 100% reliability, 7/24 telephone support and the ultimate in speed and security.

In Conclusion: You probably do not have the time and interest in making yourself expert at using all the tools and strategies you need place your page on Page One of Google search results and keep it there. However you may wish to give up sport shows and other advertising. You need a plan. You may not be able to repair an outboard motor but you certainly you know the difference between a lower unit and a power head and you know how to tell the mechanic what is wrong. You must be able to have the same level of communication with your web master. Your web master must be ready and able to teach you if you need help. How many hours do you spend on the phone with your web master?

You must invest $100.00 to $300.00 a month to manage the marketing of and the development of the content of your web site. 

There are measurements you need to know about each month. Your web master should be paid enough to be able to produce these reports and provide the necessary services. You need to know some or all of the following:

1. The number of site pages updated this month.
2. News item added to each page this month.
3. Newsletter updated this month?
4. New pages added this month.
5. Keyword optimization report.
6. A broken link report. No broken links allowed! Prove it.
7. Traffic Report. Example for TourWorld.com: https://sear1216.securesites.net:9878/ (UserName: user Password: user)
8. Unique visitors to your site (How many different Visitors this month?).
9. Search Engine Referrals Report: (How many referrals from which search engines?).
10. Individual page views?
11.  Incoming Links?
12.  Links from sites with PageRank of 4/10 or better?
13. The Google PageRank of Your Site.
14.  Link proposals sent out?
15.  High ranked link proposals made to sites with PageRank 4/10 or better?
16.  High rank link proposals pending?
17.  Spell check on pages last completed?
18.  Site last submitted to all search engines?
19.  Detailed Search Engine submission report?
20.  Google AdWords report?
21. Google Analytics report?
22. E-mail marketing report?
23. E-mail to database inquires captured.
24. Brochure requests to database received?
25. How many new testimonial letters requested, received and posted?

    
    Search Marketing Video Clips & Tips

    • SEO Video Clips: Matt Cutts, Google's software engineer and spokesman. Interviewed at a recent the Search Marketing Expo, Seattle Washington.
      
    • Google Market Share In Europe: Have you considered creating foreign language versions of your web site?
    • Blogs Work: Google finds new content from on Blog Searches and can more easily determine who the rightful content creator is, avoiding picking up duplicate content. Find a fishing Blog relevant to your site and start adding content. Example: http://flyfishingextremeguides.com/blog/ (more later).