Tourism Internet Marketing U

Considerations for Your Landing Page Content

Your most important information on the landing page should be above the fold. The fold is where the bottom of the browser window sits and additional scrolling is required to view the remaining content. This is what your target market sees when they land on your landing page. It is usually this content that encourages them to keep going or to look away.

Your landing page should focus on the one thing that you want them to do. You want to eliminate anything that might distract the target market from doing what you want them to do.

Be wary of “banner blindness.” People tend to not even notice the information that is in the standard banner ad areas. Stay away from having any content that looks like an ad in shape, size and color.

Leverage the elements on this landing page. You want to give your visitors the option to sign up for your permission based newsletter or e-club. You want to make use of the viral marketing Tell-a-friend function. You do not want these elements to take over the page and distract the user, but you want to encourage these actions – be subtle!

Give your target market access to anything needed to get them to do what you want them to do. What information do they need? Pricing information? Privacy information? Your contact information? Make sure they have access to whatever they need.

Make sure your landing page looks great. Choose things like font types, styles and color to your best advantage. Photography should be professionally done; you can always tell a difference.

Provide your target market with the options on how to make the purchase or the reservation. Prominently display alternative purchase options. Your visitor might be extremely interested in your offer, but not so comfortable making the purchase online.

All the best practice techniques that go into building a web site apply to your landing page as well. The landing page still has to be cross-browser compatible, easy to use, quick to load, have quick code and effectively brand your business.

Feel like you’ve just found the tip of an iceberg? Find out everything you need to know about landing pages with my Landing Pages webinar!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Productive Online Advertising – Making Sure You Get Your Message Out

When it comes to marketing your travel and tourism web site, you want to be sure that your online advertising is productive. Regardless of what your options are for advertising online, you’re going to find that it is important for you to have a plan in mind and to have a way of measuring your results.

Productive online advertising is about:

• Participating in forums – not just using them to get links back to your web site. The productive way to use forums for online advertising is to participate, build relationships and trust.
• Knowing that your pay per click ads take those who click through to the right landing pages. When your keyword for a campaign is African travel, for example, you’re going to want to be sure that when someone clicks the ad they aren’t seeing photos of Mayan ruins or information about skiing in the Alps.
• Taking the time to look at the little details. Sometimes the difference between a a site visitor and a new lead is the wording of your call to action.

To be sure that you have productive online advertising campaigns, you’re going to want to be sure that you know what you want your prospects to do. You’re also going to need to be certain that, when someone makes it to your travel and tourism web site, they find the information that they are looking for.

Productive online advertising, after all, is results driven – and the only way you are going to get those results is to know what they are and to have a clear message for your current and prospective customers or clients.

Want more ideas and tricks to boost your Internet Marketing? If you’re serious about working online, you owe it to yourself and your future to check out my Internet Marketing Training Program!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Great Content: The “Wow” Factor

Anyone can go on the internet and quickly find sellers looking for buyers. But it is rarer to find a web page that seems tailored to the viewer, drawing the individual in from the beginning and demonstrating why this person should want to be a buyer. The text tells, in detail, why they need your particular travel or tourism-related product or service, your travel packages, or your destination and how it can save time and money, solve a problem, or meet their own very specific need. With such an introduction, the web site is successful in laying out the foundation of the promise which your company offers to people who use your travel packages or services. Everyone wins. The consumers’ conscious is introduced to the positive changes this vacation or package will bring them, things they had not even dreamed of earlier. Followed by the guarantee of a safe transaction, and the reassurance of text which communicates a company that knows what it’s doing and does it well, the consumer is supplied with a positive user experience, and the company can simultaneously gain leverage, profit and a competitive advantage.

Continuing to create the “Wow” factor with your content comes from a number of different elements:

• eBrochures and iBrochures
• Audio and Video
• Podcasts
• Trip Planners
• Interactive Maps
• Interactive Elements
• Blogs and Wikis

If you’re still not sure about your “Wow” factor, I’ve gone through it, step by step, in my book 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site. If you haven’t already, check it out!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Choosing the Right Keywords for Landing Pages

When you are promoting your travel and tourism web site, one of the things that you are going to be doing is, well, promoting the site. When you’re promoting your web site, however, you are going to find that some of your efforts are related to driving traffic to information about a destination, information about a promotion that you are running or making sure that your clients are signed up for your newsletter, you aren’t just going to direct traffic to your home page; you are going to focus on specific landing pages.

When you’re creating landing pages for a marketing campaign, you are going to want to be sure that you are looking into the right keywords – not just for your web site overall, but also for your marketing efforts and for the landing pages that you are promoting.

By focusing on choosing relevant keywords for your landing pages, you can be sure of a number of things. One of the most important things that you will find is that you are able to have search engine rankings for your landing page. You’ll also find that when one of your clients or even a prospect who is looking for more information about a specific keyword is going to get information that they are looking for.

In other words, choosing the right keywords for your travel and tourism web site landing pages will help to ensure the success of your marketing campaigns and of your web site overall.

Landing pages are so important, I’ve included them in all my recent books. That includes my newest, 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Web Site. Take a look!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Spreading the Word with Viral Marketing: Creating Effective Campaigns

In order for your viral marketing campaigns to be effective, you have to make it obvious what you want your visitors to do. Use a call to action to get them to do it. Don’t assume that people will take the time to open their email program and send an email to a friend about your especial or coupon or include the URL on your web page because you have a great offer – it doesn’t happen! You have to make it easy.

Here are some tips to make your viral campaign effective:

• Have a fantastic button or graphic that catches their attention.
• Provide a call to action telling the visitors what you want them to do.
• Place the button in an appropriate place away from the clutter.
• Have the button link to an easy to use “tell a friend” script. The “tell a friend script” accepts the name and email address of your site visitor who is sending the message to a friend. You need to provide a section for a message. You might provide clickable options for this such as “Thought this might be of interest,” or “Knew you’d be interested in this.”
• Give clear instructions on how to participate; make it simple, intuitive and easy.
• Offer an incentive to encourage them to do what you want them to do: “Tell a friend and be included in a drawing for (something of interest to your target market).:
• Leverage, leverage, leverage: “Tell five friends and be included in a drawing for (something of interest to your target market).”
• Avoid using attachments in the message you want to spread. This will avoid any potential technical problems with opening the attachments as well as allaying any fears related to viruses.
• Have your privacy policy posted. If the user is going to pass along a friend’s email address, he or she wants to be assured that you will not abuse the information.

Viral marketing will only be successful if the content is good enough or valuable enough to be passed along.

Tricky to get right, but so worth it. I’ve created a very informative webinar about viral marketing, and you can get yourself a CD of that webinar very easily.

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Blogs Allow You to Give Your Tourism Web Site Personality

When you create a blog for your travel and tourism web site, you will quickly discover a number of things:

1. You will be able to make updates to your web site each and every day without having to spend a great deal of time doing so.
2. You will be able to attract different readers by ensuring that you are focused on your market.
3. You will have the opportunity to speak directly to your prospects – and to be able to interact with them.
4. You will, most importantly, find that you are able to focus on setting yourself apart from your competitors by showing off your personality.

Blogs are a great way to set yourself apart from others who are offering travel and tourism services. Simply put, it is your personality that is going to win over some prospects – especially if they have heard good things about others who offer similar services but still have not made a decision about whose services to use.

When you are able to effectively use blogs on your travel and tourism web site, you will find that you are able to add content and keep the search engine spiders coming back and looking for more. More importantly, however, you will find that blogs keep your prospective customers coming back for more as well. By giving your site personality with blogs, you can be sure that you set yourself apart.

Blogging seems to be everywhere you turn these days, isn’t it? Learn more about the tourism industry and blogging with my new book 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site.

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Permission Marketing: Personalization

Make it easy, keep it simple! When asking permission to communicate with your target market, don’t have them complete a long form where they have to provide all kinds of information. You want to make it as easy and as simple as possible for your target market to give you permission.

Have a simple form where they only have to provide their email address and their first name. It is important to get their first name so that you can personalize your communication. You want to personalize the text in the body of the message as much as possible as well as the text in the subject line.

Most mail list software programs will allow for easy personalization of all messages. You want to use a software program that manages all the permissions – the unsubscribes as well as the subscribes.

In other posts on this blog, you will learn more about what you can do to promote your travel and tourism business and web site with permission marketing and private mail list marketing for your business.

If you just can’t wait for a new blog post, I’ve also got a wonderful webinar devoted to Permission Marketing! Check it out!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Effective Promotion through Direct Mail Lists: a Few Key Tips

Direct mail has long been a part of what people do to market their travel and tourism businesses. What you’ll find, however, is that it is possible to develop effective promotion of your tourism web site through your direct mail lists as long as you are willing to shake things up a little bit.

When it comes to effectively promoting your tourism web site with your direct mail lists, you are going to want to:

• Be sure that you are making an effort to include your web site address onto every piece of direct mail that you send.
• Be sure that you include phrases like “Get more information on the web site” when you send out a direct mailing to get the word out about a special that you’re going to be offering.
• Be sure that you are focusing mailings to the right people on your direct mail lists. Break your list down by demographics so that, when you send out a mailing about a 50 and over cruise discount (as an example), you can feel confident that the right people are receiving the announcement.
• Be sure that, if you have special web only discounts on your travel and tourism web site, you make sure to tell the people on your direct mail lists where to look for them.

Simply put, when you make an effort to promote your tourism web site with your direct mail lists, you will find that you are able to steer people to your web site. So long as the information that they are looking for is readily available when they type in the web address, you will find that someone who started to explore one part of your web site is are more likely to keep looking around.

You’ve come this far. Why not get even more information to help you on the way? My latest book is perfect for anyone looking to make their online tourism business a success! Take a look at 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site.

-Written by Susan Sweeney

Web Site Elements that Keep Them Coming Back: Free Stuff

Free Stuff – Everyone Loves It

Offering free things is a great way to increase traffic – everybody likes a freebie. If you provide something for free that is valuable to your target market you are sure to have a stream of repeat traffic. When you have freebies or giveaways on your site, your pages can also be listed and linked from the many sites on the internet that list places where people can receive free stuff. To find these listings of free stuff, simply go to a search engine and do a search on “free stuff index” or “free stuff links.” You will be amazed at how many people are giving things away online.

You don’t have to give away something to everyone. You could simply have a drawing every week. You could then ask entrants if they would like you to notify them of the winner, which again, gives you permission to email them.

To get people into your restaurant you could offer people a free dessert with entree coupon. To get a number of people to visit your attraction you might have a buy three get one free coupon. You might also have a free gift upon arrival for a hotel or cruise.

You should change your freebie often and let your site visitors know how often you do this. Something like, “We change our free offer every single week! Keep checking back,” or “Click here to be notified by email when we update,” also works well.

Freebies provide ideal viral marketing opportunities as well. Have a “Tell a friend about this” button near the freebie so site visitors can quickly and easily tell their friends.

For more ideas on what to do to keep traffic returning, check out my webinar on Generating Repeat Traffic, now on CD!

-Written by Susan Sweeney 

Web Site Elements that Keep Them Coming Back: What You Need to Attract Repeat Visitors

When you’re designing a web site for your travel and tourism business, you are going to want to be sure that you are able to appeal to those who are looking for products and services like the ones that you have to offer; more importantly, you are going to want to be sure that you take advantage of those web site elements that keep them coming back.

What web site elements will appeal to your site visitors and ensure that you are able to attract repeat visitors?

On one hand, simply having great content is a web site element that keeps them coming back. When someone visits your tourism web site and finds the information that they are looking for, you will find that they are more likely to come back the next time that they are looking for similar info – especially if you make it easy for them to bookmark your web site.

On the other, you’re going to want to focus on making changes regularly and getting the word out about those changes. You might offer a weekly or bi-weekly coupon as an enticement to attract repeat visitors. Likewise, you might find yourself thinking about adding newsletters that visitors can sign up for – and then using that information to encourage them to come back to your site.

Ultimately though, when it comes to web site elements that keep them coming back, you’re going to want to be sure that you are giving your customers what they are looking for. When you do – especially when you are able to consistently ensure that they find the information they need – you can be sure that they will come back for more.

If you would like to read even more web tricks to bring your visitors back again and again, I suggest you take a look at the idea in my new book, 101 Ways to Promote Your Tourism Business Web Site! It has whole chapters devoted to the successful techniques I use every day.

-Written by Susan Sweeney