Due North Marketing

Google Places and your Resort

admin — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:22:54 +0000

Google Places

Are you looking for a great way to maximize business to your resort? “Google Places” may be the service that you need. Originally known as “Google Local Business Center” “Google Places” is designed to maximize the number of hits your resort receives, making it easier to find in a local search bringing you more potential business.

What Are Local Searches?
The most basic definition of a local search is something that you could fine in printed yellow pages. Basically, it is searching for a specific type of business in a specific geographical area. For example, a local search may look for “great resort in Houston area.” Many offline business transactions begin with a local search, such as “walleye lodge near Sudbury.”

Why Do Local Searches Matter?
It may be hard to believe, but maximizing your ability to be found on local searches can lead to a major improvement in your resort business. It is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of all searches are local searches. It may even be a higher number, depending on the search engine. “Google” is the most popular, well known and respected search engine. Although only 20 percent of searches on “Google” are local searches, you must consider the fact that billions of people use “Google” every day.

What is Google Places?
“Google Places” was launched in 2009 as a subset of the “Google Maps” service. The goal of “Google Places” is simple but ambitious: they want to create a webpage for every “place” in the world. Basically, they are hoping to create a catalog of every city, business, school, neighborhood, local landmarks, hospitals, gas stations, restaurants and more in the entire world. It is specifically designed as a way to help people find local business in their area.

Over 50 million pages have already been created by “Google Places.” All those pages were set up by “Google” entirely on their own. Out of these pages, four million have already been claimed and developed. Claiming a “Google Place” page puts you in control of its content, allowing you to update it at will and add your own person information.

What Information Can I Add?
“Google Place” pages are only limited by your imagination. People searching for your resort will have access to an entire web page designed by you. Upload pictures of your resort to show off its natural beauty. Include images of cabins, exercise equipment and other activities you include at your resort. You can also upload videos, a Street View preview (created by “Google Earth”) information on available transportation methods, nearby services, reviews written by satisfied customers and links to relevant websites, including your own resort site.

Basically, it serves as a one stop view for potential customers to gauge your resort. Include your e-mail address, phone number and address so that they can get a hold of you or even stop by for a visit. A well designed “Google Places” page will look impressive and may even inspire people to visit your resort.

“Google Places” will find your page and list it along with several other local businesses. For example, if your resort is in Sioux Loookout, a search for “Sioux Lookout resort” will immediately list your business in the “Google Places” area of “Google Maps.” It places your site at the very top of the search page, instead of burying the link in a dozen other personally designed websites. Remember, 20 percent of all Google searches are local.

What Are the Features of Google Places?
There are many different features that are specific to “Google Places.” These are designed to help highlight your resort business and bring in more customers. Some of these features include:

* A “service area” indicator, which shows the geographical areas that you service.
* Window decals that feature a QR code. These codes can be scanned with a Smart Phone to show off the “Google Place” Page featured on the window decal. It will immediately upload your page to show off its information.
* Real time updating of your “Google Place” page.
* Much more with more to come.

How Do I Maximize my Resort Place Page?
Fill out your page as completely as possible. Include all information about the business, including all relevant e-mails, phone numbers and addresses. Keep your page updated using the “real time” updating option. Updating your site regularly keeps it from looking stale, static and uninteresting.

Make sure to use great pictures that highlight the beauty of your resort. Clean up the resort grounds before taking the pictures and create beautiful, well composed and clear photos. Create videos that show off people enjoying your resorts facilities. Show any lakes, woods or other naturally beautiful areas nearby. These pictures and videos will be automatically showcased in the “Google Places” photo and video section.

Don’t be afraid to list local business that are near your resort. Many people will enjoy knowing about attractions nearby. In fact, this may actually inspire people to come to your page while searching for a different business.

How Much Does Google Places Cost?
“Google Places” is absolutely free to use. This is one of its major advantages to other paid advertising.

How Do I Sign Up?
Simply go to “Google Places” and sign in with a gmail account. Search the available pages to find your own. Claim it and begin updating your site immediately. The process couldn’t be more simple, cost effective or efficient.

Check out this video from Google below

Google ad placement changes.

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:59:24 +0000

Google ad placement

Google recently announced that they were planning to change placement of PPC ads on certain search result pages. The change would move the ads from the right side of the page to the bottom. Google says that, by moving them to the bottom, ads will fit better and that the new placement would improve average CTR. Opinions differ on how the move might affect PPC strategies.

Elroy Condor at Stickyeyes thinks that the move will force advertisers into increasing CPCs in order to make sure that they are showing up in top positions. Those advertisers who have positioned keywords based on performance will likely have the biggest losses from this change.

According to Matt Whelan at Guava, the most important impact will be on the amount of visible advertisers. Users have increasingly grown to dislike side ads and by making changes to the top ads, Google has made them look more like a natural element of search results. There will likely be very little impact on advertisers in the four and five positions, but more of an impact on positions below seven. Advertisers aiming for the bottom of a first page position will likely need to increase their bids for a top six and inflation in the ad landscape is then inevitable.

Instead of ads, Google has been placing different content in the sidebar. Local result maps has been a common sighting, but they are likely looking to diversify with other content as well. This is obviously one of the main reasons Google has decided to eschew the side ads. However, given Google’s penchant for testing, they are most likely trying to find the best balance between user friendly pages and optimum returns for themselves. At the moment, it seems as though they are making changes with a more consumer friendly bent. Google has also said that the side ads performed much poorer than ads in other positions and it seems many people agree that Google would not make such a decision if it had a considerably negative effect on their revenue.

There are various possible reasons for why Google is making this major change. Besides the supposedly poor revenue from side ads, there is also the probability that Google is looking to standardize the interface due to the rising popularity of mobile and tablet platforms.

Tripadvisors Trends

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:25:09 +0000

Tripadvisor’s 2012 Travel Trends

Popular travel website TripAdvisor.com has just announced the results of their annual travel trends forecast. The forecast, which is based on data collected from over 2,700 American travelers, predicts good things for the travel industry in 2012.

Despite continued concerns about the economy, Americans are exhibiting a growing interest in vacationing. Approximately one third of the survey’s respondents indicated that they have plans to increase their travel spending in 2012 and a staggering 90 percent stated that they are planning to take at least two non-working vacations next year. Perhaps even more surprising is the indication that almost a quarter of respondents are planning to take five or more vacations during 2012.

American travelers aren’t just planning to take short getaways, either. 68 percent are planning a trip outside of the United States. 54 percent of those with international travel plans are headed to Europe, 52 percent are planning a trip to Mexico or Canada and 12 percent are going to Asia. These numbers indicate that many of these travelers are planning to take at least two trips next year that will require a passport.

The top three destinations outside of the USA for 2012 are Paris, London and Rome. Those staying within the United States are most likely to visit New York City, Las Vegas or San Francisco.

71 percent of the people polled indicated that they are planning to participate in the hotel linen program, which encourages visitors to reuse their towels in order to help preserve natural resources. In addition to which, 12 percent stated that they will be specifically seeking out hotels who have earned “green” credentials.

The most popular trip of 2012 will be a beach getaway, followed up by a cultural trip, a road trip, a city trip, and a guys or girls trip.

An interesting economic factor that the forecast points out is that fewer travelers are planning to stay with family or friends while on vacation in 2012 and instead are headed for vacation rentals and bed and breakfast establishments. This data, when combined with the overall data about 2012 vacation planning, seems to point towards an increase in economic confidence. Typically speaking, vacations are one of the first things that people cut out when they’re having financial difficulties. Plans to increase travel spending, especially among such a high percentage of people, is a key sign that the respondents are either beginning to feel more financially secure or that they’ve made major adjustments to their budgets.

Link Popularity – Still very important!

admin — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:53:26 +0000

Exchanging Links with Qulaity Sites!

Link Popularity

When it comes to two of the biggest SEO buzzwords, “link popularity” and “PageRank” you may have a lot of misconceptions, or you may not entirely understand how these affect your search engine rankings. This is going to present a very simple approach to these words, so even if you just learned about SEO, you are going to understand what these are and why the are important.

Link Popularity Definition
This refers to how many links you have going to your website, also known as backlinks. In a simplified approach, it can be said that the website with the most links gets on the top of a search engine. While there are other factors to consider, this is an easy way of understanding how links affect your rankings.

Why is this? Links can be likened to votes. Every time someone links to your website, it increases your ranking. This is because search engines assume that no one would link to a website they don’t like, and since search engines are ran by social factors, the amount of popularity you have will help your rank.

Link Popularity Factors
One of the major factors is whether or not a similar website is linking to your domain. For example, if you are running a website about cabinets, then you will receive a boost if a website about books links to you. However, since the two are not the same category, the boost in rankings is minimal.

This is because many people manufacture their own backlinks, and they are often done on websites that have nothing to do with the person’s domain. Not only that, but if you are recognized within your own niche, then search engines will take notice of this and they will raise your rank.

Another factor is whether the link is DoFollow or NoFollow. DoFollow helps your PageRank and rankings the most, while NoFollow are ignored by some search engines and they give you a minimal boost.

What is PageRank?

Many people think PageRank is a direct reflection of how popular your linking is, but this is not entirely true. For example, where the popularity of your links is mostly based on number and niche, PageRank is based on your quality and the PageRank of people linking to you.

When you get a large amount of DoFollow links from a high PageRank website, then your PageRank will almost definitely increase.

What Does PageRank Matter?
Many SEO gurus place a lot of important on PageRank, and while it does affect rankings, the effect is minimal. This is more a reflection of the quality of your linking and your content, not how good your website is.

For example, a PR3 can beat a PR9 website in ranking. Most government websites have a high PageRank, but they rarely show up in the search engines.

So, PageRank is a factor in you rankings, but it is one factor among about 100 others. Focusing on your PageRank shouldn’t be your prime concern. Instead, you should focus more on the number and quality of your links to best raise your rankings.