Google launches Checkout, not the rumored GBuy

Source: searchenginewatch
June 29, 2006

By Chris Sherman, Executive Editor

Google has launched Google Checkout, a payment system for online retailers that's tightly integrated with Google AdWords. Checkout isn't the rumored PayPal killer, but it does offer some compelling features for both merchants and online shoppers alike.

Rumors have been flying for more than a year about a payment system under development by Google. Reports emerged that Google was developing a micropayments system, an online wallet, even a PayPal killer (see this blog post for a chronology of Google payments speculation over the past year).

In fact, Google Checkout is simply an extension of technology the company has developed internally for its AdWords, Base, Picasa and other services.

"There are more and more reasons for users to do transactions for Google products. We wanted to generalize that experience," said Salar Kamangar, vice president, product management at Google.

Google Checkout is a payment system that can be used either alone or as an alternative to existing checkout systems already in place on a retailer's web site. Users with Google accounts can simply sign into their account on the retailer's web site and then click once to complete the checkout process using the credit card number stored with the Google account, rather than having to fill out detailed forms with shipping and payment information.

"It's not about a universal wallet; it's about making the checkout process streamlined with the fewest number of steps," said Kamangar.

In addition to being able to buy with only one or two clicks from any merchant using the program, Google Checkout offers other benefits to users. Since payments will be processed by Google, consumers don't need to share credit card details with merchants using the system.

The program also has email forwarding controls. If you don't want email from a merchant, you can turn off in your own Google account. Google will also maintain a transaction history of all purchases you've made through Google Checkout.

Google is also offering merchant review ratings from Checkout users, and guarantees that users will have no liability for unauthorized use of their account.

Google Checkout should appeal to merchants, as well. Google is making the code to use Checkout available to merchants at no charge, either through simple cut-and-paste code or through a more sophisticated API. Google is also working with shopping cart providers to integrate Checkout into their systems.

Google will charge merchants 20 cents and 2% of a total transaction cost to use the service—very favorable rates compared with PayPal's 30 cents and 2.9% fees (PayPal's fees scale lower with higher-cost transactions). However, merchants who also are Google AdWords advertisers get even more favorable terms.

Google will credit $10 to a merchant for each $1 spent on Google AdWords. For some merchants, this will lower transaction costs for using Google Checkout to virtually nothing. And even though Google CEO Eric Schmidt swore that Google didn't have eBay's PayPal system in its sights when developing Checkout, it's bound to have a significant impact on PayPal's business.

Checkout isn't a person-to-person, stored-value system like PayPal. But with its pricing and ease of use, it's a compelling alternative for businesses of any size that are currently using PayPal as a payment processing system—particularly with its aggressive pricing and incentives for AdWords advertisers to use the system.

Google has tightly integrated Checkout with AdWords. Any advertiser offering a Google Checkout option will now see their ads displaying with a Google Checkout "badge" icon next to the ad in search results. This visual cue lets searchers know they have the option of using Google Checkout if they click through and buy from that advertiser.

If the program takes off, it's likely to give an advantage to advertisers who participate in the Google Checkout program, as Google ranks ads in part based on the number of clicks they receive. If searchers display a preference for Google Checkout enabled sites, advertisers displaying the badge will see their ads rise in prominence in search results.

This will surely raise concerns about what Google is doing with the data it's collecting, as it now has visibility into searcher buying behavior from the first initial queries through the entire clickthrough and conversion process.

Already, many search marketers avoid Google's free analytics service because they are unwilling to let Google capture data that can show conversion rates, ROI and other cost and profitability metrics. But advertisers risk losing position in search results to other advertisers who are using Checkout.

This will create a conundrum for some search marketers: Which is more important—a high ranking ad or not allowing Google such a complete view of your search-related business transactions?

It also raises the questions of whether Google will use this data to potentially influence minimum bids for AdWords customers, or data-mine it for other uses.

Kamangar says that the data collected is used solely to process payments at this point, though he also declined to rule out other potential uses of the information in the future. He stressed that Google would keep its data collection and use policies transparent to both users and customers, however.

For now, using Google Checkout will be a no-brainer for smaller merchants with limited budgets, as the program provides a valuable service for very low cost and offers additional benefits for advertisers. More established merchants may well want to wait to see how successful the program becomes before jumping in, keeping a close eye on the positioning of competitors' ads who are using Checkout to see if their ads are getting a boost from consumers clicking through more frequently.

Google Checkout links:

• Take a tour
• Places to shop
• Information for sellers
• Get a Google Account

Build your own travel guide

Source: hotelmarketing.com
Date: June 29, 2006

VirtualTourist.com announces the launch of a new online tool that empowers travelers to create free custom travel guides for any destination around the globe.

Now, with the new Trip Planner, travelers can simply pluck and save the information they find most useful with just a click of the mouse.
Each month, millions of travelers use VirtualTourist to research and plan upcoming trips and vacations. Now, with VirtualTourist’s new Trip Planner, those travelers can quickly and easily save and organize the travel tips and advice they find most useful.

VirtualTourist’s custom travel guides can organize travel content around specific destinations—like London, Las Vegas or all of Australia—or by any theme or interest a traveler can dream up, like spelunking, art museums or even honeymoon ideas.

VirtualTourist is the largest online travel guide and travel community, boasting more than 1.3 million travel tips and 2.5 million photos on more than 25,000 worldwide destinations. And since all of VirtualTourist’s content is user-generated—posted by real people who have actually been to or live in the destination—travelers are able to browse a variety of opinions and perspectives in order to find tips that speak to their individual interests.

“On VirtualTourist, travelers have access to millions of travel tips, and they can draw from the opinions of thousands of different travelers,” says Giampiero Ambrosi, General Manager of VirtualTourist.com. “Now, with the new Trip Planner, travelers can simply pluck and save the information they find most useful with just a click of the mouse.”

From surf trips through Costa Rica and sightseeing tours of Rome, to winery excursions in northern California and romantic escapes to Fiji: Wherever travelers are headed, whatever they are interested in, they can now create custom travel guides using VirtualTourist’s Trip Planner.

“Because all of the content on VirtualTourist comes from real travelers, it’s easy to find a variety of opinions on a hotel, attraction or destination, and then choose the ones you like best. And that’s what custom travel guides are all about. It’s not just selecting where you want to go, but selecting the recommendations you want to follow,” Ambrosi says.

Within the Trip Planner, travelers organize content into folders they name themselves, perhaps “My Trip to Boston” or “Scuba Diving Ideas.” Then, within these folders, content is automatically organized into logical sub-folders, like hotels, things to do, restaurants, warnings and dangers, forum replies and more. And before heading out on the road—whenever that may be—travelers can print just the folders they want to take with them.

Since the VirtualTourist Trip Planner allows travelers to create and save multiple custom travel guides, travel researchers can use the tool to store tips for next weekend’s getaway, their family’s upcoming summer vacation, or even that once-in-a-lifetime trip they may take in retirement.

“If you come across a tip or a destination that you think is really great, you can save it in your Trip Planner until the time is right,” says Ambrosi. “Your Trip Planner may end up inspiring future trips or destinations that weren’t even on your radar.”

“Can you imagine finding a travel guide custom made just for you? A travel guide filled with all of the stuff you’re interested in? The stuff you like to do and the places you want to go?” Ambrosi asks. “Well, that’s what the VirtualTourist Trip Planner is to you.”

Related Link: VirtualTourist.com

TripAdvisor introduces downloadable travel guides

Source: hotelmarketing.com
Date: June 30, 2006

TripAdvisor introduced downloadable travel guides for the top 25 summer destinations worldwide, according to TripAdvisor.com.

The guides feature the best travel advice and insider tips from TripAdvisor’s 20 million monthly visitors and offer personal insights on where to eat, sleep and play for every type of traveller. The summer guides are free, fresh, and provide easily digestible travel tidbits in a portable, quick-reference format.

In addition to suggesting the best hotels, restaurants and attractions, the guides feature recommendations on what to pack, how to get around, and where to find the best views. Information for the guides was compiled from the very best of TripAdvisor content, including new site tools such as the travel wiki TripAdvisor Inside, and goLists, featuring top lists on everything related to travel. All 25 summer travel guides, downloadable in PDF file format, can be found at http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/triptips.

TripAdvisor also announced today that it now features more than five million reviews and opinions on its site, up from the two million mark, just one year ago.

“TripAdvisor is taking our fresh and unique online travel advice and information and delivering it to our travellers in a brand new way,” said Christine Petersen, senior vice president of marketing at TripAdvisor. “People don’t always have the opportunity to bring their laptops on their summer vacations but the downloadable summer guides will allow travellers to take TripAdvisor on the road with them.”

Top 25 Summer Destinations According to TripAdvisor:

1. Las Vegas
2. London
3. Orlando
4. Paris
5. San Francisco
6. Chicago
7. New York City
8. Rome
9. Washington D.C.
10. Boston
11. Dominican Republic
12. San Diego
13. Cape Cod & Islands
14. Vancouver
15. Sydney
16. Hong Kong
17. Philadelphia
18. Dublin
19. Miami
20. Playa del Carmen
21. Amalfi Coast
22. Maui
23. Cabo San Lucus
24. Charleston
25. Phuket

Content Planning for Search Engine Optimization

Source: SEO by the SEA
26 June 2006
William Slawski


This post doesn’t describe the actual creation of content for a site, from an SEO stance, but it does detail some of the planning and steps that can be taken to help in the process.

It also doesn’t discuss some of the technical aspects of SEO that should be planned for to make a site easier to be found by search engines. But it does provide a number of questions that may make it easier for someone who is considering optimizing their site for search engines as they are putting together content for the pages of their site.

One of my favorite articles of the past few years on design is a Digital Web article from 2003 by G.A. Buchholz, titled A Content Requirements Plan (CRP) helps Web designers take a leadership role.

I think that part of the planning of the content of a site also should include an awareness of search engines, and a knowledge of some SEO goals. Those goals aren’t too difficult to keep in mind when it comes to creating the words for a site, but are definitely worth considering:

* Find and use words that are important to your audience, and that they expect to see,
* Advance the goals of your site in the creation of your content,
* Understand who your competitors are, and what they are doing on the web, and;
* Define a unique selling proposition that helps you stand out.

Many people who engage in SEO consultation are contacted after a site has been created, with a design in place, and a lot of effort undertaken to get the site easy to use, and made persuasive and engaging. But, often the best time to talk with an SEO is before those efforts are made, so that many best practices can be shared and discussed while steps along the way are made to create an effective web site.

I like the Content Requirements Plan discussed in the Digital Web article because it sets up a framework for building a site, and discusses the roles of the people involved in that effort. One of the pre-project planning items involves creating “User Profiles,” which is a section where SEO keyword research can be really helpful. Keyword research doesn’t involve finding words to optimize pages for that will bring high levels of traffic. Instead, it focuses upon finding words that people who are the intended audience of the site will use to search for the site, to help fulfill the objectives of the site owner.

The content assessment created through this process also includes finding “key content categories or descriptions.” This is another area where SEO research can be helpful.

Here are some research guidelines that can be used to help, and can complement this effort in finding the right words to use on a page to benefit both visitors to a site, and the search engines that index those pages:

Defining a site’s objective:

It helps to define the goals of your site from an early point. A site may have more than one. Here are some of the most popular:

* Selling goods
* Selling services that aren’t offered directly on the site itself.
* Attracting subscribers to online services hosted by the site.
* Generating leads.
* Educating an audience
* Sharing information
* Attracting advertisers
* Building a reputation for a person or organization
* Building a community
* Storing and offering whitepapers and documents
* Allowing private communications between members of the organization.

One of the nice things about considering a site’s objectives early, is that it also allows you to define metrics to measure how well the site meets these objectives. This approach is more complicated than creating a ranking report for certain keywords, but it can be much more satisfying to see that the goals of a site are being reached.

For example, when it comes to optimizing a large site that sells goods for search engines, instead of focusing upon a few broad and popular terms to rank well with, it might be better to try to make sure that individual product names rank well in the search engines. That may mean making sure that a search engine indexing program can successfully index a large dynamic site, and that each page has its own unique page title, headlines, and content which reflects those product names. It can also possibly mean that those products are accompanied by some articles that provide visitors enough information to make an informed purchasing decision as well as giving search engines something to index.

Looking at the products or services offered

This page on a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) may be helpful for some of the following questions.

* What are the products or services offered on the site?
* Is it selling goods or services directly online?
* What are the strengths of the products or services to be presented?
* What are the weaknesses of the products or services to be presented?
* Are there opportunites envisioned in the sale of these goods and services that may not be met online presently?
* Do any threats to the sale of goods and services exist? What are those?
* If the site is intended to generate leads, is there a preference that people call, email, fill out forms, visit a location in person?
* Are there any unique challenges to offering the goods or services or information, such as legal restrictions based upon age of visitor, distribution of goods, subject matter of the site, protection of visitors’ privacy rights, protection of trademarks (those associated with the organization and others), copyright of materials used, or others?
* Are there some related goods offered by others? If so, what are they?
* Are there some related services offered by others? If so, what are they?
* Who are those others who offer similar goods or services online and offline, and what else do they do?
* Have there been others who provided the site owners with online marketing services, and if so, what types of efforts did they make?

These are marketing inquiries, and a number of folks who engage in Seach Engine Optimization may say that these steps go beyond what an SEO does, but an effective effort to optimize a site for SEO could, and should take ideas like these into account. One of the areas where an SEO may be most effective is analyzing and explaining what competitors are doing on their sites to attract audiences. Which leads to looking at audiences and competitors:

Who is the intended audience?

* Are the products or services geared towards a specific audience?
* If the products or services aren’t aimed towards a known or defined audience, is it possible to envision certain groups that might be more attracted to those goods or services than others?
* What is the geographical range the goods or services will be (or are) offered within?
* Are there other demographics that will help in gaining an understand who the audience is, including age, gender, income levels, education levels, experiences and backgrounds, occupations, personality types, and more?
* Is there an audience that might be missing from the existing site, or the planned site? Might these audiences be reached through gift certificates, wish lists, wedding registries, or other means that can draw an unanticipated audience to the site?

Who are those competitors?

Some of this type of information can come out in questions in the “products and services” section above about Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Interestingly, many planning to build a site, or running an existing site may see their competitors as one group, without being aware that they are competiting with other groups for traffic on the web - sometimes inadvertently. There are times when words and phrases commonly used in one niche are also popular in others. And trade groups, discussion boards, and topical directories can be competitors in search engine results.

* If the site has online competitors, what are their web site addresses if known?
* Are there offline competitors that offer similar goods and services?
* Are there any industry groups, trade journals, online industry directories and forums, user groups, consumer review sites, or industry educational sources that can be used to build a better understanding of competitors? Where do the site owners turn to when they want to keep track of news and information within their specific industry or market?

Knowing who your competitors are, and seeing what efforts they are making to reach out to an audience is an important step. Being able to articulate why they are considered competitors, understanding what approaches they are taking, and grasping how effective they are at those efforts can be helpful.

But knowing something about your competition doesn’t mean that you should imitate them. Instead, it could be valuable to find ways to differentiate yourself from them, which leads to developing a USP.

What is the Unique Selling Proposition (USP) behind the site?

It’s important to know who the audience of a site may be, and just as important to know who the competitors are. In that competition, in reaching out to that audience, it’s also important to understand how the people behind a site want to reach out to that audience.

* What differentiates what this site offers, or will offer, from that offered by the people in their market who offer similar goods or services?
* What would the site owners say or offer to potential customers that would persuade those people to want to do business with them, or visit their web site?
* What do they offer to get people to become repeat visitors?
* What do they have on their site for people who have already purchased their goods, or used their services?
* What is it about what they offer that would have other people recommend their site to friends, family, or business associates? How can they make it easier for visitors and customers to become evangelists for their site and their organization?

Developing Categories and Keywords

Armed with this information about site objectives, what’s offered, intended audience, competitors, and USP, it becomes a lot easier to come up with categories and words and phrases to use on a site. Here are some other considerations to find some of those words that a targeted audience may use to find a site, and expect to see on the pages of that site.

* If they have an existing site, what words have people used to find their site previously? These can often be found by looking in log files, or web analytic tools used by the site.
* Again, if they have a site, does it use a site search function? If so, that may be a good source of information in finding information about what people hoped to find on the site.
* Do they have brochures and other marketing materials that describe what they offer such as brochures, catalogues, ads for other media, stock responses that they send to potential clients and existing customers, newsletters, articles, published interviews with members of the organization, or others).
* Are there specific terms of art within the industry that their audience may be mostly unfamiliar with? What are those?
* Are there specific terms of art within the industry that their audience will likely be familiar with, and may expect to see upon the site? Likewise, are there terms of art within the niche that audience members may not be familiar with?
* Which products or services do they want to emphasize the most, based upon a return on investment?
* What products or services do they offer that they may believe are in an emerging marketplace?
* Do they have any other web sites? If so, what are they, what do they offer, and what are their addresses?

Conclusion

SEO involves an expertise in taking steps like those above, and using other research methods to help build content for a site. It also can involve writing in a persuasive and engaging manner, and avoiding potential technical problems that may keep a search engine from crawling and indexing a site.

Answering questions like those above can make it easier to plan for incorporating search engine optimization into the content of a site.

New Players in Travel Search

By Brian Smith,
June 27, 2006

Source: Search Engine Watch

Travel search engines, which allow you to book directly with suppliers, have the potential to completely disrupt the status-quo. Here's a look at two new highly disruptive services that offer great advice for travelers.

According to Wikipedia (with a small edit by me), "a market is transparent if much is known by many about: 1) what products and services are available, 2) the price of those products and services, and 3) where those products and services are available. A high degree of transparency can result in disintermediation due to the buyer's increased knowledge of supply pricing." As an economics student in college in the mid-late 90s, the theory of transparency was extremely exciting to me because the internet promised to open everything up, empowering the consumer to make informed decisions.

I'd argue that this vision for the consumer facing internet didn't exactly pan out as planned. And while the travel industry is a lot less opaque than it once was, we're no where near transparency. This is exactly why I'm so bullish on new ideas in online travel booking. At this point, high booking fees are already a thing of the past for many consumers who use the travel search engines (SideStep, Kayak, Mobissimo, FareChase, etc).

Unfortunately, there's still no way to know if you're really getting a good price on your flight. But that could be changing with new offerings from Farecast and FareCompare.

Farecast
http://www.farecast.com

Just as meteorologists try to predict the weather, several PhDs at Farecast are attempting to predict airline prices. Farecast looks at pricing, scheduling, and availability (ok it's actually 115 indicators, but who's counting) to give travelers an idea of when to book to get the best price. For each flight search, Farecast displays whether it believes prices will rise or fall over the next 7 days, how much of a rise or fall in prices is expected, and a confidence level associated with the prediction. Helping to answer the question, should I buy now or wait? Next to this indicator is a fare history chart so consumers can see fluctuations in the lowest price for their search over the last 45-90 days and the average lowest price of a ticket over that period. Farecast has made over 90 billion airfare observations to build relevant (based on real pricing and availability) fare predictions and fare histories. [While this 90 billion number might be hard to get your mind around, the point is that the more data Farecast looks at, the better the company will be at predicting prices.]

Farecast has developed the latest travel search engine (similar to Kayak, Mobissimo, Sidestep and Farechase). With each search, all flight options are displayed on the search results page with links to book direct at airline websites as well as Orbitz. [This direct booking option is one point that sets travel search engines apart from online travel agents.] The display and filtering technology is exactly what you'd expect to see from a 'new' travel search engine as the company employs AJAX and Flash for a Web 2.0-esque experience. Farecast has also created a 'grid display' which shows pricing by time of flight.

Another great feature is the 'Flexible Search' path (it's an alternative choice to 'Quick Search' on the homepage) which is perfect for travelers with more flexible schedules as it allows the user to compare the lowest prices for flights over a 30 day period. You can choose a particular destination or leave it up to Farecast (this is very similar to Kayak's Buzz feature) and just refine by trip length and time of departure/return. Additionally, in the 'graph view', you can quickly compare prices for up to 5 destinations. Finally, there's a 'heat grid' which lets travelers view yesterday's lowest prices by departure date and length of travel, providing further information to figure out the best price and dates for a trip.

Farecast launches today in limited beta, serving only search results departing from Boston and Seattle to all major destinations. Farecast will offer predictions for additional markets throughout the year and plans to have nationwide coverage by year end.

FareCompare
http://www.farecompare.com

As opposed to the normal schedule driven approach, FareCompare is all about analyzing travel from a price driven perspective, allowing the flexible leisure traveler to get a better sense of when to book. FareCompare is not trying to predict prices like Farecast, but rather empowering the consumer to make a more informed buying decision. As the company's white paper on the topic explains, "Most consumers would not go shopping for a car without pulling up Kelley, Edmunds or a few newspapers to get an idea of what price point to expect. The average travel consumer has a sense for what they can afford based on their budget, but most don't have enough experience to have a good "feel" for what is a "good" price for travel between 2 cities."

While not as polished looking as Farecast, FareCompare provides a ton of flight pricing data which made me feel smarter. As international travel prices are based on seasonality, it's especially welcoming to be shown which month and even which week within a month would have the best pricing for a trip to Manila, for instance. FareCompare is making the move to a more consumer friendly model. It's important to note that at this point pricing on the site will not necessarily be available when you click through to book as the site is not looking at seat availability, just recently published pricing data.

FareCompare currently has partnerships with MileMaven and Yaeger Airport (Charleston, WV) to display its flight pricing information. The site has also developed a number of widgets (Google Desktop Plug-in, Yahoo! Widgets, FireFox Extensions, and Apple Widgets) resulting in over 200,000 downloads. Expect many more announcements out of FareCompare as the company makes a big push towards the consumer market.

I really enjoyed talking to both Farecast and FareCompare because they have big ideas about how online travel search should be conducted. The reality, though, is that with Farecast only providing data for Boston and Seattle to select cities, FareCompare not looking at seat availability, and neither company looking at prices for Southwest or Jetblue, both companies miss out on Wikipedia's first requirement of transparency.

So why should you care? Consumers search Expedia then go directly to American Airlines to book. They passionately proselytize the benefits of Mobissimo, but still look at Southwest.com just to make sure they can't get a better deal. They love the Web 2.0 style of Kayak or the SideStep sidebar comparison tool, but still don't really understand the difference between the travel search engines and OTAs. At the same time, they hear wacky stories about an airline in Europe promising to make flights free by charging for ancillary services like in-flight gambling.

It's a clichC), but this chaos in the travel industry creates an amazing opportunity. As Hugh Crean, CEO of Farecast explained, "there's innovation around the theme of demystifying complex transactions. The closer you can get to the best data, the better off you are making a decision." If Farecast brings us a couple steps closer to clairvoyance in the complex travel market, the company could force airlines to adopt simpler pricing models (although that might essentially put Farecast out of business).

The difficulty is going to be in rising above the noise. Orbitz is on every radio station talking about their TLC campaign, Travelocity has filled our dreams (nightmares?) with traveling gnomes, and Kayak is scheduled to launch a TV advertising campaign run by the former branding guru of Vonage. At the same time, SideStep and the rest of the travel search engines are barely a thorn in the side of Expedia.

Predictive technology sounds like a great user benefit and big words like transparency and empowerment are potentially potent themes, but for a start up like Farecast, it still comes down to PR, partnerships, and marketing. I'm sure there are plenty of agency sales representatives reading this article who have already picked up their phones.

Brian A. Smith is a correspondent for Search Engine Watch and publisher of ComparisonEngines.com VerticalSearch.net.

Choosing a Web Design Firm

Choosing a Web Design Firm

January 4, 2006

Source: ClickZ

Building a search-engine-friendly Web site is the first step in growing any online company. Unfortunately, this critical first step is often overlooked by businesses large and small.

Consider the following all-too-true scenario: Deep within a corporate cube farm, a brand manager receives the green-light to build a Web site for a timely new product line launch. The department that usually builds these sites -- the department with a bona fide SEO (define) checklist -- has its hands full with other projects. The brand manager must hire an outside Web design firm to build the new site.

With visions of Web glitz and dazzle and working outside of normal business processes for new site designs, the brand manager hires a firm that excels in building Flash-based Web sites. The firm builds a finely focused, all-Flash site that's virtually invisible to the search engines (the only text on the page is the parent company's copyright details). Three months later, the new online brand attains only 25 percent of its sales projection because there's little to no search-referred traffic coming to the site.

In a panic, the brand manager asks for marketing money for a massive online ad campaign to draw would-be buyers to the site. But the expenditure is unbudgeted, so the brand manager does the next best thing: he requests the site be organically optimized to increase search engine referrals. This is the first time he's ever heard of search-engine-friendly design.

The brand manager just learned one of the hardest SEM (define) lessons: the time to organically optimize a new Web site is during site design, not after. He could've kept the new project launch under budget and on target for sales if only he'd focused on hiring a search-engine-friendly Web design firm in the first place.

How do you find the right Web design firm? Start with the basics.

Designing Yeomen

The brand manager had some definitive ideas about the new Web site. He knew what the new product line's short- and long-term goals were. He knew the targeted Web audience's demographics, the project's budget, and the launch date. He knew roughly how many pages the new site would have, since he knew the product line inside out. But he naively worked under the "build it and they will come" delusion of Web marketing.

The brand manager took several solid steps for hiring a Web design firm. First, he considered the design firm's physical location. Virtual business relationships can be just as successful as local ones, but he preferred local.

Next, he considered word of mouth and recommendations from friends and business partners to generate leads for a short list of good Web design firms. He whittled down the list by reviewing the firms' Web sites and online portfolios and weighing each firm's key characteristics against the other firms'.

He looked for sites that were quick to load, graphically appealing, easy to use, and professional looking. He also considered each firm's industry experience, noting details about Web design awards and how long the firm had been in business. Having answered key questions, he called each candidate to discuss the project and make his final decision.

After reviewing reference and general availability, the brand manager opted for design firms that worked on a per-project basis rather than an hourly rate. Meanwhile, he learned about the type of HTML editing software the firms used and their level of expertise with various content management systems.

He secured a sample contract for the legal department to review; business references; and a rough cost estimate. The list of prospective Web designs quickly narrowed down to a single firm.

Intelligent Design

However, the brand manager neglected to review each firm's search engine visibility. You don't need to know search marketing intimately to recognize when a design firm is well ranked in the search engines. You do need to ask the firm why it's highly ranked and what it can do to make your site search engine friendly.

More Web design firms now understand the significance of building sites search engines can readily crawl and index, yet finding a firm that suits your online goals remains no small feat for any size business.

If a Web design firm can't address issues regarding search engine visibility, you have two choices: find a new design firm that can or budget for adding an SEO firm to the mix.

Just as our brand manager didn't rush into a purchase decision, you shouldn't rush into a decision about hiring a Web designer without first discussing search engine visibility, either.

SEO For The Big Three

SEO For The Big Three
By Dave Davies

Source: ISDdb.com

Ranking your website highly on one of the “big three” search engines (Google, Yahoo or MSN) is a daunting task let alone ranking your website highly on all three.Three engines, three algorithms, three different sets of rules - and yet there are websites out there that have first page rankings across them all – how do they do it?

While all of the major search engines use different algorithms the end goal of all three is the same:to provide the searcher with the most relevant results available.It is this one common thread that makes it possible for an SEO to rank a website highly across all the major engines.While there are a variety of factors at play and an even wider variation in the weight each of these factors are given– the possible variations that can produce relevant results are limited.

For example, if inbound links are given 0% weight then insignificant sites will ranki highly for high-competition phrases.Many reputable companies such as Microsoft could lose rankings for their own names so links must and will always hold value.On the other hand, if links were to hold 100% weight then sp@mming the search engines would be a simple matter and so there are a limited number of possible variables in between these extremes that this factor can have, no matter which engine we are optimizing for.

That said, there are still three main engines with three distinct algorithms despite common requirements.To clarify how to optimize for all of them it's easiest to discuss them individually first.Due to the way their algorithms work one is best to expect rankings on MSN first, followed by Yahoo! and finally Google (I am assuming that the phrase is of at least moderate competition).For this reason we will discuss them individually in that order.

SEO For MSN

Proper SEO for MSN requires that a site be structured well with a distinct theme throughout and many inbound links.The advantage an SEO has while optimizing a site for MSN is that MSN tends to pick up and credit new content and inbound links very quickly.That means that with the right tactics in place one can rank a website relatively quickly on this important engine.

While MSN has the lowest number of searches performed on it, ComScore's report back in July revealed that MSN searchers were also 48% more likely to purchase a product or service online than the average Internet user.A very important statistic for website owners that sell online.

To rank highly on MSN one needs to build a solid sized site (exactly how large will depend on your industry – look at the size of your competitor's sites for an idea), a relevant theme throughout the site that focuses on your primary keywords and a good number of links.MSN doesn't (at this time) employ an aging delay on links such as the one employed by both Google and Yahoo! so the effects of the site and inbound links can be picked up very quickly and with good SEO efforts one can rank well within a few months on MSN for competitive phrases.

SEO For Yahoo!

Until recently Yahoo! acted very much like MSN, now it's leaning a bit more towards Google.Ranking a website well on Yahoo! requires a solid-sized site with unique content and a very good number of links.

While PageRank is a Google factor, Yahoo! does have some type of page value factor at play.Many moons ago Yahoo! was playing with a PageRank-like calculation called WebRank.They even went so far as to put out a beta toolbar testing it.This indicates that there is a factor at play in the Yahoo! algorithm similar to Google's PageRank – they just don't advertise what a specific page's value is.

Yahoo! is placing a large amount of emphasis on the age of links though not in the same way that Google is.We will get to Google shortly however to understand what to expect from Yahoo! one must understand that when you get a link to your website it won't hold it's full value for a number of months.While the exact number of months in unknown it appears to be around 8 before it hold it's full weight though it will hold some from day one and this weight will increase as time passes.

To rank well on Yahoo! you much optimize your site similar to what you would do for MSN and you must build a large number of inbound links and have patience as these links age.You will not see a sudden spike 2 weeks after a large link-building campaign, you will likely have to wait 3-4 months to notice any significant effect.

SEO For Google

Virtually every webmaster and website owner is primarily concerned about attaining Google rankings due to the significantly higher number of searchers using it.Provided that you are building your website following the best practices of SEO (i.e. unique content, a sizable amount of content, and a good number of incoming links) then your rankings are sure to follow, however due to their aging delay it will likely take longer than on MSN or Yahoo!Google considers the age of your links, your domain and even the individual page to be a factor and the longer your page has been online the better.

Essentially, ranking a site on Google requires that you take the same actions as for the other two, continue your link building efforts on an ongoing basis to insure that you end up with more-and-more links, and that you update your content and add content on a fairly regular basis (though the addition of a blog for example).

Tying It Together

The logical process for a new website or one at the first stages of SEO is to first target MSN.At this point you can focus your attention on continuing to build high-quality, relevant links to and content on your site which will continue to increase your value on Yahoo! and Google.

Analysis will be required to determine exactly what weight you will be giving to different areas.For example, if your onsite factors are optimized for MSN then you know that you will need to make up for this in the offsite factors for Yahoo! and Google.If you figured you would need 100 links to rank on Google then you will now need to up that number to account for the fact that you have optimized your site itself for a different engine.

During the analysis process you will likely want to use a tool to speed up the process of keyword density analysis and competitor link analysis.At Beanstalk we use a tool called Total Optimizer Pro though there are others out there (note: I have yet to find one that does what this one does as quickly and easily).

Conclusion

I am hoping that none of you read the title and were expecting to rank on the first page of all three major engines next week.Ranking highly on all three major engines takes time, patience and a good few rounds of tweaking to get the perfect balance of onsite and offsite optimization.Of course, as you can gather, done properly it's well worth the effort.

Hotelier's 2006 Top Ten Internet Marketing Resolutions

Hotelier's 2006 Top Ten Internet Marketing Resolutions
By Max Starkov and Jason Price

Source: HotelTechResource

In 2006, 27%-29% of all revenues in hospitality will be generated from the Internet (25% in 2005, 20% in 2004). Another 27% of all hotel bookings will be influenced by the Internet, but done offline (call center, walk-ins, group bookings, etc). By the end of 2007, 39% of all travel sales will be online (Merrill Lynch). Are hoteliers taking full advantage of this dramatic channel shift?

Has the shift increased commoditization of hotel rooms and the overall experience? Is there such a thing as customer loyalty in this environment? Can one compete with the intermediaries? Has the online channel become the company's fastest growing revenue channel? Is there more a hotelier can do to compete and succeed? The 2006 Top Ten New Year's Internet Marketing Strategy Resolutions, presented for a sixth year in a row but in today's context, by Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS) provides some of the answers and action steps.

Whether you are a major hotel chain or hotel management company, independent or brand hotel and resort, you can stay ahead of your competitors and capture new market share with an effective Internet Distribution and Marketing Strategy. Smart and proactive hoteliers who utilize the Internet to their own advantage will define the industry winners and losers in 2006 and over the long term.

As part of your 2006 marketing resolutions, here are the Top Ten Internet Marketing Resolutions your hotel company should urgently adopt:

1. I will make 2006 the 'Year of Establishing my Hotel Company's Internet Marketing Dominance'. I know a direct sale can cost me as low as $3.00 per website booking. I will shift additional resources from traditional marketing channels to the online channel and especially to my number one direct sales channel, my website. I will focus on further enhancing my Internet presence and visibility via a robust direct online distribution and marketing strategy, including website optimization, search marketing, email marketing, link creation, and online sponsorships. I will deepen my interactive relationships with my customers. I will further lessen my dependence on online intermediaries.

2. I will turn the Multi-Channel Marketing Model into my hotel company's primary marketing strategy. This model requires a single brand message to be communicated across all channels. I know that this model requires rates, marketing message and interactive customer relationships to be established and maintained across all channels, online and offline. I will utilize traditional marketing channels to shift business and market share from offline to online and convert customer relationships from passive to interactive.

3. I will develop a comprehensive De-Commoditization Strategy to provide a unique value proposition to my customers. I understand that the online intermediaries and discounters have been responsible to a great extent for the commoditization of the hotel product and services. I will work hard against the commoditization of my hotel product and services. I will identify unique aspects of my hotel product, destination and develop a differentiated approach to my key customer segments. I will create unique specials and packages, event-related getaways, seasonal promotions and launch one-to-one marketing initiatives to provide unique value and personalization.

4. I will continue Building Interactive Relationships with my Customers. In this new online environment I don't want just to provide the guest services, I would like to 'own' the customer, and not allow the online intermediaries to own my customers. I will make it my mission this year to build mutually beneficial interactive relationships with my customers in order to increase repeat business, boost revenues, and retain loyalty.

5. I will make Direct Online Marketing and Distribution the centerpiece of my Internet strategy, because I know the Internet is the ultimate 'Direct Distribution Medium' and it will provide my hotel company with long-term competitive advantages and lessen my dependence on intermediaries, discounters and traditional channels that are expensive or about to become obsolete. I will employ best practices in all Direct Channel strategies such as rate parity across all channels, best Internet rate guarantee, website optimization, search engine marketing, email marketing, link creation, loyalty and retention programs, online sponsorships, and trust building to encourage, entice, and convert lookers into bookers on my own website.

6. I will continue to lessen my exposure in the Indirect Online Distribution Channel. I will maintain strict rate parity across all marketing channels and maintain a best rate guarantee. I will preserve rate integrity and avoid brand erosion in today's multi-channel marketing environment. I will not be taken advantage of by the Web-proficient online intermediaries. I know that online intermediaries need me more than I need them, as bookings for my hotel generate margins of $50 to $75 or more for the intermediaries as opposed to margins of $5-$10 in the other travel sectors (for car rentals and airline tickets). I will limit my exposure in the Indirect Channel to only a selected number of hotel-friendlier intermediaries and will make it my goal to reach the leaders in the industry who already enjoy a 'controlled exposure' of 25% or less in the Indirect Online Channel.

7. I will adopt an ongoing Website Optimization Strategy and turn it into a top priority. I know that the hotel website has become the 'first point of contact' with the overwhelming majority of hotel customers and I don't want a visit to my hotel website to turn out to be the 'last point of contact' with this potential customer. I understand that a branding interaction occurs anytime an Internet user lands on my website. I also know that this branding interaction can be: positive (brand-building) or negative (brand-eroding) and I will do everything possible to build a positive brand presence and recognition on the Web. I will create sticky, keyword-rich product and destination content, add customer-centric functionalities and features, launch private and landing pages. By adopting a comprehensive Website Optimization Strategy I will aim to enhance my hotel website's user-friendliness, search engine-friendliness and travel booker-friendliness. This strategy will deal with the issues important for turning lookers into bookers (conversion rates), improving my hotel ranking on search engines, and enhancing the trust-building aspects of the site.

8. I will develop a comprehensive Customer Segmentation Marketing Strategy. I know that each of my key customer segments requires a differentiated approach, information and offering. I understand that knowing who your website visitors are, for example, is an extremely important consideration when conceptualizing and designing the hotel website. After all, addressing your key audiences and providing them with relevant information is one of the key aspects of any hospitality site. I know that different customer segments should easily identify areas on the site that 'speak to them'. I will adopt best practices in customer segmentation and develop initiatives to address my key customer segments on my website and via strategic marketing initiatives, including email marketing, search marketing, link creation and online sponsorships.

9. I will deploy a robust Internet Marketing Strategy and turn it into a top priority. I understand that the Web is a 'key point of entry' to establish interactive relationships with my customers and to capture new lucrative markets. I also know that email marketing is a crucial component of my direct distribution channel and can create direct revenue opportunities with past, present, and future customers. I know that 80% of overall website visits begin in a search engine or a directory service (Forrester). I will adopt an aggressive search marketing strategy, including thematic and event-related keyword buys, seasonal promotions and other direct-response driven campaigns, supported by special landing and private web pages. I will take advantage of all five main aspects of search engine marketing: organic search, paid inclusion, keyword search marketing (PPC), local search and vertical search. I also understand that the Internet is all about 'multiple entry points' to my hotel product and I will aim to position my hotel website at all "points of contact" with potential Internet travel bookers via link creation, directory listings, online sponsorships and other Internet exposure enhancing initiatives.

10. To achieve all of the above, I will Acquire New Core Competencies and Adopt Best Industry Practices by partnering with leading hospitality experts in Internet distribution and marketing strategies. I understand the Internet has become the most important revenue channel and will no longer rely on biased advice from vendors, interactive agencies, web hosting and design companies, or outsourcing this vital core competence to vendors that 'keep me in the dark.'

From this day forward will be in control. I will seek advice from an experienced Internet marketing hospitality consultancy to help me navigate the Internet and utilize the Direct Online Channel to its fullest potential. I will utilize expert advice on how to disseminate eKnowledge and best practices to my employees and make them stakeholders in the corporate Internet marketing efforts. From experts who can teach me and my staff best practices and provide crucial professional development, as well as guide my hotel company's direct Internet distribution and marketing strategies, online brand building strategies, e-CRM, website optimization and search engine marketing strategies.

Search engines help drive online travel boom

Source: Netimperative

Visits to UK travel websites have experienced an increase in demand during the key January period, with search engines playing an increasingly significant role in online holiday shopping, according to new research.

Internet research firm Hitwise reports that visits to travel sites reached 5.41% for the week ending 7 January 2006 – a 15% increase compared with the same period in 2005.

Last week, the sector reached its second highest peak over the last 15 months, just slightly lower than the high that occurred in August 2005 when the sector reached a 5.57% share of online visits.

Hitwise data further reveals that visits to travel websites were up 25% from the week ending December 31 as consumers turned from hunting for bargains during the post-Christmas sales to hunting for holiday deals as they returned to the daily grind of work.

Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK, said: “What’s more, we have seen a marked increase of 30% in the volume of visits that search engines are sending to travel websites.

“Search is a critical source of visits, accounting for 38% of visits to travel websites, and Google’s dominance continues to be felt - accounting for 73% of the visits that Travel websites received from search engines in December," Hopkins added.

Searches for 'ski holidays' have seen a sudden boost in the last couple of weeks, with traffic increasing by 28% since the week ending December 24.

Websites receiving the most traffic from this term were CrystalSki.co.uk, Lastminute.com and Ski-Holidays.com, whilst ‘inghams’, a ski tour company, was the 42nd most searched-for Destinations and Accommodation term last week.

Meanwhile, visits to Center Parcs, the website which specialises in short breaks, have also increased over this same period, with visits almost doubling since the week of December 24, Hitwise added.

Long-haul destinations are also benefiting from a renewed surge as Hitwise reports that online searches for ‘New Zealand’ were up 50%, searches for ‘Australia’ were up 42% and searches for ‘Thailand’ were up 33% in the last week alone.

Incorporating Web Analytics for Greater ROI

Source: ClickZ
BY Jason Burby | February 14, 2006

A few columns back, I wrote about prioritizing the opportunities you identify within your Web analytics process to determine where to focus resources to get the most out of your site. I received a fair amount of feedback on it, much of it asking how that can be achieved with Omniture, WebTrends, Google Analytics, or HBX.

It got me thinking more about the silos that are often created around Web analytics data and the need to incorporate the data and findings to really get the most out of the insight.

There are a number of ways to strengthen your analysis and decision making when prioritizing opportunities to optimize a site. Once you identify your opportunities, there are two primary steps you must take to be able to select the best opportunity. First, estimate conversion lift. Second, determine the lift's value to your business.

Estimate Conversion Lift

First, determine what type of lift you think you can get from your page or process optimization. We often do this by figuring out what the issues are with the current process. Once you understand the problems, you can begin to estimate a realistic optimization lift. In the beginning, this will be nothing more than a calculated guess. Over time, after more tests and optimization work, you'll be able to understand realistic targets better and hone your ranges for each opportunity.

We look for a number of key areas when trying to better understand a given issue's drivers. Depending on the issue at hand, we'll look at different things, including:

* Analytics. By considering the behavioral data, you can determine where people are going and where they drop out of the ideal process flow. You can also offer insight into what may be causing them to leave the process.

* Attitudinal data. Through surveys and other methods, you can better understand the "why" behind the patterns of behavior you see.

* Competitive data. Compare your site with your competitors' by using competitive data from such companies as comScore and Nielsen. This is a great way to compare what you're doing within a specific site section with what others in your industry, even other industries, are doing. You can learn from your competitors what truly works in the industry.

* Web strategy, information architecture, and usability professionals. Work with others within your organization to share your insights and discuss possible problems that lead to the issue, as well as to solutions.

Combining these key areas' insights can help you determine the issue as well as what size the potential upside is on the conversion. You'll typically look at a range for the upside target that you think you can fall within.

Determine the Lift's Value to the Business

Once you've estimated the potential upside, you must determine the lift's value to the organization. You'll need to identify the behavior's value and the cost to optimize that specific opportunity.

Whether you want to sell more products on your site, generate more leads, or improve customer service effectiveness, you should be able to determine the value to the business. This isn't always easy, but it's imperative to help determine where to focus your efforts. Do you know the average profit from a sale on your site? Do you know the value of a lead to your organization? Often, you must work with other departments to determine the value of some of these behaviors. Trust me, it's worth the effort. It will help you on all your optimization efforts going forward.

Once you know the behaviors' value, determine the cost for optimizing each opportunity. Consider both internal and external costs to perform the optimization work.

When you know the behaviors' value and the level of effort, you can overlay them with the potential conversion lift to determine the best ROI (define) and the greatest upside.

The analytics tools are great, but the data and ROI you can get are so much greater when the data is shared and used in conjunction with other insights and processes. Now that you've identified your best opportunities, it's time to move into the testing process through either multivariate testing or A/B testing using a tool like Offermatica. But just like the analytics tools, an optimization tool is only as good as the opportunities you identify and the insights behind the solutions to those opportunities.

How Should You Pay a Search Agency?

June 14, 2006
By Kevin M. Ryan


iMedia's search editor vision quests for meaning in the pay-for-performance model.

The online economy is booming and a resurgence of the 1999 dot-comedy mindset has returned. The pay-for-performance search space has also re-invigorated interest in the revenue share, or performance-based, compensation model, for search and the agency.

Every agency struggles with compensation. But the search engine marketing world has the distinct advantage of being young enough to avoid suffering from the pains of working within the overcrowded traditional media marketplace.

The upside of being in a relatively new field is the latitude one enjoys when constructing compensation models. The downside is a lack of standards and accepted practices for new client acquisition. Having been on both sides of the equation, I can safely say that selecting a partner (a.k.a. vendor) in search can be one of the most complicated processes I have seen.

Behind the agency curtain
Aside from a few basics like credit worthiness and the ability to meet the client's needs on many levels, there are a number of factors agencies consider when bringing in a new client. While most new relationships end up at the compensation discussion table before contracts are signed, it may surprise clients to discover there are a few important questions being asked behind the scenes. Below are some examples.


Will this client survive the next year?
When approached by a virtual business this is the first question an agency asks. While many of the requests for information I have seen floating around of late seem to be dedicated to making demands about the agency, few speak to the long-term viability of the client's business.

Does this client have realistic expectations?
I have seen some genuinely outlandish requests like 100 percent lift, week over week-- which would be just dandy if demand for your product and your marketing budget increases at a commensurate rate. Chances are if you have no idea what you want, you will be disappointed in selecting a partner (and in this case, I use that term loosely).

Is the notion of professional acumen a foreign concept?
Wealthy relatives and free-flowing venture capital have contributed to a multitude of players entering the space with little or no professional training. The end result is an unhealthy working environment for an agency account team. In short, if a whipping boy is what you seek, may I suggest looking elsewhere?

Enthusiasm is the word of the day for many advertisers seeking to partner with an agency. Passion is no substitute for common sense and though you can expect an agency to get excited about your business you can't expect them to possess the same level of exuberance you share for your business.

I'll pay you if I get paid, ok?
Since search advertising is still often held to a direct-response metric, many marketers entering the space seek to provide an incentive for the potential agency. Compensation models vary greatly and the terms are not always favorable.

A recent request for information sought a website complete with commerce and content management systems, search engine optimization and search engine advertising. Compensation for this effort was contingent upon the client's success.

"It seems to me that asking a reputable firm to partner in this manner is the equivalent of the vendor asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars in product to sell without any upfront investment," says David Hoffman, chief executive officer of the search agency Search Smart Marketing. "It doesn't make sense from the agency or partner perspective and it certainly doesn't make sense for the client."

Performance-based compensation has been very successful in the affiliate marketing world but you can't always expect to pay an agency the same way. The agency relationship is foundationally different.

Even if your effort is successful, you will most certainly end up paying more than 10 times what the services are worth to make the relationship worth while for the agency. That simple truth is inherently the reason for a short relationship.

At some point you are bound to realize the relationship is costing you $300,000 a month when it is really worth about $30,000. Money that should be earmarked for capital investments, market research and a multitude of other requirements for growing and scaling your business is being siphoned off for performance-based fees.

Just walk away
Perhaps there are few things to be learned from what is now being called the traditional marketing world. Bidding on business may not be as much fun as say, vacationing in the Caribbean, but a little work on the front end may go a long way toward making sure your relationship lasts longer than the average time spent on vacation.

A sound knowledge of the business is required in retaining a search marketing agency. Healthy standards are essential. Mutual respect is not an option. Never forget that agencies have a responsibility to their employees to maintain a healthy work environment.

Search continues to grow at an alarming rate. Smart agencies in this young and dynamic industry are not as desperate for business as you might think. Many can and will walk away from a potentially bad relationship if issues arise from the word go-- so be careful what you ask for and how you ask for it.

5 Steps to PPC Ads That Work

Source: Performancing

Compared with the ineffective crapshoot that is traditional advertising, there’s no better way to get targeted traffic than through pay-for-performance keyword advertising in search engines. If you’re not clear on what pay per click ads are, those are the sponsored links that show up when you perform a web search in Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

While more targeted than offline advertising or banner ads, it’s certainly possible to throw away a lot of cash with pay per click. The way to do that is to fail to think strategically about where you send people who click on your ads.

The goal of pay per click advertising is to get in front of searchers who are looking specifically for what you have to offer. This takes careful keyword research, strategic bidding, and compelling ad copy just to get the click.

The problem is, that’s where most people stop.

They make the mistake of sending that targeted traffic to the home page of their website or blog. Even worse, they make no attempt to establish a relationship with those that don’t buy, so as to boost conversion rates for every dollar spent.

So, if you’re selling products or services, it makes sense to make sales and build your fan club at the same time. Here’s how to boost your conversion rates from any pay per click campaign while also boosting your subscriber numbers.

1. The first thing to do is build a ultra-specific page to send the search traffic to, called a landing page. Depending on the variety of key words you are bidding on, you may even build several landing pages that each narrowly address the specific needs of that searcher.

2. When I say “searchers,” I mean searchers. Do not participate in contextual advertising programs on publisher sites. I think we’ve all seen enough AdSense spam to understand part of the reasoning here. But even on reputable sites, contextual advertising brings too many “curiosity clicks” that kill your return on investment. You want people who are actively looking for what you are offering. You can choose to opt-out of non-search traffic with both Google and Yahoo.

3. The landing page does not sell your product or service. This is key. You instead offer a quality free resource –- a mini-course, ebook, teleseminar, or other type of tutorial that is directly related to what you are ultimately selling. By teaching people about the subject matter of your product or service, you are actually engaging in a highly effective form of selling, all while establishing a relationship.

4. Whatever your free offer, it must be delivered by an email or RSS autoresponder that allows you to stay in contact with the prospect.

5. You should explicitly inform your prospects that in addition to the free resource you are offering, they will also be receiving your email newsletter / blog updates. Make sure you make this part of your offer as enticing as possible. You’re delivering valuable, relevant content on a regular basis, right?

And there you have it. You’ll likely make some sales right away, but your real profits will come from the people who warm up to your offer thanks to the ongoing value you provide with your blog content.

This technique is by no means new. But it’s shocking how many people still don’t use it, as they waste good money sending targeted traffic to a home page that is not laser-focused, and also fail to offer true value to the searcher that results in a relationship.

You don’t propose marriage before you get a first date. And you likewise shouldn’t expect people to just automatically jump at the chance to give you money upon arriving at your home page.

Of course, each of the five steps above could use some elaboration, and I’ll be offering tips in the future that can help boost landing page conversions even for those who have been using this method for years. Also, the key word research and bidding process in Google AdWords (the largest pay per click program) is a topic in itself that requires mastery to be effective.

As business clicks, hotels unplug from travel sites

Hoteliers reserve best deals for their own Internet sites
San Francisco Business Times - June 9, 2006
by Sarah Duxbury

Four years ago, San Francisco hotels were having no luck getting people into their beds.

Third-party Internet sites like Expedia and Orbitz jumped in following the collapse of domestic travel post-9/11. But filling beds via the web came at a price -- the sites took a hefty cut, sometimes as much as 30 percent, off of already-slashed base rates.

But now that travel has picked back up and room rates have increased, hotels want once again to be masters of their own domains.

"We gave a lot of these organizations their foothold in their market," said Scott Baublitz, director of sales and marketing at the San Francisco Hilton. "We realize what we've created."

Hotels for the past few years have been attacking the beast they helped create.

Hilton, like other area hotels, now limits the inventory it makes available to third-party web sites. It gives them enough that customers who visit Expedia for price comparisons can see where Hilton falls. But it no longer gives those sites discounts; Hilton and almost every other major hotel group now guarantee that the best possible rates can be found only on their own company web sites.

"We've not eliminated these partnerships, but we've had to control what we were offering to try to drive consumers to our web site and buy through our web site," Baublitz said.

Chip Conley of Joie de Vivre Hospitality said that his company offers half as many rooms to third-party resellers as it did three years ago.

Less room

Larger trends have worked in the hotels' favor, making rooms easier to fill without discounting. The number of hotel visitors in San Francisco climbed 6.8 percent to 4.49 million people from 2004 to 2005, after increasing 8.9 percent from 2003 to 2004. Visitors spent $4.53 billion on San Francisco hotels in 2005, 11.3 percent more than in 2004, according to the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

At Hilton, Bay Area business travel is up between 3 percent and 4 percent in the past two months alone, Baublitz said.

"It's supply an demand, and now that demand is growing strongly, (hotels) don't need their services," said Tom Callahan, CEO of PKF Consulting.

Yvette the matchmaker

The rise of third-party resellers stemmed from a unique confluence of events.

"The travel downturn came at the same time (third-party Internet sites) tried to build their business, and they were able to rocket to the moon overnight," Conley said. "Everyone was looking for a travel deal, and they thought of these web sites as the place to get the best price."

Hoteliers have made sure that is no longer the case, and have invested to improve their own company web sites.

Joie de Vivre redesigned its site three years ago to capture online bookers. A key feature -- Yvette the Hotel Matchmaker -- helps travelers find the Joie de Vivre hotel that suits their personality. The web site also provides customized leisure activity suggestions. It has won industry awards. Sales have picked up, too.

Conley said that three years ago, just 15 percent of Joie de Vivre's sales were made online, and just 20 percent percent of those (3 percent total) were on the company's own web site. Today, one-third of all reservations are made online, and more than 60 percent of those are through the Joie de Vivre's web site.

The big chains have also invested in improving the online experience, offering loyalty programs and other incentives on the company website they don't make available to third-parties.
Wal-Mart of online booking

What's good for hotels is not good for Hotels.com.

"It's going to be causing some stress on that part of the industry," Callahan said of hotels cutting back inventory. The third-party sites' "time in the sun could be (past) unless they find a new reason to be relevant."

Privacy concerns are the latest challenge to third-party sites.

Last week, Hotels.com notified close to 250,000 customers that their credit card numbers had been stolen along with an Ernst & Young accountant's laptop.

That announcement is just one more blow to a once-bumper industry that has lost its meaning in the market.

The Orbitzes and Hotels.coms of the world continue to be useful for price shopping, but more and more customers are going straight to the source to make reservations.

Chip Conley likens the third-party resellers of three years ago to Wal-Mart; they used to have tons of choice and unbeatable prices. Hotels have changed that.

Third-party sites "have to go out of being a Wal-Mart and low-price leader and become more of the Consumer Reports for hotels," Conley said. But that's something he'd like his own sites to do as well.

Sarah Duxbury is a staff writer for the San Francisco Business Times.

Organic SEO -- What Does it Really Mean?

Source: Search Engine Guide

By Scott Buresh - June 14, 2006

When people refer to "organic SEO" (search engine optimization), they almost always use it as a blanket term to describe the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular engine. However, a sophisticated search engine optimization company will often take the meaning of "organic" one step further. To such companies, the description of "organic SEO" is not limited to what shows up in the "natural" search engine results - it includes the methodologies used to achieve such rankings.

There's more than one way to skin a cat (although I must admit that I don't know the one way that everyone else presumably knows), and the same is true for achieving natural search engine results. A search engine optimization company usually falls into one of two camps. A "White Hat" search engine optimization company will use a largely content-based approach and will not violate the terms of service of the major search engines. A "Black Hat" search engine optimization company will use a largely technology driven approach and often ignore the terms of service. Neither approach is invalid (as I have said many times before, there is nothing illegal about violating a search engine's terms of service), and both can achieve high rankings. But a search engine optimization company that takes the word "organic" literally believes that the "Black Hat" approach is anything but "organic SEO."

Merriam Webster defines organic, in part, as "having the characteristics of an organism: developing in the manner of a living plant or animal." To a search engine optimization company, this definition accurately describes the approach taken to achieve long-lasting results in the "natural" section of search engines.

Below are just a few comparisons of the different approaches taken by the two types of SEO firms. I refer to the two approaches as "organic SEO" and "artificial SEO" for the sake of clarity.

Content vs. Technical Loopholes

There's an "old" saying in the SEO industry that "content is king." This is not necessarily true. In my experience, good content is king. Study after study has shown that when people use search engines, they are primarily seeking one thing: information. They are not seeking to be impressed by fancy flash sites. They are not looking for a virtual piece of art. A search engine optimization company that is truly practicing "organic SEO" recognizes this fact and will refuse SEO work when prospects insist that content addition is not an option. "Artificial SEO" firms, which embrace a technical loophole philosophy, will allow a company to leave its website exactly as it is, because the work that such firms do is largely technical and is designed to trick the engine into showing content that it would not otherwise. Certainly, there are acceptable (from the engine's standpoint) technical aspects that any good search engine optimization company will use, such as relevant page titles and meta tags. But there are many more unacceptable technical methodologies than acceptable ones, including cloaking, redirects, multiple sites, keyphrase stuffing, hidden links, and numerous others. A company practicing "organic SEO" will avoid these.

Attracting Links vs. Linking Schemes

As any search engine optimization company knows, inbound links are critical to the success of an "organic SEO" campaign. But there are different ways to go about it.

Firms that practice true "organic SEO" will look at the website itself and say "How can we make this site something that other sites would want to link to?" A search engine optimization company using "artificial SEO" will ask, "How can I get links pointing to this site without adding anything of value to it?" The latter approach usually leads to reciprocal linking schemes, link farms, the purchase of text links, and more - anything save for making changes to the website that entice others to link to the site without the link being reciprocated, without paying the website owner, or without asking "pretty please."

There is a stark contrast between "organic SEO" and "artificial SEO." Of course, any decent search engine optimization company will make certain that a site is listed in all the popular directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, the Open Directory Project, and Business.com. A good search engine optimization company will also continually seek any industry specific directories where your site should be listed. But truly using "organic SEO" means evolving your site into something that holds actual value to your prospects. In my opinion, this is much more beneficial in the long run than the artificial methodology of trying to garner incoming links that the site does not truly deserve.

Creating a Valuable Resource vs. Algorithm Chasing

Search engines change algorithms frequently, and for two reasons. One is, of course, to improve their results based upon their most recent user studies. The other, which is obviously related, is to remove sites that are ranked artificially high. Such updates raise panic in the SEO community - particularly among "artificial SEO" practitioners who have just discovered that their most recent and cherished trick no longer works (and may have gotten their clients' sites removed from the engines altogether). It is not uncommon on the search engine forums to see the owner of such a search engine optimization company threatening to "sue Google" over a recent update. Not uncommon, but always amusing.

There is, with only a few exceptions, a common denominator in the websites that remain highly ranked throughout these algorithm shifts. They offer something of value to their visitors and are considered a resource for their industry. "Organic SEO" practitioners generally do not have to worry about going back and redoing work because of an algorithm shift. While an "artificial" search engine optimization company desperately tries to re-attain the rankings it lost for its clients (or to get the sites re-included in the search engine at all) because it was dependent on technical loopholes that have now been closed, "organic SEO" firms continue adding valuable content to a site, strengthening its value and bolstering its rankings.

A common argument from companies when advised by "organic SEO" practitioners to take this approach is "we aren't trying to provide a resource for our industry - we are trying to sell products or services." This is, in my opinion, shortsighted. Remember, you are trying to reach prospects in all stages of the buying cycle, not just the low hanging fruit ready to buy now. Let your website be their resource to learn about your industry, rather than your overpaid salesperson. Prospects are very likely to call you when they are ready to buy - after all, you've done so much for them already!

In addition, taking advantage of "organic SEO" to make your website an industry resource provides a tremendous natural boost to your rankings for your individual product or service pages. This means that with "organic SEO," you'll get the best of both worlds. You'll reach people early in the buying cycle, educate them, and steer them toward your solution by using your website instead of your sales personnel. You will also reach the low hanging fruit because your individual product or service pages, which are intended for people who are ready to buy now, will get a significant rankings boost.

Learning from Engines vs. Learning How to Exploit Them

As I have said many times before, search engines conduct very expensive and frequent studies on what their users want to see when they enter search queries. Obviously, no company has a more vested interest in serving up the type of results that their users want than the engines themselves. "Organic SEO" firms will take the "piggyback" approach. A search engine optimization company that uses "organic SEO" will try to learn what the results of these studies were by examining the sites that figure prominently in search engine results over long periods of time. In this way, the search engine optimization company is using "organic SEO" to make the website not only better for search engines, but also for the user- presumably, the engine's internal research has shown that these sites have what their users have consistently desired, study after study. "Artificial SEO" practitioners have no real interest in these studies - they are instead expending a great deal of energy finding the next technical loophole to exploit after their most recent one has failed.

The latter approach can make results erratic, but it also raises a larger issue - the goal of the campaign. If an "artificial" search engine optimization company finds a temporary loophole in an algorithm that brings your site to the top, but does not take the time to delve into the user experience once a user gets to the site, it will defeat the original purpose. You may get plenty of visitors, but a large percentage of these will be short-term visitors who do not find what they want on your site and back out without a second thought. The search engine optimization company did not "piggyback" on the engines' research to learn what type of content users wanted to see when they entered their query.

"Organic" Revisited (AKA "One Step Too Far")

A search engine optimization company that takes a true "organic SEO" approach will actually take the Merriam Webster definition literally. A good website does have the characteristics of an organism and does develop in the manner of a living plant or animal. It builds upon itself. It learns how it should behave for its own benefit. Most importantly, it establishes its territory at the top of the search engine results. And as the organism thrives, artificial machine after machine fades into obsolescence.

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Getting The New York Times More Search Engine Friendly

Source: SearchEngineWatch

By Danny Sullivan, Editor-In-Chief & Chris Sherman, Executive Editor
June 15, 2006

Online newspapers have often ignored search engines, or viewed them with mistrust, relying on the power of their brands to drive traffic. That attitude is changing dramatically at the New York Times, and with powerful effect.

Marshall Simmonds is a long-time colleague who, as vice president of enterprise search, oversees the SEO work to make the New York Times more search engine friendly. The NYT acquired Marshall as part of the Times' About.com purchase last year.

Prior to Marshall's arrival at the Times, the company's web sites, which also include the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune, had good traffic, but this was largely due to the strength of the brands. Little effort was expended on making search-friendly content, or making sure that search engines could easily crawl and index the sites.

"When I joined the company, Google was not crawling the Times," said Marshall. "I'm pushing to get more traffic to the site."

In a series of telephone and email interviews with Marshall, we learned what steps he took to change things at the Times to make the company's web sites more search friendly. Most of the changes he made will be of interest to anyone responsible for in-house search engine optimization efforts.

The biggest problem for the Times with search engines was one common to most newspapers: The Times required users to register to read an article. Registration forms effectively block search engines from indexing a web site, as the crawlers can't type a user name or password to access articles.

"Yahoo had indexed our registration page 20 million times," quipped Marshall, but that turned out to be a serious issue. Yahoo's crawler recognized the importance of the Times' web site, but was unable to do anything but hammer away on the registration page that was ultimately displayed whenever the search engine crawler attempted to access a Times article by following a link.

Marshall's first step was to allow search engine crawlers to have complete access to everything published by the Times, including archived content dating back to 1981. This was a major shift for the company, since archived content is only available to paying subscribers. How to reconcile allowing search engines to access content and at the same time maintain a revenue stream for premium content?

The Archives: Free vs. Fee

Like many online news sites, the New York Times offers some content free to anyone with no registration required, some free content to users who have registered with a user name and password, and some content only to paying subscribers. But unlike other newspapers, which often remove all content to subscriber-only archives after a period of a week to a month, the vast majority of the content on the Times is available to anyone without a subscription. Let's look at how this works.

The Times classifies content in three ways: Seven day content, "open" content, and archived/Times Select content. The Times produces about 500 articles per day, or about 3,500 articles per week which are freely available to anyone without registration for seven days from the publication date. After seven days, these articles are moved to either the open area or the archived/Times Select area, depending on the type of article.

But there's a catch: Seven day content is free to anyone without subscription, though readers who continue to read other articles within the Times are asked to login or register for a free subscription once they've clicked more than five links. The Times plans to increase this threshold to eight clicks soon.

When content changes from seven day to open status, articles keep the same URL but are physically moved to another server. This content remains accessible to both search engines and users alike. Marshall says open content consists of more than 20 million documents from the papers, including general news, theater and movie reviews, sports news, classifieds and so on.

In all, 97% of the overall site ends up classified as open content, freely accessible to anyone who hasn't used up their 5 link quota.

The remaining 3% is classified as archived content, also called "Times Select" materials. This content consists of daily columns, op-ed editorials, special features and so on. To access this content, you must be a subscriber to the print edition of the Times, or pay a $49.95 annual subscription fee.

Despite this restriction for human users, Marshall says that both Google and Yahoo have been allowed to fully index the premium content, and will display results for matching queries (for example, a search for popular Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman in Google and Yahoo returns hundreds of results).

Click through on many of these links from both engines, however, and you won't see the content indexed by the search engines. Rather, the Times web site detects that the user agent is a browser, and serves up a shorter abstract page with a login form to access the premium content.

Isn't this cloaking—serving different pages to a search engine and an individual web browser? Yes, it is.

Although both Google and Yahoo warn against cloaking, Marshall says both companies are aware of what the Times is doing, and apparently condone the practice.

"They want the content, and they're very interested in displaying it," says Marshall.

Google has allowed cloaked content from other sources before, and we've seen other instances where search engines are apparently looking the other way when cloaking is used by a web site. We plan to do a follow-up on cloaking policies at all of the search engines in the near future.

Writing for Search Engines

The Times, like most newspapers, has a long-standing tradition of writing compelling headlines that grab human-readers, but that may not literally describe the news story. For example, when the Pope died, Times reporters headlined stories with titles like "Papacy Change" or "Pilgrims converge on the Vatican."

Marshall has now trained many editors and producers to write content friendly to both users and searchers. "We encouraged them to use "Pope John Paul dies" and offered a more literal approach based on keyword research and internal metrics," said Marshall. "The response has been great. Everyone so far is very excited to reach audiences through search and help users find our content."

Well, not exactly everyone. In April Times reporter Steve Lohr wrote a skeptical piece about newspapers coming to grips with search engines called This Boring Headline Is Written for Google. Oddly, the article doesn't mention Marshall's efforts at the Times.

Marshall's success at educating traditionally trained journalists and editors is a great lesson for anyone new to search marketing to remember. Don't get cutesy. Put yourself in the mind of your audience. Use the words your audience might use to seek your content. Even do a little research with tools out there. Then use the language your target audience will be searching with.

Beyond words, the Times has been thinking more about the photos they're putting online, to optimize for image search. Previously, the Times ignored image tags. Now, all images have descriptive captions within the image ALT tag, making them more search friendly.

Marshall also says thousands of RSS feeds have been created for content from the papers, and a top level list can be found here.

Since initiating the search engine optimization campaigns in April, the New York Times newspapers have seen a dramatic increase in search referrals. At the flagship NYTimes.com site, search referrals have increased by 59%. There's been an even greater increase at the Boston Globe's Boston.com site, with refer