SEO in 2013 - A guide to content Marketing and SEO for Tourism

1. Fast Forward to 2013
Destination Marketing via SEO
“Staying ahead of the curve in Irish Tourism with the
biggest Irish Diaspora event – The Gathering – has
never presented as much opportunity or as many
Challenges”
Anton Mannering,
David Quaid

2. What is SEO?
• SEO is the presentation of information and
data so that a search engine can best
understand it
• Its also the understanding of how a search
engine prioritises websites to give the *best*
result to users
• You cannot improve your SEO on your own –
3rd party validation is critical

3. Google Zoo
• Google is a rich set of tools that have grown
up and been added to since the original
search engine invented in the late 1990s
• Google now indexes 30 trillion pages and
serves up more than 100 billion searches per
month.
• YouTube servers up another 40 billion

4. Google as a platform
• True size is impossible to quantify
• October 2012: Alexa.com ranks Facebook.com
as the first to displace Google as #1 in terms of
Visits
• But it doesn’t take into account
Google.co.uk, .ie, fr....
• It also excludes
Google+, YouTube, Gmail, Android. Actually –
nobody knows...

5. Results
• Roomz predicts 70% of bookings are made via
Google
• Other sites predict 90% of traffic is still search
based
• Its mega critical

6. Zoo Pets
• Google’s Panda and Penguin are making news
for all the right reasons
• Good news for people who build their own
sites and content
• Mostly – build your value proposition = build
your company

7. SEO as it is and should have
been
• What is your true value proposition?
• Where do you really add value?
– What you set out to do
– What you actually do
– What people found useful
– Why you get recommended
– Problems you solve
– Target audience

8. Alpha Set: How consumers think
Am I buying on price? Am I buying on service?
Am I buying on exclusivity?
Am I buying because of a location?

9. What do you offer?
• Best Price?

10. What do you offer?
• Best Price?
• Best location?

11. What do you offer?
• Best Price?
• Best location?
• Best Service?

12. Summary of sales
• Do people want what you have (high demand)
• Or have you had to create demand
• Have you created demand by
– Reaching further
– Dropping your sales price
– Offering more?

13. What does the customer
really want?
• Price
• Location
• Connection?
• Concierge?
• Problem solving!

14. What
SEO?
ITS ABOUT PROBLEM
SOLVING!

15. Online Marketing
• Develop Value proposition
• Drive up awareness
• Develop demand
• Offer solution:
– Be the most searched for
– Be the easiest to find

16. Pay it forward
• Are you leveraging off of Ireland as a
destination or a location?
– Are you a specific location
– Or are you a part of selling Ireland Inc?
• Build your content and site around a larger
offering while still selling core local product
• Who is your target audience and who else is
targeting them = marketing partnerships

17. Partners
• SEO and Social are made easier by identifying
partners
• Co-sell with others is much easier than
competing with everyone
• If more people want to come to your
location, your SEO will be lifted by higher
search
• Those who lead collaboration get pay off first
• Make partners link to you. Make locals link to
you.

18. Consumer Choice
• Value = Cheap
• Consumer is looking for
– Locations
– Activity
– Sight seeing
– History
– Overcome distance, transport
– Solve Logistical problems

19. Dublin always wins?
• Dublin SWOT
– Airport / International Traffic
– Lots to do in a relatively small place
– Budget to suit everyone
– Well known

20. Most popular places
• Are outside Dublin
– Cliffs of Moher
– Blarney
– Kylemore
– Cashel
• In Truth – everywhere in Ireland is local

21. Hyperlocal
• Make your place riveting because its close to
everywhere
• Help people know that its easy to get around
and sell them easy transport
• Your local tour guide needs you – you need
your local tour guide. Help them and own the
relationship

22. Hyperlocal
• Make your place riveting because its close to
everywhere
• Help people know that its easy to get around
and sell them easy transport
• Your local tour guide needs you – you need
your local tour guide. Help them and own the
relationship

23. Supporting others
• Makes you look knowledgeable
• Makes you look good
• Makes you findable
• People don’t like writing – massive spend on
copywriters
• Write content for them – share it and make
sure they link back

24. Building your site for SEO
• You can never have too much content
• Writing small is disingenuous to the user
• Search users are expert researchers because
they use the best tools
• Support tourism bodies and they will support
you
• Ask tourists what problems they encountered
BEFORE they came – solve them for others

25. Building your site for SEO
• You can never have too much content
• Writing small is disingenuous to the user
• Search users are expert researchers because
they use the best tools Change your thinking and
misconceptions first
• Support tourism bodies and they will support
you
• Ask tourists what problems they encountered
BEFORE they came – solve them for others

26. Think like your customer
• Will I be able to see?
• How can I save on this?
• I’ve heard about this but I don’t understand it
• E-mail us even if you’re not staying here and if
we can answer your questions, we will!
– Gives you free content
– Gives you contacts
– Makes you shareable

27. Where Social meets Search
• You can raise a profile and awareness via
Social
• Does your destination have a good Facebook
page? Are you active on it? Should you be?
• You can measure social effectively via Google
Analytics
• Effective SEO will drive social engagement
• Effective Social Engagement will drive branded
and location specific searches

28. Greatest sweet spot for
increasing traffic
• Is not the Google AdWords tool – its the
Google Webmasters tool
• It will tell you what searches, and in what
volume, your site is already being found for
• And what you’re not ranking high enough for

29. SIMPLE EXAMPLE

30. No one has heard of
Glenties
• If the location isn’t well known “One-Level-
Up” your marketing.
• If there is no search for “Hotels in Glenties”
then perhaps you need to rank for “Hotels in
Donegal”
• Sideways - what is there to do?

31. Glenties??
• Festivals
• Surfing, Canoeing, Outdoors, mountain
climbing, hill walking.
• Unspoiled scenery, images
• History
• Literary
• Sport
• People
• Geology