Presentation on Travel Agent SEO to Global Travel Conference on 8th March 2011.

1. An independent travel agent
search marketing strategy
David Burdon
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

2. Experience
• Stena Line, Cosmos
• Created the Somewhere2stay.com brand
• 8+ years specialist involvement in search
• 300+ search engine marketing projects
• Travel SEO for hotels and niche tour operators
• SEO & PPC training for SMEs to Multinationals
• Working in highly aggressive search categories
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

3. Approach
• Theory
• Practical observations
• Recommendations
• Discussion
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

4. Search Practicalities
• No silver bullets.
– If it sounds to good to be true….
• Google organic search is getting much tougher
• No.1 for a small term beats No.11 for a big term
• Relevance more important than quantity
• Good search practise is incremental
• Wide range of free resources
• Almost everything is trackable and measurable
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

5. SEM Over-Site
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

6. Theory: SEM Over-Site
Five Stages
• Pre-Site – Planning stage
• On-Site – Website
content
• Off-Site – Link building
• Post-Site –
Results,feedback
• Plus – Maintenance,
corrective actions,
competitor response,
tuning.
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

7. Search Strategy Objectives
• Assert influence over the value chain
• Reduce reliance on individual supplier,
destination, package or mode
• Maximise unit booking margin
• Minimise unit booking costs
• Minimise unit customer acquisition costs
• Outrank both inter-type and intra-type
competitors for selected terms.
• Become the dominant local agent website
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

8. Search Strategy Planning
• Campaign structure
– Organic Search
– Paid search
– Referrals
– Direct
• Clear understanding of search types
– Brand vs generic
– Destination, accommodation, activities
– Local vs national
– Seasonal and temporal
– Informational and transactional
• Each treated differently from search perspective
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

9. Play to your strengths
• “Own” your Location
– County
– City or Town
– District
– Location may be ambiguous
– Postcode
– Local airport
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

10. Play to your strengths
• Find your speciality
– Destination
• Country, region, resort, accommodation type, specific property
– Lifestage
• Singles, couples, families, post kids, retireds
– Lifestyle and activity
• Ski, diving, golf, walking, camping, exploring, cultural
– Events
• Weddings, honeymoons, stag parties, sports
– Price point
• Luxury, upmarket, mid-market, budget
– Accommodation type
• Hotels, apartments, villas, all-inclusive, gites
– Package type
• Packaged, bespoke, component, ancillaries
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

11. Google’s Search Flavours
• Google comes in many flavours:
– Web
– Places
– Map
– Image
– Shopping
– Blog
– Real-time
• Each has a role to play
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

12. Google Local Search
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

13. Google Map Search
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

14. Google Shopping Search
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

15. Google Web Search
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

16. Google Place Page - 1
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

17. Google Place Page - 2
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

18. Outsmart your competition
• Define who they are
– They are probably nearby
– Search for them
• Work out how they compete with you
– Strengths
– Weaknesses
• Avoid head-on competition
• Find ways to do things better
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

19. Keyword Research
• Get a baseline
– Establish existing traffic levels and sources
• Use a good (Free) analytics package
• Track actual keyword activity
– WYPFISNNWYG
– Beware broad match (Semantics)
• Google, Yahoo, Word Tracker data
• Check out competition
• Trade volume for relevance and quality
• Synthesise all components
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

20. Top Travel Agent Terms
Keyword UK Searches
1 travel agent 60,500
2 travel agency 40,500
3 travel agency UK 1,600
4 travel agency London 1,000
5 online travel agent 720
6 travel agent UK 720
7 travel agency in London 720
8 travel agent London 720
9 UK travel agency 480
10 independent travel agent 480
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

21. Organic (Free) Search
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

22. Organic (Free) Search
• Prioritise Google – 88% market share
– You will need off page activity e.g. inbound links
• Learn lessons from other engines
– Yahoo most “on-page”
– Bing a predictor of future Google ranking
• Be patient with Google
– Do the right things and monitor progress
– May take two to three months
– Check indexing and long tail terms
– Solid long term rankings is the priority
– Avoid all “spammy” techniques – otherwise you will
pay in the long run.
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

23. Organic Search – Key Elements
• Keywords
– Keyword selection
– Less is more
• Alignment
– URLs
– Meta tags
– Copy
– Images
• Inbound Linking
– Anchor text
– Relevance
– Indexing
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

24. The Agency Website
• CMS template driven system – SEO limitations
• Website aesthetics
• Location
• Destination
• Fares
• Package vs. Seat only
• Accommodation type
• Holiday types
• Off page has few constraints
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

25. Pay Per Click
• Clear Campaign Structure
– Campaign settings
– Display network?
– Segmentation
• Build campaign around customer types and needs
• Generic versus “activities” and “seasonal”
• Resort and property specific
– Ad groups
– Tailored copy
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

26. Improving Conversion Rate
• Match types
– Exact match preferred but used in conjunction with
phrase and broad match.
• Negative keywords
• Beware low click through rates
• Quality score – aim for 7/10
• Specific landing pages
• Variable Geographic Focus
– By town or city
– The Polygon
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

27. Geographic Targeting
Used for non-destination specific terms.
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

28. Feedback
• Dynamics of enquiries, bookings etc?
• Track conversions, traffic and rankings
– Look for blockages
– Look for winners
• Distinguish between seasonal variations and
ranking variations.
• Distinguish between paid, organic and referrals
• Never forget you’re a travel agent – put
commercial pragmatism over search perfection.
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

29. Integrated Search
• Integrate paid and organic search
• Integrate search with other tools in the marketing mix:
– Advertising
– Directories
– CRM
– Local promotion
• PR – Especially on-line
• E-Mail – Data collection
• Newsletters
• Branding – Capture the destination and accommodation
positioning as part of the brand.
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

30. Return on expenditure
• Total website marketing costs
• Search marketing costs
• Total revenue
• Total revenue from search
• Cost/Revenue per visitor
• Cost/Revenue per search engine visitor
• Cost/Revenue per paid visitor
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

31. No Cost Recommendations
• Register your website with DMOZ - £0
• Secure your Google Place page - £0
• Optimise it - £0
• Generate reviews - £0
• Create a Blogspot blog - £0
• Create a Wordpress blog - £0
• Put analytics in place - £0
• Join a link exchange scheme - £0
• Join LinkedIn - £0
• Set-up a Facebook wall page - £0
• Join Twitter - £0
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO

32. Parting thought
• Turn search engines into revenue engines
David Burdon – Simply Clicks
www.simplyclicks.com/Travel.html
Travel Agent SEO