Most Notable Search Trends - In February alone, Google lunched 40+ changes to their algorithms. Also, Bing launched its "Whole Page Relevance" update, which is calculated based on higher click-through rates. Like Google, Bing is also favoring hot, trending, and fresh content on the site. Furthermore, Google also announced adding semantic search along with keyword search in March.
Local search has taken over search engines results pages with Google Places listings dominating the top ranking positions. The Geo location function of Google Search has also placed an emphasis on local search results. In addition, Hyperlocal applications like Yelp and Foursquare have enhanced user engagement and created a powerful dialog between businesses and their clients.
In mid-February, Google announced an expansion on its basic sitelink extensions – enhanced sitelink extensions. According to Google, while ads with regular sitelink extensions maintain a click-through-rate of 30% higher than those without extensions, enhanced sitelink extensions aim to increase this further by doing the following:
With the ever increasing importance of guest reviews for online success, it is more crucial than ever to manage your property's online reputation, and to make sure as many guests as possible are leaving reviews on the many popular review websites. Guest reviews can impact reservations in two major ways. First, potential guests read reviews and make decisions based on peer comments. Second, search engine rankings are affected by frequency and quality of reviews.
A blog is a very powerful tool for businesses to connect with consumers and share ideas and expertise. From an search engine optimization (SEO) standpoint, it's a way to add fresh content to your site on a regular basis. This will improve your freshness score and help your website to gain higher visibility in search engine results.
Everyone is abuzz about Pinterest – a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share images linked to the source of the image. With its fast growing popularity, reaching over 11.7 million unique visitors as of January 2012 and surpassing the 10 million unique visitors mark more quickly than any website in history, it is not surprising to see that marketers are quickly thinking of creative ways to leverage this virtual pinboard site to improve their online marketing strategies.
Pinterest is a new social network that lets users organize and share images. It can help you plan your wedding, find delicious new recipes, and redecorate your home but the question we are getting from our clients is: should hotels be on Pinterest? A lot of articles have been written about how Pinterest can be used for businesses. However, few articles show if Pinterest has concrete ROI potential for non retail businesses. Before taking a position on Pinterest, we decided to experiment with four different hotels to see if it's worth ours and our client's time.
Hospitality industry experts across the nation are forecasting that 2012 will continue the growth and recovery of room demands that started in 2011. 1 With that in mind, it is a good idea to revisit a topic we spoke a lot about in 2011: best practices in conversion optimization that works for hotel websites. Why? Because our RevPAR will recover a lot better if these additional demands are converting on our own website rather than OTAs! Without any particular order, the top Conversion Optimization Best Practices for hotel websites are:
In December 2011, Facebook launched a redesign for user profiles called Timeline. The goal of timeline is to allow users to tell their life stories through photos, posts, important moments, and more. When used well, it can be an incredible, visually stunning way to look at a profile.
In order to increase visibility and have better ranking for local search, local citations and links play a very crucial role. According to 2011 Local Search Ranking Factor Survey from Mihmorandum, "Quality of Citations" is the 4th most important SEO factor for Local Search ranking. Indeed, local referring sources bring more site traffic, better conversion, and SEO relevancies. We have provided some tips below for local businesses to reinforce local marketing efforts.Find Local Citations from CompetitorsGoogle Analytics for Link Building OpportunitiesBlog Link BuildingCreate Packages to Drive ConversionTo read the full article, go to Milestone Insights.
Google has introduced a new tool that brings social connections to pay–per–click (PPC) campaigns. In our case study‚ we show how activating the extension can improve an ad’s relevancy and how our clients increased their performance an average of 6
The word m-commerce will soon enter mainstream conversations. It means shopping and purchases made on mobile or tablet devices. Facebook filed for IPO in February 2012 and showed that it has already got its eye on the mobile advertising prize by announcing a new mobile ad program set to launch in March 2012. US Sales via m-commerce reached $6.7billion in 2011 and estimated to reach $31billion in by 2015.
As the Facebook IPO fever is capturing headlines everywhere, it is exciting to see what changes it will bring to the paid search arena. More and more companies are realizing that online advertising is on the cusp of an important turning point and are adjusting their online advertising budgets to accommodate Facebook ads.
When Google first introduced Google+ pages for businesses several months back, we created pages for some of our clients, understanding that Google would most likely be incorporating those pages into search engine result pages at some point. As time progressed we are starting to see signs of where Google is headed with their newborn social network.
The ever-changing social media landscape can be an overwhelming realm to dive into. However, as search engines continue make changes to their algorithm to make search more social and personal, it is critical for hotels to not only have presence in these channels, but be active and engaging as well. This article explains the changes in search and why being a social hotel is more important than ever.
Chances are you have already heard about this new "top 10 social media" website – Pinterest – that was the subject of a discussion during the Association of Travel Marketing Executives panel on 2012 forecasts. So what is Pinterest, why should it be used for hotels, and how can you apply it to your social marketing strategy?
After writing on the introduction of social extensions within Adwords, I wanted to test how effective these extensions might be in influencing social connections. To test their effectiveness, I choose four clients running PPC campaign that also had a verified Google+ Business Page and activated the social extensions for one week to compare before-and-after results.
Here is Milestone's top 10 organic search trends for 2012 to help boost your online presence and start off the year with a bang. This article identifies some key trends in the online SEO world that can impact your site's performance, visibility and conversion.
Google has always placed importance in the freshness of websites and its content, but the recent Google caffeine update has propelled this freshness factor into the spotlight. Affecting about 35% of all searches, Google Caffeine update and Google Panda updates are definitely two biggest changes that happened in 2011. (If you have not had a chance to learn about the Google Panda update, you can read all about it herehttp://blog.milestoneinternet.com/industry-news/google-panda-update/ )
Whether you are just starting to set up social media profiles, are looking to optimize and enhance, or have mastered social media marketing, hoteliers and their hotels can benefit from learning ways to encourage their social media following to share published content.